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fusion, though no panic, and perched himself on the port-rail out of the crush. The slope of the deck was about 40 degrees-about the steepness of the roof of a house-so that Mr Smart had to scramble up on his hands and knees. "I climbed out on the rail," said he, put my arm round the post, and just sat and waited." So he sat and waited until the ship went down, when he was shot forth into the water. It was because Mr Smart "just sat and waited" that we have selected his story for preservation, and are delighted to be able to record that, after an hour in the water, he was picked up by one of the vessels summoned by wireless calls. It was so much the best thing to do, just to sit and wait, and so much the most difficult. He spoke of the discipline on board, and of the kindness of crew to passengers, and of passengers towards one another. "It was really marvellous. I never heard people who spoke with such tenderness to each other as in that time of distress and danger."

Mr Smart had no lifebelt, neither had Miss Townshend, who was also awakened by whistles before the collision. Miss Townshend dressed herself --and was rather sorry later on in the water that she had taken this feminine precaution --and made her difficult way up to the boat deck. She stayed up on the high port side until the deck was too steep to stand upon, and then com

posedly straddled out over the port-rail and walked on the almost horizontal side of the ship, "right over the portholes down on to the steel side of her." She was standing on this port side when the Empress went down. It was fortunate for this brave woman that she was an excellent swimmer, for she had no lifebelt, and was carried deep down by the sinking vessel. And when she came up exhausted and approached three men who were wearing belts, they pushed her away. These things happen, for not all men men reveal in disaster the kindly tenderness spoken of by Mr Smart. Then Miss Townshend ranged up alongside a man who had a lifebelt, and who was hanging on to a suit-case which he had picked up in the water. "I asked him if he would give me the suit-case, and he said: most certainly."'" Then this obliging man-we will have his name, it was Burt-helped Miss Townshend to get rid of a coat which she had put on in her cabin. She also had on shoes of which she could not get rid, and they were "a terrible tie." Still she had the buoyancy of that borrowed suit-case to help her along, and she swam nearly the whole way to the Storstad― the coal boat as she called it-before being picked up. If any one had earned a right to be saved it was this admirable Miss Townshend.

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The wireless work was exceedingly smart, and led to the saving of many lives. At the

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moment of the collision the ashore who might fail to follow assistant operator, Edward and interpret rapid expert Bamford, was on duty: the touches on the Morse key. senior, Ronald Ferguson, had Father Point asked at once for just gone off to his sleeping- the Empress's position. Fercabin. Bamford, through the guson did not know it, no window of the Marconi house, bridge officer had given him saw the Storstad in the act of the position, yet recalling the ramming the Empress, and then time when the pilot had been watched her drift by towards dropped he reckoned the posithe stern. He at once called tion for himself, and gave it as Ferguson, who was already out twenty miles past Rimouski of his bunk. Without waiting (which is farther up the river for orders Ferguson instantly towards Quebec than is Father called up all stations by the Point, and is the port for recognised code, and told them Government tugs). Then to to stand by for a distress signal show how urgent was the queswhich he was momentarily ex- tion of time, and how wise pecting to receive from the Ferguson had been to give the bridge. This was done to clear position as best he could withthe ether of traffic and leave out orders, "the power shut it open to him exclusively. right off, and my handle went Father Point at once answered, back and I was left without "O.K. Here we are. He any power, power, and the lights then sent Bamford to fetch him went out too." It will be some clothes. Just then up remembered that the swamping came the chief officer, who told of the boiler-rooms robbed the him to get out the S.O.S. engines of their steam, so that without delay, as the ship was when they stopped the dysinking. "I sent it out," namos stopped too. By this said Ferguson afterwards, time Ferguson was standing with one foot on the bulkhead and one on the floor-a vivid illustration of the list,-and all his books, papers, and loose gear were scattered over the deck. Going outside he met two of the bridge officers, who told him to clear out for the boats. But Ferguson was doing nothing of the sort. The power of the ship's dynamo was cut off, but he still had his emergency transmitter fed by accumulators, self-contained and kept ready for just such an occasion as had arisen. "So," said he,

very slowly because I knew that at that time there would be no senior operators on watch, so I sent it out very slowly to give the junior operators a chance to understand." Marconi operators are not sailors; they are not, strictly speaking, officers of the ships in which they serve. Any telegraphist, with the floor of his wireless house tilting rapidly under his feet, might pardonably have been flustered. Yet this young fellow had the composure to think of those junior operators

