Show adventurers club FJ ia V killer ship by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter IVE told you stories about human killers and ive spun you A tales about animal killers this is the story of a killer ship carl L told me this story it happened to him in 1902 when he found himself broke and out of a job in south africa and signed on a windjammer dmd jammer for a trip to south america the windjammer was the bark albatross which had just brought a load of corn over from buenos aires and was going back to the same port in in ballast there it would pick up a load of wheat and return to east london cape colony that suited carls plans so he sailed away one morning at daybreak and six weeks later after an uneventful trip the albatross entered the plata river and docked at buenos aires so tar far everything had gone smoothly but they had no sooner begun loading grain for the return trip than it became 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 that bother the captain any to speak of he just let the ship settle in the mud and when the mud got into the seams scams and closed them up he began loading again many a sailor would have quit that ship then and there but 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 these stowaways were not pleasant ones the weather was fair enough at the moment it was late june and the old tub was wallowing along before a fair breeze but it was the rats that bothered carl swarms of them had come aboard while the ship was loading grain and now they were threatening to take over the ship we must have had half the rats in the argentine with us carl says they were everywhere we found them in the pockets of our clothes in our bunks and in short everywhere every here we looked while we were lying asleep we were awakened by the animals crawling across our faces and we had to lie perfectly still while we felt their cold feet and tails tickling our noses many 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 gale blew up and it quickly increased to hurricane 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 the gale but bu t that night along about eight bells the carpenter sounded the bilges and rea heavy gale blew up and quickly increased to a hurricane ported to the captain that there was four feet of water in the hold the captain ordered all hands to the pumps no life preservers they must stay with the ship 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 we had no life preservers and the lifeboats were so rotten that they would fall apart if any attempt was made to raise them off their cradles the men pumped tor for two hours and the carpenter sounded the bilges again this time there was five feet of water in the bilges in spite of all the men could do it had gained a toot 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 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 in pumping and try to make port or they could run the ship on the rocks giving the men a chan chance ce to be washed ashore if they escaped being killed by the wreckage or pulled to their deaths by the undertow mate dis discovers covers what the trouble was there a chance of keeping the ship afloat until they reached port the men all knew it the chief mate was for piling the boat on the rocks and the men agreed with him the ship was turned about and headed for the shore and we were a silent crew as we worked says carl for we knew that in a few hours we would crash and then what but suddenly the mate made a discovery before the bark had been turned toward shore she had been running on her starboard tack with the port side deep down in the water when they came about the wind and the seas were astern and she came up on an even keel and now the mate looking over the port side saw a stream of water coming out of a great gap in the hull 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 timber had struck the side of the ship and rammed a hole in the rotten planking the wind was dying out by that 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 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 of the bark albatross 0 service |