FIRE AT SEA
Tragic Tales of Burning Ships
IT is almost impossible to imagine anything more appalling than a fire at sea. The floating home of perhaps scores, maybe hundreds, of people blazing away, iron and steel melting in the fierce heat, explosions taking place here, there and everywhere; men trapped in cabins and being roasted to death; heroic sailors fighting the flames which there is no fire brigade to fight for them—all these things go to make up a scene of horror that beggars description.
Such were the circumstances on December 8, 1914, when the oil-tank steamer Vedra took fire off Walney Island. She had left Sabine, in Texas, some while before, and run the gauntlet of the few German commerce raiders in the Atlantic; and Captain Brewster was telling himself, when he arrived off Barrow on December 7, that his voyage was at an end, and that he would soon be able to unload his cargo of benzine. He counted his chickens before they were hatched, for Dame Fortune was bent on playing him a scurvy trick. For some time the weather had been rough, and the Vedra had been forcing her way through in the teeth of a gale which played shuttlecock with her. But the sturdy steamer had fought hard and long to get to her port; and now she was within sight. Across the darkening waters signals were sent for a pilot to come aboard and guide her into harbour.
Meanwhile, the storm increased in fury, and the Vedra found herself fighting against the titanic forces of the deep. Now on the crest of a wave, now in the trough the vessel lay, hovering at times, it seemed, on the very edge of the pit of destruction, and at others diving down, down, down, and then righting herself as by a miracle.
The waiting men saw a tug put out and head towards their ship.
“The pilot,” they muttered. “He’s in for a rough trip!”
A rough trip it was, and one that was never finished, for ere he could reach the Vedra the latter was taken up, as it were, by giant hands and flung shorewards; then swung about again and hurled towards Walney Island. Firm as a rock Captain Brewster stood to his post, and worked his ship like the mariner he was; but it was a hopeless task, and very soon there was a grinding that told she had run ashore. The engines were immediately reversed, and the ship strained to her utmost in the effort to get off the shore. As the waters poured over her she seemed to shake herself like a great dog. There was the hum of the engines below, the swish of the propeller as it churned up the water, but never a move backward did the Vedra make; rather, she bumped more heavily and got farther in. She was fast held.
Captain Brewster, realising now that it was useless to try to float her by her own engines, signalled to the shore for assistance, and the guardship Furness, lying off the port, immediately put out and hurried to render what aid she could, while at the same time the tugs Walney and Cartmel pushed their noses through the water in her direction. Captain Hill, of the Furness, worked his vessel as near to the Vedra as was possible with safety, and then, calling on the crew to stand by, hurled a hawser towards her. Time and time again the hawser was flung, only to fall short; but at last it was successfully thrown, and caught by some of the Vedra’s crew. It took but a little while for them to hitch it securely; and when this was done the word was given to the Furness, whose engines were reversed, and away she bore till the hawser stretched taut from ship to ship.
But the Furness found she had undertaken a task that defied all her strength, and, strain though she did with every ounce of steam in her and every horsepower in her engines, she could not make the Vedra budge from the fast hold in which she had been caught. Suddenly, too, there was a crack that sounded above the roar of the wind, and the Furness went staggering back as a child staggers when someone lets go of a rope he is straining at. The hawser had snapped in two. A sharp command, and the Furness eased up, and once more she steamed towards the Vedra; another hawser was hurled, and again, eventually, was hitched on. Then back she pulled, more carefully than ever this time, with the hawser tightening between the two vessels. Would it hold? Would the Vedra move? Would the Furness’s engines stand the strain? Such were the questions that raced through many a mind in those anxious moments. On the Vedra, the captain still at his post, men waited tensely, holding on to anything at hand, lest they be pitched off into the boiling sea below, while the whole ship seemed to throb to the racing of her engines as they worked at high pressure. But she refused to move.
Things were now assuming a very serious aspect, though the coming of the two tug boats at this time, under command of Commander Bisset, R.N., Harbour-master of Barrow, heartened the captain and crew, who refused to heed exhortations thrown at them to leave the vessel.
“No!” bawled the captain through his funnelled hands. “I’ll not leave her till there’s no hope. I think we can refloat her!”
So, as the men would stick to their duty, there was nothing to do but to strive the utmost to get the ship off, and the tugs and the guardship worked nobly with this end in view; but all unavailingly. And while they worked the news had been signalled along the coast, and the lifeboats at Piel and Fleetwood put out to succour the stranded mariners. Just as the Piel boat reached the spot, however, a great calamity had come to pass.
