THE
HONGKONG · TELEGRAPH.
MONDAY,
APRIL 12, 1987.
T
HE cargo boat Tre-
vessa, Cornish by name, Cornish by home port-St. Ives-lay on the other side of the world. She was ten days out of Fremantle, Western Aus tralia, bound for Antwerp, crossing that desolate reach of the Indian Ocean where there is no land for 3,000 miles: from the western coast of Australasia to the Mauritius group.
On the bridge stood her master, making its first trip in command of her, Captain Cecil Foster, a man of 36, who had held his certificate since 1810 when he was 23: an old em- Steamship Haln ployee of the Company, Ltd.. controlled by the
com P. & O. He had been First Omcer
THE TREVESSA EPIC
Retold by
Guy Ramsey
kenturm. She
had been aver skin of the ship, weighed her down.
had recently at a cost of £80,000. Her action was laboured and slow. At Port Prte, where he had taken Darkness fell and the lights at the wavered and tossed. nboard his cargo of zine concentrates, mast-head whose weight compared with water describing fantastic patterns against was heavy and whose consistency the site of the sky.
Through the shifting ranger of the was that of half-set cement, minor repairs had been carried out. A nen towered one peak, set like of couple of riveis were "weeping"- Everest among the quiet hills Jetting water through. They had Wales. Sheer black aldes ike
ice: been patched up with, cement that Everest's
foom-topped was fully set.
AND
ND now he blessed his
core.
wind The
1
luce Everest'a snow; gigantic, like Everest's bulk. Everest is fraught enough with awe, but a moving Everest, an Everest rushing at you In the darkness with speed only by the mountain's apparent came growth, an Everest turned to a of the Trevose during the war, had ravening from the south-east the bailering-rom, perpendicular height
been steady thresh of the prevailing shattering down her torpedoed under him,
Castle Trades, risen suddenly to gale for into horizontal picked
by the Union up
The Water, olly and menacing, drive, and striking liner Alnwick Castle, which in turn had been torpedoed, and had drifted heaved about him as though some headlong at the for 94 weary days in an open boat kraken were twisting and turning metal wall that until he landed, weary, exhausted, in death agony below. Higher ran alone protects you!
The dy but not broken,, on the Spanish the waves and higher.
erests began to sprout caps of foam, The ship, struck Tushing The sleek texture of the Indian Ocean by the His ship. But the war was over. of 5,004 song, was a good ship. She thinned beneath the lash of the wind, waterhill, stagger- The Treveson rode it, but the. ed, shool, shivered behaved well in any weather, for all
went on. she was only a naturalised Briton: soggy mass of her £73,000 cargo, and she had been the German Im- laden in No. 1 Hold, close to the But her prow rode
coast.
OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS.
ACRO98
1 When poets complain of being this, it's as poets, and not as
householders, I'll bet n ha'penny.
This bell has no clapper.
9 Gentleman-of-colour not
mitted to our circle,
11 Answer this!
LL
6 Italian truism I take to make an
ellical theory.
10 A flying member of the Institute.
15 Lax-not locks, though It might
be.
America, ad-16-Prairie in South
homely In the United States. 10 Commented at length, yet scant,
12 It was a great Victoria joke to 产 say that two of these made a
Bower.
13 River that causes movement in
our little street..
14 No Hun loses his head in this
sort of thing.
17 Fished after tea and got all fled
up
in consequence.
10 Arm of the sea.
20 Perfect darlings.
21 Merely an incident.
23 "What hides the helps?" sald
Sally
24 making a smart repartee, herself.
20 One of the metals in brass.
29 Polar zone (hyphen 3-4).
30 The flower that has a rescate
alternative (two words, 3, 4).
31 His isle is Mona's, also.
32 Motion read and amended-with-
out heat.
2 Skattle.
DOWN
3 Smooth enough to be put in the
sty for a large number.
4 Blue already and might tura
-quite sour.
5 Prescribed portion.
6 More likely to be appreciated by Brown minor than by the car-driver (two words, 4, 3),
7 Saddle-bugs? (two words, 6, 8).
Indeed. 20 For some reason or another, this is always high when people go away in it.
22 Great river of great service to
crossword mongers. 25 Where Gaston
lighted up.
27 Roy.
siceps when
20 Has ten? Have, really, nowa-
day's.
