The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Part 35

The dark bank that covered the horizon toward Martinique, however, did not fade away with the breaking of day, and at eight in the morning of the 9th (Friday) the whole section of the sky in that direction seemed dark and troubled.

"About nine o'clock Friday morning I was sitting on one of the hatches aft with some of the other engineers and officers of the ship, discussing the peculiar weather phenomena. I noticed a sort of grit that got into my mouth from the end of the cigar I was smoking.

"I attributed it to some rather bad coal which we had shipped aboard, and, turning to Chief Engineer Evans, I remarked that 'that coal was mighty dirty,' and he said that it was covering the ship with a sort of grit. Then I noticed that grit was getting on my clothes, and finally some one suggested that we go forward of the funnels, so we would not get dirt on us. As we went forward we met one or two of the sailors from the forecastle, who wanted to know about the dust that was falling on the ship. Then we found that the grayish-looking ash was sifting all over the ship, both forward and aft.

ASHES RAINED ON THE SHIP

"Every moment the ashes rained down all over the ship, and at the same time grew thicker. A few moments later, the lookout called down that we were running into a fog-bank dead ahead. Fog banks in that section are unheard of at nine o'clock in the morning at this season, and we were more than a hundred miles from land, and what could fog and sand be doing there.

"Before we knew it, we went into the fog, which proved to be a big dense bank of this same sand, and it rained down on us from every side.

Ventilators were quickly brought to their places, and later even the hatches were battened down. The dust became suffocating, and the men at times had all they could do to keep from choking. What the stuff was we could not at first conjecture, or rather, we didn't have much time to speculate on it, for we had to get our ship in shape to withstand we hardly knew what.

"At first we thought that the sand must have been blown from sh.o.r.e. Then we decided that if the Captain's figures were right we wouldn't be near enough to sh.o.r.e to have sand blow on us, and as we had just cleared Barbados, we knew that the Captain's figures had to be right.

"Just as the storm of sand was at its height, Fourth Engineer Wild was nearly suffocated by it, but was easily revived. About this time it became so dark that we found it necessary to start up the electric lights, and it was not until after we got clear from the fog that we turned the current off. In the meantime they had burned from nine o'clock in the morning until after two in the afternoon.

THE ENGINE BECAME CHOKED

"Then there was another anxious moment shortly after nine o'clock. Third Engineer Rennie had been running the donkey engine, when suddenly it choked, and when he finally got it clear from the sand or ashes, he found the valves were all cut out, and then it was we discovered that it was not sand, but some sort of a composition that seemed to cut steel like emery. Then came the danger that it would get into the valves of the engine and cut them out, and for several moments all hands scurried about and helped make the engine room tight, and even then the ash drifted in and kept all the engine room force wiping the engines clear of it.

"Toward three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday we were practically clear of the sand, but at eleven o'clock that night we ran into a second bank of it, though not as bad as the first. We made some experiments, and found the stuff was superior to emery dust. It cut deeper and quicker, and only about half as much was required to do the work. We made up our minds we would keep what came on board, as it was better than the emery dust and much cheaper, so we gathered it up.

"That night there were more of the same electric phenomena toward Martinique, but it was not until we got into St. Lucia, where we saw the Roddam, that we learned of the terrible disaster at St. Pierre, and then we knew that our sand was lava dust."

The volcanic ash which fell on the decks of the Horace was ground as fine as rifle powder, and was much finer than that which covered the decks of the Etona.

Returning to the stories told by officers of the Roraima, of which a number have been given, it seems desirable to add here the narrative of Ellery S. Scott, the mate of the ruined ship, since it gives a vivid and striking account of his personal experience of the frightful disaster, with many details of interest not related by others.

MATE SCOTT'S GRAPHIC STORY

"We got to St. Pierre in the Roraima," began Mr. Scott, "at 6.30 o'clock on Thursday morning. That's the morning the mountain and the town and the ships were all sent to h.e.l.l in a minute.

"All hands had had breakfast. I was standing on the fo'c's'l head trying to make out the marks on the pipes of a ship 'way out and heading for St. Lucia. I wasn't looking at the mountain at all. But I guess the captain was, for he was on the bridge, and the last time I heard him speak was when he shouted, 'Heave up, Mr. Scott; heave up.' I gave the order to the men, and I think some of them did jump to get the anchor up, but n.o.body knows what really happened for the next fifteen minutes.

