THE WAIFS of the LA PLATA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 67, 19 March 1875, Page 2

THE WAIFS of the LA PLATA.

A most graphic description of the sufferings of two of the survivors from ibis ship, which foundered at sea, is* given by the special reporter of the London Daily Neivs. Occupying, as it does, sis columns of that paper, we cannot publish it iv full, but will give extracts from the conversation held by the. reporter with the men Lament the boatswain, and Hooper the quartermaster, merely prefacing them with a few of his introductory remarks, which are necessary to render the narrative intelligible :— " I heard very much from them, he saye, of the most touchingly pathetic interest; told always with a simplicity and modesty which filled me with admiration. But if a conseculive narra- . tive of their experiences ia expected from me, I must at once proclaim thajx I am unable to compose any such narrative. Thbir story came from them piecemeal, and with much involution and interpolation. Ever and anon the conversation was interrupted by an access of their rheumatic agony caused by exposure, when they writhed and groaned while the beads of perspiration dropped from their faces. It was

necessary for me to drop the pen and to rub their feet and legs, from which the covering had been drawn off spasmodically because of the fierce intensity of the pain. After an interval of chafing, the agony wonld gradually abate, and then the story would be fitfully recommenced, interrupted by stray twinges and sharp exclamations ofpain. Nor wae it possible for the reporter to be altogether master of himself as ho listened, often with a lump in the throat and water in the eyes, to a recital which was full of bo much touching pathos, so much quiet unassuming gallantry, so much heroism of mutual devotion, so much Bturdy British endurance!" We willlnovy take up the narrative at the poinlwrfich relates to the sinking of the ship. It is Lamont who is speaking: — \ "At thia time the ship was settling down fast, and the deck abaft was under w&ter. The other boat— that ou the port side— was by this time afloat, left on the surface as the deck went under water. She floated clear handsomely. I hailed her from the mizeo riggiug, but they called 'No I ' back to me. Down went the mast under water — this was the ship sinking, and down I went too. I had let go the ringing, but was sucked down in the vortex. I went down a good w«y — no, I don't know how far; but this I kuow, that I was gaping and swallowing sea water. I saw sdtraebpdy above me in the water, nnd pufto'ufmy hand I to clutch him; but on secpffd thoughts left him aloof, and took my chance by myself. Up I came again, alone. The first thing I saw was a life buoy floating about. 1 got bold of that, and put it on over my head, and theu I caught a grip of a floating topgalluntmast, and rode ei\sy. Juafc ihen I Baw the quartermnßter— Hooper, there — clinging to a spar. 'How goes it, quartermaster?' I cried. ' Oh, I don't kuow; I cnn't hold on much longer,' he replied. Just then I saw one of the air-rafts which we had inflated in the morning floating, and I cried, 'Oh my God, quartermaster, there's one of them rafts coming towards you! Look out behind you aud catch it, nnd then hold on, and I'll join you.' He cast loose and swam a few yarrls to the raft, and got hold of it; and I followed him to it at once. •This brings me down to the time \j reached the raft." It was not until theu that Lnmon and Hooper h^d^conamon fortunes, andY Hooper's experienfc^g^rsWK to this tifne have now to be chrontisjecn f» Hooper — "I had beed on^the sick list, and the doctor had told me not to go on deck. But let me begin at the beginning. This was my first voyage in the La Plata, and I should never have gone ns her quartermaster, for I am a passed mate, although my certificates are now at the bottom of the sea.

