Page 66 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 10 -13

say there were no more on that particular part, on that side of the deck anyway, there were no more in view. 12524. I want to understand what your view was about this, if I can. Did you think there was nobody left on the ship at this time? - Oh, no, but I certainly thought all the women had got off. I had seen all the women in my part, and I knew in other parts of the ship they were lowering boats. They are divided into four distinct portions for lowering there. 12525. You mean you knew they were lowering on the port side also? - Well, I did not know anything; I never moved except between the door of the gymnasium and the bridge. 12526. When you got into the boat and the men started rowing away from the vessel, as we know they did, how far do you think that your boat had got before the “Titanic” went down? - Well, I have always said 1,000 yards when telling anybody, but it is true I have only one eye and I am, therefore, presumed not to be a judge of distance, but I think it still. 12527. At any rate you are not able to form any accurate estimate of the distance, I understand? - Well, no, it got diminished in size very greatly as we moved away, and we had been rowing a long time. 12528. Did you notice this when they were rowing away? Did they continue rowing without stopping for what you consider a thousand yards’ distance? - No, I think they rowed for 200 yards or so, and stopped; and then they rowed on again, I daresay, another 100 or 200 yards, and stopped again, and so on. 12529. According to the account we have had, it was certainly somewhere about that time, whatever the distance was, that the “Titanic” went down? - Yes. 12530. Did you hear the cries? - Yes, I heard the explosion first, and I heard, I will not say the cries, but a wail - one confused sound. 12531. We do not want unnecessarily to prolong the discussion of it, but they were the cries of people who were drowning? - Yes. 12532. There is no doubt about that? - Yes, I think so without doubt. 12533. Did it occur to you that with the room in your boat, if you could get to these people you could save some? - It is difficult to say what occurred to me. Again, I was minding my wife, and we were rather in an abnormal condition, you know. There were many things to think about, but of course it quite well occurred to one that people in the water could be saved by a boat, yes. 12534. And that there was room in your boat; that they could have got into your boat and been saved? - Yes, it is possible. 12535. And did you hear a suggestion made that you should go back, that your boat should go back to the place whence the cries came? - No, I did not. 12536. Do you mean that you never heard that at all? - I heard no suggestion of going back. 12537. Was any notice taken of those cries in your boat? - I think the men began to row away again immediately. 12538. Did they get any orders to do that? - That I could not say. 12539. That would seem rather strange, would it not? - No. 12540. (The Commissioner.) To row away from the cries? - To row - I do not know which way they were rowing, but I think they began to row; in my opinion it was to stop the sound. 12541. (The Attorney - General.) I think you said - correct it if you did not mean it - they were rowing away from the “Titanic” and then they rested, and then they rowed away some further distance? - They went on rowing, yes. 12542. And then I understand the “Titanic” went down, and I understand you to say they continued to row away. Do you mean by that they merely went on pulling? - They went on rowing. 12543. You do not know where? - I had been watching the “Titanic,” of course, to the last moment, and after that, of course, one did not know where it had been.