Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-19
CARGO OF HORROR
ABOARD STEAMER
Youths Hair Turns Gray as
He Watches Bandits Chop
Up Companions.
Ry HERMANN r. DEUTSCH.

NEW ORLEANS. La, April 10
Fresh from Nicaragua, land of year.
round flowers and spice, one OF the
ships of a great banana feet brought
O cargo of horror to New Orleans today.
A cargo of horror?
Not the two corpses In their caskets,
for they at least escaped humiliation.
Not even the widows and orphans
whose men folk had been ruthlesSly
butchered in the tropic twilight.
But two boys, the only two Aneri-
cans who escaped the butchery at Moss
farm on the night of April IL. One OF
them is IS but he is a veteran. The
other. with streaks of gray showing
through a tousled boyiSh thatch of
brown hair, is 10 years old-and the
streaks of gray came overnight.
Compa MON Chopped Up.
Not merely a figure Of speech, that
overnight" literally over a night he
spent in a creek, cramped, scarce dar-
ing to breathe, brtlshwood and tangle
of drift pulled above him for conceal
ment. Overhead a drizzle Of rain pelt-
ing down from the StarleSS void and
Is feet or so away, the hough-hough-
hough of the machetes as they chopped
up what had been one Of the boys with
whom he had been joking scant half
hour before.
Hough-hough-a yell or a curse of
laughter, and then the splash of bit
of flesh landed in the creek where the
19-year-old boy crouched.
Those two boys are Cathey Wilson,
the veteran of 26, and Jimmie Lloyd
James w. Lloyd-both from Fayette-
vile, Tenn. They alone of all those who
lounged about the railroad tracks at
Moss Farm in the jungles of Nicaragua
on the night of April IL, lived to tell
what happened. They alone of the
America ns-an Englishman and Ger
man, who were seized by the butchers
were released, the boys say, for the
butchers explained they were only after
Americans. 1t was the Englishman, a
Murphy, who went down the railroad
tracks so kilometers or so, and brought
the message of warning to the Amer
lean colony at Puerto CabezaS.
He told them that while Raymond
r. Smith, president of the Northern
Indiana Railroad, a passenger aboard
the Cefalu, pleaded with the command
er of the Asheville to land Marines,
while he sarcaStically asked the COM
mander of the Asheville whether nine
Americans butchered wasn't enough
excitement to Justify the use of
troops" while he telegraphed Secre-
tary Of State Stimson to do something
to protect the lives of Americans.
Dead Brought Aboard.
Meanwhile the first of the dead had
already been brought to Puerto Cabezas.
There was only one. of them, Capt.
Harlem Pefey of the Marine Corps.
One other, William Selser, was still
alive. The bullet which severed his
spine just below the neck and the
slug which tore out a section of his
shoulder did not kill him. at least.
not until the following Tuesday at
3:45 am. Dr. George Eugene, ply
sician for the Federal Government at
the Canal Zone, and q vacation pas
senger aboard the Cefalu northward
bound. did what he could for SelSer.
The other bodies were never recovered.
But there was more than a cargo Of
horror aboard the Cefalu, too. There
was praise in unstinted measure for
two Americans, men whose name de-
serve high place among the heroes
who have dared their lives for other
Americans. They& were not in uni
form, these two, at least. not technt-
cally. One Of them, Lieut.. Clyde OAR