Francatelli

LONDON — Laura Francatelli heard a terrible rumbling noise, then anguished cries for help as her rowboat pulled away from the sinking ocean liner Titanic that dreadful night of April 14, 1912.

Now Francatelli's personal account of the disaster, in the form of a signed affidavit that was given to a British board of inquiry, is set to be auctioned.

It is a gripping firsthand account of how she and her two prominent employers — Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his socialite wife, Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon — managed to flee in a rowboat with a capacity for 40 people though there were only 12 on board.

"You see a lot of documents that talk briefly about the incident, but this affidavit goes into strong details, it talks about Lady Duff being sick the whole time, about the lifeboat bobbing up and down, about the screams," said Andrew Aldridge, an auctioneer at Henry Aldridge & Son, which plans to sell the affidavit on Oct. 16.

He said the letter will likely fetch more than $16,000 in part because of the notoriety of Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff. "They were two of the most controversial survivors," he said. "Sir Cosmo gave the crewmen who were in the lifeboat with him 5 pounds each, which was a tremendous amount of money at the time, and it was misconstrued at the time that he was paying blood money."

He said it's not surprising Francatelli's account is sympathetic to her employers and makes it sound as if Sir Cosmo paid the men "out of the goodness of his heart."

In her written statement, the 31-year-old, who was employed as Lady Duff's personal secretary, described a scene of utter terror.

"We kept on rowing and stopping and rowing again," she wrote. "I heard some talk going on all about the suction if the ship went down. I do not know who joined in the conversation. We were a long way off when we saw the Titanic go right up at the back and plunge down. There was an awful rumbling when she went. Then came the screams and cries. I do not know how long they lasted. We had hardly any talk. The men spoke about God and prayers and wives. We were all in the darkness."

Francatelli died in 1967. The affidavit has been in private collections since shortly after her death.