He commanded us, crew and passengers alike.
Four stokers had been killed below: another and the engineer officer
badly hurt. These two were fetched up while some of us lowered the
accommodation-ladder and others swung out the boats on the davits.
These two sick men were carried down to the first of the three boats
launched. Four women passengers followed; three married, one a
spinster. The three husbands were ordered down after them.
"The _Eurotas_, as I've told you, was a new ship, well found to the
last life-buoy. The directors of the Company had lunched on board
before she sailed and drunk to her health, having seen that
everything answered to advertisement. The boats were staunch, newly
painted and smart: the crew as well-picked a lot as the Board could
find. So far as I can recall those hurrying minutes, I remember them
as being almost intolerably slow. I cannot say how many of them it
took before we realised for a certainty that the ship was going down.
But I know that as, by order, I went down the ladder to the second
boat, I had a sense of irritation at the long time it was taking and
the methodical way the skipper was getting out stores and
water-breakers and having them hefted down.
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