Used by permission from Robert Parsons
Taken from Lost at Sea, Volume 1
During a fierce storm in the fall of 1918, a dory was spotted drifting by the crew of the Valerie. Looking over the side they saw a dory drifting by carried along by the gale. Two excited men were waving their arms and calling for help. A rope was thrown to them but it could not reach the dory.
In a minute she had disappeared in the darkness. Mike Augot, who was quick of thought tied a lantern to a dory, secured it to a rope which in turn was well fastened aboard and threw it into the sea to drift after the men in the other dory.
The light aboard would drift faster than the one with the men in it. They would see the light and row for it.
Aboard the vessel there was no means of knowing if or when the two dories would come together so they slacked away a mile and a half of rope.
Meanwhile the distressed men came up with the rescue dory but as it
continued to drift they feared that it was fastened to a rope from another dory that was adrift... By and by, which seemed like an eternity to the poor fellows, the rope came tight and hope was revived. Aboard the vessel the rope was put on the winch and the two dories were soon brought alongside. There were two tired and excited Frenchmen in the dory.
When Rose and Augot visited St. Pierre the next spring to drop off the St. Pierais’ dory, the appreciative Frenchmen of St. Pierre carried them, and the dory, through the streets of St. Pierre in appreciation.
The oral sources even explained what kind of lantern it had to be in order to be exposed on a dory in a raging gale and not blow out, etc.
The story was repeated in a column by Rev. Ellis Curry in the Southern Gazette about a year or two after "Lost at Sea" was published.
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