Page 100 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 10 -13

might very well have gone back with a good chance of picking up some stragglers outside the swarm? - Yes, right outside. 13150. Does it also occur to you that you might very well have gone to another boat and put your four or five passengers off into the other boat, and then gone back and helped to pick up some poor drowning people? - The boats could not take any more; they were full then. 13151. How do you know that? - We could see the people from the distance. 13152. What boats did you see that were so full that they could take no more? - I do not know the numbers, but you could see them all up round the gunwales of the boats. 13153. But you say that nobody in your boat hailed either of these other boats and asked if they could take some passengers on board? - No, that was not the hail at all. The hail was that they asked if we had an officer, and we said “No.” 13154. It did not occur to you that you might have unloaded your passengers by getting some of the other boats to take some of your passengers, and then gone back with a practically empty boat to pick up some of the poor people in the water? - We did not do that. 13155. Did it occur to you? - No. (The Witness withdrew.) The Commissioner: That is all, is it not? The Attorney-General: That is all. The Commissioner: We have now finished with No. 1 boat. The Attorney-General: We are going on now with the examination of Wheat, who was under examination. We have been through the boat list so far, but you have not had the evidence yet of five boats, 3, 8, 9, 10 and 16. We are going to call some evidence of those, and then we shall be in a position after that to give you a list together with a digest of the evidence with regard to each boat. We are only going to call one or at most two from each of the boats. The Witness Wheat was called. The Solicitor-General: He appears to have selected this moment to leave, my Lord, but he is coming back again. I am sorry. The Commissioner: Have you the number of the boat he was in? The Solicitor-General: He was in boat No. 11. We wanted to call a stewardess, and I understand she is here and we can do it at once. Mrs. ELIZABETH LEATHER, Sworn. Examined by Mr. BUTLER ASPINALL. 13156. Were you serving as a first class stewardess on the “Titanic” on the occasion of this disaster? - Yes. 13157. Were you asleep, or rather, were you turned in at the time of the collision with the iceberg? - Yes. 13158. Did you get up? - Not for some time afterwards. 13159. When you speak of some time, do you mean in five minutes or half an hour, or what? - About half an hour or three-quarters. 13160. You thought there was no reason for getting up? - Yes. 13161. And your judgment is that in about half an hour or three-quarters of an hour you got up? - Yes.