Zurich Herald, 1927-09-01, Page 3A GRIM DRAMA OF 'THE HIGH SEAS
The Log of the Schooner Kingsway IS .a Tragic Tale of
Ten Men and , a Woman
an
MURDER THE END
That truth is stranger than fiction
Was illustrated anew when the
schooner Kingsway came into New
York harbor a few days ago with a
tale of ten mon and a woman—a story
of primitive passion, jealousy, sick-
ness, murder on the high seas, and
Peaceful death. What follows is an
account of the Kingsway's voyage,
pieced together from her log and from
the story disclosed during the investi-
gatioai conducted by the Federal
authorities.
On the afternoon of Feb. '5, 1927,
the schooner Kingsway was slipping
quietly through the tepid waters of
the South Atlantic southeast of the
Cape Verde Islands and not far off
the coaat of Senegal Seen from a
little distance, the squat outlines of
her hull softened by the thin streaks
of foam., her four great lower sails
swelling to the wind, She would have
been a sight to gladden an old sailor's
eye. She held steadily to her course,
dipping to the long swells with a
springy :option unknown to those who
go to sea with steam, :She was alone
in a vast' watery wilderness. Africa,
reeking and pestilential, was out of
sight on her port bows and on the star-
board were only the measureless
miles of ocean; But the Kingsway
carried with her more than a. geo-
graphical loneliness. She was one of
thelast of her kind, one of the final
relics of the age of sail.
She sailed ostensibly to carry line
her to the Gold Coast and bring back
coeoa beans, but her real errand was
the vain, and ancient pursuit of joy,
Those on board sought it in various
ways.
The Cook's Wife.
The cook's wife, a slim mulatto
woman, pretty after her fashion, was
polishing the lamps in the saloon
where the captain and the mates had
their meals. It was a spacious enough
room, with a solid-loo'dng table cov-
ered by a re dated white cloth, a coal
stove in one corner and a radiator
connected in cold weather with the
donkey engine forward. Badke ran
the donkey engine—a German with a
i;waggering, confident way with him.
On the right as ono entered the sa-
loon was the door leading to the cap-
tain's cabin. Directly ahead, with its
port holo opening on theh starboard
side, was the pantry. To the left au -
other door opened into the storeroom.
There are reasons for keeping store-
rooms under the captain's eye.
The cook's. wife having polished the
last lamp, set it back in the bracket
above the table. She sang a little.
Then she slipped in thebathroom,
pp to bat r om,
next the room she and her husband
occupied, and looked at herself in the
captain's rather large square mirror.
She smiled, showing white teeth. Life
had its. moments for her.
Bailee, the cook, a dark -visaged
Porte Rican, was busy with his pots
and pans in the galley. In good
weather, with its ports facing aft and
its door opening to the deck, the gal-
ley was not an unpleasant. place. It
was warm enough, to be sure, with
the temperature beginning to range
above 100, but the cook could teach
the rail- in four steps and get what
moving air there was. Battioe had
his, dreams and his troubles:
The Husband's Dreams.
His dreams had to to do with a girl
In Porto Rico, but his trouble, unfor-
tunately, were near at hand. One of
them he could bring to light by open -
Aug the door which led from the gal-
s ley into the engine, room, the head-
quarters .of, the German, Badke. Or
if he did not care to open that door he
could• walk round the outside of the
galley and look .ip. at 'Badke through
e broad open window,
The engineer .on the Kingsway was
an essential member of the crew, but
not a continuously busy one, The
schooner- did not depend on auxiliary
power to kick her through the dol-
drums.'
oldrums.' Her steam was to hoist sail,
to pump., out bilge water, and in port
to handle cargo. Badke was, there-
foro, a man of leisure as well as of
rank. He walked with a swing, spoke
In loud tones; lorded it over the com-
Mon seamen and held long confabs
In German with his compatriots, Mala-
bar and Kline. One' look at him and
any captain would have known that
he belonged to the tribe of sea law-
yers.
