THE HATEFUL WATER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1279, 1 August 1914, Page 4

THE HATEFUL WATER.

EMPRESS OF IRELAND DISASTER. “Like a pago from Joseph Conrad” is the description given by tlie Londo.n Morning Post correspondent to a despatch from Quebec in a Washington paper: Here in the lobby of Chateau Frontenac, and old man was pacing up and down at 7 o clock this morning, coilarlesa hutless, and restless. He is one of the survivors of the Empress of Ireland, a sort of ancient mariner. Ha refuses his name, but he talks about the disaster. It is curious information, given iu jerky sentences with a sudden impetuous rusn of words, and then sudden silence as he paces up and down the floor. “Name i” ho snaps. ‘T don’t want my name in papers. What are names in view of eternity ? I don’t need a name. lam just a soul, like the thousands that went under. I was aboard in the second cabin, going homo to see Tom. Tom is—never mind Tom. I didn’t sloop; it was tapiocS; in tlie second class. Tapioca is indigestible, but I ate it. It gave me a pain in the stomach, and I couldn’t get past aheepcounting. I was counting when it happened.” “But the story, sir? —how did it happen?” A PRETTY SHIP. “I was counting. The ship was as still as a dish on a shelf. I was lying next the outer wall of the cabin, where I could hear, tlie engines beating sleepily down below. I could hear the quiet splashing of water from the bow, and every little while a sort of crash as a bigger wave rose and hit her on the nose. She was a pretty ship. There was a little motion, a little heave now and again, but nothing else. “In the evening I had been reading my Testament in the music-room of the second class. There was some singing going on, but it never disturbs. I was reading about our Lord in the Garden, but I was thinking about the noises of the ship, quiet, sleepy noises, dreamy far-away noises that should have put me to sleep. “Just when I was sort of slipping down into a dose there was a bump —it did not seem to me a very bad bump—then a crash, and things began tearing. The steel seemed to bond and twist under my hand as I touched the cabin wall getting out of the bunk. A SHRIEKING NOISE. “It made a shrieking noise. I did not wait for anything. I ran out, and before I reached the stairs the floor seemed to drop under mo, and, instead of being level, sloped under my feet like a hill. 1 ©'ould hear a tremendous sweep of wind. Iho air of the ship came up from below as the water rushed in. I scrambled up the tilting floor, and reached the balustrade of the companionway. “There was a sudden sort of glug like water coming out of a near empty bottle. She twisted again, and the stairs were at a crazy angle, but I scrambled up. I take dumb-bell exercise every morning ot my life, I do, and I got up somehow to the level of the saloon deck. I went like mad, UP THE SLOPING SIDE. “I scrambled up the, sloping floor to the high side; I knew by instinct that there would be rising water on tlie other side, and I got on deck. She began to turn over like when you see a horse rolling m a field. Her great big whitish looking belly slowly turning upward, and I jumped far, because as sho slowed over her length ot side.increased. Then I was in the water. The old man suddenly stopped. lye talked enough,” ho snapped, rubbing the back ot his hand against his cheek. Iyo blabbed like a fool; no fool like an old fool. What did I do? Swam. Erer swim for your life? 1 did once in a nunFell in. Near drowned. My father licked me. Eh? What did I do? Swans. I’m the best swimmer in our town.” “JUST GREYNESS.” His face suddenly went grave, then whitened, and he hurried to a chair near at hand. “I »aw,” he said, I saw just greyness, greyness, greyness, ami that damned water lapping by like a fool dog that has ruined a ilowor-bed and then stands sniffing at it, wondering what made things look so untidy. I never hated water so in my life before. It didn t seem wicked or vicious or menacing or cruel, but just foolish, like an idiot fooling wfth a double-barrelled shotgun and happing around and laughing about it. “There was a bit of wind, and there was a bit of soa, and it sopped up and down sort ot care-free and aimless, as though to sav, ‘Oh, aoe wliat I done. Am t I awful. At first I swam because I was excited and had lost my head. Then I floated and got my wind. Then I shouted iha wind just snickered around and I began to prepare to meet my Maker, but it was willed for me to be spared. I was picked up by a lifeboat, a big Swede dragged me