PRESENCE OF MIND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2719, 14 December 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

PRESENCE OF MIND.

Di'fukc Lord Kxmonth'n attack on the batteries of Algiers, in 181G, the Algerinus used a groat uumber of red-hot shot, particularly in the early part of the action. Ou board bis Mr-My',-i bomb Infernal, one of thsi>e comfortable articles came in thrmgli 'iVii 11 i.i the purser's cabin, in the after cockpit; and. having buudled a shelf full of books ou the top of the assistantsurgeon, Jones, who was in the purser's cot, given over with the Gibraltar fever, it rolled across into the opposite cabin, and was there got into n bucket of water by the gunner and some others stationed near the spot. This interesting amusement was but just concluded when tho men in the magazine, the door to which was close by, heard a desperate smash among the powder barrels, and were almost covered with a elond of loose dust aud powder, which was thrown all over them. Knowing the business which employed the gunner in the cockpit, but just the moment before, they naturally enough, in the confusion of the momcut, called out to him, " A red hot shot in the magazine !'' and were rushing out of it to circulate wider the same cry, should their acquaintance permit them. The ill consequeuces of this may bo easily imagined, the only chance for any one ou such an occasion being to jump at once overboard. The gunner in an instant saw that if the cry was false it was folly to spread it, and, if true, it was useless. He flew to the magazine, shoved the fellows back into it, aud turned the key on them, aud stood there, with his hand ou the lock, till lie knew all dauger must be past; rather a queerish position, gentle reader! The chaps were afterwards a little laughed at; for, strange to say, wc could not liud this intruder on their equanimity of temper anywhere; and many doubted at last if any shot had come into it at all. To be sure there were the broken barrels and the spilled powder in favour of the narrators of the story ; but this seemed still not to fully convince ; for even the worst of dangers generally get laughed at when they are over, by our happy-go-iucky sous of Neptune. When, however, she came to return her powder into store, after arriving in the Thames, the mystery was solved ; it was then found that the said shot had gone through four barrels of powder, and lodged itself very comfortably in the middle of a fifth. The gunner's name was Coombs ; and the last time I saw this man, who had shown such an unexampled presence of mind, was in 1524 ; he was then mending shoes in a solitary room in the back lanes of Deptford, to help out a precarious existence.— United .Service Journal.