struggled gamely with their vessel, fighting the elements as best they
knew how. The great waves reared white-crested heads, swooped down
upon the smack, filling it with water; now she was on the crest of a
terrific wave, now in the trough, and the boys thought that each moment
would be their last. Their one hope was to keep the water under, and
for hours and hours they worked hard at the pumps; but as fast as they
pumped the water out more swept in, and they gave themselves up for
lost. One, two, three o’clock came and passed, and still they were
fighting for life, and with little hope of coming through. Then their
hearts gave a bound; they wiped the water from their bleared eyes and
looked across the waste of sea, scarcely believing what they saw. A
light!
Forgetting the necessity for working the pumps without cessation, they
rushed to the side and yelled themselves hoarse, seeking to attract
the attention of the men on the boat they knew was there. Above the
roar of the storm their voices were soundless; they might have yelled
till Doomsday and never been heard. But those men on the other vessel
had seen--which was just as good--and with sail set she rode before
the wind, drove her way through the water, and made for the derelict.
It was hard going, but Captain Gempton knew that his little smack, the
_Gratitude_, was a sturdy sailer; and he realised that something was
amiss.
After a stern struggle the _Gratitude_ came near enough to the
_Friendship_ to bawl out for information; and the two boys yelled out
the story of their plight.
“Save us!” they cried. “Save us! We’re alone, and the water’s gaining
on us!”
“Righto, sonnies!” cried Gempton. “Keep pumping. We’ll have you off in
a twinkling!”
They were brave words, but Gempton knew that a “twinkling” was a
comparative term. It would be no light task to get alongside the
_Friendship_ without smashing into her, bobbing up and down as she was
to the will of the waves. He manœuvred his vessel carefully to get her
into the best position from which to try to effect the rescue, knowing
that it would be asking the boys to jump to death to leap out and try
to swim to the _Gratitude_. If they were to be got off, they must be
fetched; and he knew it.
But try as he would, the _Gratitude_ could not be got within distance
from which the boys could be saved. There was only one way to do it;
and that was to lower a boat and row over to the smack.
“I’m going, boys!” said Gempton presently. “Lower away!”
And his men hoisted the boat. Gempton, swathed in his oilskins, took
his seat in it; and at the same time another man, John Tidmarsh, jumped
in with him.
“I’m coming too, skipper,” he said.
“Good,” said the captain; and the two men took their seats, each of
them carrying a lifebuoy. Then, pushing off, they bent their backs to
the oars, and sought to pull the boat over the waves. What a tussle
that was! What a fight against the elements! The wind caught them
and hurled them forward; the waves broke upon them and hurled them
backwards. Huge mountains of water fell upon them, swamping the boat,
almost filling it; and while one man rowed the other bailed. Then on
again--only to meet the same fate; bail again, and then onward through
the darkness and the noise of Nature till eventually they came near to
the _Friendship_.
Then was careful handling called for, lest the boat be dashed into the
side of the smack and broken to pieces.
“Easy!” cried Gempton; and Tidmarsh grasped his oars, plied them
masterfully, and just as it seemed that the boat was going to be
smashed, she swung round and missed the _Friendship_ by the fraction
of a yard. And meanwhile the two boys were pumping for very life,
straining eyes through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the heroes
making for them.
“They’ll never do it,” said one of them.
“God grant they do!” said the other. “See--they’re here!”
Sure enough, Gempton had brought his boat alongside, where she lay
rocking at the mercy of the waves, but held in check by the firm hands
on the oars.
“Quick!” bawled Gempton. “Quick, for your lives!” And instantly the
two boys forsook their pumps and rushed to the side, ready to jump
overboard at the word.
“Jump!” “No!” The two words seemed to come simultaneously. Gempton had
given the first, Tidmarsh the second, as the boat swung away from the
smack. Then, with a mighty tug at the oars the boat was brought back
again. “Jump!” And this time a boy jumped, landing in the boat, and
sending it pitching and tossing, and threatening to overturn it. Again
she swung out, only to be pulled back; and once more a boy jumped, and
landed fairly in her.
