The night of April 14, 1912, in Kirkendbright, Scotland, W. Rex Sowden was awakened by a knock on his bedroom door. As the local leader of the Salvation Army, Sowden was used to handling emergencies at odd hours.

 

"Will you please come at once, Captain?" the caller asked. "Jessie is dying."

 

Jessie Sayre was an orphaned girl in the care of the Salvation Army. She had been quite ill and no one expected her to live much longer.

 

"Hold my hand, Captain," Jessie said as Sowden entered her room. "I am so afraid. Can't you see that big ship sinking in the water?"

 

"That's just a dream you've had," Sowden told her.

 

"No," she said, "the ship is sinking. Look at all those people who are drowning. Someone called Wally is playing a fiddle and coming to you." Skeptically, Sowden looked around the room, but saw no one. Then Jessie fell into a coma and died a few hours later.

 

Only on April 15 did Captain Sowden discover that his childhood friend Wally Hartley had been on board the Titanic. Perhaps, thought Sowden, Jessie had seen his old friend Wally-and the sinking Titanic before she died. He determined that she had seen the sinking about three and a half hours before it had actually occurred.