(For continuation see fourth page.}

This is the fourth time I have been slip wrecked; once before I came into Southampton for all (he world as I am doing now. * * * * Now about tt}> self, I was at the wheel, when oloee on twelve o'clock the mate came to me and said, 'You'd bettor leave the wheel; it's every man for himself now.' I first went to the raft lying on the briiiuo, which thn doctor and one ol the tflegiHph men were siamiirj<; by; but I saw there was no chance of iS going cleur as it stood, so I gave them a hami to launch it to winlward. Then I still thought there was no el ance thero, co I left the bridge and went >>f>, and got into the bout which Lamant and his crew had got ready — the fctarboard boat. Just as I got in a sea broke over her and smashed her in two, and I fell through ihe middle of her right into the eea. I had a htird struggle to come 1 to the surface, and when I did, I found I had been carried down by the suction of the foundering hull, and that t!>'e mizzen rigging was following the hull, and coming right down a-top of me. Some one Bang out, ' Look out for the rigging,' tnd before I had tioao to swim away the rigging caught me across the back, end took me down a second time. I went down a long way this time, till I could hold my breath no longer, and then I had to swallow the salt water. At last I found myself drifting clear of the rigging and coming up to the surface I came right up under a (opgallant yard, and cut my head open on one of the bolts of it. I clung to the Epar, and, looking round, I saw the boatswain not far from me. He said just what he has told you, and thnt brings you down to our getting on the raft. When I rcaclred it^, found thnt both the air tubes were soundY although not fully inflated. We sat on), the best inflated one, pressing our kuees against the other, with our feet down on the canvas connecting them. The /rampwot k air raft was bottom up. We had nothing to hold on by, and were continually under water up to the waist, with the seas breaking over our heads every now and then. Once I took my leg out of the water and. stretched it on the air cone opposite to me ; but it soou got so cold tbat I was glad to put it under agaiD. So you see the water was like a blanket alter a sort of a way. The boat cruised abou f , they say, do they ? We know better than that,. Lnmont did see the engineers pick up two people out of the water; but when I uatne to the surface the second time ehfi was a mile and a half away, going head to wind. When we got ou the raft, we turned round, and had a good look out all ways ; but we could see nothing of her, and came to the conclusion she had gono down. * * * When we had talked thus far, we had been sitting in the hotel for some time, and some food had been got ready. While it was being enten, the conversation became what may be culled casuii), but the disconnected jottings of it have a wonderful interest of their own. Before we ate, Hooper, who had quaintly described himserf, " I'm a Devonshire dumpling, I am," told us how he had a letter already written to his little daughter dawn in Exeter, and it was urgent that he should get a Postoffice order for.^.'sovereign at once, to enclose it by way of a Christmas box for the little one. His face softened very tenderly wheu v epeuking of his only child, and she motherless; how he thought of her on the raft an«l pioyed for her, and how the faco of her came up before him in what seemed,' verily, the " valley of the shadow of death." When the fire and a cup of tsa thawed him, this black-bearded Devonshire turned out to be full of {unexpected flashes of racy humor. He lias a middle-aged sweetheart, it seems, dowo in Devon, whom he has been courting for ever so leng; and it was in a funny dreamy way, with a twinkle of tbe eye, that he remarked, half to himself, l 'tt expect my noor old girl thought sne had lost her intended!' 1 It was a curious mixture of comedy and tragedy, and one hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at the way in which one of them would break off iv tho middle of a joke like thie, and, dropping his bread-and-butter, would snatch up a leg to which the jain- demon had given a sudden twinge, and fall a rubbing it sedulously while tho faco was distorted with agony, an 4 thei sweat dropped from the brow. Let/ me try to reproduce some of tha fragmentary talk over the bread uni meat. / Lamont. — "I've had no sleep with the horrid pain since my first BleJp after we left the raft. I want a doctnr to put something into my poor leg a to kill the aching of them. I waken ip mad in the night time — night is always the worst. I dread it fearfully. Thin ii'a perfect misery." | Hooper. — *' Y^s, chum, and you don't forget to blackguard me in youy paiu. You call me all the names you can lay your tongue to. But its terrible agony; several times I have thought in my misery that I would rather have gone down. It was cut ions wasn't it, that I should have been caved on my birthday, the 2nd December?" Larnont. — " And it was strange, too, that the next day, the 3rd, was my birthday. I hope I'll never see another birthday at sen. I never see a little wave now that I don't feel a shudder and a coldness at roy heart. Ah, don't, go any lower, else I must shriek" — this adjuration addressed to the writer, wiio was rubbing one of hia legs. Then Lamont got back iucidently to the. shipwreck seene — "Hooper, as I • liave said, was on ihe raft first. Before

I came to him I had to swim round to look out lor'anything in the shape of oars. I picked up a pair of short sculls " "It was your fault we lost them," interpolated Hooper, with? a gftn. " D>o't bother; I got them on the raft, and we tried to pull, but as she was upside down, the more we pulled, the rnnre eho turned round and round. Aa wo rowed we kne't back to hai k on the intermedia!* caoVhS, nnd puddled as if we h«d bet^n in a canoe. I mad« the remaik, J jemember, to Hooper, ' Why, thia ie phd lie your own cai.oe with h veugeanc. !" Wo woiked away at the sculle, 6ti!l keeping this poaitiou for a time, but t»ave it up fb«* it was no use Iv the afternoon (->und»y afternoon) we sighted a 6cHQ,onerlabojut half-an-hour before sundowti; out^Svon't go on with my yarn till I've" finished revictunlliog (he ship. "Ah, rematked Hooper, contemplatively, if men over prayed, it was on board that raft." Tbat don't como in ot this point, according to the rights o' things, observed Lamoot. " It don't seem to have done you the good it ought to have done,", retorted Hooper, with a quaint wag of his black head. Lumont went on, discursively — "Tlfere was a hencoopful of dead ducks floating" about the surface, and when we were ou the spars they and the chickens kept bobbing ugaiusl^^ faces, and we were shoving them away. Lord ! how we used to talk about them dead ducks by the Tuesday we were on the raft, as we sat cuddling each other for the 6ako of heat, my head over Hooper's Bhoulder and my arms round his neck. Then we'd drop off into a kind of doze, and when we'd waken with a start we Lai most always been dreaming about food. Hooper was always thinking about that cup of te« with hia sweetheart, and .dreaming tba somebody was holding him out a cup I used to dream of tinned lobsters, '. suppose because of the case of them . smashed, to light the donkey-engin Ore ; and 1 to dream that I eav the steward serving them out." Thtu Hooper had a little innings "But wasn't it curious tbat we nevei felt either hungry or thirsty ? No, noi until we had the first mouthful on hoard the Dutchman. We had no tobacco — no nothing. Oh yes, chum, I'm wrong?, we had your m°dal of thf Shipwrecked Mariners' Society." I atked whit iv the world telatiot that bad to eating or driokiug. "Mort than you think for," replied Hooper "On the Wednesday morning, whei we thought the Dutch schooner hue gono, we felt* -dry in our mouihs wit! the fever of the an-jciety. i- o Lamon brought out his society's medal, anc we chewed away at that to make tht spittle come. It wasn't much of a breakfast for two, was it? Lot the gentleman look at if, mute' ! And at the word Lamont produced a silver medal with its edges all bitten, jigged and indented ftith tooth-marks It bad the effigy ofjNsfTlßtyi on onu side, with those fumoffs w,or^s of his — "England expecls every man to do his duty ;" and it seemed to me that the two men before me had not been unworthy of the motto or of the country of the hero of Trafalgar. Then I asked whether they talked much on the raft. Hooper — "No, very little, oub about ot frienda, and to encourage each other, and to pray aloud. Lnmont despaired sometimes. I never quite. I used to cay that God never would have kept us up so long to let us go down at last. Aud we said to one auother, ' Well, if you are saved and I die, you'll go and Bee my frieD'ls, and I'll do (he sume by you.' Aud we gavo each other the addresses of our friends."