They were saved! Not yet. The journey to the _Gratitude_ had still to
be made, and now the wind was against them, blowing down upon them in
greater fury, as though angry at being robbed of the prey it had fought
for all through the hours of the howling night. It had seemed hours
getting out to the _Friendship_; it seemed years getting back. Time
and time again the water broke in upon them, and filled the boat so
that she could not easily ride the storm; the boys bailed like madmen,
and kept on bailing, and the two men held on at their oars and rowed in
the race against death.
They reached the _Gratitude_, where, with the waves breaking upon them,
and the wind battering at them, the little company of four climbed
perilously into the ship--exhausted all of them, grateful two of them,
and well pleased the other two for having been able to effect the
rescue.
FIRE AT SEA
Tragic Tales of Burning Ships
It is almost impossible to imagine anything more appalling than a fire
at sea. The floating home of perhaps scores, maybe hundreds, of people
blazing away, iron and steel melting in the fierce heat, explosions
taking place here, there and everywhere; men trapped in cabins and
being roasted to death; heroic sailors fighting the flames which there
is no fire brigade to fight for them--all these things go to make up a
scene of horror that beggars description.
Such were the circumstances on December 8, 1914, when the oil-tank
steamer _Vedra_ took fire off Walney Island. She had left Sabine,
in Texas, some while before, and run the gauntlet of the few German
commerce raiders in the Atlantic; and Captain Brewster was telling
himself, when he arrived off Barrow on December 7, that his voyage
was at an end, and that he would soon be able to unload his cargo
of benzine. He counted his chickens before they were hatched, for
Dame Fortune was bent on playing him a scurvy trick. For some time
the weather had been rough, and the _Vedra_ had been forcing her way
through in the teeth of a gale which played shuttlecock with her. But
the sturdy steamer had fought hard and long to get to her port; and now
she was within sight. Across the darkening waters signals were sent for
a pilot to come aboard and guide her into harbour.
Meanwhile, the storm increased in fury, and the _Vedra_ found herself
fighting against the titanic forces of the deep. Now on the crest of a
wave, now in the trough the vessel lay, hovering at times, it seemed,
on the very edge of the pit of destruction, and at others diving down,
down, down, and then righting herself as by a miracle.
The waiting men saw a tug put out and head towards their ship.
“The pilot,” they muttered. “He’s in for a rough trip!”
A rough trip it was, and one that was never finished, for ere he could
reach the _Vedra_ the latter was taken up, as it were, by giant hands
and flung shorewards; then swung about again and hurled towards Walney
Island. Firm as a rock Captain Brewster stood to his post, and worked
his ship like the mariner he was; but it was a hopeless task, and very
soon there was a grinding that told she had run ashore. The engines
were immediately reversed, and the ship strained to her utmost in the
effort to get off the shore. As the waters poured over her she seemed
to shake herself like a great dog. There was the hum of the engines
below, the swish of the propeller as it churned up the water, but never
a move backward did the _Vedra_ make; rather, she bumped more heavily
and got farther in. She was fast held.
Captain Brewster, realising now that it was useless to try to float
her by her own engines, signalled to the shore for assistance, and
the guardship _Furness_, lying off the port, immediately put out and
hurried to render what aid she could, while at the same time the tugs
_Walney_ and _Cartmel_ pushed their noses through the water in her
direction. Captain Hill, of the _Furness_, worked his vessel as near
to the _Vedra_ as was possible with safety, and then, calling on the
crew to stand by, hurled a hawser towards her. Time and time again the
hawser was flung, only to fall short; but at last it was successfully
thrown, and caught by some of the _Vedra’s_ crew. It took but a little
while for them to hitch it securely; and when this was done the word
was given to the _Furness_, whose engines were reversed, and away she
bore till the hawser stretched taut from ship to ship.
But the _Furness_ found she had undertaken a task that defied all her
strength, and, strain though she did with every ounce of steam in her
and every horsepower in her engines, she could not make the _Vedra_
budge from the fast hold in which she had been caught. Suddenly, too,
there was a crack that sounded above the roar of the wind, and the
_Furness_ went staggering back as a child staggers when someone lets go
of a rope he is straining at. The hawser had snapped in two. A sharp
command, and the _Furness_ eased up, and once more she steamed towards
the _Vedra_; another hawser was hurled, and again, eventually, was
hitched on. Then back she pulled, more carefully than ever this time,
with the hawser tightening between the two vessels. Would it hold?
