AFLOAT WITH JACK THAYER
Graphic accounts of the final plunge of the Titanic were related by two Englishmen, survivors by the merest chance.
The men gave their names as A. H. Barkworth, justice of the peace of East Riding, Yorkshire, England, and W. J. Mellers, of Christ Church Terrace, Chelsea, London. The latter, a young man, had started for this country with his savings to seek his fortune, and lost all but his life.
Mellers, like Quartermaster Moody, said Captain Smith did not commit suicide. The captain jumped from the bridge, Mellers declares, and he heard him say to his officers and crew: "You have done your duty, boys. Now every man for himself." Mellers and Barkworth, who say their names have been spelled incorrectly in most of the lists of survivors, both declare there were three distinct explosions before the Titanic broke in two, and bow section first, and stern part last, settled with her human cargo into the sea.
Her four whistles kept up a deafening blast until the explosions, declare the men. The death cries from the shrill throats of the blatant steam screechers beside the smokestacks so rent the air that conversation among the passengers was possible only when one yelled into the ear of a fellow-unfortunate.
"I did not know the Thayer family well," declared Mr. Barkworth, "but I had met young Thayer, a clear-cut chap, and his father on the trip. The lad and I struggled in the water for several hours endeavoring to hold afloat by grabbing to the sides and end of an overturned life-boat. Now and
"I considered my fur overcoat helped to keep me afloat. I had a life preserver over it, under my arms, but it would not have held me up so well out of the water but for the coat. The fur of the coat seemed not to get wet through, and retained a certain amount of air that added to buoyance. I shall never part with it.
"The testimony of J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, that he had not heard explosions before the Titanic settled, indicates that he must have gotten some distance from her in his life-boat. There were three distinct explosions and the ship broke in the center. The bow settled headlong first, and the stern last. I was looking toward her from the raft to which young Thayer and I had clung."