The age-herald., 1898-08-02
MERRIMAC STORY
 BY THE HERO.

|
 the Spaniards.
 Ut was dark when we started in toward
 the strait" said Lieutenant Hobson, in giving his narrative, and 1t was darker
 when we got the ship into position. We | all knew that we were taking desperate chances and in order to be unineumbered
 when We got into the water, we stripped | down to our underclothing. The ship l gave a heave when the charges exploded, | and as she sank with lurch at the bow, | we got over her sides. That we got itno | the water is nearly all we know of what | happened in that rather brief period. Some sprang over the ships sides, but more than
 one of us was thrown over the rail by the
 shock and the lurching of the ship.
 Tt was our plan to escape on a cata- | maran float which lay on the roof of the
 mdship house. One of the greatest dan gers of the thing was that of being caught
 in the suction made by the ship as she | went down, so we tied the float to the taff- | rail giving it slack line enough, we | thought to let it float loose after the ship
 had settled into her resting place.
 swan away from the ship as scon as l
 struck the water, but I could feel the ed- dies drawing me backward in spitV of all
 
 however, and as soon as felt the tuggng | cease, turned and struck for the float.
 which l could see dimly bobbing up and | down over the sunken hull. The Merri-
 macs masts were plainly visible and I could see the heads of my seven men as
 they followed my example and made for l the float also
 | s'yVa had eypected of cOIJrSe that the | Spaniards would investigate the wreck but we had no idea that they would be at it
 as quickly as they were Before we could get to the, float several row boats and
 launches came around the bluff from inside | the harbor. They had officers on board
 and armed marines as we'll and they searched the passage, rowing backward
 and forward until the next morning. It
 was only by good luck that we got to the
 float at all, for they were upon us so | quickly that we had barely concealed our
 selves when a boat with quite a large | party on board was right beside us, unfor- | tunately, we though then, but it turned out afterward that nothing more fortunate
 than that could have happened to us. | "The rope with which we had secured the | float to the ship was too short to allow it l to swing Tree, ana when we redcHeu IL we | found that one of the pontoons was 1 trely out of the water and the other one | was submerged Had the raft lain fiat on
 the water we could not have got under it, | and would have had to climb up on it. to l be an excellent target for the first party of | marines that arrived. As it was, we could | get under the raft and, by pulling our | hands through the crevces between the | slats which formed its deck, we could hold | our heads out of water and still be un- | seen. That is what we did, and all night | long we stayed there, with our noses and | mouths barely out of water.
 l "None of us expected to get out of the | affair alive, but luckily the Spaniards did | not think of the apparently damaged half | sunken raft floating about beside the
 wreck. They came to within cables | length of us at intervals of only few min
 utes all night. We could hear their words l distinctly, and even in the darkness could 1 distinguish an occasional glnt of light on | the rifle barrels of the marines and on the | lace of the officers uniforms. We were | afraid to speak above whisper and for a | good wilhelm fact, whenever they were | near us-we breathed as easily as we could. | I ordered my men not to speak unless to | address me, and with one exception they | obeyed.
 l After We had been there an hour two 1 the water, which we found rather warm at | first, began to get cold and my fingers | ached where the wood was pressing into | them. The clouds, which were running be- | fore a pretty stiff breeze when we went | in, blew over, and then by the starlight | we could see the boats when they came out of the shadows of the cliffs on either side, and even when we could not see them we knew that they were still near, because we could hear very plainly the splash of | the oars and the grinding of the oarlocks. "Our teeth began to chatter before very long, and l was in constant fear that the Spaniards would hear us when they came | close. It was so still then that the chat terng sound seemed to us as loud as | hammer, but the Spaniards' ears were not sharp enough to hear us. We would hear sounds from the shore almost as distinctly as if we had been there, we were so close | to the surface of the water which Is an excellent conductor, and the voices of the men in the boats sounded as clear as bell. My men tried to keep their teeth still, but | it was hard work, and not attended with any great success at the best
 "We all knew that We would be shot if discovered by an ordinary seaman or a marine, and I ordered my men not to stir as the boats having officers on board kept well in the distance One of my men dis obeyed orders and started to swim ashore
 and had to call him back He obeyed at once, but my voice seemed to create some emotion among the boats, and several of
 
 disturbance in the water made by the man
 swimming had disappeared. We thought it
 was all up with us then, but the boats went , away in the shadows again.
 "There was much speculating among the Spaniards as to what the ship was and what we intended to do next. I could un- derstand many of the words and gathered from what I heard that the officers had taken in the situation at once, but were astounded at the audacity of the thing. The boats I also learned were from the fleet and I felt better because I had more faith in a Spanish sailor than had in the Spanish soldier.
 "When daylight came a steam launch full of officers and marines came out from behind the cliff that hid the fleet and har- bor and advanced toward us. All the men on board were looking curiously in our di- rection. They did not see us. Knowing that some one of rank must be on board,
 I waited until the launch was quite close