TALES OF HEROISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 179, 21 August 1909, Page 4

TALES OF HEROISM.

NEWPORT ])OCK DISASTER. \ A BRAVE HOY'S DEED. SURGERY IN A PIT. A disastrous landslide at the Alexandra Dock extension works, Newport, Monmouthshire, on 2nd July, resulting 111 the loss of twenty lives, reported at Ihe time in our cable columns, is described at length in the English newspapers to hand by late mails. A! newspaper cm-respondent who was at the scene of the disaetci gives the following description:— Slipping and stumbling down into the hollow dock, it was the* that I began J to learn the meaning of things, and to see sights whieh stfll haunt me. I heard terrible sounds coming up ' from the pit, the groans of men in agony, faint, yet audible, a voice crying, > "Water! for iiod's sake water!" Worat of all was the whimpering of a lad whose 5 hand had Wen smashed, who lay w'th * his head close to a dead man's* body, and with his feet, which he could not move, ■ next to a living man, who was nearest • to the way of escape, yet very far away, alas! It was at this spot where the iad Jay x that I saw one of the most heroic acLs e that I have ever seen or heard of. The hero is little Tom Lewis, whos'e name must be remembered always. It was Tom, aged 16, and very small for his , size, who, among all the seven hund.'H t men, volunteered \o risk his life in ordt' 8 io give a slight chance of hope to an other hoy and to other human being g who might be near him. He not onl volunteered, but for two hours and t I half endured a strain and suffering & I terrible that the strongest man mlgi go faint at the thought. e The lad named King, -whose hand w* [ e smashed, and who lay between a dea j. man and a living one, cried "continual) for release. He even Pegged that h n hand, smashed under a heavy jois might be cut off, so that he might dragged out. But the awful truth w« that no grown man could get near hiu for he was invisible and hidden awa beneath the timber, and between tli enormous beans there was only a narro opening into which some small creatai might possibly wedge his body and I of some assistance. Who was small enough? Who wa brave enough? One Small creature vm the voluntce "Let r* •ro!" he said. "I'm not afraid Th'.s uas little Tom, a motherless la. who picks up his living at the docl This is the tale that bag been told ir by many men who now speak of hu v, ith tears in their eyes. So Tom went dawn, down, into tl dreadful place.' until he reached tt small opening into the grave of the ii< ing and the dead. He had to get into 1 head foremost, and there he hung fc two hours and a-half facing a sight m doing work almost too ghastly to di scribe, lie saw a dead ma» kefore Mr. caked inelav, and a living man in whop oozing blood he dabbled his hand, an the boy King with the smashed hand. What he had to try to do was to extr eate the boy's' hand and legs from th timber and sand and mud'in which the were, imprisoned, and to do the same fo his older comrade. Little Tom Lewi scratched and .tugged, and by ever means in his power endeavored to bcifri those! two companions in misery to help themselves. He was partially successful. At the c-nd of his two hours' work the man could move more easily, and got one hand free, but the other boy was held fast always by his crushed hand. Little Tom'was in extreme peril during evefy moment of his adventure. There wag always a danger of the piles sinking gt.il'. further by their own weight in the shifting soil. This horrible possibility became fulfilled. Tkare was a sudden sound of cracking and grinding, a workman had only just time to jump backwards to avoid being engulfed, and Tom Lewis, the boy hero, was hauled up only ifv the nick of time. After long hours of labor during the night by the gang of workmen on tne ?pot, their work was undone in a second.) ind the man and the boy sunk still j deeper into the abyss. It is an awful' thing to record that the boy disappeared utterly, and all hape has been abandoned, by his comrades and by his mother, who] .'or eighfeen hours had 6flt weeping on■ the hillside above. | But it is a joy to think that the man was rescued, and although the sound of l tis groans still curdles my blood as I '•aar them again in imagination as I, heard him when ho was brought up and; iaid upon the stretcher. 1 am consoled liv {ln knowledge that the man l ias j ivir - t-hance of r ccovery. I Wlnt must be said of little Torn' Lev,-is'/ I saw him tivr-'-iing in every j limb, caked in mud a= :'.ough he were u wizeped figure carved out of the claj*. I saw him burst into a passion of t*ars at the memory of the things ho had seen. I saw him fall back half-fainting upon . the stretcher laid out for him by kind'.v hands, and afterwards as hj? lay curled up in blankets I 6poke to him, and he told me something of what he nad witnessed 'there below. He was frightened of the dead man lying there so stfll, and whose body he had to lean upon, and the blood of living man whose face he could not see but whose voice kept talking to him, praising him and cheering him on. made his bonds all twist as he worked. He did not know any of them down there. He had not done it because they were friends of his. He just wanted to be of help somehow, but it had all been of no use, so he said to me. But if heroism is of any use in the world, then little Tom Lewis was very useful. It was touching to sec how the men crowded round about him and put their hands upon him ever *0 gently, and in l.heir rough way called him a fine lad. They have all swdrn, not without oaths, io stand by little Tom from now onwards. As I watched through the night, which seemed to last a week, until the dawn came with-a grey light which made this scene with its clay-caked incii in the midst of destruction look more ghastly than when one taw them in the weird. I flaring light gleaming in the darkness. I I was the witness of many other heaitrending incidents. In the middle of the great ditch which was once the eentre of the framework lor the ww dock a fine big fellow with a brave .and gallant heart had got hopelessly jammed. Both,his legs had b<»en smashed under an enormous joist many !ons in weight, and then, sitting upright, with his back propped against another. I beam. Mid far down in the network of unmovable timber, he waited for deliverance. Hundreds of men took shifts from 0 o'clock on the previous evening until 10 o'clock the following morning, making a desperate struggle to raise, even a few inches, this vast weight under which he lav buried. They sawed incessantly about him, cut up logs to use as props and levers, and pot a pole Mike a baltering-ram, which they used to hoist the timber. And all the time he kept calling out to them from below. He had a frightful thirst, «nd again and'agnin there were cries for water. And then, 1 seemiifg to f(vl stronger, he asked for a cigarette, and smoked it when it was handed down to him. At times he was cheerful and humorous. and shouted that he would not lose patience for a while if his "pals" did .iftt lire of the job. And the end of all this pluck and grit| was a swift and.awful death. Finding that nothing could move the joists, the doctors at lasi reluctantly decided to iftfc off both legs and release his body. The operation was performed as a forlorn hope, for the man'* strength, afiei-j eighteen hours, was ebb'nig away. The, Toctors did their uork down in the dark chasm, at the risk of their own for while, they were administering chloroform the sand kept slipping beneath them, 'water was creeping up and about ■ iheir legs, and thev could hear an awful, strain upon the beams. ThesV pitiful! d"' 'lis T hid from their own lips. The body of the brave man wa* ri>'»t>«sc»d find earried up to the good li'jht.j ' nlos! he died as he Mas beintr lifted ' f "*»'n the structure to the truck behind of the little locomotives which «lad[ been doing ambulance work. j i