10
THE
BLUE FUNNE
LINE
REGULAR AND FAST PASSENGER SERVICES
FREIGHT AND
LONDON SERVICE
PATROCLUS
MEMNON
Fails 25th Aug. for Marseilles, London, Rotterdam & Glasgow.
sails & Sepl, from Marseilles, London, Homburg & Glasgow.
LIVERPOOL SERVICE
MARON
NEW
YORK
PREMIUS
sails 4th Sept, for Havre, Liverpool, & Bromborough. SERVICE
salls 27th Sept. for Boston, N. Y. Philadelphia & Baltimore via Batavia, Straits & Cape of Good Hope.
Yokohama)
PACIFIC SERVICE (via Kobe, Nagoya and TYNDAREUS anils 17th Aug. for Victoria, Vancouver & Seattle,
INWARD SERVICE
TEUCER
ANTENOR
MENELAUS
AJAX
Due 13 Aug. From Europe vla Straits. Due 13 Aug. From U. K. via Stralis. Due 23 Aug. From U, K. via Straits. Due 27 Aug. From U. K. via Straits,
Special reduced fares are quoted for cargo steamers with Umited passenger accommodation.
For freight, passage rates and information apply to
BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE.
BARBER-WILHELMSEN LINE
MONTHLY SERVICE
To
NEW YORK
Via LOS ANGELES & PANAMA CANAL PORTS. NEXT SAILING
M.S. "TARONGA"
on
18th August.
EXCELLENT ACCOMMODATION
FOR 12 PASSENGERS.
DODWELL & CO., LTD.
Hong Bank Bldg.
Agents.
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. THURSDAY,
A GREAT SEA STORY
RETOLD BY
GUY RAMSEY
HOW FRANCE'S LUXURY
over
LINER WENT UP
IN FLAMES
TATELY, serene,
tintinnabulation of merrymakers?
No onc
Irresponsible
AUGUST 12, 1987.
The crew
FIRE
Was
FOR
brilliant with elec ic On D deck the fire fed greedily on lights that shone on the paint and varnish. Its appetite wood, seasoned and dried by the her white paint, the Georges wheted, it turned to the solids! the Philippar, crack ship of truple beat, Vieq reached it aw the peril, fed back. to the bridge to the Messageries Maritimes, take command.
The siren shrilled, drowning the glided through the slow, clangour of the bells. In the wire- lazy swell of the Indian less cabin the radio operator sent out the inevitable message: S O S Ocean, She was heading As his angers tapped out the tast
The Blazing Georges Philippàr in the Gulf of Aden homeward on the return dash and dot of his cry for help.
fames sprang up round him.
WAB no ateamer Preserver stationed at Perim, The
radio was put out of com- half of her maiden voyage
But there had perished. He knew some-two of the George Philippar from Marseilles to the Far mission by the outbreak.
children of a Dutch passenger among exception. If someone had only climbed aboard her. Her super- was worse to come.
A third fire sent ils red lights of them-must be dead. But he sutls- thought, one of the vessel's dummy structure that had been her pride about her gulted deck. Her uprights East.
danger about the bridge. A fourth fled himself that no living passenger funnels masked a tank where four was a shambles heaped in grey uses
tons of sea water was stored. where the was left aboard. the tank about raged She was designed as a ship to de
But the irony does not stop there. her davits, her derricks, her cranes was fire-extinguisher
He gave his orders. light her presengers. Squat, rec- chemical
would go below decks and abandon There was aboard this superb ship stood at grotesque engies, twisted of them tangular funnels-two
stored.
Four outbreaks, in widely separ- ship. At the head of his officers, he no fire-detecting apparatus although and contorted by the fury of the modernistic dummies-Jutled through
Then, and then the Inventor of the apparatus, com- ames. She was still hot.
Eari left her, sick at heart, "I of sun-deck, ated parts of the ship, roared up to raw them away.
only, he ordered his officers to leave pulsory in British, German and a vast superstructure
American ships,
French felt very low," he wrote that morn- She looked for all the world like a the sky virtually simultaneously.
Ing. "She made me very and." motor-boat chuffing millionaire's
No one knew how. No one knew and left himself.
to think, Two living people were left aboard man. stopped Mediterranean, why.
