The Elingamite.

Manawatu Herald, 18 November 1902, Page 2

The Elingamite.

When it became known that H.M.S. Penguin was returning to Auckland with survivors from the missing raft, thousands of people awaited her arrival, eager to know who were among the saved. When the Penguin steamed*into the Waitemata, boats and launches put off in shoals, and the wharves were lined with people, among whom were many who had friends and relatives reported as missing. There was little for these anxious people to see or learn. The man-o’-war lay out in the stream, and only those privileged to board her could witness the pathetic sight of men who had suffered the agony and privations of nearly five days on a partly submerged raft, without food and without water; who had seen half of their company die before their eyes, and who had given up hope themselves.

Only ouo of the survivors. Mr Neale, was visible on deck. He sat in a wicker chair in tbs shelter of the bridge—a once strong man done almost to death by hunger and thirst and exposure. He had seen his wife and child safely into a boat soon after the Elingamite struck, and had plunged overboard and reached the

raft, which, with sixteen people on board, drifted out into that fatal fog. Fifteen men and one woman—Miss the iorecabin stewardess — were then adrift on a mere framework of boards, with two apples among them for food, one oar, one rowlock and a broken paddle with which to fight against the winds and tide that bore them from the land.

Mr Neale lay feeble and worn on the deck chair, and seven other men were lying on pallets in the chartroom, these eight being the sole survivors. The picture in that chartroom is one not easily to be forgotten. Those seven men reclined in different positions, each one showing marks of terrible sufferings—the skin burnt and blistered on their faces, their eyes bloodshot, their feet and legs too tender and raw from exposure to saltwater to bear the weight of their coverings. It was pathetic to witness the meetings between these sufferers and their old comrades. The second mate of the Elingamite stooped over the fireman Mallin, who was in an emaciated condition, and Mallin feebly asked questions as to those who were saved and those who were lost. One, so weak that he could scarcely move, a-ked eagerly for news, but the Penguin’s doctor forbade too much conversation.

The story the survivors had to tell could never be expressed in words, for they had passed through an agony too great for language. They had seen eight of’ their comrades perish —some mad through thirst, some utterly exhausted by suffering. Their experience was an example of marvellous endurance under fearful conditions, They could tell b iefiy how one after another of their comrades died, and how each death lightened the half-sunken raft. The stewardess, Miss MeGuirk, the only woman on board, died on Wednesday night, and was buried on Thursday morning. The wonder is that she lasted so long under such trying conditions. Some of those who died were not even known by name. Some, terrible to relate, died raging mad, plunging into the sea to end their sufferings All the horrors of those helpless days will never be really known. On the deck of the Penguin, lashed, was the raft which had carried the people on their terrible voyage—a structure about 12ft long by 7ffc or Bft wide, consisting of narrow wooden battens nailed between two long, round canvascovered floats. It did not take much imagination to picture the condition of sixteen people on that frail craft. They must have been half-submerged nearly all the time, and had no shelter from wind, or rain or sun. Every wave must have washed over them. Each day and night was accompanied by hunger, thirst, cold, sickness and hopelessness.