answer, and the smallholder, worried almost to death, interviewed the
Protestant vicar in the morning, after the service at Kilgobbin. To
him he poured out his story, asking him to keep his informant’s name
secret. The vicar promised, and then went to see Mr. Carrick, whom he
asked to warn Lady Margaret Crosbie of the plot, so that she might put
the Danes upon their guard. Carrick promised, and then broke his word;
whereupon, some days later, the vicar himself called upon Lady Margaret
and told the whole of the tale.
Lady Margaret thanked him, and promised to warn the Danes and get them
to remove the chests of silver from the vault to her house, where it
would be quite safe.
As a matter of fact, the good kind lady was in the plot, and she did
not warn the Danes. The conspirators were able, therefore, to set about
maturing their plans which, with so many people concerned, it is not
surprising became common knowledge amongst the peasants, rumours even
reaching Tralee Custom House, whence Heitman was advised to obtain a
guard of troops from Tralee barracks.
One would have thought that, in view of this information, Heitman would
have taken every precaution; but he did not. Instead of applying for
soldiers he contented himself with asking Lady Margaret to let him have
some of the arms which had been put under lock and key when the _Golden
Lion_ was wrecked; and when his request was refused, and yet another
that he might gather all his crew into the ground floor of the square
tower, he apparently shrugged his shoulders and let the matter slide!
Then Dick Ball turned traitor; he confided to one of the Danes, John
Suchdorf, that there was going to be an attempt to steal the silver.
But for sheer foolishness these mariners want beating. Suchdorf
shrugged his shoulders, laughed all over his honest face, and told Ball
it was a really fine joke he was trying to play on him! And he doesn’t
even seem to have told the captain, though perhaps it would have done
no good if he had.
It came about, then, that when the plotters considered the time ripe
everything was clear. The day determined on was June 5, when Lady
Margaret had a few friends come to her house on a visit.
At dinner that evening Captain Heitman and his officers were invited
to join the party, probably to keep them out of the way, for while
the convivialities were in progress our old friend Suchdorf noticed
that three men were prowling about the foot of the square tower; and a
little later saw Lawlor and a companion go into Ballyheigue House. In
view of what he had been told previously, had Suchdorf been anything
but a muddle-headed man, he would have suspected what was afoot and
rushed off to Captain Heitman; but he did nothing, said nothing, not
even when, about seven o’clock, he came upon Ball and Malony and three
or four others gathered about the tower. So the plot, which was coming
to a head, was allowed to progress unimpeded, and soon after midnight,
when everyone had retired to rest, there was a fine hullabaloo--guns
were firing, men were shouting, women screaming, and doors being
banged, opened and shut noisily as folk awoke.
The work was in hand!
When they were sure that the people were in bed the conspirators had
rushed the tower, and, with cutlass and pistol, had fallen upon the
sentries which Heitman always had there. There was a stiff, stern
fight for a short while, and two of the sentries fell to the ground,
dead, the third managing to get away, wounded and bleeding, to arouse
Suchdorf and his other comrades. Suchdorf now began to realise that
there _had_ been something in Ball’s story, and, jumping out of bed, he
dashed down to the door, followed by Alexander Foster, Peter Mingard,
and George Jenesen. They put up a fine show, and succeeded in forcing
the thieves out of the tower and fastening the door; after which they
hurried upstairs and, looking out of a window, saw “a great multitude,
whose faces were blacked.”
Here was a fine to do; the whole countryside seemed to be come out
against them, and the four men had only a case of arms and one gun
amongst them, and only enough powder and ball for one charge! They
conferred amongst themselves, and realising that they could make but
little resistance, and that futile, they would be better not to make
any at all, lest “it might be the means to have them murdered.”
Meanwhile, in Ballyheigue House all was excitement. Heitman, hearing
the noise, and realising that his silver was perhaps in danger after
all, dashed downstairs, to find the hall filled with the guests and
other occupants of the house.
“My silver!” he cried. “It is being stolen! Help me to drive the
thieves off!” He hurled himself at the door, trying to pull back the
bolts. Before he could do this, however, Lady Margaret, crafty woman
that she was, threw herself in front of him, and beseeched him not to
be foolhardy!
