Show ad W adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF 1 ten terrible seconds H ELLO EVERYBODY this is a yarn about a couple of ropes the yarn well its told by herman R wallin of brooklyn N Y herman Is supposed to be the adventurer and principal character in it but somehow or other the ropes managed to take over the story one of those ropes chisels into this story solely on the strength of the fact that it well that it just if we mentioned it here its only to post it as A W 0 L at a time when it was needed for guard duty the other rope comes in at the crucial point in our story like the hero of the old ten twenty thirty melodrama it shows up in the nick of time to right the wrong the other rope has done and prove to the world that though some ropes may be low down and onery there are good ropes as well as bad and now that ive told you the plot of little drama lets bring in herman wallin and on with the show today herman is a radio operator on the S S birkenhead but this adventure happened in jul july 1926 when herman was occupying the radio shack of the S S cornelia plying b between new york and the west indies the cornelia was almost at the end of her out trip just two or three hours run from the first of the tropical island ports at which she was due to call hermans radio shack located on after part of boat deck it was a dark night and herman was on the lower deck making his way up to the boat deck where his room was located and well before we so go any farther with this yarn well have to tell you something about the way the S S cornelia was constructed ted suppose we let herman do that himself my radio shack herman says was on the after part of the boat deck the only quarters located on this part of the ship A few feet away from my room on either side of the chaok were davits for two lifeboats which had been removed since the members of the crew als he went through an open space between the two boat davits and walked overboard seldom came up on this deck and then in the daytime only no ropes had been stretched across the openings between the davits and there you have not only the layout of hermans seagoing sea going penthouse but also the lowdown on that rope that just there that missing rope was quite a problem you tou know they dont have any open lights on the top deck of a ship because they interfere with the vision of the officer on watch up on the bridge on nights when there any moon herman used to have to watch his step pretty carefully usually he would start walking from the ladder in a straight line counting out the number of S steps it required to get to his door but on this particular night he be paused half way in his course and looked back lots wife was turned into a pillar of salt for stopping and looking back herman just sort of lost his bearings but that was almost as bad when he started out again he was going the wrong way in the dark he was still counting steps when all of a sudden he went through an open space between two boat davits and walked overboard and then came the ten terrible seconds and then came those ten terrible seconds the worst moments in hermans life it felt as if time had been slowed down like one of those slow motion movies seemed as though that dive from the top deck was taking a year herman can still count over every one of those seconds can still remember how the lights of the lower deck went crawling past him as he fen fell one of his bis arms grazed the rail of the lower deck as he went by and through his mind hashed flashed the thought that that rail was the last thing be could possibly have caught hold bold of below him now were only the smooth steel plates of the ships side straight down to the water line herman thought of the propel propeller loi threshing the water at the ships stem and remembered hearing that anyone falling overboard close to the side inevitably gets sucked into the vortex of the churning water and chopped to mincemeat the water was coming up at him now he could see sec it gleaming dully beneath him and he braced himself for the shock of hitting it then suddenly his left arm hit something hit it with a sharp stinging blow that bent it double and almost took hermans breath away herman know what it was but instinctively he made a grab for it ile he caught it and his hand skidded several yards along a wet slimy surface before lie be realized what it was A rope A missing rope had gotten him Jw into othis this spot in the first place another one a rope that was very much present seemed to be helping him out of it his feet were dragging in the water when he stopped herman clutched at that rope until he thought his arm would come off my feet were dragging in the water as I 1 came to a stop it he says and the tug of the water added to the strain on my hands I 1 heard faint shouts above me the engine room telegraph rang and I 1 could feel the side of the ship shuddering as though it had hit some obstruction st in the water then I 1 could see heads thrust out over the deck rall rail and several voices were calling to me to hang on A couple of men sitting on the lower deck had seen me flash by and had shouted to the officer on watch to stop the ship A rope ladder came over the side and a deckhand deckhard deck hand came down to help herman back aboard when I 1 reached the deck he says 1 I was so W weak eak with fright that I 1 stand up they took me to a stateroom and put me in a bunk outside of a few bruises and a pair of skinned hands I 1 was as good as ever in a few hours but I 1 saw to it next day that a couple of lines w were ere stretched between those hose empty boat davits and in case youre wondering what that other rope was doing hanging over the side of the ship heres herman with the answer it was what is known kanom as the guest line he says its a heavy rope put over the side near the waters edge and used to tie small boats and launches near the gangway gang way the ship was approaching the first of our tropical irown di ports f and this line had been put 0 out ut only a few hours before released by west western 0 newspaper union |