The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1898-11-10
HAUNTED BY MEMORY.
One Man Who Will Never Forget tn
Samoan Disaster.

One Man Who Will Never Forget tho
samoan Disaster.
Il suppose that all of us who felt the
living, fren4iel force of that awful on
shore hurricane will dream about it &C.
casionally as long as we live said an
ex-blue jacket of the United States
navy, now living in Washington, who
was among the Vandalia's ships COM
pany at the time of the great naval dis
aster IN Apia harbor. Samoa, in revert
ing to that experience, says the WASH
ington Star. For three or four years
after got out of that mess all safe and
sound, the memory OF it used to get
tangled up in my head when I was
asleep, and I would wake in a tremble
and be unable to sleep for the remain
oer OF the night. But time has SOFTEN
ed the craggier edges of the remem-
orance OF that horrifying black wind,
ana once in spell nowadays 1 forget
all about 1t for two or three days at a
time. 1t all came back to me with
neavy force when the Maine went up
IN the air with lot of my shipmates,
though. There was one man in my
mess on the Vandalia who was never
quite right after we went on the reef.
was shipmate with him for two years
a1terward and his occasional wildness
was plain to all hands and men who've
been shlpmates with him since-for
he's still in the outfit-tell me that he's
just as badly haunted by the memory
OF the disaster as he was when last I
saw him. This man was shipwright
and his name was Turley. Before we
had that bad blow Turley was as cheer-
fui and as clipper a man around decks
as ever snapped yarns with: but
when he got we'll of his broken arms
down In Apia he was changed man.
l never saw him crack grin after the
blow, and from a stout, husky fellow
ne became thin and haggard looking
he recovered all right physically from
the tn1ng, you see, but it sort OF twisted
his head and preyed upon him. He
swung his hammock alongside of me
on the Alert for two years after we
were sent up to duty on the west coast
again and it was a common thing for
Turley to hop out of his hammock in
a frenzy in the middle Of the night. in
port or at sea, yelling like a madman
All hands abandon ship-she's going
to strike! He created a lot of excite
ment up forward by doing this, but
after awhile the men got used to it and
only turned over when they heard Tur-
ley bowling. It was the regular thing
for the corporal of the marine guard at
the gangway to prod the poor chap
awake when he had these crazy SOM
nambulistic spells and put him back
In his hammock, for he'd come out of
them as weak as a kitten and trem-
bling all over. There were a number
OF us on the Alert who were washed up
In the Samoan disaster, and naturally,
once In while, we'd get to talking
about 1t. But it didn't take us long 10
find out that we couldn' talk about it
while Turley was around The men
ton OF the thing in his hearing would
bring an insane CLEAN into his eyes,
and he would suddenly begin to talk
incoherently and at the top of his voice
about reefs and; dragging anchors and
all that, so that we learned to knock off
Samoan hurricane talk when he was
around. I don't wonder, much, either.
1t was an evil enough blow to nigh turn
any mans headgear topsy-turvy."