Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-02-16
AGAINST THE SEA
Three Men and q Girl.
BY ROSEMARY NUDE
CHAPTER EIGHT


CHAPTER EIGHT
We collected in q rush at
the stern Of 1.-THE Small
World" that afternoon of
December % when my hus-
band, Colin. who had the
rudder. declared excitedly we
were being followed. I could
hear the steady "chug-chug"
sound Of a motor. When I
saw, steaming toward us, q
rusty-colored submarine Of
modern design.
We forgot Collins instruc-
tions about the necessity Of
keeping our small boat bal
anced with two to a side, as
Bushy Eiloart, our erstwhile
ballon commander: his son,
Tim, radio operator without
a radio. and I scrambled back
there for q look. What with
all the back-pounding that
went on. it's probable that If
we all hadn't been tied to the
sides Of our small craft with
safety lines ia precaution
Colin insisted upon once we
were down at sea-we might
have lost a valued crew men,
Der overheard.
How onderful," was
Bushy's first exclamation.
We'll be able to send a mes
sage home, get some coke and
beer, and perhaps 10 gallons
Of fresh water!"
We shouted, hollered
waved our arms and did al
most everything possible to
attract attention when the
submarine, which we had
sure was stalking us, stopped
and lay of beam not more
than a mile distant.
1t was a brilliant, sunny
day; the time was 4:30 pm.
and visibility was excellent.
1t seemed strange that the
submarine couldn't recognize
us since we were within good
binocular range.
"Is it a Nautilus type?"
asked.
The men heaped scorn on
this question, pointing out
that If you could hear the
chugging of diesel engines
and see smoke, it couldn't be
the Nautilus, which is an
atomic-powered submarine.
Must Be American
tits probably an American
submarine" Bushy ventured,
land they've been instructed
not to stop. After all, it's a
dead loss for them: they've
given away so much food and
supplies to transatlantic
yachts in this area that
they're bored with this type
of thing"
That's a very dirty SUBJ"
said Colin, who had borrowed
Tins specs" to see more
clearly. "It obviously hasn't
been polished today so L
doubt very much that it's
American-it just doesn't
look properly packaged or
spick and span enough for
one Of theirs"
That's right, Colin"
Bushy said, land look at that
black smoke, that's not beau
tiful clean, white American
smoke at ALL"
It was Colin who first sug-
gested that it was a Russian
submarine and we all finally
agreed on this. It seemed so
strange that the sub crew
gave no sign of seeing us and
1t could hardly be a coinci-
dence that they surfaced so
near us in all these miles Of
the Atlantic. They just
wanted to look us over. That's
what convinced us it was a
Russian sub.
After about an hour, in
which the submarine criss-
crossed our general area
several times, the submarine
disappeared, to our great dis
appointment, for we had so
hoped to get some water
from it and send a radio
message home.
We had been forced to
jettison our radio transmitter
on December 14th. Colin had
dropped several message bal
looms over the side of the
ship and we were to release
several more balloons before
we reached our destination
but we couldn't know, of
course, that none of these
would be picked up. cat least,
ct this writing, they haven't.
False Reports Given
strangely enough. we
learned later, our friends
thought we were perfectly
safe. We didn't know that
some amateur radio operator
he never has been identi-
fled-was sending out false
messages, purporting to be
from "The Small World"
Eight days after we left
Tenerife Island in the
Canaries, the world thought
that we were still ballooning
across the Atlantic. In truth,
we had been forced to ditch
the evening of December Is,
four days after the take-off.
What caused people to be-
come suspicious of these
false messages was something
that was even more extraor-
binary - the false report
on. December 26 that we had
landed in eastern Venezuela.
We couldn't know this. but
papers all over the world car
ried q story from Caracas,
Venezuela, saying that we