SAW LAST OF BIG SHIP
Then with a quiet, slanting dive she disappeared beneath
the waters, and the eyes of the helpless spectators had looked
for the last time upon the gigantic vessel on which they had
set out from Southampton. And there was left to the survivors
only the gently heaving sea, the life-boats filled
with men and women in every conceivable condition of
dress and undress, above the perfect sky of brilliant stars
with not a cloud, all tempered with a bitter cold that made
each man and woman long to be one of the crew who toiled
away with the oars and kept themselves warm thereby--a
curious, deadening; bitter cold unlike anything they had
felt before.
"ONE LONG MOAN"
And then with all these there fell on the ear the most appalling
noise that human being has ever listened to--the cries of
hundreds of fellow-beings struggling in the icy cold water,
crying for help with a cry that could not be answered.
Third Officer Herbert John Pitman, in charge of one of
the boats, described this cry of agony in his testimony before
the Senatorial Investigating Committee, under the questioning
of Senator Smith:
"I heard no cries of distress until after the ship went
down," he said.
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