''Down in the engine-room,'' said John Thompson, one of the surviving firemen, in New York, ''we understood that they wanted the Titanic to make a record run. The orders to us were to fire up as hard as we could. At time the liner made 77 revolutions. All the men in the fireroom the moment we left Queenstown began talking about it. The whole of Sunday we were making 77.
John Thompson was 42 years old, and a native of Liverpool. He wasn't on Titanic to emigrate, he was employed on the ship as a Fireman. After all the boats had gone he was left aboard the ship. He was one of the few to survive the icy water by standing in the knee deep water in Collapsible A. The night took it's toll on Thompson, adding up all the injuries that different sources had given him, he had broken his arm, had his jaw locked up by the cold, and burned his hands. He spent some time in a New York hospital afterwards.