Interview with Frederick Dent Ray

Frederick Dent Ray

Saloon Steward

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Interviewer:
Mr. Ray, could you tell me what you were doing on the night of the 14th of April 1912?

Frederick Dent Ray:
I went to bed about 10:30.

Interviewer:
Yes.

Frederick Dent Ray:
I was just dozing off when I felt a shock, similar to a train being pulled up in the station. I laid awake some time, probably about ten minutes, and was then called by a superior steward who told me to get up right away because the ship had struck an iceberg. It was very serious. We've got to get up to the boats. I laid awake some time after that. I thought he was pulling my leg and I dozed off again.

Interviewer:
And then what happened?

Frederick Dent Ray:
Somebody else came and shouted out in the doorway, "All hands to the boats." Then I thought it was time to get up.

Interviewer:
So you got up and what did you do then?

Frederick Dent Ray:
I went up on deck from E-Deck to A-Deck. Stood about there on the deck, which is the Boat Deck. And things seemed to be dragging rather and it was very cold. So I decided I'd like to get an overcoat put on. I went down from A-Deck to E-Deck.

Interviewer:
Back to your cabin?

Frederick Dent Ray:
Back to my cabin, and got my overcoat, opened my suitcase, took some handkerchiefs out, which my wife always supplied me, so that I had a good supply of. And one or two other things: my toothbrush and shaving gear. I thought wherever I was next morning I should require them. And came out, nobody about. The deck was deserted. The alleyway was deserted.

I got through the doorway onto the main staircase. There I met Mr. Rothschild 1 walking up the main staircase. And we joined company and I walked up with him and he started talking about the accident. He said he didn't think it was serious enough to trouble. I said, "Well, I've got to get along." I said, "I'm one of the members of the crew and they'll want me for rowing." And so I went up.

On the way up, I saw the purser with five of the staff at the purser's office with the safes open and they had mail bags there. They were putting the jewels and jewelboxes into the mail bags, laughing and talking, chatting, one to the other. I continued on my way up to the Boat Deck, and on the way up, I heard a fiddle. I wondered whoever was playing a fiddle at that time, and it transpired afterwards that it was a band. I thought it might have been a passenger playing a fiddle.

Interviewer:
Did you recognize what tune they were playing?

Frederick Dent Ray:
No, they weren't playing any tune. They were tuning up on the fiddle. And I went along to the boat, Number 13 boat. I saw that it was nearly full up. I started putting other passengers and people in, helping them over the rail into the boat. There was one very fat lady there, and she was crying out. She didn't want to go into a boat. She says, "I've never been in an open boat in my life." And she says, "I don't want to go." And I said, "Well," I said, "You've got to go, so you better keep quiet." And it took about four men – two men in the boat and about two on the deck – to hoist her over the rail to get her into the boat. Eventually, we got her in.

And then I saw somebody else helping the people in. I recognized a man named Washington Dodge. He was a recorder in San Francisco and I'd met him on the Olympic on the previous occasion, and I persuaded him to come back on the Titanic. And of course, when we sailed from Southampton, I recognized him and we had a chinwag and talked to one another and he had a wife and a little boy about four years old, about as high as that.

Interviewer:
They all got in the same boat?

Frederick Dent Ray:
No, they didn't. I said, "Where's your wife and little boy?" He said, "Well," he said, "they've gone in another boat." And I said, "Well," I said, "come on." I said, "You get in this boat." I said, "We should want somebody to row." And later on, on the Carpathia, when his wife said, "How did you come to get in the boat?" He said, "Well, I was ordered in by an officer." I had my peat cap on, which he'd never seen me in before, recognized me as an officer, and took my order and got into the boat.

Interviewer:
There were at this time, I presume, no women or children left on the deck?

Frederick Dent Ray:
No. There were no children or anybody, as a matter of fact.

Interviewer:
Where would the other people have been at this time then?

Frederick Dent Ray:
Well, they must have been inside the ship. I could see the whole length of the ship because it was light. The lights were on on the ship at that time, and there was nobody inside.

Interviewer:
So in fact, they thought they were safer in their own cabins.

Frederick Dent Ray:
The people that didn't get into the boats didn't want to get into the boats until it was too late.

Interviewer:
I see. Well, then your boat was lowered.

Frederick Dent Ray:
Boat was lowered. It was a very jumpy business. First you were tipping up this way and then you were tipping up that way. And I thought if we get in the water alright, we should be very lucky. And eventually we did get in the water. And next problem was to get the boat loose from the ship so we didn't go down with the ship.

Interviewer:
So you succeeded in doing that and pulling away, and then you watched the ship go down.

Frederick Dent Ray:
I watched the lights. Port holes disappearing one after the other you know, and of course, everybody in the boat was anxious to get away before the ship went down because they thought that they would be...They said, "We're alongside the ship. When she goes down, we shall be sucked down with her and the boat will be upset."

Interviewer:
How many people would you have had in your boat?

Frederick Dent Ray:
Sixty-two.

Interviewer:
Sixty-two.

Frederick Dent Ray:
They counted them on the Carpathia. You see, when each boat came up, they got the number of the boat and they counted them as we went up.