Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-05-20
HAUNTED BY MEMORY.
one Man who VIII Never Forget the
Samoan Disaster,

One Mnn w no VIII Never Forget inc
samoan Disaster,
81 suppose that all of us who felt the
living, frenzied force of that awful on
shore hurricane will dream about it
occasionally as long as we live," said
an ex-blue jacket of the United States
navy, now living in Washington, who
was among the Vandalias ships COM
pany at the time of the great naval
disaster in Apia harbor, Samoa, in re-
verting to that experience. For three
or four years after l got out of that
mess all safe and sound, the memory
of it used to get tangled up in my head
when / was asleep, and l would wake
in tremble and be unable to sleep
for the remainder of the night. But
time has softened the craggier edges
of the remembrance of that horrifying
black wind, and once in spell nova
days l forget all about it for two or
three days at time. 1t all came back
to me with heavy 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
afterward, and his occasional wildness
was plain to all hands, and men
who've been shipmates 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 l saw him. This man was
a shipwright, and his name was Tur-
! ley. Before we had that bad blow
| Turley was as cheerful and as clipper
a man around decks as l ever snapped
yarns with; but when he got well of
his broken arms down in Apia, he was
a changed man. l never saw him
crack a grin after the blow, and from
stout, husky fellow he became thin
and haggard-looking He recovered
all right physically from the thing,
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 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 mailman, All hands
abandon the ship-she's going ia
strike!' He created a lot of excite
ment up forward by doing this, but
after a while the men got used to il
and only turned over when they heard
Turley bowling.
1T 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 somnambu-
lstic spells and put him back in his
hammock, for he'd come out of then
as weak as kitten and trembling al
over There were a number of us or
the Alert who were washed UP in the
Samoan disaster, and, naturally, once
in a while we'd get to talking abou
it. But it didn't take us long to fine
out that we couldn't talk about i
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 tall
, incoherently and at the top of hi
voice about reefs and dragging anch
ors and all that, so that we learned t
/ knock off Samoan hurricane talk whel
, he was around. l don't wonder, much
} either. 1t was an evil enough blow t
: nigh turn any mans headgear topsy
3 turvy."