Would the _Vedra_ move? Would the _Furness’s_ engines stand the strain?
Such were the questions that raced through many a mind in those anxious
moments. On the _Vedra_, the captain still at his post, men waited
tensely, holding on to anything at hand, lest they be pitched off into
the boiling sea below, while the whole ship seemed to throb to the
racing of her engines as they worked at high pressure. But she refused
to move.
Things were now assuming a very serious aspect, though the coming of
the two tug boats at this time, under command of Commander Bisset,
R.N., Harbour-master of Barrow, heartened the captain and crew, who
refused to heed exhortations thrown at them to leave the vessel.
“No!” bawled the captain through his funnelled hands. “I’ll not leave
her till there’s no hope. I think we can refloat her!”
So, as the men would stick to their duty, there was nothing to do
but to strive the utmost to get the ship off, and the tugs and the
guardship worked nobly with this end in view; but all unavailingly.
And while they worked the news had been signalled along the coast, and
the lifeboats at Piel and Fleetwood put out to succour the stranded
mariners. Just as the Piel boat reached the spot, however, a great
calamity had come to pass.
The buffeting of the wind and sea bumped the _Vedra_ heavily at every
blow. The straining of her engines had begun to tell; the engines soon
gave up the fight and refused to work any more; and the vessel lay a
helpless hulk, at the mercy of the elements--wind and water, which were
soon to be reinforced by a third--fire! While the firemen below had
been working like niggers to keep their engines going, other men had
been busy at the pumps, pumping the oil out of the tanks in order to
lighten the ship and give her a better chance of life. But pumped they
never so feverishly, never so lustily, they could not work fast enough;
they were fighting against Nature, which, red in tooth and claw,
delights to show man that, despite his ingenuity, he is but puny.
Just as the engines gave up, the copper oil tank gave way, and
instantly the oil began to run out. Now, it has always been a problem
with oil-ships, this bursting of the tanks when the vessel goes
ashore--a problem with a very serious point in it, and that is that
the oil is then almost certain to run into the engine-room. It did
so in this case; while the men at the pumps were sweating with their
exertions, the oil was running quickly towards the engine-room. There
was no stopping it, and very soon it reached the engines. There was a
burst of flame, followed by a terrific explosion.
Horror-stricken, the men in the ships lying around looked across the
troubled waters at the now flaming vessel. They knew only too well what
had happened, and how utterly helpless everything was; but they steamed
forward as closely as they dared, and in the brilliant light could see
men standing about the rails of the vessel with agony-drawn faces and
already scorched clothes.
The men on the _Vedra_? Down in the engine-room there were only things
that once were men; trapped in that inferno, every man of them had
been burned to death. Some, standing on deck, had rushed, as many as
possible, to the weather side of the ship, where, as the flames were
blown away from them, they stood a better chance of escape. Here they
clung, maddened with fear, waving a jersey to attract attention--as
if any attraction were needed! The light from the blazing ship showed
clearly and distinctly to the watchers the whole tragic scene. Others,
who were in the fo’c’sle, were caught in a trap, and the would-be
rescuers could see them at the portholes, frantically calling for the
help that could not be given them.
All around the ship the sea was a blazing mass, for the oil which
had been pumped overboard had caught fire. The two lifeboats sped
through the sea towards the flaming ship, but were driven back by the
intense heat. Ever and anon there were reports as of great guns--with
a roar the oil tanks exploded, and added to the volume of flame which
enveloped the hapless ship and men. Then lesser reports; the steel
plates of the vessel were being blown out.
“No hope--no hope!” cried the entrapped men; and then, driven mad by
despair, determined to take all risks. Some of them flung themselves
overboard into the flaming cauldron. They were never seen again.