I turned around toward the captain and then I saw the mountain.

"Did you ever see the tide come into the Bay of Fundy. It doesn't sneak in a little at a time as it does 'round here. It rolls in in waves.

That's the way the cloud of fire and mud and white-hot stones rolled down from that volcano over the town and over the ships. It was on us in almost no time, but I saw it and in the same glance I saw our captain bracing himself to meet it on the bridge. He was facing the fire cloud with both hands gripped hard to the bridge rail, his legs apart and his knees braced back stiff. I've seen him brace himself that same way many a time in a tough sea with the spray going mast-head high and green water pouring along the decks.

"I saw the captain, I say, at the same instant I saw that ruin coming down on us. I don't know why, but that last glimpse of poor Muggah on his bridge will stay with me just as long as I remember St. Pierre and that will be long enough.

"In another instant it was all over for him. As I was looking at him he was all ablaze. He reeled and fell on the bridge with his face toward me. His mustache and eyebrows were gone in a jiffy. His hat had gone, and his hair was aflame, and so were his clothes from head to foot.

I knew he was conscious when he fell, by the look in his eyes, but he didn't make a sound.

"That all happened a long way inside of half a minute; then something new happened. When the wave of fire was going over us, a tidal wave of the sea came out from the sh.o.r.e and did the rest. That wall of rushing water was so high and so solid that it seemed to rise up and join the smoke and flame above. For an instant we could see nothing but the water and the flame.

"That tidal wave picked the ship up like a canoe and then smashed her.

After one list to starboard the ship righted, but the masts, the bridge, the funnel and all the upper works had gone overboard.

"I had saved myself from fire by jamming a metal ventilator cover over my head and jumping from the fo'c's'l head. Two St. Kitts negroes saved me from the water by grabbing me by the legs and pulling me down into the fo'c's'l after them. Before I could get up three men tumbled in on top of me. Two of them were dead.

"Captain Muggah went overboard, still clinging to the fragments of his wrecked bridge. Daniel Taylor, the ship's cooper, and a Kitts native jumped overboard to save him. Taylor managed to push the captain on to a hatch that had floated off from us and then they swam back to the ship for more a.s.sistance, but nothing could be done for the captain. Taylor wasn't sure he was alive. The last we saw of him or his dead body it was drifting sh.o.r.eward on that hatch.

"Well, after staying in the fo'c's'l about twenty minutes I went out on deck. There were just four of us left aboard who could do anything.

The four were Thompson, Dan Taylor, Quashee, and myself. It was still raining fire and hot rocks and you could hardly see a ship's length for dust and ashes, but we could stand that. There were burning men and some women and two or three children lying around the deck. Not just burned, but burning, then, when we got to them. More than half the ship's company had been killed in that first rush of flame. Some had rolled overboard when the tidal wave came and we never saw so much as their bodies. The cook was burned to death in his galley. He had been paring potatoes for dinner and what was left of his right hand held the shank of his potato knife. The wooden handle was in ashes. All that happened to a man in less than a minute. The donkey engineman was killed on deck sitting in front of his boiler. We found parts of some bodies--a hand, or an arm or a leg. Below decks there were some twenty alive.

"The ship was on fire, of course, what was left of it. The stumps of both masts were blazing. Aft she was like a furnace, but forward the flames had not got below deck, so we four carried those who were still alive on deck into the fo'c's'l. All of them were burned and most of them were half strangled.

"One boy, a pa.s.senger and just a little shaver [the four-year-old son of the late Clement Stokes, above spoken of] was picked up naked. His hair and all his clothing had been burned off, but he was alive. We rolled him in a blanket and put him in a sailor's bunk. A few minutes later we looked at him and he was dead.

"My own son's gone, too. It had been his trick at lookout ahead during the dog watch that morning, when we were making for St. Pierre, so I supposed at first when the fire struck us that he was asleep in his bunk and safe. But he wasn't. n.o.body could tell me where he was. I don't know whether he was burned to death or rolled overboard and drowned. He was a likely boy. He had been several voyages with me and would have been a master some day. He used to say he'd make me mate.

"After getting all hands that had any life left in them below and 'tended to the best we could, the four of us that were left half way ship-shape started in to fight the fire. We had case oil stowed forward.

