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Page 5 2SDAY, THE WAYNESVILLE MOUNTAINEER SEPTEMBER 26, 1940 'CARIBBEAN LOOT" By WHITMAN CHAMBERS rHAPTER IV P voa in the next llled her along, t ? Q Ifeltwhamed ofmy. tiineto lose mj L vk Carretos for months, LuSddone it I didn't Q, satisfaction, . C uiMred close behind me, 1 w,y aft to Number 6, ..s just being swung out Is, little more order here. It wm gradually reacting ple set by the officers. hid barely reached the boat, s not yet clear of Je iheD I head a chorus of hys screams. I ground my teeth ed the shrill creak of boat ing wild through the rt look over the side," I said f. "That boat got away mg Mildred inboard, held ere in the crook of my arm, ien glanced forward. Num lifeboat was hanging by its o one davit, its bow resting water. The forward fall had ly carried away and the fall had jammed, boat's cargo of women and a had been hurled into the They were struggling in the: screaming. Many of them i lifebelts. Even as I watch-j jammed fall gave way and dull and sickening crash the it dropped on the upturned of those screaming people. Idred! If I told you I thought best, would you be afraid to over the side!" ' came close to me, looked up ny face. "IH do anything ill me, Ray." ikink it's your best chance, tew may get steadied down, y can launch a boat safely. they don't well, I don't i think of your being in a that gets away from them, you jump, start swimming from the ship as fast as you You'll be picked up before nr, and in these warm wa ou're as safe in a lifebelt as be in a boat. Keep your bead rat struggle too hard. . . . . roo'd better hike, kid." did not move. Her eyes did lift from mine. "Aren't you It, Ray?" mid you want me tot" I my head toward the pande ra on the deck. "I can be of sere." " turned then and I guided long the sloping deck to the lifted her over it Suddenly inds gripped my arms and I she saw the woman and kids were struggling around the i lifeboat. I knew that for nent stark terror had her in ip-. ,; er you go," I urged gently. D't far. Just start swimming as you come up and you'll 1 right. Goodby and good :s shone in her eyes and her n me tightened. "Won't you se come with me" she beg- ' Mildred. Sorry." took a deep breath. "Good af" she gasped, and jumped i: over the water. She landed ! disappeared, came up an 't later and started swimming fly away from the ship, wed a sigh of relief and away from the rail. The wr that followed is, even !ry much of a blur to me. nber helping launch two rd a raft. I remember ty wl:s around half a dozen ' I remember knocking down lr fnghtenpH lHtlo mon v p" ng to slide into a boat with And I remember find- ty. fromalar9e. wen-rated. m 'manufacturer with na P distribution. y tried and proven prod JJfh made and gueran f b7 firm with years of r-;nce in stoker manu ring. stoker with the ,1m .J " tucdine of con o insure long life and rlcm,cl Operation. Voker that will be JJ installed by. factory ..responsible dealer. (f.STRAMGE::' j 273 . Waynesvffle ing myself at long last, with the ship'g officers and some twenty of the crew, alone on the deck of the foundering Alderbaron. Two boats had been capsized in launching. All the others on the starboard side were clear of the ship and standing by a little dis tance away. The boats on the port side were still on their davits; the ship's list had grown too great to permit of 'their launching. . All at once I realized that I had no life belt Pulling myself up the slantng deck with difficulty, I threw open the door of the first cabin I came to. I fumbled in the dark ness the ship's dynamos had ceas ed to function and found two life belts in' their rack. I dragged them down, slid throueh the door onto the deck and came face to face with Captain Eldridge. The skipper, with the ship's log and papers under his arm, had just come off the bridge. "Captain, you haven't a lifebelt," I said. The man shook his head. In the dim starlight his face shown orav and hollow-checked. I caught him by the arm. , v "Oh, I knew the tradition of the sea as well as any sea-going man, but I had always felt that Some of them were senseless. I could see no sane reason why a captain should go down with his ship, pro vided he had done everything pos sible to save the lives of his nas- sengers and crew. "See here, skipper,!' I began. "You're not responsible for this thing that has happened to your ship. It is up to you to do all you can to find the men who are. Go ing down with your ship won't help you know." "I know, lieutenant," Eldridge I "I know, lieutenant," Eldridge protested freely. "But you don't understand. Those women good God! Struggling there in the wa ter. The boat crashing on their heads. I I" I understand. I know there could be no hell greater than that which the captain had passed through during the last hour. After it, death would be more mer ciful than life. But there were oth er things to be considered. I open ed a lifebelt and held it out. "Pull yourself together, Cap tain!" Tsaid sharply. "Climb into this belt Climb in, I tell you!" Eldridge was too dazed and beat en to resist further. His arms slip ped into the jacket I pulled it around him and tied the straps across his chest He slid down the deck to the rail, over which the other officers