PADDY THE HERO

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 5, 1 October 1918, Page 8

PADDY THE HERO

IN A SHRAPNEL SHOWER, One of the heroes'- of the encounters with.the German undersea buccaneers on the American coast is Patrick Huston, of Brooklyn, an aJble seaman of the freighter 'l'exel, which was within sixty miles of New York when attacked. Huston was at the wheel, and was the first to sight the -submarine as it flashed to the surface and opened fire. The "Globe," telling the story, says: j '.'A , few members of the crew who could speak English' had the highest praise for Huston's conduct, : "I was just coming up on deck for my watch when I .heard a crash, and looked up to see splinters flying all. around," said one. "It seemed to me as.'though shells/were'arriving from every direction as I hit the deck. Pat had a close call on the first shot from the submarine. It/toro away one side of the pilot-house not five feet from him, and there was a regular hail of shell and splinters showering him. But Pat is Irish, and he stuck right there at the wheel, keeping the Toxel nosing right along in her course. "The shrapnel crashed all around the pilot-house, but Pat never left tho wheel until the skipper ordered the engines stopped, and he. swung aroxind in the sea awaiting the arrival of tho XJboat skipper and his boarding party. I ran up to Pat and found him cussing a long splinter that had stabbed through the back of his hand. He was fighting mad, and wanted to take, a crack at the Germans. Pat did not seem to think he had done any more than any fellow would who happened to he at the wheel."

riuston himself laughed at the closo pall lie had. "That wheel-house sure looked like a sieve when I got outside and on deck," said he. 'Guess I was lucky, but I will.get square some time with those birds for what they did to my new serge coat. Look at it." Huston pointed to the. coat, : hanging on pegs. It had been slashed.to ribbons by shrapnel splinters.