TALES OF THE SEA

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1937, Page 9

TALES OF THE SEA

TWO FAMOUS MUTINIED What is the tragic story that lies behind the discovery of five dead men whose bodies were washed up on the coast of Brittany?, asks a writer in the Melbourne “Age.’’ 'Three of these men had. been gagged, and the hands and feet of all five had .been tied before they were thrown -into the’ water. The -French police are trying to solve the mystery. It has been suggested that the dead men were the victims of a fight on board one of the many Spanish ships which anchor in the estuary cf the River Loire.

Strange things happen at sea, and sometimes its tragedies defy all attempts to solvo them. Of all the mysteries of the sea, the one which has produced most speculation is that of the fate of the crew of the barque Mary Celeste, which was found on December 5, T 872, about 130 miles off set and no one on board. Hundreds of articles speculating on the events have been published in newspapers and magazines, and half a dozen books have been written about the mystery; but the story has lost none of , its original fascination, for it is still unsolved.

Another unsolved mystery of the sea concerns the British ship Leicester Castle, owned by Joyce and Co., of Liverpool. In August, 1902, she left San Francisco for* Queenstown under the command of a Scot, Captain Peattie, with a crew of eighteen, three of whom were Americans who had been shipped at San Francisco. About 10.30 on the night of September 2, when the ship was about three hundred miles north of Pitcairn Island, the captain, who was reading in his bunk, heard 2 knock at the door of his cabin. One of the three Americans, a man named Sears, put. his head inside the cabin and asked the captain to come on deck to attend to a sailor who had fallen from the foreyard and broken a lefe. The captain went to the saloon cabin and lit the lamp, intending to have the injured sailor brought there and laid on the table. Sears stood at the port door of the saloon, aud another American named Hobbs entered by the starboard door, and exclaiming, “Now then, captain!” drew a revolver aud fired. The bullet entered the captain’s breast just above the breast. He closed with Hobbs, who fired again, and wounded him in the right arm. Hobbs seized a club and battered the captain about tho head until he sank to the floor. As he lay there Hobbs fired to more shots and inflicted a wound in each arm.

Nixon, the second mate, who had been in charge of the ship during the watch .appeared at the saloon door to ascertain the meaning of the shots. Hobbs fired at him, and he fell with a bullet through his lieart.' Hobbs then left the saloon, and the steward and one of the sailors came on the scene aud attended to the captain’s wounds.

CALLED ALL HANDS. The first mate summoned all hands aft, and the three Americans failed to respond. The situation was discussed and it was decided that it would be dangerous to attempt to capture the three Americans before daylight. It was thought that the three were armed and would not hesitate to shoot. 'But shortly after midnight one of the crewreported to the first mate that there was a raft in the water on the starboard side. Further inspection showed that there were three men on the raft. The mate ordered the ship to be hove to, intending to stand by until daylight and then secure the murderer and his two- companions. But when daylight came there was no sign of the raft or the men. The raft had been a flimsy structure, consisting of a few planks lashed together, and rendered buoyant by three cork cylinders taken from one of the lifeboats. The heavy swell had probably Strained the lashings and scattered the planks: Investigation showed that the mutineers had taken their personal and sufficient food and water to last them about a week.

Why did they not launch a boat instead of "trusting themselves to a flimsy Perhaps they were afraid of being attacked while engaged in launching a boat, and taken at a disadvantage. It was believed that only Hobbs had been armed, as the revolver with which he killed the' second mate had been stolen from that officer’s cabin. The captain recovered from his wounds and the injuries to his head mainly , because of skilful nursing by a sailor who had served in an ambulance corps in the South African Avar.

Why did these three Amercans mutiny? No satisfactory explanation was made public by the captain or any of tho crew. Mr. . G. Lockhart, in discussing this mystery in his. book, “Strange Tales of the Seven Seas,” puts forward some interesting suggestions. “The three men had been shipped at San Francisco,” he writes. “On the Pacific Coast of the United States desertions were numerous, and seamen hard to find to fill the gaps. San Francisco itself was full of crimps, who decoyed luckless men into some foul den, filled them up with drink or drugs, and loaded them aboard some outgoing vessel at so much a head. The practice was so common that no one —except the victims —thought much cf it. Is it unreasonable to assume that as a sequel to some such transaction the three Americans woke up one morning to find themselves at sea in the Leicester Castle? Naturally, they would be furiously resentful, and their resentment may have smouldered until it broke into flame. They resolved to revenge themselves on the man who had brought them from the crimp, and then escape from the ship. We must guess again if we would try to fathom what they intended to do next. They may have hoped to reach Pitcairn Island, supposing it to bo nearer than it actually was. Moro probably they were trust, ing to the luck of a passing vessel; in fact, it is just possible that their luck held out, and that they were, picked up by some captain who was short of men, and did not ask too many questions. All this is pure conjecture, unsupported by a scrap of evidence, but such u theory does explain an otherwise baffling prblem.”

