For a moment I was stunned. Regaining myself, I tried to assure those about me that nothing serious had happened, but a sickening horror took possession of my heart that I could not shake off. Descending to my room, I found my room-mate donning his life-belt, so I hastened to do the same. Coming out on deck again, I was met by a throng of terror-stricken passengers, with white, inquiring faces. No one could tell us what had happened or direct us what to do. The vessel now began to list heavily, rolng to one side, as though she had received a dreadful wound from some unseen enemy. A convulsion of fear seized every heart, and a scramble was made for the life belts. Hearing that the boats were being lowered, I happened to the upper deck to assist. By this time the vessel was listing to one side so heavily that we could scarcely stand on our feet, and this made the launching of the life-boats extremely difficult. The women and children were being placed in them, and in lowering one of them, the ropes caught and the whole load was thrown into the cold, black waters below. Then, and not till then, shrill screams rent the chill night air driving home to all our hearts the sickening horror of our plight!
At last the information new from lip to lip that we had struck a rock. Our greatest fears were realized. With this gaping wound in her side our vessel was settling now, like some huge moter in the last throes of her dying agony. Realizing that it would be certain death to stay on board and be sucked down in the vessel’s fatal lunge, I decided to get clear of her before she should sink. Lifting my heart to my Heavenly Father in an agonizing prayer, that if it were His will, I might be saved from a watery grave for the sake of my dear ones, I buttoned my coat about me, and made a long leap out into the black water below, and swam on and on. It was not a moment too soon. One backward glance showed me our vessel crushing like an egg shell before the oncoming waves, which circled her with their cruel arms and dragged her down into their depths.
At once pieces of the wreck began to appear on the surface of the water, as though the poor old vessel would make one dying effort to save some of her struggling drowning families. Catching sight of a piece of this wreckage, which was coming towards me, I swam to it and succeeded in dragging myself upon it, finding two men on it. We were safe for a time, but oh! the horror of being thus at the mercy of the pitiless sea, which every few moments poured its icy waves over our poor, shivering bodies.
“God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.” Job 33: 1.4.
ML 11/25/1951