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BATTLING WITH WAVES
AND LAWYERS
* * * * *
_THIRD EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED._
* * * * *
A GENUINE HISTORY OF PERILS OF THE DEEP,
AND
AN AUTHENTIC RECORD OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SHIPPING
CASE EVER DEALT WITH IN THE SUPREME
COURTS OF AUSTRALASIA.
* * * * *
COMPILED BY
J. ARBUCKLE REID
AUTHOR OF “THE AUSTRALIAN READER,” “SEAMEN AND SHIPWRECKS,” ETC.
* * * * *
“Truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”
BYRON.
“Go, little book, God send thee good passage,
And specially let this be thy prayere
Unto them all that thee will read or hear,
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,
Thee to correct in any part or all.”
CHAUCER.
* * * * *
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
AMONG THE BILLOWS 54
APPLICATION FOR NEW TRIAL 218
BATTLING WITH WAVES AND LAWYERS 199
DISCOVERY OF PONTING 33
DIVISION OF THE SPOIL 277
FINAL BATTLE WITH THE LAWYERS 245
GRATITUDE 85
HINTS ON SWIMMING 82
INTRODUCTORY 17
LANDING 74
MORNING 70
NEW TRIAL 238
NIGHT 63
PLAINTIFF’S CASE 92
SORRENTO 27
THE VOYAGE 45
THE DEFENCE 143
ILLUSTRATIONS.
AMONG THE BILLOWS 62
CAPE SCHANCK 47
LORD BRASSEY 13
CAPTAIN MATHIESON 15
OCEAN BEACH 75
PONTING AND “VICTOR HUGO” 81
PONTING AND HIS FRIEND “VICTOR HUGO” IN 1899 261
RESCUE OF PONTING 31
SORRENTO 25
S.S. ALERT 41
S.S. ALERT BEFORE ALTERATIONS 89
S.S. ALERT SINKING 55
S.S. SUNBEAM 237
SUPREME COURT BUILDINGS 243
TESTIMONIAL _at End of Book_
THE PANTRY WINDOW 151
TO
LORD BRASSEY,
IN HIS TRIPLE CAPACITY OF LAWYER, MASTER-MARINER,
AND MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION
ON UNSEAWORTHY SHIPS,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.
[Illustration: LORD BRASSEY AS A MASTER-MARINER.]
[Illustration: THE LATE CAPTAIN MATHIESON,
S.S. _Alert_.]
[Illustration: Decoration]
Battling with the Waves.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
“Boldly I venture on a naval scene,
Nor fear the critic’s frown or pedant’s spleen.”
_Falconer._
A shipwreck, at all times and under any circumstances, is a
lamentable occurrence, but it is peculiarly so in instances where out
of a whole ship’s company only one solitary individual is left to
tell the tale. So far as is known to the compiler of the present work
there have been only two such shipwrecks in Australian waters. One
was the wreck of the emigrant ship _Dunbar_ near Sydney Heads, Port
Jackson, on the 20th August, 1857, when a seaman named Johnson—who
is still living and permanently employed by the New South Wales
Government, as a lighthouse-keeper at Newcastle—was the sole survivor
out of 121 persons.
The other was that of the steamer _Alert_, near Melbourne Heads, Port
Phillip, Victoria, on the 28th of December, 1893, and the relation
of which forms the subject matter of these pages. The last named
vessel had 16 persons on board and all, save one, perished either
by drowning, or by being dashed to pieces against the cruel rocks.
Disaster comes to us in all forms, but the stirring story told by
Robert Ponting, the survivor from the _Alert_, partly lifts the veil
and shows us how brave men can, and do, even under the most adverse
circumstances, battle to the last against the mighty raging sea which
finally engulphs them.
It might be fitly said in the language of the poet.
We ask thee, insatiable Deep!
How many lone ones weep
For friends who lie buried in thee?
Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, all!
Sunk ’neath thy heaving pall,
Beautiful, treacherous, cruel Sea!