Ten Men and a Woman,
There were ten men and a woman
on board—teu men and one woman
cooped Within a space whose greatest
dimensions was only 203 feet; ten
inen and one woman searching, one
another with their eyes day after day,
learning the least intonations of one
another's voices, becoming gruesome-
ly familiar with one another's least
small mannerisms, sometimes, far
from Christian thoughts. Ten men—
and one woman. Badke, looking • up
to catch the flash of white teeth at
his 'window, claimed the 'woman, not
without competition. He strode about
the docks, a conquering male, For
him, too, life had its moments,
In the forecastle, on the other side
of the bulkhead frotn where the cook
slammed his kettles on the stove,
there was sneering gossip: The cook
knew all about it, it was said. The
cook was willing, it was said, Bet
there 'were those who thought other-
wise, If the cook were `willing, why
did the woman flaunt the affair in
his face? She had been heard taunt-
ing hini. But Battice went on open-
•
v
in.g the door into the engine room to
get his coal, and though Badke was
a violent man the two did' not come, to
blows,
Tho Skipper and the Mate,
On the poop dock, aft, two old men,
separated by law and 'tradition from
the proletariat of the forecastle, eyed
oath other when they had to ex-
change words or when they sat at
meals with a cold rind growing hatred,
rt was this hatred that gave the voy-
age its pungency for them,' Calztein
Lawry, going aboard at 'Pensacola to
take sthe place of a sick master, had
fouhd the first -nate, Fred Mortirner,
already jealous ,and Hostile, , Morti-
mer had served the sea for half a
century. Command had been Slang -
led before his eyes and always he had
failed to grasp it,
Years ago he had known :tack Lon-
don and something • like fame had
come his way. Ile had sat for the
character of Mr. Pike in "The eduflny
of the Elsinore"—Mr. Pike of the.
"stiff, crack -faced smile," "huge Mr.
Pike," Mr, Pike the mauler, Mr. Pike
the fearless, IVir. Pike with his love of
classical music. Since Bien, it was
said, he had tried to be Mr. Pike, But`
he was an aging, .a bitter, a disap-
pointed, sometimes, oven a barrulous
Mr. Pike. He had the' utmost con-
tempt for present-day sailormen. They
were scum, fit only to be hnoceed
about, lucky to be out of jail. It had
not been .so in the golden days.
• Stirring Mutiny.
Nevertheless he had a habit of go-
ing forward to talk to the crew The
talk on board—though few had ever
heard of Dr. Freud of,,,Vienna—re-
volved about two subjects— sex and
food. Mr. Mortimer conversed with
endless animation about food. What
had the men had for supper?. he
would ask. No fried potatoes! What
a pity, There had been fried potatoes
at the captain's table. IIe would rub
his stomach comfortably. Fried po-
tatoes. Pudding. He couldn't see
why the forecastle shouldn't eat as
well as the cabin.
The men listened. One or two of
the older ones found it embarrassing.
They were not used to officers who
talked in such a fashion. There nes
tension in the air, faint at first but
datse gilyrowing. Badke's swagger
took .on a touch of insolence. Ten
men—and one woman. The prestige
of captains and mates faded before
that tremendous fact.. He swaggered
in front of tlie captain, ho swaggered
in front of Battice.
The cook, thinking of the girl in
Porto Mico, kept silence. But Porto
Rico was being left further and fur-
ther astern. And Battice was becom-
ing a laughing stock. Men jeered at
him openly. Or a group would break
into loud guffaws as ho approached
an dthen become suddenly silent. He
carried about with him a little private
hell of rage.
The Captain's Troubles.
Captain Lawry held to his course,
from Pensacola to the San Juan
River, from the San Juan River south-
ward and eastward to the Gold Coast.
He was not so much a part of the
drama aa the centre about which it
turned, the one force that held the
ship's company together. He was
law, order, government, public opin-
ion, a sense of responsibility, Be-
cause he willed it the watches tum-
bled out regularly on 'deck, the sails
were trimmed - to the breeze, _the
helmsman kept his place at the
wheel, and the Kingsway slid steadily
onward.
Wlio on board the schooner cared
whether or not the Gold Coast had
another cargo of lumber? Who cared
whether the schooner's owners in
New York got back the expected car-
go of cocoa beans?`But this was what
she set out for and this _was what
Captain Lawry, whose cold blue eye
not even Badke could meet, was de-
termined she should achieve. Yet at
66 one does not set much store by
cocoa beans. It was a cargo of pride
that Captain Lawry was 'after—pride
In beingone of the handful of men
still left in the world who could take
a four -masted schooner safely from
New York harbor to the Gold 'Coast
and back; pride, too, in meeting and
breaking the opposing wills of other
men.
The Mate's Ambition.
The mate fought him doggedly, si-
lently; watch in and watch out. The
Mate tobk off sail at sunset, the Cap -
taro made him put it back again,
Whenever their wills were in conflict
the Captain's prevailed. But the
mate would not give up. Tho sour-
ness of half a century of disillusion
merit kept rising tit him. He walked
theh Kingsway's holystoned decks,
looked aloft at her varnished masts.
She was stow, small, obsolete, but if
he had been her Captain how he
would have loved her!