The buffeting of the wind and sea bumped the Vedra heavily at every blow. The straining of her engines had begun to tell; the engines soon gave up the fight and refused to work any more; and the vessel lay a helpless hulk, at the mercy of the elements—wind and water, which were soon to be reinforced by a third—fire! While the firemen below had been working like niggers to keep their engines going, other men had been busy at the pumps, pumping the oil out of the tanks in order to lighten the ship and give her a better chance of life. But pumped they never so feverishly, never so lustily, they could not work fast enough; they were fighting against Nature, which, red in tooth and claw, delights to show man that, despite his ingenuity, he is but puny.
Just as the engines gave up, the copper oil tank gave way, and instantly the oil began to run out. Now, it has always been a problem with oil-ships, this bursting of the tanks when the vessel goes ashore—a problem with a very serious point in it, and that is that the oil is then almost certain to run into the engine-room. It did so in this case; while the men at the pumps were sweating with their exertions, the oil was running quickly towards the engine-room. There was no stopping it, and very soon it reached the engines. There was a burst of flame, followed by a terrific explosion.
Horror-stricken, the men in the ships lying around looked across the troubled waters at the now flaming vessel. They knew only too well what had happened, and how utterly helpless everything was; but they steamed forward as closely as they dared, and in the brilliant light could see men standing about the rails of the vessel with agony-drawn faces and already scorched clothes.
The men on the Vedra? Down in the engine-room there were only things that once were men; trapped in that inferno, every man of them had been burned to death. Some, standing on deck, had rushed, as many as possible, to the weather side of the ship, where, as the flames were blown away from them, they stood a better chance of escape. Here they clung, maddened with fear, waving a jersey to attract attention—as if any attraction were needed! The light from the blazing ship showed clearly and distinctly to the watchers the whole tragic scene. Others, who were in the fo’c’sle, were caught in a trap, and the would-be rescuers could see them at the portholes, frantically calling for the help that could not be given them.
All around the ship the sea was a blazing mass, for the oil which had been pumped overboard had caught fire. The two lifeboats sped through the sea towards the flaming ship, but were driven back by the intense heat. Ever and anon there were reports as of great guns—with a roar the oil tanks exploded, and added to the volume of flame which enveloped the hapless ship and men. Then lesser reports; the steel plates of the vessel were being blown out.
“No hope—no hope!” cried the entrapped men; and then, driven mad by despair, determined to take all risks. Some of them flung themselves overboard into the flaming cauldron. They were never seen again.
Then there took place one of those deeds of heroism which will never die while men have lips to tell of courage and endurance. The chief engineer was seen by those on the tugs to be standing on the poop with three other men; hurriedly they saw him give his comrades a lifebuoy each. They expected to see him don one himself, but, looking again, realised that he had not one left. In the brilliant light they could see him urging his comrades to jump; could see them reluctant to leave him; but, pressed by the brave man, at last they leapt clear of the ship—into the sea of fire on which were floating several lifebuoys and belts thrown out by the tugs and lifeboats. They disappeared for a moment, then came to the surface again, and could be seen striking out towards the Furness, which, pushing as near as was possible, went to their rescue. By the greatest of good luck, after a fearful struggle for life against sea and fire, two men, Second Engineer McLoughlin and Fourth Engineer Dixon, were picked up, sadly burnt, almost exhausted, but alive. The third man was not so fortunate, and was not seen again.
“The funnels and ventilators were belching forth mighty columns of flame—every part of the ship was ablaze”
Meanwhile, the chief engineer had himself jumped overboard, without any lifebuoy, and fought his way yard by yard through the sea of flame till he came within an arm’s length of the boat which had been put off to rescue him. As though angry at being robbed of the other men, the sea, seeming to gather in fury, at that moment picked up the engineer on a tremendous wave and hurled him back into the inferno, then back against the death-ship, battering him to death.
It was evident now that there was no hope for any other of the stricken crew. The funnels and ventilators were belching forth mighty columns of flame—every part of the ship was ablaze. Only one man was still visible on deck, and he was so scared that he could do nothing but cry agonisingly for help.
“Jump!” they yelled to him. “Jump!”
“I can’t swim!” was the tragic answer; and, fearing to trust himself to the treacherous sea, he remained where he was, to become the victim of a still more treacherous foe.
So ended the tragedy of the Vedra. Although the tugs and lifeboats loitered about all night in the hope of finding some survivor, they were unsuccessful. Morning came. The ship was still burning furiously, great columns of flame and smoke ascending to such a height that they were visible at Fleetwood and Blackpool, twenty miles away. Her plates were red hot; all her tanks had long since exploded with terrific reports; and when night fell she was nothing but a shapeless skeleton, glowing in the sea, which itself was like a burning oil well.
