Nobody else
was picked up. A quartermaster, one of the saved in the way of duty,
with whom I talked a month or so afterwards, told me that they pulled up
to the spot, but could neither see a head nor hear the faintest cry.
But I have forgotten. A passenger was drowned. She was a lady's maid
who, frenzied with terror, refused to leave the ship. One of the boats
waited near by till the chief officer, finding himself absolutely unable
to tear the girl away from the rail to which she dung with a frantic
grasp, ordered the boat away out of danger. My quartermaster told me
that he spoke over to them in his ordinary voice, and this was the last
sound heard before the ship sank.
The rest is silence. I daresay there was the usual official inquiry, but
who cared for it? That sort of thing speaks for itself with no uncertain
voice; though the papers, I remember, gave the event no space to speak
of: no large headlines--no headlines at all. You see it was not the
fashion at the time. A seaman-like piece of work, of which one cherishes
the old memory at this juncture more than ever before. She was a ship
commanded, manned, equipped--not a sort of marine Ritz, proclaimed
unsinkable and sent adrift with its casual population upon the sea,
without enough boats, without enough seamen (but with a Parisian cafe and
four hundred of poor devils of waiters) to meet dangers which, let the
engineers say what they like, lurk always amongst the waves; sent with a
blind trust in mere material, light-heartedly, to a most miserable, most
fatuous disaster.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326