She was his symbol of success, his
last chance to put .meaning, into a bat-
tered and aimless life, And the .Cap-
tain had taken that chance from him,
on this his final voyage. The gboet.
of Mr, Pike rose within his weakened
body. Bat the body of the mate was
seventy-four years old. It could no
longer knock a tall man head over
heels with an uncleanched hand. It
could not,in any bold and dramatic
fashion, challenge destiny., The ghost
of Mr, Pike locked out of frustrated
and weary eyes,
iu2;rt wp v
And HST Master..
THE HOODOO SHIP OF THE ATLANTIC
sbaa> wanted yellow steeir cgs° a.zt ' !!ak
drink tof whislcoy, Early in 'the after!'
TJogf her cries were, silteneed. Shy
foil into a sleep ad died. ,At Sunset,
ksewo;i tai canvas, she was' 014 late th e
ser,. ldadlce the terrible, the conquer.-`
Ing male, stoo,i• by with the --rest ,of thou
strew, hoard the Captain road the burials
service and watched her go,
Mutiny and Sad Cookery
The Kingsway's great drematio}
monlon•t had paesked. But still shp
Slipped southeastward, for the Gold•,
Cods t et11; needed, lumber and New
York s'ti'11 needed eokeoa. On the aeG
cud of March e'iae was, at Sekondl, oil`
the Gold Coast, where you in,ay be:
Devi), if you like, that Henno's men'
eaw gorili1'as and mistook •then .tor;
human beizs, Battioe, hewing at
the bulkhead between hie room and
the captain's bathroom, eseapeda
plunged into the surf with two life)
preservers, rand was, hauled back,
The nerves of eight :harassed matt
gave way and the crew refused dutyi,
Badke, leader of an incipient mutiny,.
lead a chair raised to strike the cape
twin—so the forecastle version, of the
incident shad it. But the •captain',',
*old eyes and a suggestive 'dump b
the captain's right-hand ,pocket stop'
ped the miniature revolution .before'
it had fairly begun,
The Kingsway went about her busie
nese, poking her nose leisurely in and'
out of the inlets 'as far as Aocra, .leave
ling lumber and, picking up cocoa:.
°edge, a negro who appeared out of
the wilderness, at Selcondi, was cook
in Battice's• place. His intentions were
,good, his, technique poor. Digestions
b•egan.to •suffer. Even the captain be•
ganto take strychnine to ward off the•
evil he felt descending upon him.
But the mate, his hold upon life
doo•sening with the loss of his last bat -
tie against destiny, took no preeau
tions against the bleyekwatn. fever
and the •dysentsry whichlie in wait
along the African coast. The quar-
rel between the two old men had est)
tied now into a chronic irritation)
,smoldering, but never oeoniiwg to a
violent outbreak The Kin swayee
bow was at last tamed. homeward.
The Mate's End
A sullen silence Bottled over the
vsuau7.. But now a new kind .of strug-
gle
truggle was rnanifertly taking place—no
contact for a woman naw, no wrestle
for pour, but an all+ man's fight to
live until he comet touch lance again.
The Kingwiay was more ',than half
way home, and heading in toward the
Brailian coast when the mate fell ill
of fever. Two days later he returned
to week. Twelve days after that the
izever seined him again. He could not
eat, but lay in his bunk all clay arnica
the fumes of his endless cigarettes.
, ,. ' In his extremity he turned to the
_---' captain for reassurance. Perhaps)
The Tension Grows
Day by day the heat increased and
with it the electric tensionin the
Kingsway's little world, There were
minor quarrels, resulting in oaths and
blows. Battice grew more morose.
The Captain found him prowling about
the storeroom and drove him out with
a belaying pin. Badke became in-
creesingiy truculent, The woman went
about her work• with a gay audacity.
What was there " to conceal? She
leaned into Badke's window and the
engineer came grimy -faced to talk.
with her. '
The ten men and the woman were
on a small stage, with no exits and
no intermissions, under the merciless
spotlight' of the African sun. They
could not escape, they could not avoid
one another. Something had to hap-
pen. Everybody knew it. On the
afternoon of the 5th of February
something did "happen,
The Kingsway, heeling to the wind,
was doing her steady pace of some-
thing less than ten knots, a white
bloom of sails moving beautifully over
sea. Badke had left his,
engine. Where was he? He had been
where.
knew
seengoingaft,no one
1.•0„-xalin
No one? No ono but the woman, who
had finished cleaning her lamps, and
had disappeared. Battle(' was slip-
ping stealthily out of the galley, leav-
ing'
eaveing his steaming pots 'behind. He
dropped into the shadow of the after -
companionway, ran along the passage,
darted to his right for a' swift glance
into his own room, with its, tumbled
bunk and disarray of clothes, then
turned left, ran across the saloon and
paused, his right hand on the knob of
the store -room door, his lett hand in
his pocket. Then he burst the door
open and the woman screamed.