In calms, thy smooth and placid breast
Might lull a babe to rest,
And ne’er disturb its peaceful sleep.
In storms, thine awful mountain waves—
Not cradles then, but graves—
Swallow brave men. Oh! hungry Deep.
To do his duty and face death on the battlefield the soldier requires
great courage, even although _there_ he has only his fellow man—and
the instruments created by him—to contend against. The seaman’s
courage is, however, of a very different sort. In a storm he has
to war with something infinitely more awe-inspiring than anything
puny man can make! Hence, however sorrowful and heartrending the
detail of suffering and death at sea, still we who read of such
cannot but admire the indomitable pluck which characterises the
conduct of mariners, even when they believe and feel that all hope
has fled. Death is the portion of all; yet, although we are aware
it is inevitable, there is a something—call it what we will—that
instinctively impels us to fight and struggle for existence. During
this struggle there are some well authenticated instances wherein
men seem to have passed through the very gates of death, and yet, by
the mysterious workings of Divine providence, have been for a time
brought back, so to speak, into the land of the living until some
purpose or aim had been accomplished. A clear case of the latter sort
came within the experience of the present writer, and he hopes that
the relation of the incident here will not be considered out of place
by his readers:—
We were coming from Quebec, Canada, bound to Milford, England, with
a timber-laden ship called the _Marmion_. When about half way across
the Atlantic the captain became very ill with something understood
by us to be British cholera. He was confined to bed, but persisted,
every day the sun was to be seen, in being carried up on deck to take
observations at noon. We could all see he was dying, and though every
attention was paid to him, we expected each day to be his last. Just
three days before we sighted land our captain died apparently, and
it being cold winter weather, we determined, if possible, to bring
his body on for burial when we arrived in port. To our astonishment,
some hours after we believed him dead, he suddenly revived, and asked
for something to eat! He continued improving so much that one night
about six o’clock, when we had just sighted Kinsale light, on the
Irish coast, he, without any assistance, came up on deck, took the
bearings of the light, and altered the ship’s course. A heavy gale
was blowing, and the weather as thick as a hedge; still the ship,
under close reefed topsails, was kept running all night before the
wind, the captain, meanwhile, against all persuasion, insisting upon
remaining on the poop. At noon next day, when the ship was still
rushing along in the midst of a thick fog which prevented any land
from being seen, the captain said quietly to the man at the wheel:
“If the ship has been steered properly since we saw Kinsale light,
she will be in Milford Haven in about three hours’ time; if she
hasn’t been steered properly, she will be God knows where.” Almost
immediately after speaking to the helmsman the skipper muttered in
a bitter tone, as if communing with himself: “Anyway, it won’t make
much difference to me.” In two hours more the weather cleared a bit,
the we saw the land very “close to,” and we were heading straight
for St. Ann’s—an island which lies in the entrance to Milford—as an
arrow from a bow. By three p. m. we were safe in port with the anchor
down. In the flurry of letting the anchor go we, for the time being,
forgot all about our captain’s condition, but on walking aft and
going below, we found him lying on the sofa in the saloon, dead for
certain, as it proved, this time! He was, physically, a weak man, but
had a powerful will and a taciturn nature. The anxiety of getting the
ship safe into port had no doubt kept him supernaturally alive. The
anchor down, he felt his task was done; he had quietly gone below,
and unseen, passed away beyond the cares and troubles incidental to
human life!
The voyage of life is anything but plain sailing, and whether we like
it or not—aye, whether our duty lies in the hut of the shepherd—in
the palace of the prince—in the workshop—in the forest—in the camp—or
on the ocean—we may expect to encounter some phase or other of
that perpetual conflict with the material forces of the universe,
or that scarcely less persistent conflict with the moral force of
circumstances, which, together, make up so much of the tragedy of
life, and after all, impart to it so much of its dignity. Knowing
then that storms and trials have to be encountered it is clearly our
duty, so far as we are able, to take every precaution to minimise
disaster of every kind. Disasters, of course, will occur, both on sea
and shore, even when everything has been done that thought and skill
can suggest, but with regard to shipping matters can we say that, in
the interests of life and property, all is done that could and should
be? Without presuming here to enter into the cause, or causes, of the
_Alert_ going to the bottom, it is saddening to think that though the
vessel went down in broad daylight, and not far from the shore, still
the accident was not seen. It may be that even if it had been seen,
nothing, owing to the state of the weather, could have been done to
help the sixteen men who were left to buffet with the waves, but,
nevertheless, it must have added another pang to the suffering of
these men to see and know the land was “So near and yet so far.”