and the last of the crew were climbing. As I was about to pick up the other jacket, the deck lurched sharply. The starboard rail dipped under and a great wave rushed in board. I took a deep breath and dove to meet it. The wave caught me and hurled me back against the deck-house. Gasping, the breath knocked out of my lungs, I fought against the roaring water that beat on me from every side. For a moment or two my head remained above wa ter. Then, rising with the flood, I found myself wedged tightly against the heavy canvas awning which covered that portion of the deck. .. . The situation dawned on me, and I knew it spelled certains. The ship was going down and I was caught beneath the awning, held there by the pressure of water as tightly as though I were bound hand and foot. And that pressure would not be relieved until the ship hit bottom. Further struggle, I knew, was useless. Relaxing, I lay spread eagled against the canvas awning. Strangely enough I was not frigh tened. I felt only bitterness and resentment that I had to die now, that I was destined to play no part in helping bring to justice the men responsible for this terrible , dis aster. Suddenly the pressure , that wedged me against the awning van ished. I realized I was floating free, that the roaring din of tumb ling water had ceased. It flashed through my mind that the ship was at the bottom. With my lungs almost bursting, my head reeling, I acted instinc tively. In the utter darkness, I had no idea in which direction lay the side of the ship. But some inate sense sent me clawing frantically along the canvas and in a moment or two, all but unconscious, I bad reached the edge of the awning and was fighting toward the surface. I held my breath until the pound ing pulse in my ears sounded like trip-hammers. I fought with all my strenjrth and all my will. But at last my burning lunge could stand the strain no longer. My head began to spin like a top, and ab ruptly it seemed to burst I knew nothing more. When I woke up I found myself fiat on my back on the deck of a ship. - There were people around me on every side, bedraggled men and women with the gleam of nor ror still in their eyes. A thin man, who still wore a lifebelt, knelt by Berlin, Too, Fights Incendiary Fires ft r-in iiMiiMi-ij German firemen stand amid ruins of a building shattered by bombs of rajding British airmen, who raked Berlin in waves. The photograph was passed by the German censor. ry- ' V Ml my side. I recognized Captain El dridge.' ' , "How do you feel?" the captain A sit 6(1 "Terrible," I said. "Who picked! us upT" ! "The Libertad. A yacht I be lieve she belongs to Carretos. She arrived on the scene 10 minutes after the ship went down." I sat up and looked around. I didn't see anything of Mildred among the mob of people that clut ered the deck of the Libertad. "Would you know Miss Bajrd if you saw her?" I asked. " j "Yes. She's all right. But you only pulled out by the skin of your teeth." "I guess it was a close shave. Things are beginning to come back to me now. I went down with the ship, didn't IT I got caught under the awning. I don't see how I ever came up without a lifebelt." "You were unconscious when I saw you," the captain said. "You bobbed right up beside me. I held your head above water until we were picked up." I didn't talk for a while I was too busy being sick. And after that I was busy trying to think, trying to put two and two togeth er, and not even getting three. Finally I turned to Eldridge. "Captain does it strike you as peculiar that Carretos' yacht should appear on the scene so quickly T - The skipper shrugged. "They picked up my SOS. ' "She was still plenty close. She must have left Caimora right after we did, and she must have follow ed the same course as ours. That means she was bound for Colon. Why should Carretos have taken passage on the Alderbaron when his yacht was following right along to Colon!" The captain shrugged wearily and didn't say anything. Of course, there was an answer 'to my ques tion. Carretos had taken passage on the liner to be with Mildred Baird. And yet I was too stub born, too vindicative, to accept such an answer. I wanted to go further. I asked finally: "Have you any idea what caused the sinking?" "The sea cocks were open. We found it out too late to close them.". Then that accounts for the mur der of the carpenter," I said quick ly. . "Yes. He had the keys to the double bottoms. After that we didn't talk any more about the mystery. The Lebartad, I learned, was still cruising about in the vicinity of the disaster, although no survivors or bodies had been picked up for CARIBBEAN LOOT THREE some time. Shortly after midnight the yacht gave up further search and headed back to Caimora. I did a good deal of thinking during the run back to the city. But, like my talk with Eldridge, it led nowhere. Carretos had been picked up, I learned, and the man was much in my thoughts. I was almost positive he knew the Alderbaron was destined to go down. And yet, if he had been in Eddie Guest Is Just Himself, A Friend Reveals The hold which Eddie Guest has on the common man is no mystery, says Malcom W. Bingay, of the Detroit Free Press, who "knew him when." "There's only ONE Eddie Guest, sot two, or three, or four. He