Badke Dodges the Razor
Badke the terrible, facing a black
man who -carried an open razor in his
left hand, dodged dike a scared rabbit,
reached the door, stumbled through
the cabin. His heavy boots clattered
down the passageway, up the ladder,
along the deck, The woman scream-
ed again—a different kind of scream.
Would she never stop screaming?
he said, he was smoking too •strong
The two enemies, Mortimer and tho I tobacco and it was affecting his' heart.!
Captain, burst into the stare -room to- I The captain felt of the swellings on
gether, with the bo's'n behind them. I his feet and legis and prescribed ra-
The Captain picked the woman up and ' tions of whisky and 'milk three- times
carried her into the after -cabin, ! a day. On the I9th of ,Tone the mato
where he tried to stanch the blood. 'tattered to the deck to take ,charge of
Battice, in irons, was clapped into his , his watch. It was his last dream of
own room and his pots left to stew and command. A seaman ran to the cap -
simmer without him. His voice rose loaf* with news that the mate had
fitfully as madness came upon him, gems below, leaving the deck without
an *MoenS•ix days• later the mate
deed. -
Captauin Lawry, who had been
standing in for the Barbadlos in the
'hope of getting a doctor, wrote• in the
ship's lag in his crabbedhand that
the dead man's fate was "probably,
and he shouted and pounded on the
door. As if in Answer,. came the wo-
man's groans. The Kingsway, bow-
ing delicately to the roll of the South
Atlantic, held her •course. No roman-
ticist could have looked at ter with-
out lamenting the passing of sails.
She swam upon the sea, a spectacle of due bo nngieot of health rules on the:
African coast." With a seaman's'
t
senna of unsentimental justice to the
dead es to the living he •added a final
and merciless comment upon the
passing of Mr. Pike. A master of a
vessel is required to set down in the
log his opinion of the conduct and
Infinite peace.
A week went by, and the Kingsway
stili pointed her bow, with its collar
of foam, to the southeast, carrying
lumber, seeking c000a beans. The
woman still erted out and /lattice still
beat upon his door. On the twelfth,
when the schooner was off the shore ability of each member of his crew.
of Liberia, the woman became deliri• C inxtain Lawry, dipping his pen in
ous, She wanted to be taken to a ink tinctured with half a century of
hospital, she wanted tea with sugar, 'bitter experience, wrote down his
.. i opinion that the- dead mate's ability
e,; had been "poor" and his conduct
"bad." Such was the epitaph of l0ir.
Pike.
ADAMSON'S ADVENTURES—By O. Jacobsson.
COUNT LE, BUM SENDS
Witt. TAR P1 Ace AEi'- 1N 4
SUNRISE!]
gamlivainamalesommesirciazawnersects-
ZE We.E-PONS \•
WILL. Bir
PISTOc.!' •
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Irony's Final Touch
The .Kingsway touched at Barbados
to put where whatever was forbid of
Fred Mortimer, then headed north.
ward again with the fruits of her
adventure—$50,000 worth of cocoa,
beans. But the irony which had at-
tended her voyage had in reserve a
deft final touch. Coci'go, whose mo',
tives wereabove reproach, was as
poor a eo ok as ever put to sea. Some
members of the crew, linding him in.
a corner mumbling over two sticks,'
were inclined to believe that he was
caetnrg a voodoo eharm over the ves-
sel. It is more likely that he was
merely invoking his tribal gods—i
vainly, as it turned eft, ---to make him
a better cook, The captain fell sick
and kept .alive, as be believed, only
by heroic doses of drugs: Oodgo him-
self was sick, his legs swelled as the
madte's had before him, and he lay
in hie bunk and groaned,
Battice alone could cook. So it
happened that ten days before the
schooner reached New York he ,was.
releaser?inrn•e and put e
'alley ati.uug a ,... y�•w a,nu. pans.
I3edlce, on the other side of the galley,
door, stood by his engine. Captain
Lawry walked the poop deck and set
the covers+'. In this fasah!iexr the Kong�''
gray arrived off Barnegat and ilio
°roust Guardsmen came aboard. And;
then the strange little shipboard,
world fell apart, One man went t
jail on a .murder charge, forme we
held as. witnesses, the fires in the eni
gine room Were allowed to go out, and,
the etrli1bain sngnied his papers an
went 'ashore,