University of Virginia Library

CAPTAIN WASHED OVERBOARD

Murdock's last orders were to Quartermaster Moody and a few other petty officers who had taken their places in the rigid discipline of the ship and were lowering the boats. Captain Smith came up to him on the bridge several times and then rushed down again. They spoke to one another only in monosyllables.

There were stories that Captain Smith, when he saw the ship actually going down, had committed suicide. There is no basis for such tales. The captain, according to the testimony of those who were near him almost until the last, was

admirably cool. He carried a revolver in his hand, ready to use it on anyone who disobeyed orders.

"I want every man to act like a man for manhood's sake," he said, "and if they don't, a bullet awaits the coward."

With the revolver in his hand—a fact that undoubtedly gave rise to the suicide theory—the captain moved up and down the deck. He gave the order for each life-boat to make off and he remained until every boat was gone. Standing on the bridge he finally called out the order: "Each man save himself." At that moment all discipline fled. It was the last call of death. If there had been any hope among those on board before, the hope now had fled.

The bearded admiral of the White Star Line fleet, with every life-saving device launched from the decks, was returning to the deck to perform the sacred office of going down with his ship when a wave dashed over the side and tore him from the ladder.

The Titanic was sinking rapidly by the head, with the twisting sidelong motion that was soon to aim her on her course two miles down. Murdock saw the skipper swept out; but did not move. Captain Smith was but one of a multitude of lost at that moment. Murdock may have known that the last desperate thought of the gray mariner was to get upon his bridge and die in command. That the old man could not have done this may have had something to do with Murdock's suicidal inspiration. Of that no man may say or safely guess.

The wave that swept the skipper out bore him almost to the thwart of a crowded life-boat. Hands reached out, but he

wrenched himself away, turned and swam back toward the ship.

Some say that he said, "Good-bye, I'm going back to the ship."

He disappeared for a moment, then reappeared where a rail was slipping under water. Cool and courageous to the end, loyal to his duty under the most difficult circumstances, he showed himself a noble captain, and he died a noble death.