The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1909-05-12

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HOW THE SHIP WENT DOWN.

In Harper's, George Harding, the
author, writes dramatically of the
sinking of the ship on which he sailed
with the Newfoundland sealing fleet.
His experience was uniquely perilous.
The ship was crushed like an egg in
the ice.
"On the bridge were the captain
and watch anxiously awaiting the
chance to head the ship out of the
moving ice into the stationary pack
of which the big sheet was part. The
bowline lay on the barricade, ready
for heaving when the crew should be
ordered on the foe to haul the ships
head around. Aloft, the spyman
searched the gloom for signs of lull
in the confused and tremendous
waste.
"Then there came terrific crush.
The vessel, caught in the trench be-
tween the raftering sheets, was pow
erless to escape. The smash of break
ing timbers rose above the gale, as
great corner of ice crushed the ves-
sells side amidships. The captain
and watch rushed to the engine-room;
1t was filled with steam, the indowing
water having already reached the
fires. A glance showed that nothing
could stop the thrush of water. The
firemen were retreating; the first of
them, like a creature from another
world, coal-begrimmed, undershirt-
clad, reached the ice-sheathed deck,
spreading panic in his path. Above
the hailing of questions and shouts
that no man could understand, came
the voice of the skipper-he knew
the situation as no other man.
"'Men! he shouted, the ship II
go-pack your clothes-save the
grub!'
"Then 1t was confusion every
where; the crew poured up the hatch
way, hauling clothes boxes and bags,
crowding over the side, colliding in
mid-air, as they half tumbled, and
half slid down the ropes, then back
for food. Laboriously the heavy
pork-barrels were hauled by hand
from the after-hold, where men
bravely toiled.f Others fought their
way aloft, where the sails were
slowed. The canvas cut loose, belly
ing out in the force of the gale, was
dropped to the deck. Punts were
slipped from the davits; some, hit
ting the ice with a crash, were stove
in. Throughout it all the captain
shouting:
Haul them punts and grub far
ther off! Farther yet! Farther!'
"The water rapidly rising drove
the men from the lower hold they
retreated to the deck. Then the in
flow, level with the ocean ceased; the
Ice for the time held the ship in its
grip. Second by second passed,
bringing no change. In that brief in
terval each man suddenly thought to
save the thing he most desired. A
wild rush was made to wheel-house,
to cabin, to the ships store-room-
every man for himself-a scuffle to
get the thing most coveted and escape
to the ice. With one, it was rifle
from the ships armory to replace the
antiquated muzZle-loader at home.
With another, the ships compass or
the barometer. With the after-galley
cook it was the cabin dishes. In the
cabin crowd surged to the medicine
chest, scrambling for liniments and
pills, smashing anything that was an
obstacle in their way. Such was the
scene when the cry arose on deck,
repeated by fifty men and echoing
throughout the vessel, ''Tis time to
take to the ice!' Then a great rush
to be clear of the doomed ship as the
mass of men, some empty-handed,
others laden, defending their spoil
from the unsuccessful, plunged on
to the ice.
"The ship was sinking fast. 1t was
but short leap for the last man from
her deck to the loosening ice. The
men stood on the foe, looking the
ship over from the bow, lifted high,
to the stern, now below water.
"A pity to lose the vessel they
said. Wonderful hard to lose the
trip O. fat
Then came the final plunge; the
mainmast, reaching over the foe,
broke as the weight of the vessel
pulled it under. The great anchors
sliding from the bow added to the tu-
multi, as everything not frozen solid
to the deck crashed into the house
and galley-for a second. flash of
fame shot from the overturned stoves
then nothing save few seal pelts
and broken oars lay on the surface
of the troubled hole in the foe where
the Grand Lake had disappeared"