THE PHANTOM WRECK.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1695, 11 March 1913, Page 6

THE PHANTOM WRECK.

■ ♦ — ~ A MORNING'S ADVENTURE. IN WELLINGTON'S HINTERLAND. OBSESSED BY THE MILKPAIL. [Br Sylvius.] It was a milkman who did it. One of those queer necessary people who get busy between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., and delight in waking from luonest slumber those who treat the night hours 'with more respect. lie came into Karori from the western seaboard and reported a steamer piled high and dry on Makara Beach. The telephone continued . the trouble—"Steamer struck the beach at Makara during night—piled up high and dry!" There was only one thing for it— the wreck must be visited. How? A minute's thought suggested a. motorcar and Brown. Another tinkle. "Wreck- at Makara Beich, want you and your oar!" "Eight 0! —in half an hour!" came the answer, and in that time a little grey car with the big lungs was ripping up the Terrace, Salamanca Road, Kelbtirne, over the'viaduct, through the tunnel at a quiet 25 miles an hour. No one on the road—not even a milkmau. The air of the morning was cool and damp—it met my perspiring forehead like a benediction. Away among the hills swept a grev mist. The valleys were full of it, and the ridges -were being gently swept by the soft, clinging, rainmist. , Silence of the Hills. Through Karori we rushed, buttoning up our coats to meet the advancing wet. As we took to Makara .Hill—really 1 a mountain—the vapour from the sea enveloped us, and as the willing little car mounted higher, higher,' the fog-iriist increased in thickness, until it shut out everything except for a radius of about fifteen yards. : One side of the road was almost a perpendicular drop—to us it was just a wall of dirty grey fog—and fifteen yards ahead and behind the road ended in this same murky impenetrable fog;" Here and there.a solitary sheep would be momentarily disclosed, i standing near the roadside "fence in dripping fleece, gazing at us in terror as tome unknown monster born of the fog. There was a stiange stillness in the air that was positively uncanny! At the crest all. was,.deadly still save "for the chatter of the engine.

Back to Earth. I never let on that my heart was bobbing on many occasions as Brown; the driver, took -the header down to, Makara. His touch is delicate, his nerve good, and the car was amazingly responsive. If it were not so this story would have been written in the hospital—or not at all. As we left the heights the fog thinned out. Rounding a sharp corner we spied away in the distance a hillside basking in sunshine. Was ever such radiance? That sunlit patch seemed like a bit of paradise dropped from the sky after the maddening mystery of the fog-fettered mountains. Now in the sunlight and on the lweMhe motor hummed in a business-like manner —a mountain stream—the Oharin, developed out of a gorge and ran parallel with us to the sea. The perfume .of the ocean Was in the valley, arid the'lips tecariie faintly salty to the taste. A filial clatter, over a stretch of metal'and sand, arid Ohariu Bay (or Makara beach) was revealed.' ■ The Ship that Wouldn't; Stay. . ; With some anxiety the shore was scanned. Not a vestige of anything like a steamer. Had she broken to pieces on the rocks already? Surely not. There was a little sea breaking in the bay, but nothing dangerous enough to smash a steamer. The'only thing in the!form of a ship at all was a fisherman's boat pulled op on tho beach at the southern end of the bay. , Where was the steamer we had left our warm beds to find? It must be lying somewhere aronrid, As I viewed tho beach, empty of anything in the sl'ape of a stranded steamer or wreckage, I felt like a tiger robbed of its prey, end lircwn said it was rough on the car. Feeling desperate at being deprived of a story, I once more searched the beach, and Piis time found something- alive o'l it.

"The Milking has to be Done." It was a man. "Hullo, there!" I yelled. He looked up from the bench he was combing, and waited, an oil-dram 111 ha'}d, for me to advance. ' ' ■ > "Heard in town that, there was a steamer ashore here," said "So there was!" he replied, with laconic amiability.' "Well, where is it?—produ :e it. "Can't, it's gone!" "Gone —liow gone?" ■ • _ "Game shore four o'clock on that point (indicating a rocky projection in 'he centre of 'the bay), and got. off at eight. "Where did it l go?" "I dunno—Wellington,. I fuppose! "What was the steamer?' "Waiinen, I think!" ■ ' "Don't jou know?" "The old man up at the house knows. She fired off guns this morning!" "Did you go down?" "No!" ■ "Why?" "We were finikin' at the time!" "Good heavens, don't you consider tne saving of life of more importance fhan milk?" ' m , "The milkin' has to be done. The old, man went down, and the fishermen, loo."

"Was tho boat well up on the beach?" "High enough for the crew to jump on shore. "How did they get her off ?' "They put out an anchor, and when the tide rose they pulled ber off!" "Thanks! Good-day!" "Good-day!" - , The Way Home. One of our front tires must have heard the cow joke, for when we- returaed to the car, it had completely subside;!, and a new tubo had to bs fitted in,by -Brown. In ten minutes or so we were,, scudding citywards. Brown, who-said he kn,ew the country, suggested returning by way of Johnsonville. He said it was as quick as Karori and dodged the Mountain, of the Mist. I had my doubts. Anyhow he found a delightful country road like a long switchback railway, and wc tore along it for five or six miles before Brown admitted his unfamiliarity with his whereabouts. I suggested that such au excellent road must lead to somewhere, and, -lie agreeing,' we went gaily on. Another mile further on a n-an was overtaken. "Where are we?" I asked "Dunno!" "Where docs this road lead: to?." "Porinta,, I think—l'm , a stranger to the country." -, "Where, are you going?" '"To New Plymouth!" "Walk there?" "Yes, if I den't get" a job on the road." "You belong to the Stales?" "I've, lived there!" "Off a ship?" ' "Yes" '(reluctantly). "Well, get up and we'll give you a lift." , Resolved.to continue on to Porirua ami return to town by way of Johnsonville. Brown "let her go" again, and we'buzzed along' merrily f-. r another mile or two, when we found our way barred by a gate, and saw ahead that the road tapered off to a mere track. We sent our bit of human jetsam to inquire our whereabouts at a solitary farmhouse. As soon as he was out of sight tilt clear, rob\ist voice, of a woman was heard singing among the hills. ,As soon as she saw the car. .the song ceased.. "Good morning. Could jou tell us where this road leads to?" ' . "Nowhere!" "Nowhere?" "No, it ends at the top of the hill." "How do wo get to Johnsonville?" "You'll have to: go a long way back and pick up the road to left:" So here we parted with tlje long-dis-tance-man-of-the-=en walker, rushed back over the switchback track, and this time tc-ok the right turning, climbed the big hill on Ihe first gear—a performance Brown • was' *ery proud of—and,■' after helping a party with a sick tire .in the main strfet of Johnsonville, arrived in Wellington only to loam thai the Wjiimoa was in port uninjured. Still the jauni had its compensation, The milkman is thanked.