Evening Star Newspaper, July 5, 1936, Page 63

- — Magazine Section Passage that caution and good seamanship could not beat; something that spelt sure doom to all Farnes. They watched old John's son, John II, for the crowning proof. They had a long wait — seven years. Mean- while, by first-rate seamanship, John II had lifted himself to command his line's crack, the Dan O’Connell, and in his second year on her he was put under orders to call at Sarum on the homeward run. That meant the Maiden Passage. Possibly his owners had forgotten the hoodoo story, or thought it forgotten. John II, at least, learnt it was still remembered when he found his deck-hands deserting and his second-officer developing a mysterious illness. A winter home run with its certainty THIS WEEK of fogs in the Maiden Passage, with a Farne commanding, was too much for some memories. Yet that may have been the very cause of the disaster. John Il had to sail with a scratch crew, while his new second mate was known to be a confirmed boozer, who had to stiffen himself with a bracer whenever he took over the bridge. How much that sort of thing was responsible for what happened, liv- ing men will never know, for after the fog in the Maiden Passage engulfed the Dan 0'Connell, nobody saw her or her crew again. That stamped and hall-marked the legend. It became authentic sea lore. Harold Farne, John II's son, then in his apprenticeship with the Shamrock Line, found this out to his cost. Men refused to sail with him aboard, and presently ships refused to have him. That decided him to take a shore job. With him, the Farnes left the sea for twenty years, and, without victims to sustain it, the legend be- came a fainter memory and seemed to die. But sea legends never quite die. Harold Farne’s son, John III, found that so when he took to the sea. After that long absence, the family passion broke out strongly in him. It was sailoring or nothing with John III. He was lucky to be articled to the great Longcape Company of de luxe passenger ships sailing from Earlhampton in the North. No route through the Maiden for them, no danger for a Farne. Not much memory of it left either, though now and then an oldster eyed him queerly on hearing his name. But, on the whole, the thing did not bother John III much, and as he rose surely through the vears without an accident or a black mark to his name, he had a right to count the superstition dead for good. Like old John, John III was a brilliant seaman, although he hid it under a more modern polish and the suave, gilt-braid diplomacy proper to the Commodores of lux- ury passenger craft. He was already master of the Calantara by the time that the Longcape directors decided to change all their sailings from Earlhampton to the more central southern port of Sarum. The first time John Farne III had to take his fifty thousand tons of gilt, gadgets and steel homeward through the Maiden Passage he had, even against that hard will of his, felt a thrill of dread. He knew, too, that the men on the soaring bridge with him, Nagle, the quartermaster at the wheel, the signal officers and the rest, had all felt it. He could feel them watching, expecting and fearing the Fate of the Farnes. But it had been summer then. Sun spark- ling on the water as they steamed through the narrow Passage, visibility perfect, the treach- erous tide drags and the wind asleep. They had come through like a train running to time-table, as they had to, and again and again the next voyages. It was as though the old legend had ceased to have any meaning. But John III knew that that thought was false comfort. He knew that Nagle and all those others were saying in their hearts: ‘*Wait until fog catches‘Farne in the Maiden, homeward bound . . . Wait for the fog.” And now at last the fog had them. It had swept onto them as they entered the passage; fog so thick that even their own fo’c’sle head became a mere guess amid trail- ing shadows. Fog that not only blotted out all land close, dangerously close, though it was on either beam, but all sky and all sea beyond an oily lift alongside. They had rung down to quarter-speed, of course, but they could not heave to. Luxury liners running on a schedule must not lose time. They must go on, feeling their way, relying on seamanship. Again the ghostly bull voice of the siren roared behind them. Again John Farne III hung tense on the rail, listening. “‘No land echo, yet,” he said. " “No echo yet, sir,” Nagle answered, and John III knew he was thinking: ‘‘There never will be — for a Farne.” John himself was thinking of that lack of echo. Had that been the reason for those old disasters? Was there some ground slant ashore that would not throw sound back, especially when blanketed by fog? That seemed to him a more sensible expla- nation than any hoodoo story. The Passage was a wicked channel and had been a devil's bone yard ever since ships sailed into history. The double shore, only a mile and a half apart at its widest, the fantastic jut of headlands, the reef that played the old Harry with the current, and the ever shifting shoals, made it a dangerous and unpredictable place. No man ever quite knew what the Maiden Passage was going to serve up for him. And there was little way of judging. Even in fine weather John had learnt that the peculiar set of the