The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-06-21
THE ONE SURVIVOR
Great Disasters In Which a Soil
tary Life Was Spared.
TALES OF NARROW ESCAPES.
Curious Case of ST. Pierre Prisoner
During the Mont Peee Eruption.
The British Retreat From CabuI-A
Tragedy of the Terrible Manacles.


| There are many curious cases on rec
| ord where death in one Of its many
dread forms of disaster grips an entire
party in its clammy embrace and then.
while its Icy fingers close upon the
rest, lets one solitary member of the
band slip away TO be the sole survivor
OF the tragic calamity.
One hundred and fifty-eight dead, one
saved. That was in brief the tale of
tie wreck of the mail steamer General
Chanzy, which struck in the terrible
storm of Feb 10, 1910, ON the rocks of
northwest Minorca.
Marcel Bader, the solitary survivor
from the wreck of the Chanzy, owed
his preservation entirely TO the fact
that lie was strong and fearless
swimmer.
A few years ago the timber vessel
Anna Rebekka, one day out of Mcneil.
was caught in squall and capsized.
Most of her crew were swept away
and drowned. but three-the skipper, u
sailor and the ships boy-clambered on
to the keel, where they drifted without
food or drink. On the third day the
saved him. Then the boy went mad
and died On the fifth day the sailor
was washed off again, and this time
the captain had no strength to help
him. On the seventh day the capsized
vessel dlifted in sight of land. A life
boat put out and found the captain
still alive.
The Manacles have seen many sights
of horror, but none TO excel that Janu-
airy night many years ago when two
British troopships-the Dispatch and
the Prinrose-both went ashore on
these terrible rocks within few hours
of one another. Seven soldiers strug
gled ashore from the Dispatch through
the crashing breakers and reused the
village of st. Neverne. When the fish
ermen gained the beach the Dispatch
had vanished. But there was the sec
ond ship-the primrose-on the rocks.
They pushed ont, but the doomed yes
sci was shattered to fragments before
they could reach her, and all that the
boat brought back was a fifteen-year
old ships boy, whom they picked up
swimming desperately in the trough of
the icy waves.
Perhaps the most terrible disaster in
modern British history was the retreat
from Cabul in the winter of 1912. An
army of $3.50 soldiers, with over 1900
camp followers. started southwark from
the Afghan capital under promise of
safe conduct. On the following Jan.
10 solitary figure, filthy, unshaven,
unkempt. his mind almost destroyed
with the horrors through which he had
passed, rode out of the mouth of the
Khyber pass. He was Dr. Brydone,
the only survivor from all that mighty
host, The bodies of the rest, slain by
the treacherous Ghilzals, lay scattered
for miles along the snowclad floor OF
the deiile.
1t was stupidity, not treachery, which
caused the disaster to battalion of a
japanese regiment in January. 1901.
On the 23d of that month detach
ment of 2l0 men and officers. under
command of a major, left the town of
Awombri for long route march 1t
came on to snow very heavily, and
Eoon a regular blizzard was raging
with the temperature many degrees be-
low freezing point
They lost their way and wandered
on burning their rifle stocks for fuel.
BY the 25th only seventy-one We're left
alive. On the afternoon OF the 9th
a corporal alone was picked up Ivy n
relief party, alive but badly frozen.
At the end of April, 1902. Mount
Pelee, the blunt headed volcano behind
st. Pierre, began to show signs OF ac-
tivity. These increased until on May
s little before 8 in the morning
there was a terrific roar ana a huge
column of whitehot sand, burning Gin
ders ana poisonous gases came rolling
down the mountain side.
Whatever that cloud consisted of, IL
destroyed st. Pierre completely. The
very stones were cracked with the aw-
full heat. and within a few seconds 40
600 human beings perished. Yet days
enough to explore. a man was found
alive. He was negro prisoner who
had been confined in an underground
cell and whoethough scorched, scared
and almost s1ffocated, still survived
the only living thing in fifty square
p,;1o, Top5nn ncVvorc