Out of a crew of thirty-six only two men were taken off, and that despite all the gallant efforts that were made. Even of these two only one lived, for a week later one of them died in hospital from burns and shock.
THE story of the burning of the Earl of Eldon, one of the finest trading vessels then afloat (it was on September 27, 1834, that the fire was discovered), is an instance of the spontaneous combustion of a cargo such as has often sent good ships to their doom. The Earl of Eldon left Bombay on August 24, carrying forty-five souls, including three ladies and a baby amongst her passengers. She was laden with cotton bales, screwed so tightly that when the time came to move them, in order to try to save the ship, it was found impossible to shift them sufficiently. Before the cotton was put aboard it had been allowed to get thoroughly wet through, but, knowing the danger of wet cotton in a ship’s hold, the owners had had it dried before shipment. Apparently the drying had not been thorough, because the only explanation of the fire on the Earl of Eldon is that, in just the same way that a haystack takes fire from the firedamp that generates inside it, so the cotton bales generated their own fire. As stated above, the first signs of anything wrong were discovered on September 27, when some of the passengers noticed steam issuing from the fore-hatchway. Captain Theaker, however, assured them that it was only steam, which was a usual thing on cotton-loaded ships. Presently, however, the smoke became so dense that the passengers were really alarmed, and an officer of the Madras Artillery, who was on board as a passenger, was not at all surprised when Captain Theaker knocked at his door and informed him that part of the cotton was on fire, and that he wished all the gentlemen passengers to come on deck for consultation. The rest of the story cannot be better told than in the words of the Indian officer.
“Being assembled,” he says, “the captain stated the case to be that some part of the cargo appeared to have spontaneously ignited, and he proposed removing the bales until they should discover the ignited ones, and have them thrown overboard, as also those which appeared to be in the same damaged condition. He said that there did not appear to be immediate danger, and that he hoped we might be able to avert it altogether. However, at eight o’clock the smoke became much thicker, and began to roll through the after-hatchway—the draught having been admitted forward in order to enable the men to work. Several bales were removed, but the heat began to be intolerable below; the smoke rolled out in suffocating volumes, and before nine o’clock we discovered that part of the deck had caught fire; in short, the men were obliged to knock off work. The captain then ordered the hatches to be battened down, with a view to keep the fire from bursting out, and to hoist out all the boats and stock them in case of necessity. This was done, and about half-past one the three ladies, two sick passengers, an infant, and a female servant were put into the longboat, with two hundred and sixteen gallons of water, twenty gallons of brandy, and biscuits for a month’s consumption, together with such pots of jam and preserved meats as we could get at, and the day’s provision of fresh and salted meat.
“It was now about two o’clock; the hatches were then opened, and all hands set to work to endeavour to extinguish the fire. The main hatch being lifted, and a tarpaulin removed, there was a sail underneath which was so hot that the men could hardly remove it; when they did, the heat and smoke came up worse than ever, and it being now known from inspection that the fire was underneath that part, orders were given to hoist out the bales until the inflamed ones could be got at; but when the men laid hold of the lashings to introduce a crane-hook, they were found to have been burned through beneath, and came away in their hands.
“The case now appeared bad, indeed. However, we cut a bale open and tried to remove it by handfuls, but the smoke and heat became so overpowering that no man could stand over it, and water only seemed to have the effect of increasing it, in the quantities we dared to use, for had the captain ventured to pump water into the ship to extinguish the fire, the bales would have swelled so much as to burst open the deck, and have increased so much in weight as to sink the ship, so that either way destruction would have been the issue. Under these circumstances, perceiving the case to be utterly hopeless, the captain called us together on the poop, and asked if anyone could propose any expedient likely to avail in extinguishing the fire and saving the ship, as in that case ‘we will stick by her while a hope remains.’ It was unanimously agreed that all had been done that could be done; the men were all perfectly sober, and had been indefatigable in their exertions, but one and all seemed coolly and positively of opinion that the case was hopeless. The heat was increasing so much that it became dangerous to leave the poop; the captain therefore requested us to get into the boats, told off and embarked his men, and at three o’clock he himself left the ship, the last man, just as the flames were bursting through the quarter-deck. We then put off, the two boats towing the longboat. The ship’s way had been previously stopped by backing her yards. She was now in one blaze, and her masts began to fall in. The sight was grand, though awful. Between eight and nine o’clock all her masts had fallen, and she had burned to the water’s edge. Suddenly there was a bright flash, followed by a dull, heavy explosion—her powder had caught. For a few seconds her splinters and flaming fragments were glittering in the air, and then all was darkness, and the waters had closed over the Earl of Eldon!