Saturday's 'Salation. SUPERSEDING CI
NEERA SHOE MTMIC 8 EMITA TR TH BAND LEARN S P PLUMAGESA: GEO AGUE" E-ISCREEN NEMES AND THEN A DUPLEXG PENCIL ECIMPERO I
MORION AMADIT O AN ACTUATES Y NATADB HE THEN ID SEMI UNEVEN UBER E NA NES MEREMBELLISHES
CO. LTD
lower, het stern
higher in the rea Her two port boats were carried away. Across the screaming of the gale, deep, omin- ous, came a boon; low in timbre, ter- zifying in quality,
THREE
IN
The Tecucksa's boat which was sailed atross 2,100 miles of occan in 25 days.
n
that the gusts of rain that sent drops on to their unshaven, stubbly checks and jowls might trickle down into the cans they slung below their throats: They left their socks lying by their alder, to aquecze a few drips of rain down their parched threats. lower the sail and They strove to catch water in it; but by the time. they had washed the salt from the canvas the shower had stopped. Their feet, unsocked, dabbled in the brine at the bottom of the boat. The salt scorched them. The salt caked on their checks, and burned like fire. Their strength ebbed with every passing hour. They could not est- inate how near they were, how fir they were,
WEEKS AN
OPEN BOAT
the sound of water, not rushing free, bat pent like a padding beast grow ing angrily for its prey. The boom was broken by a slipping, a grating: as if woodwork were allont scraping against the ship.
and
The keen ear of the officer on the watch caught the sound. Soundings were taken. There was water in Na. I hold-and it could not get away. That shattering impact had torn a hole in the plates, forcing apart
metal from metal, rending nsunder the metal rivels that held them together.
being the story of the origin of
the bi-annual Trevessa Trophy event for ships' life-boats, held in Hongkong. The trophy was won last week by the Indo China Steam Navigation Com-
And the water could not be forced pany's Mausang, whose two lifeboats
through the cargo into the bilge.
where the pumps could get at it.
It remained, locked in the for'ard
hold, ever adding to the weight of
the cargo the weight of a constantly.
bottom.
gained first and second places,
offered,
Trevean, the Treged
Was
O the other boat their.
rations were two table spoonfuls of water and half a biscuit per man per day. Once, trying to lower the sall to catch water, one man fell overboard. Ho sank like a plummet before the boat could even bo turned round. Once a pilot fall swam at the bows, a shark at the stern of the boat: sure sign of death by zeaman's superstition. The omen 'was fulfilled: one man died of ex-
osure that night,
Smith pored over the "Epitome boat was one-third of Navigation" which he had snatch- of a elgarette tin od up from his cabin when he went
to get his coat. By scaman's tradi
of water per man per day, one lidful tion, knives were stuck in the mast to avoid disaster. Their feet blis- of a tin of con- tered, their faces scared, their
bodies densed milk twice
á day; one biscuit wasted, they yet held on: raising a per day. As the Bon to echo over the trackless waste, stores of cigarettes meer say: "In a month you'll be raising a cheer, hearing the First dwindled and the
tins emplied, each telling. this story and getting beer man was given his for the telling."*
"mug" to be pass- Men died: of exposure, of strain, ed up to the Cap- of losing all control and willing tain to be given brine to allay for an instant the his ration.
more
ngonising thirst that ravaged their throats to burn with For the first five furious heat the instant the actual days the biscuits wetness had gone and only the salt could not be eatent remained,
they were hard;
they were dry. Two men In Foster's boat: eight And no one was going to waste that in Smith's. The crews shifted them single mouthful of nectar to wash over the side as the officers read the down biscult, and get it absorbed in burial service. They wavered from the cloying mass of flour. That was their course, ran too far north, too to be rolled on the tongue us Lucul- far south, fought their way back jus never rolled his choicest Faler- through dirty nights and days 20 nian; to be savoured as no epleure calm that their only progress was by to-day lingers over a thimbleful of oar,
"Until, on June 26, a cracked volco Napoleon brandy.
The compass a spirit compass in Foster's boat shouted "An'.... was of no use: the boat moved to 'An!”
No need to be an interpreter: that port or starboard, her nose waver-
was "LAND!" The sharp- ing from side to side like the hend eroale of a drunkard, too quickly. One eyed man was given the promised day, a seaman, mnd with the thirst reward: one tin of water. They beat that devoured him, smashed it and towards the land from noon until drained the bubble of alcohol-burn- dusk, The coast was fringed with ing spirit that seared his throat it reefs, but the providence that had contained.
sustained them did not desert them: quarantined for plague, lay off the coast. Constable. Gretry, aboard the Secunder, saw them, gave
the alarm.
upwards, Another wireless Increasing bulk of water, forcing was not the time to wait. the bows down, down until they The Trevean broadcast the SO S. sent "Afrald further search useless.
no loss; threatened to lead the ship to the It renched- Western Australia and Not much hope of finding Trevessa's
HE compass was
Bonts put out, piloted them ashore, THE blowing." was relayed to Britain. The news bonts. Gale
Foster ahead and Smith on the island of Rodriguez: 1,700 papers carried a tiny paragraph Another short paragraph appeared
There behind steered by the stars as the old miles from the place where the ship khronicling the
The two star in the London newspapers. the news.
