HE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HIS THRILLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 508, 10 November 1928, Page 26

HE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HIS THRILLS

South Pole Jaunt with Byrd Only Another Chapter in Thrilling Life of Charles McGuinness

1 heard the pit-pat-pat of his fret a.td teas afraid to swing around. ■HEN the first mate of the [ flagship New York, o£ j the Byrd Antarctic Ex- j pedition, crawls into his tent at night on the polar wastes and the crackling of the ice croons him to sleep, he hopes for the first time in his adventurous life to find peace. “I've been in gaols in many parts of the world and I've got charges held agaisnt me in many different languages,” said Charles J. McGuinness before the New York slipped out of her Hoboken wharf and stood off for the South Pole recently, “but I ought to be able to keep out of trouble down below. Nothing can happen to me there and I should have a pleasant and interesting time. McGuinness is a Conrad rover come to life. Only 35 years old, his twinkling blue eyes and jaunty face have crowded more excitement into the last twenty years than an army of average men see in a lifetime. "I ran away from home,” he said, picking up the course of his adventures at the beginning, “and went to sea. I was 15 and my father had been a sea captain. I was born in Londonderry and my folks wanted me to •have a bit of education, but I bolted my first year in college. “The sinking of the Puritan was my first shipwreck. I had seen the usual life of a seaman, shipping from one vessel to another, and we were in the South Seas. After seven days afloat we were picked up and taken to Tahiti. “I picked up a job with a pearl fisher, got to China and sailed a junk from Hong-Kong to Shanghai, delivering it to the purchaser. When I got home after signing on another ship, the war had broken out, and there was nothing to do but join the British Navy. “The gun crew I was in on the destroyer rode around the Channel and the North Seat potting at the Kaiser’s submarines and shelling shore batteries, so I transferred to a ship going down to clean up the German colonies In Africa.

“I was with a landing party which had several skirmishes with the Germans, and I was shot in the right leg and All sorts of privileges were permitted me because I was an Irishman, and when I got well enough I walked off into the veldt with a gun and trekked 200 miles to a settlement. “Wild animals bothered me a bit when I slept out in the open at night, hut the only real danger I had was a leopard who followed me. I heard the pat-pat-pat of his feet, and I was afraid to swing around because he might be able to make the distance faster than I could get a bead on him. Evidently we both had funk, for he gave up trailing me and I lost him. “After that I signed to take a tugboat from Durban to Zanzibar for the Portuguese Government. She was

called the Vasco de Gama. We ran into a storm and she foundered—sank like a stone. “Well, then I sailed on squareriggers for a bit and finally wound up in China. The lettei-s from home said that Ireland’ was in trouble, so I came home to join in the war. “In the Irish Republican Army I was givet; command of one flying column and then a second, and finally it was a brigade. It was all guerilla fighting

After seven days afloat ice were picked up and taken to Tahiti. and I was a brigadier-general—those titles were easy to take. “The country people protected us and we had our hideouts in the hills. We used motor or lorries as the need arose, and when we had confiscated a car we left it in the road after the job was done. “On one occasion I dug myself Into a little pile of sand and was blazing at the Black and Tans when they surrounded me. I didn’t have any luck with the rifle, and a bullet ricocheted off my rifle and went right through my hand. “Capture me? Sure they did. I was taken to Londonderry Prison and sentenced to death. But after I had been there ten days I escaped. “Well, after an exciting time, gunrunning, in which I ran four ships and thought that every trip would be my last, I went to New York, and the Chinese representative of General Chiang Kai-Shek, commander of the Cantonese Army, thought he might be interested in my business. But he went over to the other side and I wasn’t needed.” “Haven’t you had enough excitement? Didn’t you ever get tired of putting yourself in constant peril and want a home and a family?” he was asked. “I have a family,” replied McGuinness, his voice for the first time losing its even tone. “I was married to a Russian woman in Vienna. I have a boy past three and I’m devoted to them. “But I can’t stand the grind of civilised life. Suppose I stuck a commonplace job. What memory of his dad is that to give to a boy? When I’m home I’m restless to get somewhere where there might be something stirring to be done.” McGuinness is the official diver with the expedition. He picked up knowledge of this craft during his voyage in the pearl fisheries and while in the service of the British Navy. If the propeller fouls in the broken ice, it will be his job to drop into the Antarctic waters and survey and repair such damage as has been done.