United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I found what I sought at last and went on deck. The scene, though cheerful, was not lacking in wartime features: A row of life-boats hung invitingly ready; a gun, highly dramatic in appearance, was mounted astern, with every air of meaning business should the kaiser meddle with us en route.
There were even those who sang it while waiting to step into the life-boats on a torpedoed troop-ship; but for light-hearted courage has any one beaten that destroyer lad who was torpedoed one night last winter? When the torpedo struck his ship the two depth charges astern were exploded also. Two 300-pound charges of T N T they were. The little ship seemed to be lifted out of the water.
"We called that boat the 'money boat. It was lowered from the starboard side and was one of the first off. Our orders were to load the life-boats beginning forward on the port side, working aft and then back on the starboard. This man paid the firemen to lower a starboard boat before the officers had given the order." Whiteley's own experience was a hard one.
He's a regular revolving light, is the Captain, a beacon always burning and saying plainly, 'Here are life-boats, ready to put off in all weathers and bring the shipwrecked into quiet waters. He comes but seldom now, being laid up in the home dock, tranquilly waiting till his turn comes to go out with the tide and safely ride at anchor in the great harbor of the Lord.
Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg! long and slim, sure enough!
The stern of the ship rose slowly into the air, then swiftly slid forward with a sound like a great sob and vanished beneath the surface. One of the life-boats approached the capsized jolly-boat, and the figures that clung to her were hauled, dripping, one by one into the stern. Then they picked up the Captain, clinging to a grating, an angry man.
Not after we've paid extra for fresh air. Let me look around." He did, surveying the crowded deck. Suddenly picked up the baggage. "I see a spot," he said, and led the way. Just outside the rail, over the stern was slung a large boat one of the ship's life-boats. It hung by ropes to the davits, and was covered with a tarpaulin, or canvas, stretched over it and tied down.
That it is realized that life-boats may be necessary on the best and newest steamships is proved by the fact that they carry them even beyond the law's requirements. But if life-boats for one-third of those on the ship are necessary, life-boats for all on board are equally necessary.
The law also says that if this number of life-boats be insufficient to accommodate all the persons on board, including the crew, there shall be carried elsewhere in the vessel a correspondingly additional number of collapsible life-boats, suitable rafts, floating deck-chairs and life-buoys, as well as a generous supply of life-belts.
The sinking of the Lusitania and other passenger ships, or rather the results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the officers and crew.
Word Of The Day