AN EXCITING TIME.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13647, 12 February 1913, Page 2

AN EXCITING TIME.

Some British sailors iliacl.an exciting oxperiflne'e of the entrance,to-.the Dardanelles ono morning in December. The story of what" occurred i s told by Captain George Rutherford, master of '"the Wcnvcs-stki -steamer! M-txlpinsley. Seven ships, most of them British, were hove to off the entrance to the straits, 'waiting fer the signal that they might enter. Some Gre,ek warships appeared to the south,, and several Turkish vessels left iho..Dardanelles'.1 Then suddenly a naval _action, eoni-menc-ed, with tlhel merchant craft lying, between the two fives. "They gave n« r,o warning,"- writes, Captauv^.Rutlierford, "and for fully a;n hour their shells were bursting within a ship's breadth of the Medo.mls.le-y, and shrapnel was dropping like -hailstone's 'over--, the cargo ' boats. Everybody found it advisable to get,.-,.under, cover.. - Onesliell bursting .near the• Medpinsley.- blew a. .fragment clown through the hatches 6'f'..-our h0k1... . This lasted,. an hour. Then tlj;'.. 'Turks wentrbae^c- into tHo Dardaneiies. ,We then made to enter,; for safety, : but. ..tfoo,y vrauld., not allow .us in for .two hours, keeping., ugvback by firing canon shots ne'rriss : oiir bows, wo being the,first- to ent^v the straits."-The-■eail.tdjn-.rilioeis.^-ot ir.co'ni .t<),hnvo been Periiiuflv perturbecj. ,:■ li?. simply, wrote ■ : i) -fetter".iu.. : -.TJa<j.,'Mo.oojT>sl«y,'«(^.wrieKs. i? 1 explanation of. the tlaraagedhatcli.