'DEAD" BOY RETURNS HOME

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 58, 1 December 1917, Page 9

'DEAD" BOY RETURNS HOME

' ■■- FIVE ■ DAYS- UNDERNEATH OVER- ■ -.. TURNED BOAT. »■•' . . Since the war, returning from the . dead, seems .to have become an easier ~.matter.than it'was once, though still rare enough (says the London "Daily News"), 'j An astonishing caso occurred ■in London recently, .wEen a youth named Francis arrived homo to find his family' in full 'mourning for him. . A man who. is "missing" from a front-line trench in France is farmoro likely to be heard of' again than was this youth Francis, who was an ordinary Beaman on a steamer trading out • ; . of London,';. The steamer was torpedoed recently, and "&\\ her company . was picked* up by a British destroyer excepting three men who wore in.a boat which capsized on being hurriedly launched. Tho thre'o men disappear- •" cd at once,,and we're not seen again. •. . ■ The, boat was ..cut away, to float off bottom upwards. . When . Francis • arrived home his mother disbelieved ber senses. As she. puts.it, ."she nearly dropped." The . youth is not yet sufficiently recovered from'his terrible experience to be what :■• is called "graphic."" As told to a "Daily News" representative, this is what happened. V . ' ' Francis waß with the .other two men, - enclosed-within the overturned boat. They caught hold of a; thwart and raised themselves, expecting 'übe picked: up. . For two days the three men ■existed without, food or water, their bodies half immersed; and then the , -two-elder men died. There was a - .. vague green twilight within the boat, ..,. • which was full of hollow sounds. There was also food and water, but Francis , . could not reach them.. Discovering ; . his companions, were dead, he pushed them off tho. thwart with his foot. ' i On. the fifth day ho.could endure it no longer,. ..and, being ; a powerful swimmer, dived for the outer world to die in - daylight. Outside, ■ though weakened by his sufferings, he made a ..desperate struggle to reach the boat, ; and succeeded in gotting astride of tho ' keel. To that he clung for three days ; more, arid was then sighted by a French destroyer. .Ho was then hardly conscious, and was taken at once to '. .a hospital at Brest, where good treat- ■ ment pulled him round. He had been ', eight.days altogether without food or \ drink.'