“They will kill you!” she cried. “Stay here!”
And Heitman stayed, while away over at the tower things were moving
pretty briskly. The conspirators had forced their way in, and, working
like Titans, got all the silver-chests out, and by various means
took them into certain places previously arranged. The holy Lauder,
archdeacon and magistrate, had considerately lent his chaise and
horses, and these bore away three of the chests to his farm, where they
were broken open and their contents divided amongst the thieves. Six
chests were left at Ballyheigue, to be shared later; one was carried to
Tralee for the same purpose, but was afterwards seized by the soldiers;
and two others were hidden safely at Ballygown.
And the Lady Margaret and her family received half the proceeds!
Poor Captain Heitman! When it was too late he called for the aid of the
authorities; and although the soldiers managed to seize the chest that
was taken to Tralee, and though Heitman offered a tenth part of the
treasure to anyone who would give information that would lead to the
recovery of the treasure, all he ever got back was some £4,000. A good
part of it probably went across the seas in Malony’s ship.
Justice was very tardy; after many weeks nine or ten of the thieves
were caught, though only three were convicted. One was hanged, but a
second cheated the gallows by committing suicide; and the third was
pardoned, because Heitman thought he might turn King’s evidence, as did
some of the others who were caught. Seeing that the “gentry” were in
it, it is not surprising that justice was tardy, and that Heitman was
kept in Ireland until the autumn of 1735, waiting for justice and his
treasure--and got neither.
Whether the Kerry men had lured the _Golden Lion_ to her destruction or
not, there is no doubt that they were of the family of wreckers.
* * * * *
It was in 1817--on February 19, to be precise--that the _Inverness_
went ashore in the Shannon, through her captain mistaking Rinevaha for
Carrigaholt. Everything would have been all right, and the ship been
able to float at the next spring-tide, had not the peasants considered
it too good a chance to throw away. It was like turning good luck away!
So, banding themselves together, they went down to the shore, boarded
the _Inverness_, and, their numbers being large and their methods none
too gentle, succeeded in scuttling the ship and tearing away all her
rigging, having taken the precaution of sending to shore the barrels of
pork and other provisions with which the vessel was loaded. Then they
robbed the crew--even to their shirts, which they used as bags to carry
their plunder in!
The news spread, and next day the police appeared on the scene, and
found the peasants still hard at work collecting their salvage.
Although there were only twelve policemen, a sergeant and the chief
constable, they pluckily threw themselves into the fray, routed the
wreckers, and stood guard over the provisions that still remained on
shore. All night they kept their vigil; but with the coming of dawn
they found themselves surrounded by thousands of peasants. Angry at
being robbed of their prey, the wreckers had aroused the countryside,
determined to get back what they had lost.
They advanced in three companies, shouting threats, waving hats,
cheering--to keep their spirits up, probably--and vowed they would have
the salvage as well as the arms of the police guard. Although they knew
they had a ticklish job in front of them, those policemen were staunch
and bold; they refused to be intimidated. Forming into one body, they
faced the three mobs and waited for them to come on. They came on; and
there ensued a miniature battle; sticks and stones were flung at the
police, the wreckers charged down upon them with scythes and axes, and
the police replied by firing their pistols. But it was all in vain;
the mob was overwhelming in numbers, and the chief constable saw that
they could not hold out very long. He must have help.
Off went one of the policemen, a mounted man, making for Limerick,
pursued by fleet-footed men, who, however, were soon left behind. In
less than two hours he returned with Major Warburton and a body of
twenty cavalry, with infantry behind them. They dashed down upon the
shore, to find that the police had been compelled to retire, which they
had done in an orderly manner, and that the wreckers were once more
upon the _Inverness_, hard at it breaking it up. Warburton and his men
boarded it; a hatchet blow narrowly missed the major, who promptly
turned and presented his pistol at the would-be murderer, and so scared
him that he flung himself overboard. But he did not escape, for one of
the soldiers charged at him as he waded ashore and cut him down.
