第54章 A Catastrophe(1)

WE lay three days in New Orleans,but the captain did not succeed in finding another pilot;so he proposed that I should stand a daylight watch,and leave the night watches to George Ealer.

But I was afraid;I had never stood a watch of any sort by myself,and I believed I should be sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute,or ground the boat in a near cut through some bar or other.

Brown remained in his place;but he would not travel with me.

So the captain gave me an order on the captain of the 'A.T.Lacey,'for a passage to St.Louis,and said he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's berth could then be resumed.

The 'Lacey'was to leave a couple of days after the 'Pennsylvania.'

The night before the 'Pennsylvania'left,Henry and I sat chatting on a freight pile on the levee till midnight.

The subject of the chat,mainly,was one which I think we had not exploited before--steamboat disasters.One was then on its way to us,little as we suspected it;the water which was to make the steam which should cause it,was washing past some point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked;--but it would arrive at the right time and the right place.

We doubted if persons not clothed with authority were of much use in cases of disaster and attendant panic;still,they might be of SOME use;so we decided that if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at least stick to the boat,and give such minor service as chance might throw in the way.

Henry remembered this,afterward,when the disaster came,and acted accordingly.

The 'Lacey'started up the river two days behind the 'Pennsylvania.'

We touched at Greenville,Mississippi,a couple of days out,and somebody shouted--'The "Pennsylvania"is blown up at Ship Island,and a hundred and fifty lives lost!'

At Napoleon,Arkansas,the same evening,we got an extra,issued by a Memphis paper,which gave some particulars.

It mentioned my brother,and said he was not hurt.

Further up the river we got a later extra.My brother was again mentioned;but this time as being hurt beyond help.

We did not get full details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis.

This is the sorrowful story--

It was six o'clock on a hot summer morning.The 'Pennsylvania'was creeping along,north of Ship Island,about sixty miles below Memphis on a half-head of steam,towing a wood-flat which was fast being emptied.George Ealer was in the pilot-house-alone,I think;the second engineer and a striker had the watch in the engine room;the second mate had the watch on deck;George Black,Mr.Wood,and my brother,clerks,were asleep,as were also Brown and the head engineer,the carpenter,the chief mate,and one striker;Captain Klinefelter was in the barber's chair,and the barber was preparing to shave him.There were a good many cabin passengers aboard,and three or four hundred deck passengers--so it was said at the time--and not very many of them were astir.The wood being nearly all out of the flat now,Ealer rang to 'come ahead'full steam,and the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded with a thunderous crash,and the whole forward third of the boat was hoisted toward the sky!

The main part of the mass,with the chimneys,dropped upon the boat again,a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish--and then,after a little,fire broke out.

Many people were flung to considerable distances,and fell in the river;among these were Mr.Wood and my brother,and the carpenter.

The carpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck the water seventy-five feet from the boat.Brown,the pilot,and George Black,chief clerk,were never seen or heard of after the explosion.The barber's chair,with Captain Klinefelter in it and unhurt,was left with its back overhanging vacancy--everything forward of it,floor and all,had disappeared;and the stupefied barber,who was also unhurt,stood with one toe projecting over space,still stirring his lather unconsciously,and saying,not a word.

When George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him,he knew what the matter was;so he muffled his face in the lapels of his coat,and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection in its place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth.

He had ample time to attend to these details while he was going up and returning.He presently landed on top of the unexploded boilers,forty feet below the former pilot-house,accompanied by his wheel and a rain of other stuff,and enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam.

All of the many who breathed that steam,died;none escaped.

But Ealer breathed none of it.He made his way to the free air as quickly as he could;and when the steam cleared away he returned and climbed up on the boilers again,and patiently hunted out each and every one of his chessmen and the several joints of his flute.

By this time the fire was beginning to threaten.Shrieks and groans filled the air.A great many persons had been scalded,a great many crippled;the explosion had driven an iron crowbar through one man's body--I think they said he was a priest.

He did not die at once,and his sufferings were very dreadful.

A young French naval cadet,of fifteen,son of a French admiral,was fearfully scalded,but bore his tortures manfully.

Both mates were badly scalded,but they stood to their posts,nevertheless.They drew the wood-boat aft,and they and the captain fought back the frantic herd of frightened immigrants till the wounded could be brought there and placed in safety first.