AFLOAT WITH JACK THAYER

Graphic accounts of the final plunge of the Titanic were
related by two Englishmen, survivors by the merest chance.
One of them struggled for hours to hold himself afloat on an
overturned collapsible life-boat, to one end of which John B.
Thayer, Jr., of Philadelphia, whose father perished, hung
until rescued.

The men gave their names as A. H. Barkworth, justice of
the peace of East Riding, Yorkshire, England, and W. J.
Mellers, of Christ Church Terrace, Chelsea, London. The
latter, a young man, had started for this country with his
savings to seek his fortune, and lost all but his life.

Mellers, like Quartermaster Moody, said Captain Smith
did not commit suicide. The captain jumped from the bridge,
Mellers declares, and he heard him say to his officers and crew:
"You have done your duty, boys. Now every man for himself."
Mellers and Barkworth, who say their names have
been spelled incorrectly in most of the lists of survivors, both
declare there were three distinct explosions before the Titanic
broke in two, and bow section first, and stern part last, settled
with her human cargo into the sea.

Her four whistles kept up a deafening blast until the explosions,
declare the men. The death cries from the shrill throats
of the blatant steam screechers beside the smokestacks so
rent the air that conversation among the passengers was possible
only when one yelled into the ear of a fellow-unfortunate.