The wreckers now saw that they had brought a hornet’s nest about their
ears, and began to think of escaping. They flew for their lives,
pursued by the soldiers, who wounded some and took many prisoners.
The thoroughness of the wreckers’ work may be gauged by the fact that
only nine barrels of pork were saved, and that the bowsprit, gaff, and
spars of the ship had been stolen; all her sails and rigging had been
taken away, her anchors and cables--and even her pump!
An extract from an old book gives in the words of one present a picture
of another wreckers’ incident:
“On Friday, October 27, 1811, the galliot _Anna Hulk Klas Boyr_,
Meinerty, master, from Christian Sound, laden with deals, for Killala,
was driven ashore at a place called Porturlin, between Killala and
Broadhaven. The captain and crew providentially saved their lives by
jumping on shore on a small island or rock. At this time the stern and
quarter were stove in. The crew remained two hours on the rock, when
they were taken off by a boat and brought to the mainland.
“Shortly after, the captain’s trunk, with all the sailors’ clothes in
general, came on shore, which the country people immediately began to
plunder, leaving the unfortunate wreck. Then they cut away all they
could come at of the sails, rigging, etc., while hundreds were taking
away the deals to all parts of the country. Though the captain spoke
good English, and most pitifully inquired to whom he might apply for
assistance, yet he could not hear of any for fourteen hours, when he
was told that Major Denis Bingham was the nearest and only person he
could apply to. With much difficulty he procured a guide, and proceeded
to Mr. Bingham’s, a distance of twenty miles through the mountains.
“In the meantime, after thirty-six hours’ concealment of this very
melancholy circumstance, Captain Morris, of the _Townshead_ cruiser,
who lay at Broadhaven, a distance of about ten miles from the wreck,
heard of it, and approaching it landed with twenty men well armed. In
coming near the wreck he first fired in the air, in order to disperse
the peasantry, which had no effect; he therefore ordered his men to
fire close, which had the desired effect, when he immediately pursued
them into the interior, from three to five miles distance, dividing his
party in different directions, when, by great exertion and fatigue,
they saved about 1,800 deals and a remnant of the wreck.
“Captain Morris had some of the robbers taken, but, his party being so
scattered, they were rescued by a large mob of the country people.”
THE TRAGEDY OF A WONDER SHIP
The Story of the “Titanic” Disaster
On Wednesday, April 10, 1912, there steamed out of Southampton the
largest boat in the world--a wonder ship, a veritable floating palace.
She was bound for America. It was her first voyage, and it was her
last, for five days later, from out the night, there loomed the white
form of a gigantic iceberg, which crashed into her starboard side; and
the _Titanic_ and most of the people aboard her had entered upon their
last two hours of life.
There is a magic in figures, but even those which tell of the size of
the giant ship fail to carry the tale of her greatness. Still, they
must be given in order to show how this mammoth of the ocean was as a
pygmy in the grip of the elemental forces.
She was a three-screw vessel of 46,328 tons gross and 21,831 tons net.
Her length was 852 feet, and her breadth 92 feet. From top of keel to
top of beam she was 64 feet, while her hold was almost 60 feet deep.
Her horsepower was 50,000. She was pronounced unsinkable, having
fifteen water-tight bulkheads and a water-tight inner bottom, extending
nearly the whole breadth of the vessel, and several other water-tight
divisions. She was fitted with six independent sets of boilers,
wireless telegraphy, submarine signalling, electric lights and power
systems; telephones and telegraphs communicated between the various
working positions; three electric elevators were installed to carry
passengers from one deck to another; and every appliance necessary
to enable the ship’s officers to ascertain depth of water, speed of
the vessel, and a hundred and one other things, were provided, while
life-saving appliances to the requirements of the Board of Trade were
included in her equipment. There were concert-rooms, smoking-rooms,
swimming baths, tennis courts, restaurant, libraries--everything in the
way of modern luxury.
And yet when the crash came to this floating palace, this realisation
of the shipwright’s dreams, out of the 2,201 souls she carried, only
711 were saved--a tragic comment upon the impotence of man against the
forces of Nature.
