The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-03-12
Adrift in Warm Waters

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to be that there were spies every
where. The very man to whom the
c%ontraband arms and ammunition were
consigned might turn spy before the
cargo ever reached him."
The captain was seated on the low
veranda which ran the length Of the
lifeguard station and the boys were
gathered close about him.
He went on talking: Conditions
were pretty bad when l made my first
and what came near to being my last
voyage, on one of these %gunrunners. 1t
was the clipper Scorpion out of Frisco.
Her papers read pianos in cargo and
her destination was set down as Bonn
bay, India
"The food was good and the pay was
high and, although we all knew there
vas something in the air besides legiti-
mate sailing, 1t mattered little to us
what 1t might be. We were all young.
'The course of the Scorpion was vol
canic islands which thickly stud that
part Of the sea. We managed to keep
the island between ourselves and the
gunboat until night. Then we slipped
away under cover changed a number
of times. Once, when we sighted an
enemy gunboat, 1t was necessary to
stink into a hiding place behind one Of
the rugged isles of darkness.
There were other close calls before
we finally came In the first port where
we were to debark a part of our stock.
Most of 1t had been got safe ashore
when, all at once, a fight broke out
among the natives. In no time at all
they had the rife cases open and had
seized a lot of cartridges. Soon the
sput-sput of distant firing came clearly
into hearing. Jets Of blue smoke and
flame flashed from the woods back of
the village. Our boats rowed back to
the Scorpions side 1t a much faster
pace-as you can imagine-than they
had gone ashore. We hove up anchor
and got under way as fast as it could
be done.
Just as u screw began to churn
the mEddy harbor water, we were quite
taken aback by the appearance of one
of the natives who climbed hand over
hand up the ships rope ladder which,
during the excitement, had not been
hauled In. She fellow appeared half
scared to death. His eyes twitched
open and shut spasmodically, and he
was trembling In every limb.
HE explained something about a
new chief and his fear Of being tor
tured and perhaps eaten. The thing
didn't look just right, but the fellow
seemed harmless enough and, in the
haste of getting away from that place,
no further attention was paid to him.
1.-THE throat of the harbor was mar
row, very like the neck of a bottle. AS
we coasted through 1t, the shores were
not over 300 yards away. There was a
splash. Several of us ran to the lee
rail. The native had dived over and
was striking out for shore with the
long, steady stroke Of a powerful
swimmer.
TT was late afternoon when we
steamed away from the island. AS
darkness fiuttered down upon us we
had made about 20 knots to the east
ward and were out of sight of land.
Suddenly, from between decks there
came a rattle of explosions Later l
thought 1t must have been a case Of
rifle cartridges blowing up. There was
a distinct pause. Then the whole ship
was torn asunder In n great crash.
what happened after that is not
clear to me. How 1t came about that
1 finally swan t a life raft I am not
able to tell. Later I saw that there
was another on the raft. 1t was the
captain. OF that entire ship we were
the only two mortals who did not
perish In the sea.
ut was strange that fate should
select the two Of us to be saved.
HE was the captain, guilty above
all others for the loss of all those
lives. l was a mere boy, knowing
little Of life, untutored and u~ncalioused
by the ways Of the world.
'For three days we drifted. If It
had not been for the jug Of fresh
water which had been roped to the
life raft, we would surely have died.
In those three days we talked Of many
things. Between us we came to the
conclusion that 1t was the native who
had in some way set a fuse to our
magazine Of cartridges. Here was
irony again-or poetic justice, II you
will. The cartridges that had been in
tended to kill natives had turned about
and destroyed all but two Of those who
conveyed them.
"At the end Of the third day one
Of our own gunboats sighted us, and
we were picked up more dead than
alive. In fact, the captain never fully
got over 1t. he died a short time after
reaching port. That leaves me the
only survivor Of the most desperate ad'
venture which ever befel a ship with