Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1909-10-15
THE CASE OF
CAPTAIN GEROME.
(By s. Roland Hell.)

NByS- Roland Hell.)
we were in the smoking-room of the
steamship Atlantis, on the way to Ber-
muda, and were discussing a recent
notable disaster in the Sound where
captain, after ramming a schooner,
abandoned his ship in the first boat,
leaving the passengers to shift for them
selves.
''1t seems to me, gentlemen" said
the gray-bearded man. who had brought
up the subject, that the world is going
backward in more ways than one. We
never heard of the old-time captains
showing the white feather in times of
danger. They lived up to the unwritten
law and stood by their ships to the last.
How about it, Captain Dodge? Don't
you think I'm right?"
"Well, sir." said the captain of the
Atlantis. ruddy-faced man apparently
well into the flfties, perhaps you are
right in a way; but we forget, sir, we
forget"
He tilted his chair back and went on
in reminiscent way: al don't suppose
any of you gentlemen ever heard of the
case of Captain Gerome, did you? Prob
ably you never heard even of his ship,
the Cecilia Well, it was long time
ago."
We drew up expectantly. and the
captain. thus encouraged, proceeded to
give Us an account of one of the
strangest Incidents of the sea that it
was ever my fortune to hear related.
The Cecilia. said the captain. "was
single-screw steamer of 1000 tons,
running between New York and Lisbon.
At that time, she was only about six
years old and pretty fair ship as ships
went then-which / should have said
was in 1879. was her second mate,
and had served nearly year under
Captain Gerome when this thing hap
pened.
1--WE were sailing from Lisbon to
New York with a cargo of fruit and
general stuff, and something like sixty
passengers. We had made the Azores
and were about ten hours out. / should
say. when we ran into a stiff gale that
blew us out of our course and soon had
us guessing.
''Gerome was as fine a seaman as
ever trod the deck, but he had his fail
ings. and one of them whiskey. He had
started a spree before we left Lisbon,
and had kept it up pretty steadily. When
he was that way. he was bad man to
work with. Whiskey. you know. affects
men differently. Gerome was one of
the kind that it shuts up. He would
be as mum as a clam until he broke
loose, and then hell broke loose with
him. Those of us that knew him
knew it was best to leave him alone as
much as we could in such times.
''As soon as we had got well under
way after leaving the Azores, Gerome
went to his room and locked himself in,
and no calls or anything else got him out
1--WE had our hands more than full
soon after we struck that gale, and
things got so bad along toward midnight
that we lost control of the ship at times.
Both Farley, the first mate. and tried
to get the captain out, but it was no
use. He beloved out at US once or
twice, and that was all.
'Well. sir, about half-past twelve we
went up on big one and came down
with bump that set all the passengers
wild-brought the few that were in
their hunks out with little or nothing
on. The ship pitched. then struck again
and stayed. The gale hadn't been on
more than six hours, and there wasn't
any shoal charted anywhere near where
we ought to have been. But there we
were hard and fast on something, with
the sea piling in over our starboard
quarter and the water pouring in
through big leak in the forward port
side.
"Our RATS and some of the boats
were swept off first thing, and the leak
gained on our pumps so fast that it
looked as if the ship weren't good for
more than about an hour.
The night wasn't so thick but that
we could see it seemed to be a reef off
some island shore that we had struck.
and after while it seemed best to get
off as many of the passengers as we
could put in the few boats we had left.
Then we tried again to get the captain
out and would haye broken the door in,
but the fool yelled out that he would
shoot the head off of anybody that came
in. We believed he would do just that
thing, so We let him alone. and went to
work, trying to get out our boats.
''The gale wasn't getting any worse,
but it was bad enough, and we had a
time trying to manage the passengers.
In spite of all we could do. we lost the
first two boats before we could get any