The incidents which occurred after the foundering of the _Alert_ are
so extraordinary that if they were not authenticated beyond a doubt,
the recital of them would at once be classed as a narrative from the
prolific pen of a dealer in romance. Indeed, it might be fittingly
said that the wonderful endurance displayed by the survivor, Robert
Ponting, in battling with the waves for fifteen hours on what must
have been to him a terribly long, and dreary night—his being cast
upon the beach—his curious discovery and ultimate resuscitation—all
partake of the miraculous!
Moreover, as if to make matters still more sensational, somebody
conveyed the news to Ponting’s wife, at South Melbourne, that her
husband was amongst the lost, and Messrs. Huddart, Parker, and Co.,
the owners of the _Alert_, also, on the 4th January, 1894—six days
after the date of the wreck—sent a cablegram to London, stating that
Ponting was drowned.
The following extract from a letter, lately received at Melbourne by
Mr. Robert Ponting from his brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Hutton, in
London, clearly gives the particulars of this unaccountable blunder:—
“Dear brother Bob,—
We heartily congratulate you on your wonderful escape from the
sad fate that befel your shipmates through the foundering of the
_Alert_. You also have our sincere sympathy for the terrible ordeal
and physical suffering you have passed through. At the same time I
may tell you that all your relations here had five weeks’ mental
suffering on your account. It came about thus—On Saturday, 30th
December, 1893, I read in the “London Morning Post” a telegraphic
report of the loss of the _Alert_, in which it stated there was
only one survivor, but no name was given. Of course we all hoped
that you were the survivor, and in order to ascertain this I
went, on the 2nd of January, as soon as the office opened after
the holidays, to Mr. James Huddart’s office, 22 Billiter street,
London, but they could give me no information. They told me they
would bring my request for information before Mr. Huddart, and that
evening I got a letter from him stating that he would be glad to
cable to his Melbourne branch if I wished, at my expense. I sent
him, as desired, a cheque for £1 18s 8d, or 4s 10d per word for
eight words—five words for the message and three for the answer.
He deeply deplored the sad necessity there was for such a cable,
but stated that he would send it on at once, and immediately
communicate the result to me. Mr. Huddart got the reply from his
Melbourne office on the 4th January, and then he forwarded a
telegram to me as follows:— ‘Much regret to inform you, brother
(R. Ponting) drowned in the _Alert_.’ Of course I had the sad
duty of letting mother and father and all the other members of
the family know the mournful news that had reached me. You, dear
Bob, can imagine our feelings when we thus knew for certain that
you were lost. We all purchased mourning clothes and wore them
for five weeks, until, on 6th February last, we received a letter
from Mr. James Huddart which filled us all with joy. This letter
enclosed a cutting from a Geelong paper, stating that you had been
saved and that you were the sole survivor. Mr. Huddart’s welcome
communication also stated that owing to a strange error, on the
part of his Melbourne branch, the word “drowned” had been cabled
instead of “saved.” In reply I thanked Mr. Huddart for his kindness
in sending the good news to us, but I did not further refer to
the painful mistake they had made, although it had caused us such
grief. I need scarcely tell you we are all truly thankful that God
in his mercy, saved you from the dangers of the deep.”
It will be seen from the foregoing that Robert Ponting was placed in
the unique position of being able to read of incidents which took
place after his supposed death.
[Illustration: boats near shore]
[Illustration: SORRENTO.
From a Photo by the late J. DODD, lost with the S.S. ALERT.]
[Illustration: Decoration]