Show ikid adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE L LIKE I 1 K E Y 0 U R S E L F Fl I 1 the killer ship H HELLO ELLO EVERYBODY ive told you stories about human killers nr and ive spun you tales about animal killers this is the story of a killer ship carl L of brooklyn N Y told mo me this story it happened to him in 1902 when lie he found himself broke and out of a job in south africa and signed on a windjammer for a trip to south america the windjammer was the bark albatross which had just us I 1 drought brought a lodd of corn over from buenos aires a and nd was going back to tile the same port in ballast there it wo would uld pick up a load of wheat and return to east lond london on cape colony that suited carls plans so he sailed away one morning lit at daybreak and six weeks later after an uneventful trip the albatross entered the plata river and docked at buenos aires so far everything had gone smoothly but they lind had no sooner begun loading grain for the return trip than it became becam e evident that the albatross was none too seaworthy a craft when the sand ballast had been taken out of the hold water began coming in through the seams scams that bother the captain any to speak of ile ho just let tho the ship bettl 3 in tile mud and when the mud got into tho the seams scams and closed them up he began loading again many a sailor would have quit that ship then and there B but ut carl wanted to get back to south africa ile he stayed on for the return trip but the ship was hardly out of the river again before he began to regret it hugo huge Si swarms of rats had boarded tho the ship the weather was fair enough at tho the moment it WAS late juno june and tho the old tub was wallowing along alone before a fair breeze but it was the rats that bothered carl swarms of them thein had come aboard while the ship was loading grain and now they were threatening to take over the ship wo we must have had halt half the rats in the argentine with us carl says they were everywhere wo we found them in tho the pockets of our clothes in our bunks and in short abort everywhere we looked while wo we were lying asleep we were awakened by the animals crawling across our faces and we had to lie perfectly still while wo we felt their cold feet and tails tickling our noses many blany a time I 1 stepped on one when I 1 got out of my bunk to go on watch the rats were bad enough but as they neared africa things became worse A heavy galo gale blow blew up and it quickly increased to hurria k VL IT heavy gale blew up and quickly mounted to hurricane force cane force the seas mounted until they seemed to be fifty feet high and the old ship with nothing but a storm up was plunging ahead at half again her usual speed for a day the ship withstood the buffeting of tho the gale but that night along about eight bells tho the carpenter sounded tha ilia bilges and reported to the captain that there was four feet of water in tho the hold the captain ordered all hands to the tha pumps the crew worked grimly at those pumps because they knew they were working for their lives four feet of water says carl Is bad in any ship in a storm it was especially bad in this rotten old tub wo we had no life preservers and the ho lifeboats were so flo rotten that they would tall fall apart it if any attempt was made to raises raise them off their cradles captain asks for mens opinions I 1 the men pumped tor for two hours and the tha carpenter sounded the bilges again this time there was five feet of water in the bilges in spite ot of all the men berf could do it had gained a foot they kept on pumping but the captain was worried at three in the morning when the crew was so exhausted that hardly a one of them could stand up to the pumps he called them all into his cabin wet and hungry they trooped in and the captain told them bluntly that he know what to do and wanted to get the mens opinions there were two wo courses they could follow land far distant in the sky they could see the reflection of the cape of good hope light they could keep on pumping and try to make port or they could run the ship oo on the rocks giving the men a chance to bo be washed ashore it if they escaped being killed by wreckage or pulled to their deaths by the undertow undertow there a chance of keeping the ship afloat until they reached port the men all knew it the chief mate was for piling the bout boat on the rocks and the men agreed with him the ship was turned about and headed for the shore and wo we were a silent crew as wo we worked says carl for or we knew that in n a few hours we would crash and then what voyage of the albatross ends but suddenly the mate made a discovery before the bark had been turned toward shore she had been running on her starboard tack lack with the ilia port side aide deep down in the he water when they came about the wind and the he seas were astern and she came up on od an ev even an keel and now the mate looking over the port side saw A stream of water coming out of a great gap la in the hull bull of the ship at a point which had been submerged a few moments before it was the cause of all their troubles A piece of floating boating timber had struck the side of the ship and rammed a hole in ID the rotten planking the wind was waa dying out by that 1 time the carpenter rigged a scaffold over the side filled the hole with bags of oakum and nailed a heavy canvas over it we hove to says carl and it was with a different feeling that we manned those pumps again it was six in the morning now and we pumped until eleven when the pumps began sucking air and we knew she was empty we were au all tired but we were happy six days after that we entered the harbor of east london where the whole town turned out to view the battered looking wreck as it came limping in and thus ended that never to be forgotten voyage ot the bark albatross service |