Learning English

After the Titanic sank on that maiden voyage, stories of survival began to be told in letters home to loved ones. This remarkable letter, written aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, from third class passenger 19-year-old Gurshon Cohen, reveals an escape that reads like a Hollywood script.  

Gus Cohen's Letter

Dearest Hettie, I have arrived, rescued, and myself safe at New York. I suppose you've heard about the Titanic but I suppose you thought I was drowned but, thank God, I just managed to escape. I will explain to you how that accident happened.

At 10.30, we were all sent to bed, lively, shouting, and singing and doing everything. At 11.45, we were awakened as about a dozen crewmen came to our decks. We did not take the slightest notice and went to bed again, but we were awakened by the sailors to put on lifebelts. I did not have any because I could not find one, and still I was making a lark of it and people were singing, and playing the piano. The band was also playing.

When I went on deck, I saw tonnes of ice which the boat had struck. Then I saw that we were in danger. I climbed onto the first class deck to look for a lifebelt and after half an hour I found one. I’d just put it on when the boat tilted right over and a lot of people fell off into the water and were drowned.

I clung to the railings of the deck for dear life and I was about two hundred feet above the level of the water. As we were holding, the boatswain of the last lifeboat shouted out that there was just enough room for three or four men. When I heard this, I stood up but saw to get into the boat I had to jump about two or three hundred feet.

The only thing I saw was a beam of iron jutting out from the deck and a rope hanging from it. I climbed onto the beam but some stokers who wanted to save their own lives threw me back onto the deck again. But still, I climbed again. I took my chance, and I jumped but I missed the rope and, as I was falling, I clutched hold of the rope. Now, as it is, the rope cut through my gloves and cut my hands, made a cut about an inch in my forehead…

My troubles were not over because I fell in the water, and I was kept up by my lifebelt. After being five minutes in the water, it seemed hours, I was dragged onto the last lifeboat. We rowed for dear life, and when we were a safe distance from the ship, the first explosion occurred! And then came the second explosion... and then it sank.