Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1932-09-30

"a man here!" He almost said this.
Josephine, rumpled, agitated, indign-
ant, pulled him down.
"Sit down, you fool" She jerked
him with a spasmodic pull that drop
ped him flat beside her. The boat
was lowering, lowering, a black wall
of the ships side lifting before them.
They stopped with a sudden splash
in the sea. The water was agitated,
all about them boats were dropping
into the water. Far up a band of
light marked the promenade, and
yellow dots spotted the rows of light
ed ports. Boats sapsized, men called
and women cried. Then several wo-
men got out oars, Josephine among
them, and they pulled awkwardly a.
way from the dread shadow of the
stricken hull. Get. an of6ng before
the under suction gets you." A cheer
full man, high On the ship in brass
buttons, shouted through a trumpet.
Everything seemed unreal, something
that could never happen; the things
that often happen.
A band, high up oil the deck, was
playing, unreal music, a tune no one
remembered. Hundreds of heads
bobbed about on the black sea. "Tor
Gods sake, give me a hand!" Boats
were SO laden they struggled out of,
the human maelstrom of desperate
clutching fingers and grabbing hands.
The sound of the band waited over
the cries. The black hull, suddenly
looming in lofty proportions against
a sky of stars, stood brilliantly alight.
The graceful stern lifted from the
sea. Forward compartments were fill
ing. The sharp proud stem of steel
was dipping slowly, out of sight.
The Master, captain of tragedy, af-
ter many, many years, stood high, on
the fitting bridge alone. The sea of
ruin was slowly coming up to claim
him. He made no effort to gain a
life belt or strike out for a raft or
boat.
The long rows Of lights flickered,
flared up for al instant as the dyna-
mos took an unusual list, and them,
suddenly, the band had tumbled a.
way, the means continued less loud,
cries were lost, the lights went out.
The whole scene, for a moment, was
impenetrab1e Black. As If shaking
itself, dripping off cascades of dull
greenish water, the giant hull rose
upright on its stem, men and fittings,
like a sudden squall of rain, falling
from the decks.
All a-tremble the tremendous hull,
stern high in the air, a towering
black monolith, a grave stone, poised
for an instant. People in the boats,
Josephine and Rantou1, eyes wide
with horror, heard a deafening roar,
a rending of heavy steel. The boil
ers and machinery had orr loose Of
their weight and dashed down.
ward through the resounding coffin
of the hull. Frightful ~reverbera-
tions rumbled over the loaded boats
and the people still struggling in the
ice-cold water. 1t was a last loud
protest of the dying Titanic, a horror
heard for miles over the calm indif-
erent sea.
A pool of greenish white, throwing
back wave rings. marked the spot
where the high stern plunged out of
sight. A huge hand, apparently, had
taken it by the nose and yanked it
down.
Only faint cries and a disorderly
cluster of overladen boats remained.
Much of confusion and very much
of nobility and assorted and diverse
stories, legends and myths, came to
shore with the survivors, picked up
by a rescuing liner, called to the dis
aster by the radio.
Gilbert Van Horn, last Of the Van
Horns, as the papers all had it,
stood forth in stories of the survi-
vors, a figure heroic and worthy. At
the very last he died a gentleman, a
brave gentleman, calm and unafraid.
Van Horn had placed Mrs. Went
worth in a boat, so Aunt Wen was
saved. He had called along the deck
for Josephine. Some n assured him
she had been taken aboard a boat.
Then he calmly helped lift children