Show te d 4 adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES 11 OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF 1 wild night b afloat H HELLO ELLO EVERYBODY you know sometimes old lady adventure puts you through the paces in a second or two and then lets up on you ive told you boys and girls a couple of yarns at least that last more than five or six seconds at the most but there are also times when the old girl with the thrill bag seems to take delight in teasing her victims as a cat would tease a mouse tossing one bit of hard luck after another at them until she has them worn down and ready to quit I 1 floyd smith of chicago could tell you a yarn like that A tale of terror for hours on end and as a matter of fact floyd floy will tell you that story for weve got him here with us at the adventurers campfire tonight and hes all ready to go its a story of the world war and incidentally floyd wants me to announce that if any of the three fellows who went through it with him should read this story well he sure hopes drop him a line the scene of this yarn is brest france where floyd was attached to the U S naval air station he was one of a crew of four on a speed boat the type of craft that is known as a gig in the navy and it was one day in august 1918 that the gig and its crew was sent out for an all night battle with old lady ad denture men ordered taken off pensacola it was about eight in the evening when the officer of the day brought their orders the U S S pensacola had weighed anchor a short time before and was putting out to sea aboard her was a 15 man detail from the air station which had been helping to unload the ship they were to have been taken oft off before the pensacola sailed but the orders had been mixed up and there they were getting a ride they were never intended to have the gigs orders were to catch the pensacola and take the men off says floyd we took out after the ship which was already in the narrow channel that leads from the bay to the open sea in about 10 minutes we were a hundred yards astern of the pensacola when suddenly our motor quit well it joes goes without saying that we did not catch the pensacola As luck would have it the tide was going out and it swept us out to sea the water out there was too deep for the anchor line so they kept right on drifting it was growing dark by that time so no one ashore saw their predicament with no means to stop the boat from drifting we were a hundred yards astern of the pensacola when suddenly our motor quit those four lads worked frantically trying to get the motor started again but they only made matters worse they ran the batter down and then they were left without lights the gig drifts slowly out to sea by this time says floyd it was pitch dark and it had started to rain there was nothing to do but drift so we drifted and under that casual statement there lies a world of terror those four lads every one of them knew what it meant to drift out to sea if they were lucky they might be picked up by a passing steamer but on the other hand it was all too easy to drift unsighted tor for days on end and finally perish of thirst and 1 exposure 1 we drifted until about 2 a in Floyd says and then the sea began to get rough and we really had so methin ep to worry about for there were mine fields all about the entrance of they harbor and we figured we had drifted into them the mines were moored 12 feet below the surface but with the high swells bobbing us up and down we stood a good chance of hitting one of them we began holding our breaths about an hour later they sighted a blinker light and that was the signal for more panic it was too high to be on a ship says floyd so it must have been on a cliff were we going to be washed against this cliff we all prepared for the worst we put on life preservers and let out the anchor but the anchor hold the boat still drifted after a while we had drifted to a place where we could see lights in the distance could it be true that we were in the channel heading back toward brest coat boat drifts back to starting point and just where they were the boat had drifted right back to where it had started luck sure it was but those lads still had the worst of their adventure to go through back on shore someone had spotted them the blinker on the cliff was signaling but in a code they understand would they open fire on us says floyd what we were afraid of they kept searchlights on us until we were half way through the channel and then we saw a swift moving vessel coming in in our direction when it got with a hundred yards of com u us I 1 cald could see that it was a torpedo boat its searchlight beamed on us and it came straight tor for us straight at them it came full speed ahead and with no intention of stopping it just grazed the stern of the boat but with a force that spun it around and almost knocked its four occupants overboard by the time we had come to our senses says floyd it had turned and was coming back to take another ram at us all four of us began yelling at af the top of our lungs americans americans the boat came on it came within a few feet of the gig and then suddenly it turned sharply aside the boys kept right on i yelling americans then from the french torpedo boat came thi th answer oui oui we told them Ahern our engine had broken down says floyd and they said aid they thought we were a german submarine they towed us back to our station and when we were ashore again we ve all agreed it was one night we would long remember released by western newspaper union |