“Very teeth of death”

J. Marie Bassett has been in touch about the article From Cupar to the Future about early science-fiction author, Robert Duncan Milne.

“Robert had a younger brother, James E. Gordon Milne,” she says, “who, like his brother, attended Glenalmond.

“James followed a naval career, studying navigation under the Rev. J. Burton, Meigle House. He was third officer of the China clipper, Black Prince; chief officer of British Duke; and captain of Hudson Bay Company’s Perseverance in which in 1890 he made the fastest passage to date from Hudson Bay to London.

“On the fateful night of June 16, 1896, James Milne was one of three quartermasters on board the liner, Drummond Castle, en route from Cape Town to London. As the passengers enjoyed a concert, Captain W.W. Pierce was negotiating

the ship through the treacherous waters of the coast of Brittany near Ushant between Molène island and a reef known as Pierres Vertes.

“Because of what the Board of Trade inquiry deemed ‘neglect of proper precautions,’ the Drummond Castle subsequently struck the reef, sinking in a matter of minutes. Of the 103 crew members and 143 passengers, there were only three survivors – passenger Charles Marquardt and crewmen, Seaman William Godbolt and one of the quartermasters, Charles Wood.

“During the inquiry, Charles Marquardt described James Milne’s last

minutes — “The most wonderful thing I noticed was the quartermaster at the wheel — an elderly man named Milne. In the very teeth of death, with that fatal rush of pitiless water overwhelming him, he gripped the spokes of the wheel and kept his eyes fixed on the compass, as calmly, believe me, as if he were keeping the Drummond Castle on her course. He must have gone down like that — just as they say the Roman sentinels stood at heir posts even as the lava of Vesuvius destroyed them. Have you ever heard or read of more heroic devotion to duty? Yet of men like the quartermaster no roll of honour is kept. They do their duty — they

die; and with that they must be satisfied.’

“James Milne had converted from the Episcopal to the Catholic Church and consequently had his arm tattooed with the marks of the Cross, the Blessed Virgin, and St John. It was by these that his body was identified.

“In a letter to another brother, G.G.L. Gordon Milne, Father Le Jeune, rector of Molène island, said these tattoos made a great impression on the local inhabitants and that ‘your brother, good Catholic, rests in peace in the cemetery of Molène.’”