NINETY-FOUR TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20243, 1 May 1929, Page 10

NINETY-FOUR TO-DAY.

MB. CilAXtl/KS STUBTKIDGE.

SURVIVOR OF THE ORPHEUSjj

PIONEEK BUSH CAMPS.

DAYS OF THRILLING ADVENTUFi*

Perhaps the last survivor of the crew of H.M.S. Orpheus is Mr. Charles Sturtrklge, of Auckland, who will celebrate Ha 94th birthday to-day. The Orpheus wai wrecked o.n the Manukau bar on I'ebrU.ary 7, 1863, and 185 of the crew of 1556 lost their lives. Mr. Strutridge laslied himself to a spar with silk handkerchiefs and was picked up near the' pilot statiou nine hours later _

He was born in Scotland,, but spent Ms early youth in Kent. The dockyards of Chatham had for him. an irresistible appeal, and like many other boys he raq away tc sea. He shipped as a seamanstoker, but the ships of those days depended more on sail than on steam. The Orpheus, he says, could do only two knots under steam alone.

Volunteered for Livingstone Expedition. Mr. Sturtridge'a early service took him io the China station and the Cape of Good Hope, where he narrowly lost a chanc9 of making history under David Livingstone. In 1858 Livingstone left on his firsfc official expedition of exploration ia East and Central Africa, and naval volunteers were called for. Young Sturtridge, who obviously must have been a man of very fine physique, might have been among the volunteers who sailed with Living-, stone up the Zambesi on the steam launch Ma-Robert, but his application was just two days too late.

Eventually he reached the Antipodes and was on deck when the Orpheus attempted to navigate the Mamikaa bar. "The signal was against us," he said, when outlining this incident in a very clear, if deliberate, manner. "A gun was fired from the station iiis an additional warning. But we stood on. On board was a captured deserter named Bradshaw, who while living in New Zealand had sailed on timber boats Out of the Manukau and knev< the channel as, well as a pilot. At the moment he. was on deck for an airing. He saw the danger and gave a warning. The only reply was, Tut that man in irons.' Bradshaw said, 'ln fivo minutes we'll all be in irons.' In five minutes we struck, and in & quarter of an hour the ship was down. Drifted for Hine Hours. *'l took an Irishman's hint, as they used to say, and juipped overboard, found a spar and tied myself to it, and nine hours later was picked up by Gilbert Dobson and Mat Nixon who weire searching for survivors in a boat. Gilbert was born on the Manukau. He had put out from Muddy Creek." • ; The old man paused and looked long and far into the past. He had already made an arduous journey o! a few yards into the sunlight to sit for his photograph and was a little tired. But he was not tired mentally. His memory was clearj. "Yes, that is how I became a. New Zealander," lie said. "Drifted ashore. But I was still a sailor. I should hare gone back to the. Navy, but I did not. Sailormen were in great demand in the timber camps. Down lit Muddy Creek there were mills, and there I worked. \

"The reason why sailors were particu. larly useful was because they could rig capstans and block-and-tackle gear. la those days thera were no timber jacks aad all the hauling was done by these means. We did not even have bullocks. The bushmen of to-day do not knpw they are. born. The system was to' get the logs to a creek which was dammed, and then, by breaking the dam, float them to ths mills. But I remember the first jacks. - They were so heavy that it took four men to carry them on a stretcher. Ticket-of-Leave Men. Most of the bushmen were deserters from the army or navy and ticket-of-leaye meu from the convict settlements in Tasmania. Every three months a party of police, often 40 in number, came down to inspect the tickets of the eys-convicta and to look for deserters. > But the deserters were prepared. Hidden beneath the lowest tier of bunks in the wliare was the entrance to a tunnel leading out into the bush. Always we had warning and o escaped and the police never waited very long. They might have found the placa unhealthy. " The talk of the ex-convicts made my hair stand on end. Fancy listening to % man telling of how many times he had escaped the gallows by a reprieve I Hard they were,, though some of them steadied down and became good settlers. They so hated the services and the police thafc had one of us deserters set out to give ourselves up and vejoin, we would have run a risk of not arriving. Honest and Wild. " But they had a code of conduct. If a man arrived hard up Ithey. would take up a tarpaulin muster and give him a start. And there was no petty thieving. We used to put our money on a shelf and it was never stolen. " Wild times, of course. Now and again they got rum and., whisky down from Onehunga and it was drunk in panuikius.. Then there were fights, great fights. But the contestants always had to shake hands, and then drinking began again. But as soon as i<: few were topheavy there were more fights.' " But great work was dc"a Did yon ever hear of the glut and lefer method of rolling logs ? The glut was placed flat alongside the log ana, levering with hand spikes against it, we rolled it on.The Maoris often dug their p!ots that wavy They would back-cut a long sod with a spade and a gang of them with spikes levering against the glut would turn itj over." There were gaps in the oid man'sstory.In one sentence he would lie telling ol the ex-convicts who, he said, were as hostile to the service^'as' the Cornishmen who used to pray "God soud a ship ashore to-night." In the nexlj he would be recalling the days of the Thames goldmining and then he would be', back afc Cornwallis or Huia with some recollection of " Black Jack " and " Paddy Moll6y '* and. "the forty thieves," a pleasantry referring to the police. , * And now the old sailor is at- audio* in his last port. ~ He and his kind " have had their share of pastime and ('one their share of toil," and life is nearly a memory. He might have gone on sailing the seas, and settled down in Devon. Re might have sailed with Livingstone and have rested in an early grave on ftV Zambesi. He might have perished when the Orpheus was wrecked. But he lived to struggle through, life in the hard bush school, of Nelv Zealand and at ninety-four, though bent and frail, he can sit and dream dreams of the past, dreams which can still bring a gleam to the eye, and a smile. ' j