is Eddie Guest to him self and he is Eddie Guest to his closest and most intimate friends, and he is Eddie Guest to all the world," Bingay writes in the cur rent Rotarian Magazine. "Eddie is always true to himself. When he writes a poem on Mother's Day, he doesn't just 'dash some thing off to fit the occasion. To him it is Mother's Day, with all that it means to everyone who has ever loved a mother. His poems are lived by him before they are writ ten. He once remarked: 'The only person I have to live with 24 hours a day and 865 days in the year js myself. And I never want to be ashamed of the company I keep. So I try to do that which is right that I may always feel comforta ble with myelf.' He's just Eddie Guest, himself!" TRANSACTIONS IN i Real Estate (As Recorded to Monday Hoc Of This TFeeJk) Best MARRIAGES T. H. Gribble to Eunice Fowler, both of Monroe. Alvin Nashworth to Sophia Zast- awink, both of Wareboro, Ga. Ray Wines to Lucille Warren, both of Canton. Josh Kelso Martin, of Corinth, Miss., to Virginia Woods, of Charleston, West Va. William L. Seay to Mary Cald well, both of Clyde. INCOME Cash income from farm market ings and government payment in July amounted to 1703,000,000, compared with $641,000,000 in July, 1939, and $587,000,000 in June, 1940, reports the U. S. Department of Agriculture. One third of the upemployed r the United States are young people under 25 years of age. Beaverdaa Township Mrs. S. M. Gossett to T. D. et nz. E. D. Pressley, et ux, to Bos Kilpatrick, et aL Laura Kilpatrick to E. D. Press, ley. . J. M. Pleas, et ox, to Ray and Weaver Patton. H. A. Williams, et ux, to D. T. Whitted, et ux. Estelle Stamey to John V Broyles, et ux. Cecil Township Dewey Fletche, et ux, to Anni Smabhers. Clyde Township Norman Penland, et ux, to Ralph Turner. Lizzie JoAly, et al, to Claud Jolly. J Fines Creek Township T. C. Ledford, et ux, to Hatti Ledford. T. M. Ledford, et ux, to T. C. Ledford. , Waynesville Township J. M. Palmer, et ux, to C. D. Med ford, et al. W. H. E. Lancaster, et ux, to Lucile Hardin. John Snyder to William Med ford. R. N. Gaddy, et ux, to Jerry Gaddy. Mark Sorrells, et ux, to N. N. Ruff, et ux. READ THE ADS IT PAYS UNUSUAL METHOD FOR CU CUMBERS If you would serve cucumbers in an unusual way, select aome of even size, scoop out the centers and fill with a vegetable salad. Set these boat shapes on shredded let tuce on a platter, garnish with stuffed hard-cooked eggs and pass salad dressing or French dressing. Try it for supper. It is most appe-: tising. possession of that knowledge, why had he sailed on her? Surely no sane man would have risked hts life by taking passage on a doomed ship. Certainly not Carretos. Life to him was altogether too sweet I saw Mildred but once during the run' back to Cairmora, and then I had no opportunity to talk to her, for she was helping care for the women who had been injured! when the first lifeboat capsized. (To be Continued) GLASSES FITTED LENSES DUPLICATED DR. EDITH W. ANDERSON OPTOMETRIST Scientific Ey Examination ; No. 5 Masonic Temple Speaking Of Foundations Community Fairs reveal basic rural values; in years to come ETOWAH BRICK will reveal the basis of good, sound home building. Fo) o' ETOWAH Ml C K BUILDS BETTER HOMES Moland-Drysdale Corp; Etowah, N. C. Telephone 3 Truck Deliveries to All Parts of Western Carolina 7j. . v i ft. - A.'dU PSMBw I II if . VJTk A . m v.y.K''"' . "-SI . X. . I II av "V 1mm W w m . .1.' II ll I V ITT' A 1 1 I . vw ;'""J.:;...:;:;;'iMBr;i;. .... .. ..... ..... ?t. Lmi.. I . , , , t i ; i l in ,-,-,-rt-r, 6 NEW LINES FOR '41 3 sixes 3 eights AHEADlnStyling! AHEAD in Engineering! x AHEAD in Size, Comfort, Performance! With all flags flying, Oldsmobile swings into 1941 with the most complete line of cars in its history.. .at prices that set new standards of value even for Oldsmobile. The 1941 Oldsmobiles are bigger with longer wheel base and wider tread. They're more power' u with a new 100 H. P. Econc-Master Engine in all six-cylinder models and Olds' famous 110 H. P. Straight-Eight again in all Eights. And, crowning: all other advance ments, all Olds models for 1941 are offered with the amazing Hydra - Matic Drive! Illustrated above: Dynamic 6 Cruiaer 4-Door Sedan, $1010 (Same model Eight, f 10451. Illustrated at left: Custom 8 Cruiser 4-Door Sedan, $1135 Same model Six, $1099). Sedan price start at $898, dehrnd at Lanaitig, Mich. TranaportaHon baaed on rail ratea, state sod local taxes (if aaj), optional equipment and accessories extra. Pricss subject to change without no tice. A CBNKRAL MOTORS VALUS PRICES BEGIN AT ALL OFFERING UHYDRA-MATIC DRIVE NO CLUTCtlt NO SHIFT! More than just a fluid coupling more than an automatic) transmis sion, Oldsmobfle's exclusive Hydra Matic Drive is a combination of both! It eliminates the clutch and gear shifter. It simplifies driving, steps up performance, saves gasoline. It marks Oldsmo bile more than ever as the car ahead 1 Optional at extra cost. MAWJOOE) MOTTOR COMPANY 852" FOR SPECIAL 8TJ BUSINESS COUP1 TOE CAR TI1AT HAS EVEIIYTH j At The Depot - WAYNESVILLE, N. a
The Waynesville Mountaineer (Waynesville, N.C.)
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Sept. 26, 1940, edition 1
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