They No indemnity was granted to the the tideless
The company Invoked enlarged to liner-size,
Flames began to rocket upward, the boat: two stewardesses, furnishings
nnishings dimming the tropic stars. The ocean cried to the nearest lifeboot to return. passengers. and Her
OR three hours more she from the tropic purple of Their voices were drowned in the a law passed by Louis XIV, the Rot were the height of luxury. Shellac turned
floated. Then she lurched paint, French polish, expensive var midnight. lit with silver phosphores- surge of the flames. They ran to Soleil, in the seventeenth century,
sanctity nish covered all her woodwork. She cence to angry orange and vicious the upper deck. They invaded the to absolve themselves still Article of the captain's bridge. 210 in the Commercint Code of France.
They pointed out that it to port, vomiting a column of flame- Goft. wide: her livid lemon.
of Wils 542ft. long.
STA- They smote the swered ship's bell." was the width of the Orders were given BOAT
The clarion arrested the attention was only an set of grace on their shot smoke from her very vitals. upper-deck
the water-line. Her TIONS. But-so often, so pitifully ship (rum
The list increased. back. motors, developing 11.000 h.p., could often the case--there und been no of the bont's commander. He looked part to transport the passengers Again she lurched and sheets
There, silhouetted against stranded at Aden or Jibuti back to incandescence flared from her bridge.
France.
Wearily, wearily, she lay on her keep her at 17 knots all day and all boat-drill.
There was a
Seven hundred and sixty-seven of trace of panic: In the flame, stood the two women, Instantly waving frantically. He put back and
crew und
were side, settling down by the stern. In night Her displacement was 21,000
the passengers stantly rising, to be os
flimsy took them ufl.
Messages complete silence the Georges Philip checked. One woman, her
A stowaway, one Maxime Olewski, saved. But 49 were lost. dress ablaze. forced her way
a port-hole, crushing the a Pole, dived five times into the sea flashed through to Europe, couched par-bearing the name of the Pres!- His in blunt seaman jargon. "Have to- dent of the Messageries Maritimes; that had lain, a fairy vessel THERE was an atmosphere
against her skin, to rescue sinking swimmers.
gallantry was rewarded-by the day burled the corpses of French the of holiday about the whole burning material
heading and dived hissing Into the sea,
"Have sighted one trip: her passengers were
marshalled into remission of an eight-day sentence girls," wirelessed one British rescuer, palace, beside the hideous slums of empty lifeboat Marseliles; the crack ship built for Passengers wer
marked 'Georges Philippar," radloed the service of pleasure-surrendered the sea. The age-old herself to for home. Back from China and its
and its the boats: no matter which bouts, no of imprisonment for stowing away, squalor, from Indo-China
the Japanese Hakone Maru.
Empty of life. the Georges conflict between fire and water had blinding sunshine they came, laugh- matter which passengers. The boats
English pas- Philippar wallowed away, even her been fought out again to the bitter- ing, gay, rejoicing to be among their were swung out on the davits and own kind and making for their own lowered away.
Mrs. Muirhead, tames listing in the slow, leek, end, Rengers, Paoil, who set the ship with her
The sen claimed the liner for her land.
by the of Derbyshire, was unable to bear trople swell. She drifted through
and her flames But amid all the galety of the head Into the wind, had acted for
but the
wrangling over insurance exiles' return, the excitement of the the best..
Early on the Friday morning, Mr. memory to be a stalking horse for first trip of a new liner, ran a thin bridge, set for'urd, were blown aft, a shee on her feet three weeks after the Monday, the Tuesday, the Wed- own leaving a legacy of financial In all these stories of tragedy.
the London salvage the squabbling of politicians, secret sense of strain, of something where other outbreaks started, al- the fire: the decks had been so hot. nesday, the Thursday. feverish, of something almost hysteri- most at the touch of a spark.
In a vain endeavour to check the there is a bitterly ironic "." That C. Earl. of There is something in the climate spread of the fire, the watertight, that fosters that spirit: the sultry, door in the port alleyway on D deck raging languld days, the suffocating nights was closed. Behind it 40 passengers where acquaintances become lovers were penned in a roaring. in an hour and a marriage of happy hell of flames. Nobody knew they years turns to an estrangement in a were there, When it was realised it day. On
voyage there was was too late. The door itself was that. There were red hot. more than rumours.
tons.
this
The Georges Pallippar was taking the place of the Paul Lecat, which Georges burned. The had been Philippar herself had been burned
THERE was no
ONE of the
WHAT SORT
ARE
OF PATIENT
YOU?
irreparable damage to them-
cases for me to deal with without my more about wanting to know any night-life.