land made underwater signalling useless. There was nothing, in fact, to help one in a fog like this, save seamanship. One had to feel or smell one’s way forward by an old sailor instinct, as old John I had invariably done. Yes, there lay the real danger of the Passage. His uncles and his father had put their ships onto the reef because they had less of the seaman’s soul than old John. Old John would never have wrecked his vessel if treachery had not harried and blunted his instincts. Well, he, John III, was old John alive again, with the added science of his age to help him. He had nothing to fear. A telephone buzzed. Nagle answered. The bow look-out was reporting. “‘Broken water ahead, sir,”” Nagle said. ‘‘No, he does not seem certain of its exact bearing. He seems confused . . . says there's an echo . . . But he's nearly sure it’s dead ahead..."” Dead ahead . . . The reef under the Maiden dead ahead! John Farne's judgment could not accept that; he'd plotted his course so surely — yet how could he be sure? For a moment 5 he had a picture of what the momentum of fifty thousand tons, moving at quarter speed, would do to the Calantara if she hit that reef dead ahead. He thought of the two thousand lives in his charge — nct even old John nor his uncles and father had faced such a disaster as threatened him. He gripped the bridge rail. What should he order: “Stop? Go astern? Hard a-star- board?” If the reef were dead ahead, either of the first. If the reef were where he judged it to be, the latter. The latter was a liner captain’s order, for it would keep him maov- ing to time-table; yet there was risk in it. The slightest miscalculation might pile them up on the shoals on the shore to starboard. . .. Yet, with broken water dead ahead he must do something. What? He knew that Nagle and all on the bridge were watching him, watching him as men cer- tain of his and their doom. Yet he could only stare ahead, unsure, hesitant for the first time in his career. And as he stared he saw the ship dead ahead . .. It was no more than a black bulking in the fog, a smudge of darkness, indefinable and grotesque, but a ship nevertheless, crossing his bows from port to starboard. How far ahead she was he could not calculate because of the fog. But his seaman’s judgment told him that he must ram her in the next few minutes, just as his instinct assured him that by swinging hard a-port, he might just shave by her stern, or, by turning sharp to starboard and ringing for speed, might turn a trifle quicker than the other and in her own line and so just scrape clear of a collision. Both manoeuvres were dangerous. Turning to starboard, and at speed was almost bound to put him aground on the shoals there. Going to port would be worse. The reef was there, too close for clearance. He would pile the Calantara up on it as Farnes had piled up those other ships. Farnes! Suddenly he realized that th:is was the Fate of the Farnes. He alone seemed to have seen the ship. No man had shouted, none had seen the danger ahead —only a Farne could see it. Abruptly, too, the vessel ahead seemed to define itself — antique clipper bows, sail spars to her masts, an absurd, tall smokestack — vague, smudgy, but the Western Daun as he knew her from the picture on the wall of his father’s home, the ship old John had wrecked in the Maiden Passage! This then was how old John had taken his revenge on the others. By planting the old Western Dawn across the fairway, he had left them no choice but an abrupt panic swing onto the reefto avoid collision. It was against reason, incredible, but John III knew now this was how those other Farnes had died, how he must die unless he outmatched old John. As he could, because he was old John born again. It was the old John in him that set his face in grim and reckless lines, made him snap his order: “Keep her as sheis..." Keep her going straight ahead. Old John's Western Dawn blocked his course, but that meant she was in deep water, anyhow; and if she really was the old Western Dawn, she ' was a ghost — and you don’t need even collision mats when ramming ghosts. And if she wasn’t a ghost, why, there was more chance in ram- ming a solid ship than ramming a reef. The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds only. Nagle had no more than hung up the telephone after taking the report from the bows when he heard John Farne’s order. He came along the bridge nervously. “If it's the reef dead ahead, sir,”” he began — then he let out a cry. He saw the Western Dawn. He gripped John Farne’s arm, cried: “God! Don’t you see, sir! Ship ahead ... We're running herdown. .."” John Farne’s heart went dead. Had his brain, his cunning fooled him? It was a real ship, not a phantom — Nagle saw it. Others on the bridge saw it. Had his preoccupation with his family hoodoo blinded him to con- crete facts, to commonsense? The shock paralyzed him. He could not act or speak. And it was too late to give fresh orders, anyhow. They must ram any moment. He stood rooted to the deck, struck dumb by the inevitableness of this Fate of the Farnes. He heard Nagle shouting something. Others on the bridge called out in fear of the imminent collision . . . Then Nagle's voice faltered. A man giggled foolishly under the re- laxing of the nervous strain: ‘“Well, I'm (Continved on page 13)