Bert Wilson, Marathon Winner

by J. W. Duffield

A moment she hung undecided, her screw scarcely turning the water at her stern, while all waited with beating hearts. Then she wheeled, and with all steam on hurried back. She moved with great speed, but to the onlookers it seemed as if she crept through the water. Seconds seemed like long minutes, until at last the sailors were safe on deck. Her bow once more pointed to open water, she steamed away toward safety. Not yet did they who had followed her every movement dare to cheer her captain’s brave action. She was not yet safe.

One hundred, two, three, four, five, six hundred feet of water at last stretched between her and the great danger that she had so narrowly escaped.

Now a cheer arose, but scarcely was it heard before it was drowned in a tremendous roar as the Falcon sprang bodily from the water. Then a great column of fire a hundred feet high leapt up from the doomed ship. Over this hung a cloud of black smoke which completely hid the vessel from view, while the sea rocked as if with a submarine earthquake. The air was filled with steam and smoke, charred wood, fragments of steel and iron, and flying cases of dynamite. When the smoke cleared, which was not for many minutes, there was not a vestige of the ill-fated Falcon, nor of the barge at her side.

Many of the cases of dynamite exploded in the air, seeming to echo the first great, deafening explosion. A number of them narrowly escaped falling on the deck of the gallant little tug that twice had braved destruction. One of them did indeed graze her stern, ripping up some of the planks from her deck, carrying away part of her rail, and throwing down and stunning many of those who crowded her forward deck. It was a narrow escape. Had the explosion occurred a very few minutes sooner many of the cases of dynamite would have fallen on the tug’s deck in the midst of her crew and those who had fled to her for safety. No one dared think of the fearful scene of carnage that would have followed.

Many other ships in the harbor barely escaped destruction. A collier was struck by the flying pieces of steel and iron, some of them weighing fifty pounds or more, and her steel plates, nearly an inch in thickness, were pierced and torn in many places. By the very force of the concussion her great smokestacks were crushed flat.

Nor did those on board the Northland entirely escape the terrific force of the explosion. Their ship seemed to lift under them, and many were thrown to the deck, but none received any serious hurt.

It is needless to say that thought of their own affairs had been banished from the minds of all on board during this scene of awful confusion and mortal peril; but it had passed.

As once more the great river settled into calm, the work of debarkation went on. A little while and our young travelers, still thrilling with the excitement of the scene through which they had just passed, found themselves at last on German soil.

The afternoon was very delightfully spent in “doing” Hamburg town, and the next morning, after a quiet night at the hotel, the train bore them onward toward Berlin, and the fulfillment, as they believed, of all their hopes.

Knowing that the morning papers would have a full story of the harbor disaster, everyone straightway possessed himself of a copy, and settled himself eagerly to read the account. In consequence, it was a very quiet carful of people as they scanned the columns with their glaring headlines. Our three college boys, like all the others, had a fair knowledge of the German language, but it was not so easily nor so quickly read as English, and so eager were they to learn the full extent of the disaster that they were very glad to accept the offer of one of their party, who was a native German, to translate for them.