Then there took place one of those deeds of heroism which will never
die while men have lips to tell of courage and endurance. The chief
engineer was seen by those on the tugs to be standing on the poop with
three other men; hurriedly they saw him give his comrades a lifebuoy
each. They expected to see him don one himself, but, looking again,
realised that he had not one left. In the brilliant light they could
see him urging his comrades to jump; could see them reluctant to leave
him; but, pressed by the brave man, at last they leapt clear of the
ship--into the sea of fire on which were floating several lifebuoys
and belts thrown out by the tugs and lifeboats. They disappeared for a
moment, then came to the surface again, and could be seen striking out
towards the _Furness_, which, pushing as near as was possible, went to
their rescue. By the greatest of good luck, after a fearful struggle
for life against sea and fire, two men, Second Engineer McLoughlin and
Fourth Engineer Dixon, were picked up, sadly burnt, almost exhausted,
but alive. The third man was not so fortunate, and was not seen again.
[Illustration: “The funnels and ventilators were belching forth mighty
columns of flame--every part of the ship was ablaze”]
Meanwhile, the chief engineer had himself jumped overboard, without
any lifebuoy, and fought his way yard by yard through the sea of flame
till he came within an arm’s length of the boat which had been put off
to rescue him. As though angry at being robbed of the other men, the
sea, seeming to gather in fury, at that moment picked up the engineer
on a tremendous wave and hurled him back into the inferno, then back
against the death-ship, battering him to death.
It was evident now that there was no hope for any other of the stricken
crew. The funnels and ventilators were belching forth mighty columns
of flame--every part of the ship was ablaze. Only one man was still
visible on deck, and he was so scared that he could do nothing but cry
agonisingly for help.
“Jump!” they yelled to him. “Jump!”
“I can’t swim!” was the tragic answer; and, fearing to trust himself to
the treacherous sea, he remained where he was, to become the victim of
a still more treacherous foe.
So ended the tragedy of the _Vedra_. Although the tugs and lifeboats
loitered about all night in the hope of finding some survivor, they
were unsuccessful. Morning came. The ship was still burning furiously,
great columns of flame and smoke ascending to such a height that they
were visible at Fleetwood and Blackpool, twenty miles away. Her plates
were red hot; all her tanks had long since exploded with terrific
reports; and when night fell she was nothing but a shapeless skeleton,
glowing in the sea, which itself was like a burning oil well.
Out of a crew of thirty-six only two men were taken off, and that
despite all the gallant efforts that were made. Even of these two only
one lived, for a week later one of them died in hospital from burns and
shock.
* * * * *
The story of the burning of the _Earl of Eldon_, one of the finest
trading vessels then afloat (it was on September 27, 1834, that the
fire was discovered), is an instance of the spontaneous combustion of
a cargo such as has often sent good ships to their doom. The _Earl of
Eldon_ left Bombay on August 24, carrying forty-five souls, including
three ladies and a baby amongst her passengers. She was laden with
cotton bales, screwed so tightly that when the time came to move them,
in order to try to save the ship, it was found impossible to shift them
sufficiently. Before the cotton was put aboard it had been allowed to
get thoroughly wet through, but, knowing the danger of wet cotton in a
ship’s hold, the owners had had it dried before shipment. Apparently
the drying had not been thorough, because the only explanation of
the fire on the _Earl of Eldon_ is that, in just the same way that a
haystack takes fire from the firedamp that generates inside it, so
the cotton bales generated their own fire. As stated above, the first
signs of anything wrong were discovered on September 27, when some of
the passengers noticed steam issuing from the fore-hatchway. Captain
Theaker, however, assured them that it was only steam, which was a
usual thing on cotton-loaded ships. Presently, however, the smoke
became so dense that the passengers were really alarmed, and an officer
of the Madras Artillery, who was on board as a passenger, was not at
all surprised when Captain Theaker knocked at his door and informed
him that part of the cotton was on fire, and that he wished all the
gentlemen passengers to come on deck for consultation. The rest of the
story cannot be better told than in the words of the Indian officer.
