Show NARROW ESCAPES men of wars men become callous to danger and just now in any room of the navy department you can hear stories of accidents and carelessness and narrow escapes from death and destruction truc tion that chill the blood of a lay I 1 man who is not in the habit of tooling fooling with torpedoes guncotton gun cotton and taftt kind of toys judging the maine toy by what has happened on other ah phlp you can see a thousand ways in wm which n an explosion might have occurred A veteran officer relates what he calta calls a little incident to show the nerve of an apprentice boy A division of tim the crew of one of the battleships waa overhauling the after magazine OW one day breaking out fixed ammunition cans of powder and guncotton gun cotton and cleaning house as it were under the direction of a lieutenant and a gunners mate the latter stood leaning over the hatch singing out ovder orders to th the men in the magazine when he be ao 90 cl ci dentally knocked his lautem lantern the steel side of the ahmat hatchway the spring that held the lamp gave way and it fell into the pit bottom side UV up and still burning upon thetos of a large tin can of powder the mon men in the 00 pit were busy stowing with their bada turned and did not see the skol accident dent the lieutenant the gunners mate and others who were looking over the hatch were stupefied with horror but fortunately for that shiland shi its crew of men an apprentice boy had his wit with him and quicker than you can ter ten it shinned chinned shi nned down the tackle selled seised the lamp extinguished the flame with his fingers grabbed the heated can of powder in his arms and sang out yon rou lubbers haul me and this here can to the deck d quick two jerks upon a rope lifted the boy and his dangerous danger oun burden to the deck and IV in an instant he had cast it over the side into the sea the commanding officer did not complain of the loss of that powder and the boy now wears the sword of 0 a gunners mate r it was only the other day said an officer yesterday that another gunners mate by a bit of aw swift I 1 ft head and hand work saved one of th the e battle ships of th the e north atlantic squadron which is now cruising around key west from an awful peril in ili which it was placed by sheer carelessness the ship was engaged in big gun Prat practice tift at sea and solid shot were being fired from the main battery the Cu gunners mate referred to was stationed in the conning tower with the skipper one of the big guns was I 1 loaded with a solid ahot shot and the skipper was wag about to press the electrical button held in 1 his hand when the boy noticed that the breech of the sun gun was not locked jre he might have let loose a yell of warning that would have startled the skipper and caused a contraction of the muscles of the hand that would have pressed the button and dis charged the gun but he had too much sense for that he did not utter a sound but with a quick duick spring he affixed the electric wire and broke it with his hands thus cutting the cir cult then he sunk on the floor of thes conning tower without a bit of blood itt in his face and as weak as a kitten the skipper thought he had fallen ft in a faint or had gone crazy but the boy recovered himself in a moment and d explained how near the cap had come to raking his own deck with a solid shot if that gun had been fired very little of the ship would havis hav libben been left and or men or more including the captain would have gone wf va the list of casualties |