RESCUE AT SEA.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1921, Page 9

RESCUE AT SEA.

HOW THE INCA WAS SAVED. A THRILLING STORY. CAPTAIN AND DONKEYMAN. Safe in harbor, lying battered, and dismantled at. Chowder, the schooner Inca has been towed home, a tribute to the magnificent seamanship and unremitting toil of the Cosmos’ captain and his crew, says a Sydney paper o< December 18. It is quite a stirring story of the sea and the sea’s masters. The Inca struck the great storm while nearing port, and, hove-to, with a heavy cargo of redwood, attempted to ride out the gale. She is, or was, a five masted schooner—for now all that she shows in the way of masts are three stumps with broken ends, the foremast, main and spanker mast. And all that is left in •’the way of sails are the torn ribbons of a sail on the mainmast. Rigging has all gone, swept overboard when the deck cargo got loose; and in the carrying away of the rigging the two masts and the rest of the other two masts were snapped off. The Inca was riding out the big gale, apparently all snug, when Captain Winther learnt that she was leaking badlyHe ordered first one pump, and then the second, to be started; but within 15 minutes the diptain’s wife rushed from her cabin on to the deck. The water had risen so rapidly that her cabin was flooded, and in her escape with the baby, a boy 10 months old, she had not had time oven to put on a pair of stockings. Then with the logs on the deck getting loose disaster came. The schooner could not sink, owing to the cargo of timber she was carrying; but the loose timber swept the masts overboard and dismantled the ship. It was these Iwo floating masts that ■were sighted by the Cosmos, the first sign of a wreck.

HEROIC CAPTAIN'S WIFE. Unnavigable and with the • decks awash, the Inca lay helpless far from land. The weather was bad and the seas were breaking over the apparently doomed vessel. The donkey engine forward was under water, and it was impossible to reach the bow. The crew huddled aft on the poop for two days, and as the water was feet deep in the captain's quarters ho fixed up some boards at the top of the gangway for his wife and child to sleep on.

.‘Vll through these dreadful days'Mrs. Winther, in the words of Louis Ross, the donkeyman, was ‘‘the bravest of the brave.” and as for the child, playing delightedly with the water around him, the donkeyman, called him enthusiastically '‘a brave little devil! Why, he never cried!”

Hope had to be sought for the derelict. Captain Winther made a difficult decision- lie got the lifeboat out. provisioned her, and ordered the crew to embark. Into the lifeboat ho put his wife and child, without a word. AH on board thought that the captain was coming with them. Rut as the captain waited nn the poop Louis Ross, tlio donkeyman. learnt that the captain was not going to leave his ship. DONKEYS [AN STICKS TO SHIP. “Ain’t nobody goin’ to stay with you, captain?” he asked. “You’ll be lonely, won’t you?” No answer from the captain. The donkeyman remarked that if the ship was good enough for the captain it would do him. So the lifeboat put off to seek for help in a lonely, storm-tossed ocean. There wore no farewells between the captain and his wife. Just a wave of the hand as the lifeboat sot out. Would he ever see her again?" Still, his duty was to stick to his ship. Ho had done all he couldIt was lonely for those two men on the ship. There was only one place where they could live, for the schooner was practically under water. It was in the small boat at the stern of the ship that the captain and the donkeyman lived till they reached harbor. Ten days on board a wreck! The men on the Cosmos are proud of those two, so proud that when the Cosmos anchored alongside the Inca in Tort Jackson and the two dishevelled and grimy and unshaven men came aboard, the whole crew of the Cosmos was there to welcome tfiem with a mighty cheer. “They stuck it like heroes!” is the Cosmos’ unanimous opinion.

LONG- AND DANGEROUS TOW. The Cosmos picked up the derelict late in the afternoon, and it was half-past five before she reached her prize. There were no signals flying from tlje wreck. “There wasn't any need for any signal,'* said a Cosmos officer. “Her masts and her waterlogged condition were all the signals she needed.” “She looked like a U-boat awash,” said oqo of the officers, “with three periscopes.” As the Cosmos was standing in to the wreck she had to sheer off, and the two men on board, thinking she was going to desert them, waved furiously. Captain Martin, of the Cosmos, megaphoned his intention to stand by. There was a heavy sea running, and little could be seen of the Inca, so deep in the water was she. But Captain Martin manoeuvred his ship brilliantly close enough for an officer to throw a rope aboard the Inca. Then the Inca's anchor cable was got on board, and the long and dangerous tow began.

The chief officer and four of the crew went on board to help, and their position was not a pleasant one. As the tow started the seas swept clean over the whole length of the Inca, as if she was a submarine. There was no bread on board, but a parcel of food was soon sent across.

It was a terrible job for the Cosmos. There were nights when the engineer) with their hands on the throttle, expected every moment that the cable would part Night and day the firemen, engineers, officers, and crow toiled, sticking to what looked like a forlorn hope. If once the line had panted all hope o f picking up the Inca would be gone. The last day Lhe Cosmos steamed the full 24 hours without making any progress. The waves were covered with oil to save the lives of the men on the wreck. When within sight of port the Cosmos refused to give up her prize to a tug. THE CAPTAIN JAZZES. I Captain Winther was worried not so much about his ship as about the fate of . the lifeboat containing his wife and i baby. But he was not a man to show inis feelings. The ne:;t day Captain Martin rushed out on deck from the wireless cabin, all 'the length of the ship, and with la, megaphone informed Captain Winther

that his family had been picked up. Then. Captain Wintlier’s reserve gave way. ‘■He did a sailor’s hornpipe all around the poop!” said one of the Cosmos’ officers. “No,” said another, “it was more like a jazZ.” And he roared back through his megaphone: “Its worth more than a million; dollars to me!”