Highlights In The Shadows: A Postcript
Owen Clement reaches the final page of his autobiography, Highlights In The Shadows. As the result of the serialisation of his story in Open Writing Owen has made contact with a relative who lives thousands of miles away from his home in Australia.
Short stories by Owen will continue to appear in Open Writing.
Prior to my wife Jan’s and my travelling to India in the year 2000, I, through a site called “Roots Web”, sought out other descendents of my great-grandmother Catherine Arratoon Clement (nee; Nicholas). It wasn’t until the year 2006 that I received a response to this when Pamela Walker from the Dandenong Range’s outside of Melbourne rang us.
My wife answered the phone and when it was confirmed that her great-grandmother Regina and my great-grandmother Catherine were indeed sisters, Pam almost came through the line in her excitement. A few months ago Jan and I set off to Melbourne for a short holiday and there met Pam and her husband Bill and enjoyed a very pleasant lunch with them and were able to establish face-to-face contact. Since then many e-mails on Genealogy information and photographs have been exchanged.
In early January 2007 I received an e-mail from Peter Hinchcliffe, the editor of Open Writing, which said that an Alasdair Clement from Cornwall in the United Kingdom wanted to contact me as he had discovered my story, Highlights in the Shadows. Alasdair it turns out is the grandson of Hubert Clement, my grandfather Raymond’s younger brother who tragically lost his life at sea in July 1917 when the merchant ship on which he was serving as a Second Engineer was torpedoed and sunk.
A copy of the newspaper article of the terrible incident follows:
“Death of Hubert Henry Joseph Clement. Chief Engineer SS Mariston.”
‘A SEA TRAGEDY.’
TORPEDOED TRAMP’S ONE SURVIVOR. CLYDESIDE VICTIM OF U-BOAT DEVILRY.
The story of another crime of the Sea committed by an unknown U-boat was graphically recounted by the only survivor of a Tramp Steamer well-known on the Clyde, which went to her doom mortally crippled by two German Torpedoes somewhere at Sea on Sunday July 15th. 1917.
The solitary survivor was the Cook a Liverpool man who was making his first voyage. The Steamer carried many Clydeside men among her crew.
It was about 3 O'clock a beautiful morning In the East, the darkness was lifting presaging the coming dawn, but the West was still asleep. The Mariston was pounding placidly along lying low in the water with a solid cargo of Iron ore. Careful watch was being kept & all seemed well until suddenly there was a sudden dreadful crash just forward of No 4 Hatch, and the water began to pour in through an ugly rent there.
Men who had been rudely awakened by the explosion - the Cook among them - turned out to see what was wrong. As he passed the Galley door the Cook tried hard to open it. He shouted to his boy, but there was no response, the door being jammed, & even though he lacerated his hands badly in the attempt he could not open it. Just then there was another terrific crash. A second Torpedo had found a lodgement in the ships vitals & she began to settle by the stern.
Cries for help unheeded.
Rushing on deck, the cook threw a piece of the Hatch battening overboard & dived. In the water all around his Mates were battling for their lives, clinging to spars & woodwork. A strong swimmer the cook struck out from the stricken ship out of the range of the suction of her final plunge. He turned once in the water just in time to see the last of the vessel as the waves closed over her forever. All around were British Sailors, when suddenly a few hundred yards away a German Submarine rose to the surface. A cry for help rose from the drowning men but it was unheeded. A white capped personage showed over the U-boat's Conning Tower surveyed the scene, & then apparently satisfied that his work was done went below. A Seaman came up & for some purpose walked along the deck. Again cries for help went up but again they passed unneeded. The U-boat submerged & the drowning seamen were left to their tragic fate.
Eventually the Cook managed to secure from the floating wreckage sufficient wood to form a primitive Yacht on which he climbed & sitting astride it, surveyed the horizon for some vestige of a sail or smoke. Towards evening when just as life seemed to be slipping from his grasp on the distant horizon appeared a wick of smoke. He was seen & from the deck of a passing steamer came an inaudible query; it was the sound of human voice a presage of help after sixteen hours of torture bodily & mental. A boat put out from the Tramp & British Sailors helped the exhausted Cook aboard. Once aboard the rescuing steamer he told his story & learned that, she, sighting floating wreckage had slowed down & picked her way through it, but not another soul had been seen, one man alone was left to tell the terrible tale.
The Tramp made her way to an English port. The solitary survivor receiving every care and attention but some days elapsed before ere he was able to tell the relatives of his lost shipmates the fate that had overcome the ship."
Alasdair and his nephew Alexander Brasier have been in constant touch with us and e-mails and photographs once again have been and are being exchanged regularly.
It is going to be fascinating for all concerned with the additional information we are learning from each other for us to fill in the gaps of trying to understand the lives of those stern faced ancestors we see in those formal photographs we all have. I know that those images could not possibly reflect them truly as they had to hold their poses for a few seconds while the lenses of the cameras of the day stayed open, not like nowadays when expressions are captured instantly. I like to think of them as being very like their descendents who in my case I have found to be kind, good humoured and with strong ethics and principles. My early ancestors were remarkable people as many times they had to deal with great tragedies. My great-grandmother Catherine and my great-grandfather William lost a number of their children to disease and illness, some in infancy. My grandmother Beata, my grandfather Raymond’s wife, died of typhoid in 1914 leaving a son and five daughters, the youngest only a babe-in-arms, for my grandfather to raise on his own. How did they cope, especially in a tropical town like Calcutta at the end of the 19th century with the heat and difficult conditions that history threw at them? Life was so different even to when I was growing up not to mention these days with all the advances in technology.
I have always believed that events happen in threes. Which other family members are out there waiting to join our ever growing family I wonder? I have every confidence that someday, maybe very soon, we will hear from another member.
The Net is cast very widely and is likely to grow much wider. Whoever or wherever they may be, we welcome them.
© Clement 2007
