Show tad adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF tale of a modern mariner by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO elia EVERYBODY remember that old phrase son of a sea cook well right here in this club weve got one of those old sea cooks who are supposed to have such ornery offspring and by golly id be proud to be the son of this sea cook yes sir this sea cook is H K nixon of elizabeth N J and he tells one of those yarns that joseph conrad and the rest of those sea story writers would have given their right eye to get hold of why this yarn ot of a modern mariner makes that old rime of the ancient mariner seem like a bedtime story here are the words and music by jimimy this adventure of sea cook nixon the crew all called him nix for short starts out with a whale of a good word barkentine just like a first rate pirate story it was the barkentine st james of san francisco and that proud old rakish barque bacque was converted into a coal hulk just to get even the st james started building up a history that made her known all up and down the pacific coast as the haunted hulk when the war came on they converted her back into a barkentine but her pride had been wounded and she kept right on being a haunted ship all kinds of bad luck si sins signs en ns well captain martin anderson sailed her into seattle loaded her with mine timbers and cleared for delagoa bay south africa shiver my timbers if that a haunted voyage it almost gave sea cook nix the shivers before the st james got out of the harbor before she cast off the ships cat jumped ashore three times and that was a pretty strange beginning of a voyage but that cat was thrown back aboard and maybe she was the mascot that brought that crew through and then a few miles out two wild geese swooped down out of the sky and came aboard the st james cook nixon did to those birds just what the ancient mariner did to that albatross the crew said there she broke her back on the coral reefs would be trouble and by the beard of neptune there was trouble but unlike the ancient mariner cook nixon the goat for what happened wrecked on island of goneno coming out of the straits of san juan de fuca the st james ran into a howling southeaster the gale raged for nine days and drove the barkentine far out of her course the old st james battled through that mad pacific she battled bravely but finally with a splintering smash of timbers she broke her back on the coral reefs of the island of boneno the crew took to their boats but there was little chance for rescue out there in that vast south pacific they rode four days and nights before low headlands and a fringe of palms lay before them then the lifeboats scraped on the beach of the historic island of 0 pitcairn at the break of day december 17 1918 well those sailors from the st james dragged their boats up into bounty bay named after that old mutiny ship and waited it was a swell spot to be shipwrecked in but it the world for cook nixon nor for skipper anderson nor for the first mate the second mate and the bosn who were all named hansen for 32 days they kept a lookout up on that hill beside the ships bell and cannon of the old bounty hoping to see a friendly sail islander had broken his neck well sir shipwrecked as that crew was they in half as bad a spot as one of the islanders named lindsay three months before nix and his shipmates arrived lindsay was hunting wild goats and pitched over a precipice he broke a leg and doggone near broke his neck there he was slowly dying out there on the pacific and not a doctor or a nurse on the island cook nixon looked lindsay over and decided hed do some lifesaving life saving while waiting to be saved himself just where the sea cook became a hero and earned himself a reputation for being one of the fastest thinkers in an emergency that I 1 ever heard of he went to work on lindsay drugs well nix figured out a liniment he used the acid juice of lime as an irritant and cocoanut coco anut oil as a lubricant and went to work on that dislocated neck that made lindsay almost helpless sure enough in three days time that terribly swollen neck of Lind says was reduced but his head was wa still contorted and he suffered agonizing pains at the nape of his neck nixon kept thinking this over one night he jumped out of his bunk with an idea nix shot out of camp yelling lord man ive got ftp it and he dashed into Lind says house at a m and got him out of bed nix sat lindsay down on a chair and told him to hold tight with both hands nix grabbed him by the head put his thumbs under his jaw and lifted as though he were heaving the old st james anchor how nix fixed it up suddenly there was a snap A vertebra which had been twisted and held fast by one of those tendons nix had been massaging snapped back into place and lindsay shot out of that chair like hed been sitting on a hot stove well sir that islander tried turning his neck in all directions by jimimy it worked as well as ever he almost wagged his head oft off trying out his new neck nix tells me that lindsay started to laugh and then cry and wound up by doing a series of hand springs and flip flops and then lindsay hustled out of that hut but ran up the hill to the old bounty bell and began hammering like a bass drummer trying to get all the islanders together so he could tell them the good news and that ended the curse that hung over the crew of the haunted barkentine st james when daylight broke there was a smudge of smoke on the horizon it was the old dominion liner port augusta captain allen alien of the port augusta laid her by until that shipwrecked crew of the balluck barkentine yes sir and the ships cat also pulled out through the surf breaking oyer the coral reefs and climbed on board the port augusta dropped nixon and his shipmates in sydney australia service |