Page 39 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 27 - 31

Witness.) At what speed were you going when you saw this iceberg about a quarter of a mile from you? - I should think we were making something about 15; the engines had been stopped for about three minutes - probably between 13 and 15 knots at the time. 25468. But slowing all the time? - Oh, it was slowing all the time - yes. 25469. You starboarded, you have told us? - Yes, I starboarded, and we picked up the boat on the starboard side. 25470. Will you tell me, when you starboarded, how close did you get to the iceberg? - When daylight broke I consider the iceberg was then a little under a quarter of a mile away. 25471. I am not quite sure that we have got it correctly yet. When you saw this iceberg I rather understood that it was then about a quarter of a mile away from you? - Between a quarter and half a mile. 25472. Then you say, although your engines had stopped and had been stopped for something like three minutes, you were still making somewhere about 13 to 15 knots? - Yes. 25473. Then I want to know how close it was - you had an iceberg within your range of vision then - you went to the iceberg when you starboarded? - This was the boat over here. (Describing.) I did not know the distance off. Here was the iceberg right ahead. I was coming along there; I saw the iceberg right ahead here, and I saw the light was on my port bow. Of course, I could not see the boat itself, but only the light when he showed the flare. I came along here and starboarded, and brought her here. Then I saw the light on my starboard side. I saw the light showing. It was getting close. I went full speed astern. I went a little bit past the boat before I could get the way off the ship, and I came back again, because they sang out from the boat that they had only one seaman, and could not handle her. I brought the ship back to the boat. When the boat was alongside of me daylight broke, and I found the berg was about a quarter of a mile off. 25474. Had you been any closer to the berg than that? - No, that was the closest I had been. 25475. That answers what I wanted to know. Bearing round like that in answering the helm, she was still about a quarter of a mile from you? - Yes. 25476. You picked up that boat. Altogether how many boats did you pick up? - We got 13 lifeboats alongside, two emergency boats, two Berthon boats. There was one lifeboat which we saw was abandoned, and one of the Berthon boats, of course, was not launched from the ship, I understand. That made twenty altogether. 25477. My impression is there is one collapsible still unaccounted for in that? - Oh, yes; I beg your pardon, one bottom up; one that was capsized. That was in the wreckage. That was the twenty. 25478. You picked up and actually took on board the “Carpathia” 13 of the “Titanic’s” lifeboats? - Precisely. 25479. One of them you saw; the occupants of the boat were rescued and taken on your boat, but the boat was left in the water? - Yes, she was damaged. 25480. You did not bother any more about her? - No. 25481. That made the 14 lifeboats. Then there were the two emergency boats; were they taken on board the “Carpathia,” or abandoned? - I cannot say which were the boats we took up. I took them as they came along, and after the whole thing was over we got as many boats as we could. I did not notice which they were. 25482. There were two emergency boats, and besides that there were -? - The two Berthon boats. 25483. The two collapsibles? - Yes; and there is one Berthon boat which we saw amongst the wreckage bottom up. It was reported to me that there was another Berthon boat still on board the ship. 25484. That makes 19 out of the 20? - No, excuse me.