Page 68 - Billy James MacNamara of Evanston

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

with the swell of the sea. It happened to be calm. Only there was a swell on. If it would have been a breeze of wind, we were through. There were no chance at all. They got him onto that. He was in the wire? less room when she struck. But when she struck, she twisted the wireless room, she twisted the doors, and he could only open it about that far. And he forced himself out. The skin was all tore off his breast and off his knees, where he was forcing himself out, trying to get out. Just the last moment, he jumped overboard, before she plunged. There were 3 lost. And the fireman down in the hold, when she struck, his collarbone was broke, and the other fellow's leg was broke, the other fireman. (What was the name of that vessel?) The Surge.... It's got to be luck (surviving). Now I know a fellow--I met him out of Boston--he was cook with us. Fellow by the name of Joe Pitts. He belonged down here to some part of Nova Scotia. I don't know how many acci? dents he was in and escaped. He was on a fishing vessel, the schooner (sounds like) Fane. And they were coming home from the Banks, and they were some place in the Bay of Fundy. And the Yarmouth boat, coming across from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Bos? ton- -passenger boat. The first crowd was down eating breakfast in the forecastle. And he said he was warm, he told me he was warm, it was a hot day. And she was laying with her sails just flapping in the wind. sBudgjBts CAR SALES The Rental Car Company that takes TRADE-INS so Trade Up to BUDGET in '88 An Excellent Selection of Like-New, Low Kilometre, Previously Driven '87-*88 Models Trade-Ins Accepted • Financing on Approved Credit SEE DAVE and SAVE sBiidg.eta CAR SALES Kings Road and Grand Lake Road, Sydney 562-8672 "A BETTER DEAL" 562-8007 He went up, and he said he was laying across the outer part of the main boom, like that, getting a breath of fresh air. And all at once he saw this thing coming, this foam of water. He thought they were in the breakers. There's a breaker there, at Cassius' Ledge. He thought they were into that. That's all he remembered till they picked him out of the water. Just cut her right down, drowned the whole 21. There wasn't (another) man saved. Well, she brought him in, the steamer that picked him up out of the water--they brought him in, him alone. He got over that racket. He went out on another one. He went down on the Banks. And he and his dory-mate got astray in the dory--in the thick-a-fog, they got astray. And the two of them rowed into--I don't know whether they rowed into Nova Scotia or into Newfoundland. But any? how, they rowed in--it was in the summer? time- -and got ashore. And the American con? sul sent them home to Boston. And he waited for the vessel to come in. She never came in yet. She disappeared. Now what happened to her? There were no gales of wind or any? thing. She must have been run down by a liner. She was likely cut down and went down. Well then, after that, he started to work ashore, he landed work ashore. He went to work at Mystic Docks. I worked onto it my? self, 25 years after. Mystic Docks in Bos? ton there, where the ships come into the naval yard there, to Charles Town. When they went to hang the boom--a 60-foot boom out over the wharf--she'd lift coal, for loading coal ships. The cable broke. And the whole 7 or 8 of them went into the wa? ter, and he was the only one saved. That was going some. And something else--I forget what else it was--another mess he was in. Well, he was a long time that none of the vessels would

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