The _Titanic_ sailed from Southampton to Cherbourg, from Cherbourg to
Queenstown, then across the Atlantic by the then accepted outward-bound
route for New York, her passengers amazed at the luxury of the wonder
ship which was bearing them to the New World. The first two or three
days were uneventful, and on the 14th the magnificent lounge was turned
into a scene of fairy delight for a gala dinner. Beautiful music
filled the lounge and filtered through to other parts of the ship;
well dressed men and women sat and talked, or strolled about after
dinner in the _camaraderie_ of fellow-voyagers, all unsuspecting of the
catastrophe that was hastening down upon them from out the darkness of
the night.
Earlier in the day a wireless message had been received from s.s.
_Caronia_, informing Captain Smith that “West-bound steamers report
bergs, growlers, and field ice in 42° N. from 49° W., April 12,” the
_Titanic_ then being about latitude 43° 35′ N. and longitude 43° 50′ W.
This was at 9 A.M., and at 1.42 P.M., when the vessel was about 42° 35′
N., 45° 50′ W., another wireless message was received, this time from
s.s. _Baltic_, saying that “large quantities of field ice” had been
seen that day in 41° 51′ N., longitude 49° 52′ W.
In order to understand the significance of all these warnings, flashed
across the ether, it is necessary to remember the following facts:
Icebergs are gigantic masses of Polar glacier carried out to sea, only
about one-eighth of their mass being above the surface.
Growlers are small icebergs.
Field ice is frozen sea-water floating in a looser form than pack ice,
covering large areas of the Polar seas, broken up into large pieces,
driven together by current and wind, thus forming an almost continuous
sheet of ice.
All these forms of ice masses are dangerous to shipping, and the ocean
routes were mapped out so that vessels might be able to steer clear of
them. As a matter of fact, although icebergs and field ice had been
seen as far south before, it was many years since field ice had been
observed so far south as at the time of the _Titanic_ disaster. Two
further messages were received on the ship during the day, one of them
giving news of large icebergs; but, except for the officers and men
whose watch it was, everybody on board the _Titanic_ turned into bed,
to dream of wonderful things, no doubt, and to wake up to a nightmare
of horror.
Suddenly the stillness of the vast vessel was broken by a thudding
crash, a ripping of steel plates. Something had happened. Some heard
the sound--those in the steerage, who were near that portion of the
ship which was a city, and those officers who were on deck and the
bridge. The rest, asleep, lulled into the land of dreams by the motion
of the ship, were awakened by the strange feeling of stillness that
suddenly pervaded everything; there was no longer the throb of the
engines; the vibration of the ship ceased, and people were roused by
the utter emptiness of things, as it seemed. Heads popped out of cabins
and state-rooms, people strolled up corridors asking each other “Why?”
and “What?” and so forth; and getting no answer that meant anything
except assurances that all was well--all must be well! Was not this the
safest vessel in the world? And so they went back to bed.
But other people, those whose duty it was to keep awake, to have their
fingers upon the pulse, as it were, of this leviathan, did not sleep.
First Officer Murdoch and his watch were on the bridge; the captain
was in his room. Murdoch, peering through the blue-blackness of night,
had seen a haze before the ship, and, quick to realise what was before
them, he issued sharp commands, which were obeyed instantly; but all
too late. That haze resolved itself into ice--a massive, towering
mountain of ice--into which the _Titanic’s_ bows cut their way. The ice
that the ether waves had been telling about all day had loomed out upon
them like a spectre in the night; nay, like the impersonation of Death.
Captain Smith rushed to the bridge when he felt the ship stop.
“We have struck ice, sir,” was the first officer’s reply to his
question.
“Close the water-tight doors!” was the captain’s order, only to be told
that this had already been done. A movement of switches, and Murdoch
had set bells a-tingling and great steel doors a-sliding in their
grooves; bells to warn anyone that the doors were being closed, so that
they might not be cut off.
But no closing of water-tight doors was to be sufficient to save this
giant ship. The damage wrought by that white, translucent mass ran over
a length of some three hundred feet, and it had all been done in--one
trembles to write it--_ten seconds_. Twenty knots an hour had the
vessel been travelling, and in ten seconds she had ripped her way along
the ice for three hundred feet, tearing her plates apart as though they
had been brown paper, and letting the water in in tons.