The Supreme Virtue
RITICISING duetors is a popular past-time. Old So-and-So is a dodderer, far too cautious and con- time, inservative, while young What's-his- Name is so modern that he really
selves. Vicq's mind, to fight the doesn't seem to treat us as seriously e
"I expect you are wondering why But what do the doctors think of
bills. Funnily enough. I don't rank as she lay in the shipyard. There fire. The chemical extinguisher was
not only unworkable but ungelatable, as he might.
me-their patients? Wasting the Doctor's Time I haven't sald anything about paying was talk
of sabotage: anarchists-
of not figures of fletion in cloaks and Only one thing would he do--save
to find in "If you want to keep on the right that as the first essential of a good whiskers in France but real people what was more precious than his you
on ship: the lives entrusted to his care. asked my doctor the other day what
light, qualities he liked biting (with
mouths
and what others merely side of most doctors, never air what patient. But I do wish that some Krim
Curtains, hangings, et furniture pallents.
little medical knowledge you may them would be a little more reason- O they come to me when they want mercantile marine; decorative panelling light
"One of the
be the technical terms such as tible, me, and I have to do the best I can of the flames was so fantastic-truc
to help himself," he said., fibula and so on, but don't if you for them. Yet they seem fondly to willing been, like a wildfire that any organisation to in a patient is that he should
use them in conversation and can stave off the tradesmen and There had already cloud of smoke no bigger than a clear the cabins was out of the ques-There are some people, you must want to be on good terms with your imagine that I am made of money man's hand, a minor fire that had tion. not checked her for an hour.
his
cigarettes had threatened this pride Telephone 28021.
blow her up in the took fire like evil mugle. The spread | Irritated himasi necessary things have. Most laymen know a few of in their attitude. After all,
BURNS PHILP LINE M.V. "NEPTUNA”
PASSENGER & FREIGHT SERVICE. TO
AUSTRALIA
Salling on or about 30th August.
for Saigon, Manila, Sandakan, Salamaua, Rabaul,
Sydney & Melbourne,
First Class Fare to Sydney:
Passenger & Freight Agents:-.
Single: £47.10.0d. ·
Return: £76.
Gibb, LIVINGSTON & CO., LTD.
P. G O. Building. Telephone 28031
Joint Passenger Agents:-NIPPON YUSEN KAISHA
King's Building.
of the French they were
Suez Canal.
were
able in
assistance,
In the "tual fire itself. Thirty-five miles and who resolves to get better as patients to remember is that doctors So few people stop to think that a
message. The
of
feel
bo
went into her eabin. Suddenly the British Contractor forced her engines/better, they start to ignore what he imagination and too great a kured of 11s that are the results of
enme
they far pa-
ta
Acress them yourself, who doctor. One officer ram to the strong room, come The fire alarm had summoned him. want nothing but pity when they are with him. If you start showing of, pay my Income-tax without their
he doesn't wards you. Anyway, he can always
"It may sound strange coming £33.000 in gold franes was malten. They think their doctor is being he will feel instinctively hostile 10-
from doctor, but the most desirable Meanilme, through the tropic heartless just because
summoned hold their hands and tell them how get the better of you in the matter
quality in a patient, to my way of A thing I would like many of my thinking, is that he should keep fit. PASSENGER going below seas, help was coming,
the lost by the single alarm that had been bad they are. Give me a self-reliant of using obscure terms. to bed while
too, by the person who hates the idea of being out; summoned, scht*
and business men. doctor is, after all, a craftsman. Like busy men are were tinkling
their time to dance-tunes
be other craftsmen, he likes to work. They
They don't like "Then there is the question sulvon, sighed in the heat.
obedience In patients. So many wasted any more than a bank mana- with good material. And often he were nearing Aden and the Red Sea, away, the British steamer Mahsud soon as he can. where it would be, probably, even saw the livid tongues licking at the
to know how muny people come to my patients who have never taken Crackling through the night sped people think they know much more ger does. Yet you would be amazed doesn't get it. There are plenty of hotter. They
passing Cape clouds.
Kaisar-1-Hind than the doctor. When they Gardaful, whose light ashed with muddening monotony across their her
turned aside and ploughed to the; they are ready enough to go to see me, or, even worse, get me to go the slightest trouble to observe a shifted her him for advice, but directly they be and see them, who have nothing the few simple rules of health. Flabby,
getting matter with them except a vivid
gross, perhaps, heavy caters and Otranto
to feel that they are
drinkers, they come to me to passage.
