FIERCE ATLANTIC GALE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3621, 2 April 1927, Page 1

FIERCE ATLANTIC GALE

FIGHTING DEATH ON A SEA TRAMP.

A Bermondsey woman committed suicide because she could not bear to think of the hardships her husband, a ship’s fireman, had to endure at sea. She had tried in vain, it was stated at the inquest, to persuade him not to go on his last voyage. Life is always hard at sea, but it has been particularly so in the weather encountered in the North Atlantic recently. Huge liners like the Berengaria have reported passengers injured and much material damage, but the public does 'not hear of the terrible experiences of the smaller vessels, such as cargo tramps, the crews of which are reluctant to talk of what are ordinary occurrences once they are safe ashore. WORN-OUT ENGINES. A representative of the Sunday News endeavoured to get a fireman engaged on a 2000-ton vessel that had arrived in the Thames from America to describe his adventures. It was difficult- to persuade him to expand. For five days, lie said, they had struggled through fearful seas, the ship dancing like a mad thing at the mercy of the waves, the stokers driven to the limit of their powers to obtain sufficient steam for the worn-out engines. They never managed to get more than six knots out of the vessel.

They got their own hot water from the engine-room, but otherwise of cooked food they had none, for the galley fire was swamped. To lose their foothold on the slippery plates meant terrible injury and possible death. If the ship failed to weather the storm they would be caught like rats in u trap.

They did not think about that, however. Their job was to keep the tires going, and they found tiifte to pity the man on deck. “Ask Bill there,” said this modest stoker. “He was in it.”

“Bit of a blow it was,” said Bill, a deck hand. “Don’t call me a liar if I fell you the waves were a hundred feet high. Perhaps they weren't —but they seemed like it.

“One of the lifeboats were smashed, hut that didn’t matter much, because we shouldn’t have had much chance to take to them if the old tub had gone. If there was a dry spot in the focstle I didn’t find it.

“We had plenty of biscuits and some tinned stuff now and then, with a cup of tea thrown in for a treat, but the doctor (the ship’s cook) couldn’t keep the galley working.

“Last voyage my mate got his arm broken because he didn’t hang on hard enough. We’d been nine hours on deck, and I reckon he was tired. We shipped a big sea and it banged him up against a stanchion. Ilis arm snapped like a batten. SKIPPER—AND SURGEON.

“The skipper tixed him. Good as any doctor, our old man. Gave Joe a full tumbler of neat grog, and before he’d lost the kick of it the arm was set and the splints on. Had to lay off that voyage, of course, but he’s tit again now. They didn’t even have to reset it at -the hospital.” “When will you sail again?” asked the Sunday News representative of the stoker.

“When my money’s gone —in about ten days,” he answered. “Don’t you ever want to get away from it?” “What else would I do? It’s not a had life taken full and bye —and you get a good time ashore?” “But the danger?”

“I’m not a passenger,” he replied, expressively.