“Being assembled,” he says, “the captain stated the case to be that
some part of the cargo appeared to have spontaneously ignited, and he
proposed removing the bales until they should discover the ignited
ones, and have them thrown overboard, as also those which appeared to
be in the same damaged condition. He said that there did not appear to
be immediate danger, and that he hoped we might be able to avert it
altogether. However, at eight o’clock the smoke became much thicker,
and began to roll through the after-hatchway--the draught having been
admitted forward in order to enable the men to work. Several bales were
removed, but the heat began to be intolerable below; the smoke rolled
out in suffocating volumes, and before nine o’clock we discovered that
part of the deck had caught fire; in short, the men were obliged to
knock off work. The captain then ordered the hatches to be battened
down, with a view to keep the fire from bursting out, and to hoist out
all the boats and stock them in case of necessity. This was done, and
about half-past one the three ladies, two sick passengers, an infant,
and a female servant were put into the longboat, with two hundred and
sixteen gallons of water, twenty gallons of brandy, and biscuits for a
month’s consumption, together with such pots of jam and preserved meats
as we could get at, and the day’s provision of fresh and salted meat.
“It was now about two o’clock; the hatches were then opened, and all
hands set to work to endeavour to extinguish the fire. The main hatch
being lifted, and a tarpaulin removed, there was a sail underneath
which was so hot that the men could hardly remove it; when they did,
the heat and smoke came up worse than ever, and it being now known from
inspection that the fire was underneath that part, orders were given to
hoist out the bales until the inflamed ones could be got at; but when
the men laid hold of the lashings to introduce a crane-hook, they were
found to have been burned through beneath, and came away in their hands.
“The case now appeared bad, indeed. However, we cut a bale open and
tried to remove it by handfuls, but the smoke and heat became so
overpowering that no man could stand over it, and water only seemed to
have the effect of increasing it, in the quantities we dared to use,
for had the captain ventured to pump water into the ship to extinguish
the fire, the bales would have swelled so much as to burst open the
deck, and have increased so much in weight as to sink the ship, so
that either way destruction would have been the issue. Under these
circumstances, perceiving the case to be utterly hopeless, the captain
called us together on the poop, and asked if anyone could propose any
expedient likely to avail in extinguishing the fire and saving the
ship, as in that case ‘we will stick by her while a hope remains.’
It was unanimously agreed that all had been done that could be done;
the men were all perfectly sober, and had been indefatigable in their
exertions, but one and all seemed coolly and positively of opinion that
the case was hopeless. The heat was increasing so much that it became
dangerous to leave the poop; the captain therefore requested us to get
into the boats, told off and embarked his men, and at three o’clock he
himself left the ship, the last man, just as the flames were bursting
through the quarter-deck. We then put off, the two boats towing the
longboat. The ship’s way had been previously stopped by backing her
yards. She was now in one blaze, and her masts began to fall in. The
sight was grand, though awful. Between eight and nine o’clock all her
masts had fallen, and she had burned to the water’s edge. Suddenly
there was a bright flash, followed by a dull, heavy explosion--her
powder had caught. For a few seconds her splinters and flaming
fragments were glittering in the air, and then all was darkness, and
the waters had closed over the _Earl of Eldon_!
[Illustration: “The ship was now in one blaze, and her masts began to
fall in”]
“Sad was the prospect now before us! There were in the longboat the
captain and twenty-five persons, including an infant four months old;
the size of the boat 23 feet long by 7-1/3 feet broad. In each
of the others ten individuals, including the officer in charge. One
of the boats had some bags of biscuit, but the chief provision was
in the longboat. We were, by rough calculation, above 1,000 miles
from Rodrigue, and 450 from Diego Garcias, the largest of the Chagos
Islands; but to get there we must have passed through the squally
latitudes we had just left, and been subject to variable winds and
heavy weather or calms, neither of which we were prepared to resist.
Seeing, then, that our stock was sufficient, we determined on trying
for Rodrigue. About eleven o’clock we accomplished rigging the boats
and were under sail. We carried a lantern lashed to our mast in the
longboat to prevent the other boats from losing us during the night;
and when day broke sent them sailing in all directions around to
look-out for ships. While the wind was light they could outsail us,
but when it became strong, and the sea very high, the difference of
speed was rather in our favour, as the weight and size of the longboat
enabled her to lay hold of the water better.
“On the third day of our boat navigation, the change of the moon
approaching, the weather began to wear a threatening aspect; but as we
were in the Trade, we did not apprehend foul or contrary winds. In the
course of the night it blew fresh, with rain. We were totally without
shelter, and the sea, dashing its spray over us, drenched us, and
spoiled a great part of our biscuit, though we happily did not discover
this until we were nearly out of the want of it.