The passenger, Madame Valentin, rescue. The
engineer wife of an
in Tientsin, course and cracked on steam. The gin
of years The tells them, saying that they know for the medical dictionary. When I
the immense amount
of bad living. I can't cure At best, I can only patch docs. Really, such real suffering there is, I am slightly them. #7 doctor light went out. She groped her way to bursting-point to bring help.
inflammable than
disgusted to think that so many them up. Their mode of life is too are almost to the bell to summon the steward. Soviet oil-tanker Sovietskini Neft, far better what is good for them consider drew nearer than safety al-
propic
undo a
a people can waste my time with tel- attractive for them to attempt The fitment came away in her hand, heedless of her own
the wires cargo.
lents, for
give it up. As her fingers touched
"Of course, doctors suffer because "I really think that if you asked they were hot .... hotler even than towed
doctor in the country what they could be naturally on this suf- At 5.54 a.m. the wireless message lot of hard work in getting them on vialities.
And
gone out from the Georges the road to recovery. And it makes
the
dawn. By doctor very bad-tempered to see they have no fixed hours. They are each
on hand night and day, and the quality he liked best in a patient, he ling night.
a puff of Philippar: before wall
that commonsense was has only made this sc- would may I said just now telephone the ship was abandoned. It his work just deliberately spoiled. the
"And despite what I said From The sultry air of the cabin nine
self-reliant patients, cessibility more evident. If people the supreme virtue. A patient with smoke.
and spun with the sudden in- was Whit Monday, 1032.
Husbands, French gallantry at its about liking self-re eddied and crease of heat. The acrid scent of
into luxi-cabs. are too anxious to get well. As soon which they would take no notice self and for his doctor, and, speaking burning filtered through the swirling peak of panache, handed their wives most doctors have a few people who would only realise that a pain of that makes matters better for him-
into the boats
of danger, they during the daytime is no more serl- for myself, that kind of person waves of air.
Valentin Where there was room, they follow as they are out From D deck Madame
like. The result is that a doctor lies number of futile calls in the course the good bilipayers in the world?"
As it is, there are a suf-
Robert Allen As one bont was filing with pasa good many moments of suspense of a year.
they will do flcient bridge. She caught at the sleeve of waited.
number of life-and-death Captain Papil, the second-in-com-
women, in mand. She spoke to him in rapid, sengers drifting sparks caught it. wondering whether
the men und Orderly, urgent French,
Junior officer went to tell Com- pyjamas and snatched overcoats, in mandant, Vicq. Paoll rang down, smart evening dresses and the white put the ship drill of convention, went to the next stopped the engines, about. If-which may le bon Dieu boat and climbed in.
Strange shapes lifted in the lit and defend the ship is are, her nose must be kept into the wind that the swirling waters; shapes that had
Thousands of mufferers from Kidney binze may be blown away from her, swum with the ship for hundreds of
stopped Getting Up Nights, Leg Paina, She must also be stopped lest the miles; shapes that curved and turned breeze created by her own speed fan and thrust blunt noses with under-trouble and Bladder Weakness have stung crescent Jaws upwards to snap Circles Under Eyes, Swollen, Ankies, siness, Fainting, Burning Itching. Smart- the flames.
and of Vigour a Vicq, roused from sleep-lie had at the refuse cast overboard day by Norrpurness, Burian, thaumaliam, 112
day. gone off duty at one to be roused. soit at three-got to the bridge. A few passengers lost their heads for new decovery called our by Do- lle meed for where he thought the and, scerning the circling sharks, tox). Gantry soothes, toner, graus,
One man thrust fire was. He did not wait to ask for plunged into the water-traditional tenis, raw sore kidneys. In 16 minute
enemy of the fire, his wife through the porthole and detalls. He ran the wrong way.
dropped after her Into the sea,
The lack of organisation was the One staircase greatest tragedy. DELLS rang-but bells often ablaze, was barred with three locked
Georges doors. the оп rang
18
sped up to C, to B, to A, to the ed them: where there was not-they imagine they can do almost as they ous at night, I should be saved a the one I would have rather than all
BEL
Philippar. Who was to know that
Commandant Vicq made blá way these were alarm bells, not just the along the decks. He knew that some
Kill Kidney
Trouble Quick
Cynleg starts purifying your blood. Hirings health, youth and vitally in tours,
guaranteed to end your trouben es nur or money back, Get. Cretex at all chemists COUNT THE “TELEGRAPHS” EVERYWHERE
CANTON AGENTS for the
Hongkong Telegraph
WM.
FARMER
& CO.
Victoria Hotel Building, Shameen, Canton. Tel. 13501.
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