A REMARKABLE CASE. Early on Monday morning, January 11. 1886, seventeen castaways reached Jamestown, St. Helena, in an open boat. They were the survivors of the American ship Frank N. Thayer, 1600 tons, which had been bound for New York from Manila, Philippine Islands, with a cargo of hemp. The story which they told Mr. MdKnight, the American Consul at Jamestown, was

a remarkable one. On the night of January 2, when the Frank N. Thayer was about 700 miles south-west of St. Helena, two Indian coolies who had been shipped at Manila as members of the crew attacked with knives the first and second mates, as they were sitting chatting on tho booby hatch. The attack was witnessed by a sailor named Maloney, who was at tho wheel, but he was too terrified to do anything, even to shout, for help. The captain, Robert K. Clarke, who had his wife and child on board, was in his cabin when the officers were attacked, and on hearing their cries he hurried out of his cabin to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. When he reached the foot of the companionway leading to tho deck the second mate, bleeding profusely from his wounds, came tumbling down from above, and collapsed in a heap at tho captain’s feet, and expired in a few seconds. The captain, instead of going back to his cabin for his revolver, mounted the companionway, and when he reached the top one of the coolies stabbed him , in the head q,nd seized him by the throat. Tho pair of them fell down the companionway, and at the bottom the coolie stabbed the captain several times and left him for dead. With the aid of his wife the captain got his revolver ,aud crawled out again into the passage leading to the companionway. He realised that there was a mutiny, but he did not know how many of the crew were in it. He was too weak from loss of blood to mount the companionway, but he barricaded the door of his cabin and lay down on a mat in the corner, from which point he could watch, revolver in hand, the door and the big portholes, opening on the deck outside. There were twelve sailors asleep in the fo’c’sle when the attack on the first and second mates began, and they were awakened when the first mate tumbled into their quarters while,the captain was being attacked. He was bleeding profusely from his wounds, and three hours later lie died. He was unable to give a clear account of what was happening, but while three sailors stayed with him in tho fo’c’sle the other nine armed themselves with capstan bars, aijd went aft to find out for themselves. The two coolies rushed at the sailors as soon as they came out of the fo’c’sle, and put them to flight. They slashed and stabbed with their knives, crying out that they had killed tho captain and the mates and would kill them all. Eight of the nine sailors rushed back to the fo’c’sle and barricaded themselves in. The other man, Robert Sonnberg, made for the mizzen rigging and climbed up to the' crossjack yard. From that position he saw the two coolies batten down the hatch over the fo’c’sle and imprison the eleven men below and the dying first mate; they then turned their attention to dispatching the other men on tho ship. Their first victim was Maloney, who had been at the wheel. Then they entered the carpenter’s shop and killed the carpenter, who had been asleep in his bunk. A third victim was a sailor named Antonio Serrain. The Chinese cook, Ah Say, was spared, as the mutineers wanted a meal.

SAW’ THE MURDERS. Sonnberg from his position on the cross-jack yard witnessed these murders. During the night one of the coolies climbed up the rigging to attack him, but Sonnberg, who had detached a block and tied a gasket to it, kept him at bay, and the coolie eventually went back to the deck. The two coolies remained in possession of the ship throughout the next day and night. The wounded captain stayed in his cabin expecting to be attacked again, and the eleven sailors stayed in the barricaded fo’c’sle. Early on Monday morning the captain, whose wounds had been dressed by his wife, crept out of his cabin to find out how matters stodo. He discovered the Chinese steward, who had been hiding in one of the cabins, and also a sailor named Hendricksen. From them ho ascertained much of what had happened on deck. He armed them both, and they fired through the partitions whenever they heard footsteps in the vicinity. One of these shots wounded a, coolie in the breast. Ah Say, after preparing a meal of rice and chickens for the mutineers, passed an axe through the fo’c’sle window to the imprisoned sailors, who had begun to think that eleven of them ought to be able to overpower two coolies, armed only with knives, They started to hack their way out, and Sonnberg, descending to the deck, seized an axe and attacked the barricaded hatch of the fo’c’sle from the outside. At. the same time the captain with his two assistants made their way on deck. The two coolies decided it was time to leave the ship, and for this purpose they pushed a heavy boom over the side into the water. The wounded coolie jumped in after it, but the other made a dash below through the ventilating hatch to the hold, and set fire to the cargo of hemp in several places. The captain and his two armed assistants searched for him. The dense smoko from the burning cargo drove them on deck, and the coolie soon followed them, and, jumping overboard, swam to the boom. Fire was opened on tho two coolies with rifles, and eventually both wore hit and sank. Attention was then turned to tho fire below, but all efforts to extinguish it failed. Tho captain ordered ■ two boats to be launched, hut one was capsized, and all the seventeen survivors, including tho captain’s wife and daughter, packed into tho other one. They stood by tho vessel throughout the night, hoping that a passing ship would see. tho fire, and come to their assistance; but in the morning there was no sail in sight, and their vessel had burned almost to tho water’s edge. They set a course for St. Helena, which was several hundred miles away, and after nine days they reached that refuge, and told their story of how two coolies had mutineed and destroyed their ship, after killing two (Ulcers and three of the crew, wound.ing others, and keeping eleven men imprisi ned in the fo’c’sle.