The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1904-09-08


June % last, and went down with more
than 600 Of her passengers and crew.
The three men, August Tornberg, Carl
Johansen and Wilhelm Poulsen. had
nothing but the clothes on their backs
when they boarded the Cedric at Liver
pool, but many hours had not passed
before a purse was made up by their
fellow voyagers.
] Iornberg and Poulsen are married
and left large families in Sweden. Jo-
hansen, lad of nineteen, is a Dane,
who left home to join his elder sister in
Chicago. Poulseh was permitted to
land, and went to a relative in Perth
Amboy. The other two men will be
cared for at the Swedish Home. near
the Battery, until they secure transpor-
tation to the West.
The three men were the centre Of a
blue-eyed, tow-headed crowd Of Scan
dinayians when the Sun reporter
reached Ellis Island. They were tell
ing again the story Of the wreck.
Tornberg was on the lower dedk Of
ehC ava So loAhlAiS W q SdllO Wucu Tie
ship rasped lightly against reef. A
heavy mist hung over the sea. But a
few hundred feet ahead, rising high
above the water, could be seen the
great lonely shaft Of Rockall. In anoth-
er moment there was O terrific crash,
and Tornberg fell on deck half stunned.
He could hear the sound of-water rush
ing into the gaping hole in the bow, and
then came the cry: MAN the boats.
The ship is sinking"
Immediately the Storage was in q
panic. TOrnberg regained his feet as
the first boat-the one that was dashed
against the side by giant wave-was
being lowered. He lifted a little girl
into this boat only to see her swallowed
| up by wave second later He
turned to assist in the lowering of a
second boat when a sea broke over the
deck and he was washed off with a
| hundred others.
Tornberg, although a strong swim
mer, was nearly exhausted when Third
Mate Basse and another of the crew
pulled him into lifebOat. Tornberg
jumped overheard again a moment
later and helped rescue POulsen and
Johansen, who were clinging to piece
of timber. In the course of fifteen
minutes three sailors and seven pas
sengers, all men, were hauled out of
the water, making seventeen in the
boat. The last man rescued was so
weighted down by the gold sewed in
his money belt that he could not swim
more than just enough to keep his head
above the surface.
| The boat had all 1t would hold. and
Basse ordered those who were strong
enough to lend hand and row out Of
the zone of danger. They had not
made hundred yards when the Norge
| pitched forward and disappeared. A
boat and hundreds of living and dead
who were near the wreck vanished in
the vortex.
| Bases boat had aboard a key Of
water and a bag of ships biscuit 1t
had not gone far when a second boat
with twenty-eight men, four women
and two children aboard came along
with absolutely no provisions. Basse,
confident that he would reach st. Kill
da, $50 miles away, in forty eight hours
at the latest, gave them two-thirds Of
his supply. For two days these two
boats and third that joined them on
the first night were in company. The
men rowed in relays two hours at q
time. About midnight On June 80 the
wind rose to q gale and the boats
drifted apart
BY this time all of the water and all
Of the biscuits in the boat Basse COM
manded was gone and tho men were
tired and sick. Their hands were COW
cred with blisters and Basse and his
four sailors had no little difficulty in
keeping them at the oars. The man
with the gold they could do nothing
with. He was sick and lay in the bot
tom OF the boat alternately praying
and offering the gold for piece Of
bread.
After about ten hourssthe gale gave
way-to a cold ra41. They caught some
water in the bottom Of the boat and
got little relief, but salt water soon
spoiled the fresh.
On the fourth day the men cohld not
work more than an hour at time at
the oars, and on the fifth day not more
than half an hour.
They had now been three full days
without food or drink, and most Of
them suffered so that they cared little
whether they reached land or not But
Basse had left blue-eyed wife and a
twb-year-old son in Denmark and
meant to see them again. When man
threw down his oar and said he could
work no longer BaSse would ask him
If he had family. If he hadn't Basse
tried on him the photograph Of his own
boy; or, If necessary, punched his head.
On the morning Of the sixth day
Basse tore up a number OF life preserv-
ers and contrived crazy sail by pfec-
| Ing the coverings together. Late that
| afternoon this clumsy sail was sighted
by one Of the crew Of the Scotch fish,
| Ing smack Rattray Bay and in another
/ hnI1r fhA seventeen men had been taken