Two days later, on June 28, a board boats left and hove-to under was a flurry of excitement at Lloyds, mariners steered; by the sun-he had had foundered; covered in 23 days. AT I am on June 4, 1923, sen-anchors to wait for daylight. There was a clutch of terror at the a sextant-by the drift of the sen A the captain ordered out They left none too soon. Just 30 hearts of half-a-hundred women and the steady pulse of the wind Creole fisherman saw a boat feebly the boats and Issued life-belts. The minutes after they had swung down, the slow certainty of death warring above all, by that instinct that true beating its way to Mauritius: a boat
into the boiling sea,
kays: Smith's boat. Once ashore, ali discipline was not the iron discipline
the Trevessa with and defeating the steady sallors possess; that sixth, or seventh that had covered 2,100 miles la 26
sense that guides them aright.
save one: Coolc of compulsion but the resilient steel dipped her nose once more into the hope of life. And silence.
Did
They made chutes of cardboard hands recovered 00 the "Mutiny strove to regain her discipline of perfect confidence and sea,, rolled,
and
Bounty"? Have you read the story and alung them under their chins Allchin died on the strand, perfect co-operation. At,2.15 in the balance,
the stern, the of the Immortal Bligh, The morning, that fey hour when the
deznon skipper spirit
of man is at its lowest ebb, Moreton Bay steamed over the track ruthless, sadistic. Captain Foster
order of sea within the next few days, who was yet so consummate a sen- gave the
his company, "Abandon ship.
They found fragments of wreckage, man that he brought No use to wait for a rescue; the They found-sinister testimony of; cast adrift in 1709, to land and gave trace of his évil qualities S OS had gone out earlier in the tragedy an upturned boat labelled no night, giving the position 28.45 S.S. Trevessa. They found nothing throughout that nightmare journey? such epics belonged Did you think suc South, 85.42 East. It had been re- more,
For two days the Trevean zig- to the past, to the days of sail, to a peived by the Runic. hundreds of miles away; by two other ships then zagged about the empty, heaving lustier aga? You were unknown, later found to be other sea, patrolling, looking, searching ships of the same company. The the surface, scanning the horizon for crew, pilfering their pay, ordering in Tregenna was 350 miles away and the boats. They saw the illimitable a cold, quarter-deck voice hideous could make but 6 knots; the Trevean waste of water, the tossing, flying penalties to gratify his own sense of boat floating keel- importance and. his own passion for was 272 miles to the South. There spray, and
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Here was no Bligh, tormention his
cruelty, But here was a seaman, two
of all his seamen possessed abitles and
none of his faults: Cecil Foster and bis first officer, Charles James Stewart Smith.
They had loaded the boats, pro- visioned the boats, launched the boats: three tasks on such a night to tax the most expert......
Now, to sall the boats. No hope of a rescue on that deserted vastness ot sea. And to make land-well, 1,200 miles to the East, in the teeth of the gale, Joy Australia; 1,750 miles to the west, lay Mauritius and Rodriguez, Between boats and those two land masses, one so huge, one so small it seemed impossible to hit It in the immensity of ocean with the instruments available on such a boat, was-Sea.
Forty-four men: seventeen with the Captain; the balance with the Arst officer; two open boats; and the sea. The war was on.
L night the boats lay-to
together. All next day! they lay-lo, not daring to move; ball- ing, walling. waiting, balling. At five in the afternoon they rigged a Bail. At six a gust of wind carried it by the board. A tow-line run from Smith's boat to Fosters. They ploughed their slow way westward
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AIR SWIMMING POOL OPEN
for an hour, two hours. At ten the British Steameratang tow-line was carried away by the ravening sca.
the night.
The
Again they Iny-to for
he following day a council was
ther.
Yes, they would keep tege- Captain's boat was the
faster and led the way, then hove to to permit the other craft to catch up. When the strain of waiting grow too Intense, the Captain's boat
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Time-or was It. clqrnity?-passed. Another council was held. It was decided that the boats must part: the Captain's to make its best speed for land and send help to the slower; heavier-laden craft. As Foster holst ed another improvised enil, the crew in the other hoot raised three cheers. The boats, now rowed, now drift-
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