"At eight bells, midnight, I had gone below and turned in," said Barker.

"Twenty Minutes later I heard the hiss and crackle of the wireless, but paid no attention to it until the chief officer knocked at my cabin and told me to get ready to receive 3000 passengers from the White star liner, which was in distress, and from which an 'S.O.S.' call had been picked up.

"All of the stewards were assembled; the storeroom was ransacked. Blankets, brandy, medicines and bandages were gotten out and the dining room tables were laid to provide a large and extra fine meal for the rescued. The crew was assembled on the deck and mustered to the boats, which were swung loose, ready to be lowered at a moment's notice.

"In the meantime, we had changed our course and we were proceeding under full speed for the spot in which the Titanic lay. It was 3 o'clock before the first sign of her had been detected. Then we noticed on the horizon a blue flare, which is a distress signal. It came from one of the lifeboats, but we could not tell that at the time. The Titanic, as we afterward learned, had sunk long before this signal had been sighted.

"It was 4:30 and dawn was just beginning to break when we caught sight of the first lifeboat and knew that the Titanic had been abandoned. At the same time we got our first hazy glimpse of the giant iceberg which had destroyed the big steamship. It lay against the horizon in front of us like a green-gray monster in the early light.

"As soon as the first lifeboat had been sighted we hove-to and began to send up rockets to attract the attention of any other boats which might be at hand. Soon afterwards the first boat lay alongside of us, and the passengers were hoisted over the side, with Captain Rostron of the Carpathia standing at the rail to receive them. In the first boat were two men, both sailors, fourteen women, and two children.

"The passengers had been barely picked up and the first lifeboat hoisted on deck when the second boat hove in sight. From then on, at brief intervals, boat after boat began to come alongside until we had picked up sixteen in all. Fourteen of the boats were large sized lifeboats and these were hoisted on board and saved, the other two, as it happened, were collapsible and of slight value, and these we discarded for lack of room after the people on them were saved.

"We lay in the same position until it was broad daylight, burning rockets and searching the sea with glasses on every side. At 6 am we sighted the Californian of the Leyland line, and got into wireless communication with her at once. She informed us that she had been cruising around the spot where the Titanic went down and had not been able to sight a single lifeboat or any indication of any survivors. We asked her to continue the search and put about for New York with the rescued we had on board.

"I was amazed at the wonderful demeanour of the most of the women passengers rescued from the Titanic. Most of them came up over the side perfectly calm and collected. Only a few shrieked and I did not see any of them weeping until several hours afterwards. All of the rescued were immediately wrapped in warm blankets and given drinks of brandy and coffee.

"When Bruce Ismay was taken on board the first thing he did was to demand something to eat, and went into the dining room for some breakfast. One of the stewards gave it to him, and he offered the man $2 as a tip. At first it was refused, but he insisted, saying he was going to see to it that all of the 'boys' on the Carpathia would be rewarded generously. It was then that the Steward learned that the hungry passenger was Mr Ismay.

"After the first meal Mr Ismay kept to the stateroom which he was sharing with another passenger, and ate all of his meals there. I did not see him again in the restaurant. I did hear some talk amongst some of the women from the Titanic about his having been saved, but nothing that I can remember.

"A remarkable thing was that in one of the lifeboats which we picked up the two sailors at the oars were both dead, having collapsed from exhaustion as the result of their long fight with the waves to get away from the sinking ship and avoid being within the area of suction."

"The officers of the Carpathia, and the male passengers gave up their cabins very gladly to accommodate the passengers from the Titanic. We slept in the steerage or anywhere we could in order to make room for the strangers. The strangers were always fed first. Most of them were without any clothing whatever and our own passengers and officers gave up their own clothing to help them out. In that fashion they all got clothing of some description.

"There were five or six little children. They seemed to recover from their first fright very quickly and were soon romping about and playing. One of the children had a case of pneumonia, as it was at first thought, but it turned out to be a case of measles. All the women passengers on the Carpathia got busy at once, knitting and sewing babies' clothing.

"I have asked some of the passengers how it happened. They tell me that about 12 o'clock they heard a great noise. According to their stories, when they came on deck and asked what had happened, the captain told them there was nothing to be alarmed about, and that she had only poked her nose into an iceberg. It was not until sometime later that we got ready for the lifeboats.

"While the sailors were busy getting the lifeboats ready, there was an explosion and it was only then that the captain ordered that every person should put on a life belt and that the women and children should be put into the lifeboats."