Bernhardt in the Typhoon

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10016, 5 December 1908, Page 4 (Supplement)

Bernhardt in the Typhoon

iXew York Sun.) ■"Reading recently about the series oE typhoons which our battleship fleet weathered on the runs from Australia to the Philippines and from Manila to Japan reminded me of something," said Clayton S. Cole, an American civil engineer," who helped to build a number of the Australian railroads. "In the autumn of 1892 I came up from Melbourne to San Francisco on the old steamer Warrimoo. Among the passengers was a keen, witty Frenchwoman. She looked to be under 40, and she had a healthy pallid skin, a mop of bronze hair, a sinuous, almost girlish figure, and an amazing flow of agreeable and interesting conversation that kept all those fortunate enough to come into contact with her on the steamer in a state of enthusiasm over her engaging personality. We touched at Apia. Samoa, to coal ship and to take on 6ome additional c:u-_o, and a few hours after we left Apia I notice., when I went on the bridge for a chat with the captain, an old friend, that he looked worried and piv-oieapied. a fid that lie kept his eyes glued pretty steadily on the barometer. As an old friend I felt myself privileged to ask the skipper what appeued to be the cause of his nervousness. 'You needn't mention it below.' he replied after some limitation. "but we're -going to run into a I-ig blow, it" not a typhoon, presently. There are more entertaining things than typhoons in these waters,' he added grimly. "I knew that full well myself, hiving been through, one typhoon my.-elf. .ind having prayed it that time that Ik! never have to go through another. "So. I went below, not particularly caring to be on the bridge when the typhoon came along. I found a knot of ••assengers around the French woman in the music room listening to her interesting music. I had hardly settled myself in a sO!t to listen tr> the French woman's playing before the sun was suddenly obscured, though there hadn't been a cloud in the sky a few moments before, and the heavy boom of an initial peal of thunder brought all i:i the mu-u- room, including the French woman, to their feet. They all ran on -leek to observe from which direction the storm —most of then probably regarded it as a mere storm—was coming, and a majority of the women when they saw the rolling black clouds corning out of the west and riven every instant by flashes of zenith-high forked lightning, ran to their cabins to screen themselves as nitir-h as nnssible from the approaching tum'ult of sound. Xot so the Freiv h woman, however. She raced up the ladder to the bridge and burst upon the anxious skipper in the wheel-house. "O Monsieur le Capitaine.' she exclaimed enthuiastically. 'we are to haf ze g-r-rand soonder storm not:' -Worse than that, madam—far worse.' frankly replied the skipper."We"re going to have a jolly fine typhoon and I wish we were jolly well out of it.' 'Oh. a typhoon '.' rapturously exclaimed the French woman, clasping her hands together in what seemed to be a veritable ecstasy of delight. 'G-r-rand ! I.oaflv I Sublime ! All my life haf I

longed for ze typhoon, and now I haf one eet iss glorious! The 6kipper gazed at the. French woman in a. puzzled sort of way. ' By this time the lightning was rending rlie skies immediately above the ship and the booms of thunder were all but continuous and tremendously terrifying. Some, typhoons start in without preliminary fireworks, but others are by .prodigious thunderstorms. " "Madam,' said the skipper, 'you are unstrung, I Gee. Your nerves are going buck upon you. I shall have to requestyou to go below to your cabin. The typhoon will break immediately after .this thunderstorm, and then no part of the deck will be any place for a woman. "The French .woman, with the greatest and most convincing calmness, told the skipper that he was wholly wrong about her nerves, that she had never possessed feminine nerves in her life, and that she w::s really in earnest about her innate love for big storms. And she repeated that she had berg "in" cring all her life to see what a uig typhoon in the South Sens was like, and now th:-t her opportunity to see one had come she wanted to remain on the bridge. Five minutes later the typhoon struck the steamer broadside on from the west, and the Warrimoo reeled and staggered under the terrific shock. Then the skipper got her course round to the enormous seas that- seemed to pile up all in a, minute, and the French woman stood transfigured with delight. The skipper begged her to go below, and then all but ordered her to <?o below to seek her cabin, but she imolored him to be allowed to remain on the bridge with him. "'But, madam,' said the captain, 'we'll be swept fore and aft by green 6e<is presently, and some of the combers will be bridge hiyh. All the hatches are being battened down, and vou'd better be getting below before you are'shut out.' Still the fearless French woman besought the skipper to -permit her to watch the typhoon out on the bridge with him, and the captain, rather than waste any more talk about the matter, told her that she could, but that she'd have to take whatever consequences might- ensue. I stayed along on the bridge merely because I forced myself to do it. I didn't think it .would be the real thing for me to "o scudding to my cabin out of a sense of fear with that French woman calmly watching the typhoon in the most exposed nart of the ship. We were thirteen hours riding out that typhoon hove-to with our nose poked square into the mountainous seas that would have overwhelmed the steamer else, and all the time the French woman appeared to be in a veritable trance of delight over the different ph-ises of the revolt, of the winds and seas. The tvohoon came to an end on our edge of it with another electrical storm even more terrifying than that- with which it bad begun, and by that time nothing in the world seemed to have any terror for me. I can't say I enjoyed the picture made by the lightning as the French woman did, but I stood alongside of her without flinching until we found ourselves under the serene light of the stars, the ship still pounding, however, on the crest of the vast waves. That was sixteen yeaTs a-'O, and I've never flinched from.the lightning since. I took my lesson from a woman, and it was n good lesson. That French woman, bv the way, was Mine. Sarah Bernhardt."