THE WRECK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 16 February 1909, Page 4

THE WRECK.

THE PURSER’S STORY

Mr A. R. Thompson, purser of the Penguin, has been twice wrecked in the last iS months. He was in the ill-fated Kawatiri, which was lost last year on the Tasmanian coast, when six persons were drowned. Interviewed, he said : “ There were 60 passengers and 40 of a crew on the Penguin when she left Picton on

Friday evening. It seems to me only 27 have got ashore alive, ■ • leaving 73 as the number who have gone. I was only partly dressed when the ship struck. ' Seas were washing aboard forward as the Penguin began to go down hy the head, and all the passengers were sent aft. “ The sailors and male passengers assisted in getting out the boats. As we got these out and let the rafts adrift the ship went ■ down.

“ ‘ It’s all up now, swim for it,’ called the chief officer, and it was like diving into space, such a terrible drop we had. Eleven of us got on a raft and we had a terrible time-

“ Our legs were paralysed with cold and it was blowing bard and raining. Three times the raft turned turtle, but each time we all got back again. At last we got into the breakers and jumped for it and all got safely ashore. “Three limes I have undergone the sensation of drowning. The last I saw of the poor chief engineer was when he was untying a gangway. ‘lt might come in handy for someone to cling to,’ he said.

“ Even when ashore the survivors had an awful lime, finding it almost impossible in their exhausted state to climb the almost perpendicular cliffs. Finally the men reached McMenamin’s station and were treated most hospitably.

THE SECOND ENGINEER’S STORY.

Mr W. W. Euke, second engineer, who is the only surviving engineer, had a miraculous escape. At two minutes to xo, while on duty, he heard a grinding noise. Something seemed to have struck her forward and aft. Mr Euke . .left the ship by the first boat No 2 with about 13 or 14 women and children aboard. The boat was >. . somewhat smashed in knocking up against the ship’s side before it got clear. When they got clear away from the wreck and were heading out to sea, the seas swamped the boats. When the boat capsized he was hurled about 20 yards off. He got back on the ' upturned boat. As he scrambled up he heard a woman call out, ' “ Give me your hand,” but by the lime heiicould turn round, she was gone. The only other one who succeeded ia} regaining the boat was a young lad from Pictou and the two held on as best they could. They saw a number of bodies floating about but heard no cries and were unable to render any assistance. Several times they were washed off their boat. Great difficulty was experienced - in dragging themselves on to the boat. At last bis companion, who was growing weaker and weaker, said a last despairing ” Good-bye,” and dropped off. He went down and was not seen again. The second engineer, now the last survivor of the boat’s crew, was washed from his perch twenty or thirty times before the boat finally struck a reef and commenced to break up. Then Mr Euke commenced to swim. He was alone in the water for over an hour and a half, and had it not been that he wore a lifebelt he could never have reached laud. DEEDS OF HEROISM. “ I was the first to meet Captain Naylor on his landing at Terawhiti,” said Mr Shaw, one of the survivors, “ and having travelled a great deal across the strait I

knew him pretty well. When he got ashore I said ‘Well, what has happened ?' The skipper replied, ‘ I thought I was inside Jackson's Head, and when she struck I was putting her out to sea.’ ” This hears out Captain ■ Naylor’s own story and strengthens the theory that the current running l in the Strait on Friday night was exceptionally strong. The shocking calamity thatmarked the end of the Penguin was not without illuminating incident. Captain Naylor, on whom of all survivors the blow must hardest fall, distinguished himself by his tender care, under distressing circumstances, of the maimed steward, whom he held on the crazy wreck of a boat untill he disappeared a few yards off the shore. Another deed of heroism was the line leat of Mr Riggs-Millcr (an indent egent of Blenheim), who carried Mr A. Holcroft (a Blenheim upholsterer) on his back for about fifty yards, from one of the rafts to the shore, through a boiling surf. One who was there states that it was a magnificient act at the end of such a trying experience. “Give the stewardess all the praise you can,’’ remarked a survivor. “The way she looked after the women and children on the steamer after the boat had struck was simply wonderful. In the supreme emergency, her conduct was little short of noble in its selfeffacement and brave consideration of others.”