The carpenter sounded the ship; Phillips, the Marconi operator, was
instructed to get ready to send out a call for assistance, in case
it was wanted. The carpenter made his report; and, because of its
character, Captain Smith went back to the Marconi room, and messages
were sent out to all steamers within reach. Still later, but only by
a few minutes, the C Q D and the S O S--international signals for
help--were dispatched, to be followed by:
“We have struck a berg! Come at once!” Seventy-eight miles away that
message was picked up by the _Carpathia_, which answered: “Coming at
once!”
And, meanwhile, what of the population of the floating palace whose
vitals were being swamped by hundreds of tons of water? She was listing
heavily to starboard. In various parts of the ship a few people were
still awake, asking what was afoot, for none had yet been told what
had taken place. If there is one thing the master of a vessel dreads
it is panic, and passengers must be kept in ignorance while there is
a chance to obviate the danger. But rumours floated here and there.
“We’ve struck an iceberg,” said one now and again; and, as if that were
nothing to be alarmed about, folks shrugged their shoulders and turned
into bed. So sure was everyone of the safety of this masterpiece of
science and industry that the thought of danger never entered their
heads.
It was a fine joke, apparently, to have struck an iceberg, and a berg
was a rare sight to most of those people, who thought more of that
than of the ship. The great spectral mass was a thing of wonder; its
towering peak told them something of its gigantic size, since but
one-eighth of it showed above the surface. “What a corker!” said
someone, and then went to bed.
Meanwhile, firemen were coming up from below; and each set who came up
reported that the water was pouring into their stokeholds.
Captain Smith, convinced by the list of the ship that there was indeed
grave danger--she was very much down by the head, and diving now and
again at the rate of six or twelve inches--gave instructions that the
passengers should be gathered on the boat-decks; and the inhabitants
of the “safest ship in the world” received the command that could have
but one meaning, namely, that the vessel was in danger of going down.
Through miles of corridors and companion-ways stewards raced with the
news, rousing folk from the sleep of peace to the nightmare of reality,
yet careful, every one of them, not to cause panic. Reassuring,
optimistic, with unquenchable faith in the unsinkableness of the
boat, they told the passengers who asked questions that they thought
everything would be all right.
“The Board of Trade regulations say that in times of danger the
passengers must put on lifebelts,” said one steward; “and even if the
boat should sink, she will be able to keep up for forty-eight hours at
least.”
[Illustration: “Men, strong-limbed, full-blooded, with the zest and the
love of life in them, stood calmly by”]
Those words are a picture of the attitude of wellnigh everybody on the
_Titanic_, which was, as a matter of fact, within the last minutes of
her life; but, obeying the call, they trooped up in their scores and
hundreds to the decks. Some grumbled at being brought from warm beds
to a cold, ice-strewn deck; others grumbled at the stringency of
the British Board of Trade. Imagine the scene, if you can: long lines
of stewards guarding the boats; a mighty crowd of men, women, and
children, some dressed, others half dressed, more with only a blanket
thrown about their night-clothes, dozens of them struggling into
lifebelts. Many were now anxious-eyed as, inexperienced as they were,
they saw that awful list to starboard, saw the tense looks on the faces
of some of the officers who _knew_.
The women and children, now mustered on the boat-deck, were waiting
while the lifeboats and collapsible boats were got ready, for the
tragic cry of the sea, “Women and children first!” had rung out; and
men, strong-limbed, full-blooded, with the zest and the love of life
in them, stood calmly by and smoked while this was done, telling
themselves even now that the boat could not sink.
Boat crews were shipped; and then the craft were swung out, though not
without trouble, seeing that, being new, the tackle was not easy to
work; and the women and children, ill-clad to withstand the rigours of
that bitter night, were helped into the boats and lowered away, out
of the floating palace they had thought so safe into a wide expanse
of sea, with all its possible dangers. Some women, indeed, refused to
leave the ship; they would not go without their husbands, pleaded that
they be allowed to come. Like heroes, the men refused to go, and so
husbands and wives stayed on the ship of death.