“The ship was now in one blaze, and her masts began to fall in”
“Sad was the prospect now before us! There were in the longboat the captain and twenty-five persons, including an infant four months old; the size of the boat 23 feet long by 7⅓ feet broad. In each of the others ten individuals, including the officer in charge. One of the boats had some bags of biscuit, but the chief provision was in the longboat. We were, by rough calculation, above 1,000 miles from Rodrigue, and 450 from Diego Garcias, the largest of the Chagos Islands; but to get there we must have passed through the squally latitudes we had just left, and been subject to variable winds and heavy weather or calms, neither of which we were prepared to resist. Seeing, then, that our stock was sufficient, we determined on trying for Rodrigue. About eleven o’clock we accomplished rigging the boats and were under sail. We carried a lantern lashed to our mast in the longboat to prevent the other boats from losing us during the night; and when day broke sent them sailing in all directions around to look-out for ships. While the wind was light they could outsail us, but when it became strong, and the sea very high, the difference of speed was rather in our favour, as the weight and size of the longboat enabled her to lay hold of the water better.
“On the third day of our boat navigation, the change of the moon approaching, the weather began to wear a threatening aspect; but as we were in the Trade, we did not apprehend foul or contrary winds. In the course of the night it blew fresh, with rain. We were totally without shelter, and the sea, dashing its spray over us, drenched us, and spoiled a great part of our biscuit, though we happily did not discover this until we were nearly out of the want of it.
“In the course of the next day the weather grew worse, and one of our small boats, in which was Mr. Simpson, the second mate, with nine others, was split by the sea. She came alongside, and we put the carpenter into her, who made what repairs he could, but with little hope of their answering. We then proceeded to fasten a spray-cloth of canvas along our gunwale, having lashed a bamboo four feet up the mast, and fixed it on the intersection of two stanchions at the same height above the stern. The spray-cloth was firmly lashed along this, so as to form a kind of half-pent roof, and had it not been for this imperfect defence we must have been swamped; and we still shipped seas to so great an extent that four men were obliged to be kept constantly employed in bailing to keep her clear of water. Towards evening it blew hard with a tremendous sea, and, not thinking the other damaged boat safe, we took in her crew and abandoned her. We were now thirty-six persons, stowed as thick as we could hold, and obliged to throw over all superfluities. We had not more than eight inches of clear gunwale out of water!
“This night I shall never forget. Our situation was indeed awful. Wet, crushed, and miserable, the night passed away, and the day broke at last. A tremendous sea came roaring down, and I held in my breath with horror; it broke right over our stern, wetted the poor women to their throats, and carried away the steersman’s hat. The captain then cried out, in a tone calculated to inspire with confidence he afterwards told me his heart did not re-echo:
“‘That’s nothing! It’s all right! Bail away, my boys!’
“He never expected us to live out that night; but, harassed as he was in mind and body, he gallantly stood up, and never by word or deed betrayed a feeling that might tend to make us despair. He stood on the bench that livelong night, nor did he ever attempt to sleep for nearly forty-eight hours.
“The morning broke and passed away, and, after the change of the moon, the weather began to moderate, and we enjoyed a comparative degree of comfort. We had three small meals of biscuit and some jam, etc., and three half-pints of water per day, with brandy, if we liked it. The men had one gill of spirits allowed them daily. We had plenty of cigars, and whenever we could strike a light we had a smoke, and I never found tobacco so great a luxury. The ladies were most wretched, yet they never uttered a repining word.
“On the thirteenth evening we began to look out for Rodrigue. The captain told us not to be too sanguine, as his chronometer was not to be depended upon after its late rough treatment. The night fell, and I went forward to sleep, and about twelve was awoke by the cry that land was right ahead. I looked and saw a strong loom of land through the mist. The captain had the boat brought to for an hour, then made sail and ran towards it, and at half-past two it appeared still more strongly. We then lay to until daylight. I attempted to compose myself to sleep, but my feelings were too strong, and after some useless attempts I sat down and smoked with a sensation I had long been a stranger to. With the first light of dawn, Rodrigue appeared right ahead, distant about six miles, and by eight o’clock we were all safely landed. A fisherman who came off to show us the way through the reefs received us in his house, and proceeded to feed us, and in the meantime sent to tell the gentlemen of the island of our arrival. Two of them came down immediately, and, having heard our story, said that we had been miraculously preserved. They then gave our bundles to their negroes, and took us to their houses, where everything they had was set before us—clean linen and a plentiful dinner. They shook us down four or five beds in an outhouse, and we enjoyed what we had not known for the last fortnight—a sound sleep.”