NORTH AUSTRALIAN’S ORDEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24325, 15 June 1940, Page 17

NORTH AUSTRALIAN’S ORDEAL

DRANK HIS OWN BLOOD ADRIFT AT SEA IN SMALL BOAT (By Trans-Tasman Air Mail) SYDNEY, May 29. Half-crazy with thirst in a cockleshell boat that was being driven before a gale towards the Timor Sea, Jack Ryan, aged 42, cut his arm and sucked the blood in an effort to moisten his parched throat. , ~ . ... With a nail he scratched his will on a piece of tin and wrote a farewell message on the cockpit wall. He was saved when his craft was driven ashore at Cape Fourcroy. on the south-western extremity of Bathurst Island. It was the last land barrier between him and the wastes of the Timor Sea. He was succored by an aboriginal, who took him 60 miles to the Bathurst Island Roman Catholic Mission. The story of Ryan’s cirdeal was told by his partner, William Anderson, when he arrived at Darwin. Anderson said Ryan and he grew vegetables for the Darwin market on the shores ox Bynoe Harbour, 30 miles west of Darwin. On May 2 Ryan left for Darwin in their 18ft flat-bottomed boat with a ton of pumpkins, when a fierce gale struck the craft Ryan anchored at Charles Point, but his anchor warp parted and the boat cairied out into Clarence Strait. “For three days Jack was tossed about as the boat was driven farther away from the mainland in the direction of the Timor Sea,” said Anderson. “ During the whole of that time he had nothing to drink. Finally he cut a big gash in his forearm, and sucked his blood. He also gnawed pumpkins for the moisture in them.” When the wind drove the vessel ashore at Cape Fourcroy, 80 miles north-west of Darwin, Ryan saw a pool of water, to which lie weakly staggered an Qn dr the k cockpit wall of the craft in Seweltwo e rds n scr^hed 0 by™! can clearly be read, ‘‘To Bill, mamuk (aboriginal for good-bye), no hope.