THEY SANG NO HYMNS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143788, 11 May 1912, Page 6

THEY SANG NO HYMNS.

MERRY CHORUS IN CALAMITY

FREMANTLE, April 30. There are some tough characters on the ships trading on the groat northwest coast of Australia. And some or the toughest of them pounded into Fremantle a few days ago-in the steamer Bullara, which got a terrible buffeting in the big storm that sank the lioombann. Most of the Bullara’s crew are surprised at being alive to talk about the things that befol them in the course of the hurricane.

“We thought we were goners pretty nearly every minute, for a long while,” said one of the men to-day. “But” — and he spoke with cheerful unconcern — “we sung no hymns. Wo did have some sing-song when she looked like going down, but it was not hymns—no damn fear. It was more cheerful. I forget what it was now, but it went all right.” One of the other men did not forget anything of the terrible experiences of the' hurricane. Immense seas towered over the ship, constantly threatening to engulf her. Any one of them would have smashed the vessel and sent her straight to the bottom—had it come down on her. It seemed for a long time altogether impossible that any ship could live through such fierce and terrible buffeting. And most of the crew made up their minds that their time had come, and set about loreparing for the end, each according to his own individual ideas of what was proper, or expedient. In the thickest of the hurricane, when a sudden and calamitous end to the desperate struggle of the ship for life had seemed inevitable, some called for a hymn. But it nppearcd'that none of them knew any hymns—none of those who had opportunity for singing, at any rate. Then, in the midst of the terrible anxiety, a fireman struck up, “1 wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now?” And to the accompaniment of the roaring of the hurricane, the crew joined in most lustily, and howled the chorus in the vigour of men seeking distraction from desperate peril. And as they sang they grew cheerful. “But I never want to hear that tune any more,” said the man who tofd about it. And he looked as though he meant it.