Thanks to that tidal wave that cleared our decks there wasn't much left to burn, so we got the fire down so's we could live on board with it for several hours more and then the four turned to to knock a raft together out of what timber and truck we could find below. Our boats had gone overboard with the masts and funnel.

PREPARED TO TRUST TO LUCK

"We made that raft for something over thirty that were alive. We put provisions on for two days and rigged up a make-shift mast and sail, for we intended to go to sea. We were only three boats' length from the sh.o.r.e, but the sh.o.r.e was h.e.l.l itself. We intended to put straight out and trust to luck that the Korona, that was about due at St. Pierre, would pick us up. But we did not have to risk the raft, for about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when we were almost ready to put the raft overboard, the Suchet came along and took us all off. We thought for a minute just after we were wrecked that we were to get help from a ship that pa.s.sed us. We burned blue lights, but she kept on. We learned afterward that she was the Roddam."

Soundings made off Martinique after the explosion showed that earthquake effects of much importance had taken place under the sea bottom, which had been lifted in some places and had sunk in others. While deep crevices had been formed on the land, a still greater effect had seemingly been produced beneath the water. During the explosion the sea withdrew several hundred feet from its sh.o.r.e line, and then came back steaming with fury; this indicating a lift and fall of the ocean bed off the isle. Soundings made subsequently near the island found in one place a depth of 4,000 feet where before it had been only 600 feet deep. The French Cable Company, which was at work trying to repair the cables broken by the eruption, found the bottom of the Caribbean Sea so changed as to render the old charts useless.

New charts will need to be made for future navigation. The changes in sea levels were not confined to the immediate centre of volcanic activity, but extended as far north as Porto Rico, and it was believed that the seismic wave would be found to have altered the ocean bed round Jamaica. Vessels plying between St. Thomas, Martinique, St. Lucia and other islands found it necessary to heave the lead while many miles at sea.

It is estimated that the sea had encroached from ten feet to two miles along the coast of St. Vincent near Georgetown, and that a section on the north of the island had dropped into the sea. Soundings showed seven fathoms where before the eruption there were thirty-six fathoms of water. Vessels that endeavored to approach St. Vincent toward the north reported that it was impossible to get nearer than eight miles to the scene of the catastrophe, and that at that distance the ocean was seriously perturbed as from a submarine volcano, boiling and hissing continually.

In this connection the remarkable experience reported by the officers of the Danish steamship Nordby, on the day preceding the eruption, is of much interest, as seeming to show great convulsions of the sea bottom at a point several hundred miles from Martinique. The following is the story told by Captain Eric Lillien-skjold:

THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF THE "NORDBY"

"On May 5th," the captain said, "we touched at St. Michael's for water.

We had had an easy voyage from Girgenti, in Sicily, and we wanted to finish an easy run here. We left St. Michael's on the same day. Nothing worth while talking about occurred until two days afterward--Wednesday, May 7th.

"We were plodding along slowly that day. About noon I took the bridge to make an observation. It seemed to be hotter than ordinary. I shed my coat and vest and got into what little shade there was. As I worked it grew hotter and hotter. I didn't know what to make of it. Along about 2 o'clock in the afternoon it was so hot that all hands got to talking about it. We reckoned that something queer was coming off, but none of us could explain what it was. You could almost see the pitch softening in the seams.

"Then, as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail, the Nordby dropped--regularly dropped--three or four feet down into the sea. No sooner did it do this than big waves, that looked like they were coming from all directions at once, began to smash against our sides. This was queerer yet, because the water a minute before was as smooth as I ever saw it. I had all hands piped on deck and we battened down everything loose to make ready for a storm. And we got it all right--the strangest storm you ever heard tell of.

"There was something wrong with the sun that afternoon. It grew red and then dark red and then, about a quarter after 2, it went out of sight altogether. The day got so dark that you couldn't see half a ship's length ahead of you. We got our lamps going, and put on our oilskins, ready for a hurricane. All of a sudden there came a sheet of lightning that showed up the whole tumbling sea for miles and miles. We sort of ducked, expecting an awful crash of thunder, but it didn't come. There was no sound except the big waves pounding against our sides. There wasn't a breath of wind.

"Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I've ever been through, and I've been on every sea on the map for twenty-five years. Every second there'd be waves 15 or 20 feet high, belting us head-on, stern-on and broadside, all at once. We could see them coming, for without any stop at all flash after flash of lightning was blazing all about us.