“Black Cat on Your Rudder Captain!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 26

“Black Cat on Your Rudder Captain!”

(Written for THE SUN by WILL LAWSON)

■ IIR weather attended the | voyage of the Jervis Bay from Sydney to Fremantle last month. Glassy calms or gentle breezes sped her on her way, and when her commander, Captain W. R. Chaplin, was asked for an explanation of this marvellous placidity, prevailing even in the tempestuous Bight, he said: “I think it was because we saved the ship’s cat from a watery grave.” When the Jervis Bay -was ready to sail from the wharf at Walsh Bay, Peter, a black cat belonging to the

type of animal in Europe, Asia and Africa. Again, South America has a parrot which is a close relative of the New Zealand kea. The expedition plans to sail for the Antarctic about next September—in a 17,000-ton ship not built for ice conditions and which will winter in New Zealand or Tasmania—prepared to remain a year and a half. On its coast, somewhere on the Shore of Ross Sea, possibly at Discovery Bay, where Amundsen had his base, but more likely on the Bay of Whales, it will establish a unique little city such as the world has never seen. This tiny, but, for the .time, important, municipality will have buildings of the latest temperature-resisting construction, lighted by electricity and heated by oil or coal. It will have telephones for intercommunication and be fully in touch with the rest of humanity by radio. For transport, airplanes are by no means the sole dependence; there will be American endless-tread tractors with special snow treads to haul planes about and draw trains of sledges. The latest metal and woodworking machinery will be in its machine shops and its storehouses will be replete with extia parts. Gasoline engines are to furnish its power similar to those which will drive the portable dynamos that generate the community’s electric current. Roughing it is, of course, the lot of adventurers at either pole, but these will have their lot made more tolerable by all science or human genius can do. A large assembly room in one of the main buildings will have a fine library of late and standard fiction and reference works, many games, a phonograph or two with hundreds of records, a portable organ and other musical instruments, a stereopticon with a wealth of slides, motion-picture projectors, and much besides. The radio station will be a feature of the little city. Experts have built for it the latest model in sending sets using a short wavelength of 40 metres and are confident this will maintain communication with the United States Another sending set on a much longer wavelength will easily reach out 1,500 to 2,000 miles. There will be several receiving sets. Nothing that the expedition’s leader or his aides can think of which would make for human safety or simple welfare will be overlooked, and by a year from now very Interesting news should come out of the Antarctic.

ship, fell (or was pushed) overboard, on the side away from the wharf, but nobody knew of the casualty till the master of the tug St. Hilary, which hauled the Jervis Bay’s stern round, ran alongside and shouted, “Captain, there’s a black cat on yu’ rudda’.” Pilot Charles Hill sometimes known as “Twin-Screw Charlie”—was taking the Jervis Bay to sea. He and the captain exchanged bewildered glances. They agreed, however, that, with there ship under way in narrow waters, they could not stop then. So Peter, the cat, had a joy ride down the harbour on the rudder. Discussing the cat problem, the navi-

gators figured it out, that Peter had scrambled out of the water on to the pintle or hinge of the rudder and was riding on that. He must have had a wet time when the ship was backing out with propellers at full speed, they thought. But Peter had been cleverer than they imagined. For he had jumped from the pintle to the collar connecting rudder and rudder post, and from that position had a safe trip to the Heads, with ample space to move about, though his alarm must have been great, for the ship was moving fast and her propellers thundering. As Pilot Hill shook hands in farewell with Captain Chaplin, the latter said: “You might get that cat off the rudder. I’ll send a sack down for you to put her in. It would be bad luck to drown a black cat.” The engines were stopped whle the pilot boat pushed in, above the propeller, and rescued Peter, who mewed his thanks. And then the Jervis Bay started out on what must surely be her luckiest voyage.