"I went back into the cabin to
work my emergency to see if
I could get another call in."
But when he came to work
his emergency it failed to re-
spond to his self-sacrificing zeal.
The ship was almost over on
her side, and the accumulators
had burst and spilled their
contents. Then and then only
he thought of his own safety,
and from the rail was jerked
overboard as the Empress went
down. About a quarter of an
hour later he was run into by
one of the boats and managed to
scramble over the gunwale.
Bamford, the junior operator,
also was saved, and both these
lads well merited the comment
of Lord Mersey, that veteran
judge and wreck commissioner the Government boats.
who had heard so many gallant
stories simply recounted. "You
two young gentlemen," said
he, did great credit to the
service you are in."

Though all this was put through
in ten minutes from Ferguson's
signal to stand by, and not a
moment was lost, the Empress
had gone to the bottom long
before either of the tugs could
arrive on the scene of disaster.
The Eureka was away two
minutes after receiving White-
side's telephone message, but
it took her some forty-five
minutes before she could play
her part in the rescue of
survivors. She made three
trips between the wreckage and
Rimouski, and landed in all
350 people. The Lady Evelyn
also bore a part in this work,
and many of those who had
temporarily sought safety in
the Storstad were transferred to

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Although Ferguson had only got away that one message before his power was shut right off and the handle went back upon him, him, nevertheless it sufficed. Crawford Leslie, a youngster of nineteen on duty at Father Point, got the preliminary warning call, instantly summoned his senior, William Whiteside, who took in Ferguson's solitary S.O.S., and the pair of them got busy with the land telephone, calling up the Government tug, Lady Evelyn, at Rimouski. Just then another tug, the Eureka, arrived at Father Point to take off a pilot, and was immediately warned to rush off to the Empress.

Out

of 1417 passengers and crew who had set sail in the Empress, 217 passengers and 248 of the crew were saved.

This destruction of the Empress of Ireland, upon a calm night in a sheltered inland water, stands by itself. There is nothing for sheer wantonness to put beside it, until we come to the deliberate destruction of the war. The mistake of those bewildered frightened Norwegians is inexplicable, save on the hypothesis that we have put forward. Just for a moment that red sidelight of the Empress must have shone visibly to the Storstad, and then the fog drifting down blotted it out. Had the fog descended a few minutes earlier the flash of red would not have been seen, and the steamers would have passed safely green to green. We have

studied no case of which so down the engine-room passage

much was revealed in carefully sifted evidence and so little left to conjecture. Captain Kendall and the First Officer Edward Jones of the Empress, who were on the bridge before and at the time of the collision, were both flung from the ship as she went down and picked up by boats. A quartermaster was also saved. So also was the look-out man in the crow's nest aloft, a robustly humorous Irishman named Carroll, who clambered down from his perilous eminence as the ship fell over on her starboard sidea gymnastic feat impossible to all animals except cats, monkeys, and sailormen. The spot at which the Storstad hit the Empress was determined in a fashion that no writer of fiction would have dared to invent. A cabin number plate, No. 328, was found upon the shelter deck of the Storstad, and must have been struck off as she smashed her way through the decks of the Empress. The position of this cabin was exactly known from the steamer's deck plans. It was also proved by the engineers on watch in the after and forward boiler-rooms that the water flooded through the open bunker doors, immediately after the shock of the impact had been felt. The water rose in both stokeholds as if they if they were docks with the gates open, driving the firemen up the ladders as fast as they could run. One man who bolted

just got through as the bulkhead closed upon his heels. This evidence of the cabin number plate, and the proof from the flow of water that the bulkhead dividing the boiler-rooms had been smashed, made certain, within narrow limits, the depth and width of the wound. The Storstad's bows were crumpled like paper, back to the collision bulkhead. They revealed little, though a mountain of conjecture was piled upon them.

There has rarely been a disaster which permitted SO many exact observations to be made. The Empress, as she lay at the bottom, was found and her position plotted out. Divers from H.M. cruiser Essex then descended and walked along her side. The waste air bubbling from their helmets rose up to the surface and enabled observers there, watching the line of bubbles, to determine by compass-bearing how the wreck lay. A series of these curiously interesting observations gave the line of the ship as north-east by southwest. Her bows had been thrown a couple of points towards the north by the Storstad's powerful thrust.

Everything that could be discovered was discovered, but at the end we are much as we were in the beginning. At sea it is always the unexpected, the incalculable, the unbelievable that happens. Man proposes and the devils of the

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