The Topeka state journal., 1905-11-26
THANKSGIVING on A WRECK.
/ TantaIzing Episode in BHdocean
IL "a r,tai1, 2 LIa.usarN

BY CAPTAIN A. b f1aWSeI.J
We had just settled down to our
Thanksgiving dinner on board the old
tramp steamer Rudgorn, somewhere off
Cape Hatteras, when a crash in the en-
gine room, followed by screams and
yells, brought us up 'tall standing"
As we rushed to the deck house, the
engine room force scrambled from the
machinery pit Some were bleeding
and all were pale.
In jiffy we were down on the lower
deck amidships. The old chief engi-
neer reported to the captain that the
shaft had broken without warning and
that before the engines could be stop
ped, the great mass of steel, whipping
wildly, had beaten a. Jagged hole of un-
known size into the bed of the shaft
tunnel and at the same time the en-
gines, being so suddenly relieved from
the strai nof the propeller, had raced
| themselves into rack and smash
"The Atlantic is pouring into the
shaft tunnel by the tom said the en-
gineer, 'and my engines are nothing
but a mass of twisted junk. They
have ripped from the bed plates and
the whole gear is SO bent and cracked
that never a cog will move again..
Even while he spoke there came
sharp report below. The waters
breaking into the bunkers,' said the
| engineer. mo use wasting time over
the pumps. No pump in the world
could keep pace with that deluge."
We stepped to the entrance to the
engine room and listened. Deep below
we heard a frightening SOund-the
I singing and roaring of great waters
/ flowing fast.
| The captain listened for only a sec
Ond. Then he gave orders sharply to
! provision the boats and prepare for
! lowering. AS soon as he had convinced
/ himself that the work was going along
] all right, he fastened to the chart
room under the flying bridge amidsh1pS
/ to gather his papers and Instruments
I I
! other papers connected with my recent
/ journey through the buried cities of
! Yucatan.
Hardly had we reached it before we
| heard a roar like an explosion and
| then shouts and the reports of a revol-
yer. We sprang to the bridge in time
| to see the boats go down with a run
[ and the crew tumbling into them,
while the deck amidships was broken
| wide open and water spouted up as
| from a fountain. The midship bulk
heads had burst and the sea had
/ flooded the engine room and blown the
deck up. This had driven the men
| into the panic and they had fed with
I out the officers.
The two mates and the chief engi-
neer climbed up the ladder. barely in
time to escape being overwhelmed. The
next moment the ship sank literally
under our feet We gasped instinctiye-
ly, for it seemed as if She WOuld dis
appear beneath the waves in another
stopped after she had sunk so low
that every part of her hull was hid
den except the bridge on which we
stood, the tops of her masts and fun
nels, and the high after-deck house
which we had Just left.
|If her remaining bulkheads hold
said the captain, ''it is possible that she
won't sink any further"
He was right. Two hours passed
| and things remained as they had been
the bridge sticking about twelve feet
high from the water and the chart
room half submerged under us. Ahead
we could see nothing but open sea-
| showing that the ship had settled
enough at the bows to submerge the
lforecastle; but astern the deck house
stuck high up, and our mouths Watere0
as we thought of the turkey % and
f'fixings'' that had just been spread on
the table when the smash came.
'If those towards had sense enough
to stick close to the ship, said the
captain, ''they could take us over tC
1.-THE cabin now and get some grub them
selves" But the crew, which was made
up of foreigners, picked up in chance
ports, had pulled madly to get away
from the swirl of the sinking ship, and
/ after their first terror had abated they
were so far to the windward that they
could not get back against the heavy
sea; and by this time the last boat was
struggling far down on the horizon.
Well, there we sat with our mouths
watering, and there was d fine Thanks
giving dinner not more than two hun
/ dred feet away; but it might as well
have been two hundred miles. When
the deck blew up, tons of wreckd car
{ go bobbed up from the hold, and now
this stuff, with the remnants of our
deckload of mahogany logs, was al
swashing and rolling and tumbline
around in the sea between the bridge
: and our cabin. 1t would have been
sure death to try to swim there, for q
mere touch of any of the driving tim
bers would have killed a man like g
/ kick from a mule.
So there we were, and there was our
dinner and not a chance to get to II
could we devise, although the four OF
us were pretty good at expedients, and
our wits this time were frightened by
keen hunger
Yet we got our Thanksgiving dinner
). - al L..