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JESTING WITH DEATH
BRAVE BRITISH SAILORS
Nineteen heroes of-'HJtS. Valerian,
who were rescued when 'the Blobp Sun
dered off Bermuda on October 22, leachei
London on December 5 and were met by
their wives and' friends.
Eighty-four li»es were lost when the
vessel went down. Fighting against sx
100-miles-an-hour gale, with mountainous
seas pounding- her, the ' vessel lost her
masts and wireless and could not send
out S.O.S. signals.
Capt. W. A. Usher, the commander of
the sloop, who was accompanied by his
wife, expressed admiration for the forti
tude of his ofiicers and men.
CAPTAIN'S STORY
'They were absolutely splendid all
through,' he said. '''You cannot ima
gine what it was like. Unfortunately
one cannot picture in one's mind the ter
rible havoc of that storm. I have been
in a good many rough seas, but I have
never seen anything to compare with this
.hurricane, and I hope 1 never shall. ?
'At first it was not too bad, but as it
grew in fury the hurricane became some
thing too terrible to contemplate. There
was absolutely no hope.
? 'I stayed with the ship until she (went
down, and then managed to- get' on a raft.
There were .28 of- us on the raft at first,
but after' our 21 hours' ordeal in
the raging sea only 12 were left, the others
having been washed off.'
Another' man said that the vessel heeled
over and seemed to slide under the water
sideways. He was close to a raft and
clung to it as the Valerian went down.
'I was sucked under for some distance,
but managed to retain' my hold and when
I came up she had disappeared,' he said.'
'We were swept by the blinding spray
and swamned by the waves.
'Often we were washed off into th-3
water. I managed to reach the raft asrain
every time, but many of my mates were
not so fortunate. We had no food and
no water, and as time wore on we got
more and more exhausted and our num
bers dwindled.'
Many managed to touch the edge of the
raft with the tips of their fingers, but
could not get sufficient hold of it to
scramble aboard. One man said, 'Good-
bye, boys.' as he sank through exhaustion,
and another cried as he went down, 'I
am going. I can't stick it any longer.'
All the men wore loud in their ?praises
of one of the stokers, who, when the sea
abated somewhat, swam in a lifel-elt fr^ni
raft to raft; 'saying that he was out visit
ing, and cheering up the *nen, most of
whom were then in an exhausted condi
tion, by joking and chatting with them.
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