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Show adventurers' club t ) HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES V OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! "Death From Aloft" TT ELLO EVERYBODY: I guess you'd call this a success story, because It's about a young lad of eighteen who made the grade. On the other hand, you can call it an adventure story, too. Because It's one of those yarns where success and adventure are all mixed up together. It's from John R. Mills of New York City and while I don't claim it was the adventure that made a man out of Jack Mills, I do think it convinced a lot of other fellows that he was one. Jack's New Job Was Plenty Tough. This story starts in the fall of 1927, when Jack was hired by a structural struc-tural Iron working firm as a rivet jack. And Jack sums up that Job of his very neatly in two sentences. "My duties," says he, "were to supply four or five riveting gangs with rivets and with coal for their forges. The duties of the riveting gangs were to supply skyscrapers for New York city." But it wasn't that easy. Structural Iron work Is one of the hardest trades in the world to break in on. You've got to get accustomed to walking like a cat along narrow steel girders only a few inches wide and hundreds of feet above the ground. The only way to do that is to get up there and walk those girders. There are no schools that teach a man to keep his head in a tight or dangerous spot You can't acquire a steeplejack's courage out of a book, or learn it in some safe place on the ground. "In the Ironworker' trade," Jack says, "yon have to develop those iron nerves you hear abont. Even the bravest man Is nervous nerv-ous at first, walking along those narrow beams with arms and back loaded, and not even a semblance of a hand or foot grip to catch hold of if you lose your balance. My debut In the business was on a building that was an extra hazardous job because there was a double shift of Ironworkers and that created a lot of confusion. con-fusion. The Ironworkers ran up a framework of steel that was far in advance eight stories at least at all times, of the concrete floorlayers who worked below." Jack was on the night shift, but somehow he couldn't feel that he was one of the gang. It wasn't that he was afraid. It wasn't that he didn't do his work. But somehow or other the veterans on the job made him feel like an outsider. To them he was Just another rookie. They weren't unfriendly to him but they weren't friendly either. Things Went Haywire After Payday. Jack didn't let that bother him. He went right on doing his work and then came a night when everything went haywire! It was the night after payday and the men on the job, with hardly an exception, had been celebrating their fat pay envelopes. A lot of that stuff out of the little brown jug had been imbibed and those boys were Like a flash Jack swung and caught him. not quite up to par. The raising gang was having trouble holding onto the great iron beams they were lifting, and the riveters were dropping red hot rivets right and left, A couple of beams had been allowed to fall and a couple of men had had narrow squeaks. "A 4 by 12 beam missed me by Inches," says Jack, "and with the deafening chatter of Innumerable riveting guns, the clang of beams against beams and the hanging of hammers on steel, the scene was akin to pandemonium. It was no place for man with a case of nerves, and I still had some, although a few weeks of'' work and a few narrow escapes had hardened my nervous system considerably. It seemed to me that the quietest of the lot Were my fellow apprentices, the rivet Jacks." Jack was Just a little bit nervous as he went about his work. To get coal for the riveters' forges he had to climb down through eight stories of open steel work. He was on his way back to the top with a bag of coal on his shoulder, and as he struggled up the ladder with his load he began envying a couple other rivet jacks who had rigged up a makeshift make-shift hoist and were hauling their coal up by means of ropes. Jack Sees Doom Dropping From Above. At that moment Jack reached the beams of the third story below the top, and stood waiting while two other ironworkers climbed up the next ladder. Another ironworker was following him up the ladder he had just left and Jack watched him coming for a moment, and then turned his attention back to the rivet jacks who were hoisting bags of coaL He had just torned his gaze in that direction when he saw the bag of coal slip its noose and come hurtling toward himl Jack was right under that descending bag. He dropped to a sitting position and wrapped his legs around the beam. He knew he was going to be hit, but with luck, he might keep his hold. Gripping the beam he waited. Then CRASH! The bag hit him on the shoulder, tore off his shirt sleeve, and ripped a big patch of skin from his right arm! He was numbed bewildered. But his eye took In everything that happened. At that moment the ironworker who had followed him up the ladder had almost reached the tap. His head was about even with Jack's waist. And the bag of coal, glancing off Jack's shoulder, hit the other fellow square on the headl Like a flash, Jack swung out and caught him with his Injured arm. And none too soon either. That fellow was out cold. His eyes were closed and he had let go his hold on the ladder. He was a dead weight, and Jack, hanging from the beam by one leg, now, was holding him with the fingertips of a numb and bleeding arm. Five Stories Aloft and Concrete Below! Says Jack: "We were five storlei above the nearest floor and that was nice hard concrete. The weight was causing my left leg to jllp, and that leg was holding me on the beam. I grew dizzy from the strain and began to feel sea-sick." Meanwhile, another Ironworker, coming up the ladder, began maneuvering himself Into a positron to straddle the Injured man and hold him. But all that took time. And when, at last, other help arrived and many hands were assisting the man on the ladder. lad-der. Jack was so far gone with dizziness and fatigue that he had to be helped himself before he could get back on the beam. Both Jack and the other fellow were back on the Job the following night, and that same night, other ironworkers began to speak to Jack. They didn't say much just a remark or two about the weather. But it was enough to let Jack know that he had made the grade. Copyright, WNU Service. |