"TICKET SUSPENDED".

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 629, 20 December 1913, Page 7

"TIC KET SUSPENDED ".

A PICTURE IN WORDS i^ WHAT FOLLOWS A MARINER'o MISTAKE. She crawled over it almost as easily as a snake over a stick. There was nothing but a slow shudder that ran through Her from stem to stern to tsll what had happened. But it was enough. We had slid over a submerged rock in the fog. A quick touch on the telegraph, and steam was shut off. A shout to the mate, and he had hurried below with t-'c carpenter. In a minute he was back.

"'Ripped her bottom off. There's thirty feet clean gone. Half the Channel is on board already!"

"How long ?" I demanded grimly. "Wouldn't give her more than a quarter of an hour, sir." "That's enough. I think."

A ring, and a word to the man at the wheel, and we had swung round, and began throbbing sluggishly towards the shore.

"Lucky we've no passengers. Well, it's no good talking. Get all hands to the boat stations, and see all clear for lowering. But we'll do it all right !" First we telephoned to the engineer for steam. By sharp jerks of the be ]l_ one> two ; one, two, three—the propeller revolved, first slowly, then at dead slow.

We passed through the fog that seemed to hang as a pall. The vessel crept slpwly forward. How far were we from land ? Could we beach her in time ? How I longed to hear ; , soft grating oi her keel-plate ugainst a sandy beach ! As I clutched the bridge-rails grim-. ]y till my lingers vere stiff and numb I knew that I was a ru'ined man. My master's papers were so much waste; my qualifications counted for nought. But could v,c gain the beach ? We did. Inside ten minutes she had fixed her nose firmly in a sandy cove, and her rapidly settling stern had found something solid to rest upon. Those tsn minutes, I suppose, were ten of the bitterest of my life. As I tried mechanically to pierce the thick green wall of fog ahead, I tried to realise that I was ruined. As the smooth waters gliding past came up closer and closer, the sentence kept hammering itself into my brain. "This is the last time you'll walk a bridge." Twenty years of knocking about the sea had brought me a de-_ cent job, that might lead to other things. Now it was gone, and the chances were bitterly big that I would never have another. I put up the best light I could at the inquiry ; but not a man in the crowd there was curious as regards the result. They knew it as well as I did. I see every inch of the scene again, down to the bowl of flowers on the desk of' the police magistrate, whose pallor and pince-nez showed queeriy against the rugged brown of the two assessors who sat on either side. Hour after hour question and answer flowed on. Yes, my compass was in order. Yes, I had been going at half speed. Yes I had been taking soundings. I had taken one only ten minutes before she struck, and found nothing. I had been on the point of taking another. "Very unfortunate," was the magistrate's curt comment. "Very,," I answered grimly. ,The reason I had not been taking my soundings constantly ? Well, I had been quite convinced I was several miles off shore. I had laid a course three miles further out than tha usual one, because of the fog. My reason for being convinced ? Five minutes before she struck I had heard the l'ar-a!\vay tinkle of a hell, which I had taken for the fog-signal of a sailing ship at anchor at least a mile off the port bow, the landward side. The evidence showed that the bell I had heard could only be the bell of a village church. The assessors looked thoughtful. They knew something of the tricks that fog plays wiU sound. I took it all stoically, and poliiely helped the three of them to play out the* game the Board of Trade had ordered we should play. The inevitable end came. The Court had reached. th« conclusion that Captain had not navigated his ship with proper and seaman like care. His certificate was hereby suspended for six months. Six months 0 r for ever—what did it matter, or what has any captain ever found it matter ? I was branded for life.—"Answers."