By the Associated Press
Elizabeth City, N.C., April 6—“It doesn’t hurt to freeze to death; one just fights hard to keep alive, shouts and prays, presently gets tired and numb and goes to sleep. That’s the way the end comes to a shipwrecked human who dies of cold and exposure.”
This is the story of Enoch Leigh, engineer of the ill-fated tug, Julian Fleetwood, which went down in Albemarle sound on the night of March 28, death resulting to four of the crew of six trapped on the boat, tells in today’s issue of the Independent. Leigh, in a hospital here recovering from exposure, for the first time described how the six men faced death through the cold night.
Owing to the shallowness of the sound where the tug overturned, the men clung to the super-structure, which remained just above the water while the wind shrieked about them and the icy waves battered and drenched their bodies. Once the searchlight of a passing steamer swept the waters about the tug, resting on the men a moment, then switched off. One by one, four of the men died.
“Faith and hope are all that saved me,” said Leigh. “Over and over I told the boys never to give up—that something would save us. I felt sure of this. The captain was praying, some of the men were screaming and groaning. My own boy was lying down on the deck a few feet away. I told the men to keep shouting as it would help keep them warm.
It was a rough night on the ground. (sound?) The moon was shining and we could see the heavy waves coming against the boat. The spray flew all over us. And the wind whipped our wet garments tight about us.
“We began to feel numb, and I would tell the boys over and over to have faith and not give up. The captain and mate quieted down after a while. They were sitting down; their arms around their knees.
“The moon went down and left us late in the night. We were a little more doubtful of anybody seeing us after that. But I still believed that something would save us.
“About 4 o’clock in the morning, maybe earlier, we saw a steamer coming. I recognized it as the Harby, of the Elizabeth City boat line. We screamed and shouted more and more. And then the man at the wheel on the steamer flashed his searchlight on us and held it there.
“I felt more certain then of my faith that we would be saved. I told the boys to cheer up. But the Harby swung her light off of us and went on. “Pretty soon the voices of the men stopped. Captain Walker, who was only 45 years old—a nervy man on the water—had screamed the loudest, but he lost his courage and strength. He sat there on the deck, his arms propped on a life raft, and in a little while was still. I looked at him and saw that he was dead.
“My boy Vernon, 21 years old, was a few feet away from me. He had never roughed it any, and was just making a trip with me. I told him to lay low on the deck and to keep hollering. But I was numb myself and couldn’t keep talking. He was the next one to quiet down. He sat over to himself mighty still. Then Captain Gray, the mate, asked me if I still had faith and I told him I had. I looked over at my boy again. He was dead!
“Captain Gray was about 73 years old. He had spent many years on the water, and he didn’t seem to worry as much as the rest of them. He sat there close to me and Shawler, and the negro cook, Chance. The two dead men sat there close to us, the spray flying over them.
“None of us was in any pain; we just felt like someone half asleep. Now and then Mate Gray would say: ‘Enoch, have you still got faith?’ and I would tell him I had. The old man seemed to get tired and lay down on the deck. He did not say more after that.
“Shawler was faring badly then, but Chance was the worse off. I was feeling mighty numb, more so than usual. I could not see very far; my eyes were blurred. I looked at the mate, and the old man has passed away. Daylight had come on us and after a while we saw the Sciver of the North River Line. I knew my faith was right. The Sciver failed to get up to us the first time, but after a while, she made it and we got ready to get aboard.
“Me and Shawler and Chance were all that were alive,” Leigh paused a moment. “And then Chance died.”
R.K. Mann, a 19-year-old boy; Alexander, the chief engineer; and Leslie Barnes, a deck hand, escaped in a lifeboat when the tug overturned. The boat filled with water and they got aboard one of the barges the tug had been pulling.
“I ran around the deck blowing a fog horn, and the rest of the men kept torches burning all the night,” said Mann. “Once we tried to go to the tug in a small skiff, but it sunk, it was so rough in the sound. We could hear the men screaming on the tug.”
Captain D.S. Crain of the Harby stated that he saw no sign of a tug when he was attracted by the lights on the barge. No distress signals were visible, he continued, and as it was not unusual for a tug to anchor a tow there, according to his statement, he concluded there was nothing wrong and swung back into his course.
From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, April 7, 1923
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