Members of New York's Tammany Hall may or may not be a burden to the city; they seem a positive jinx to the Italian Line. With pinchbeck little James John Walker aboard, the brand-new 51,000-ton, 28-knot Rex broke down at Gibraltar, reached Manhattan three days late. The slightly smaller, equally fast and ornate Conte di Savoia left Naples on her maiden voyage fortnight ago with New York's Police Commissioner Edward P. Mulrooney as passenger.
Just at dark, the night of the Captain's Dinner, all the lights went out. Passengers rushed from the plush-&-gold lounges into a cold drizzle on deck. The crew was piped to stations while excited junior officers pattered up and down staircases, gesticulating. The engines stopped. Then slowly the ship heeled over to starboard. A few passengers went down for their lifebelts.
Officers shouldered their way through the crowd explaining what had happened: on the inlet tube for cooling the turbogenerators with sea water, a 40-lb. mushroom-shaped valve, made of cast iron instead of brass, had jammed, finally burst. A solid jet of water nearly a foot in diameter poured into the hold. The ship was made to list purposely to keep the broken valve near the surface. Over & over the officers repeated there was no danger.
Over the side went a Jacob's ladder and guy ropes. In rain and darkness a little group of seamen stood by the rail. In the center stood the Conte di Savoia's commander, sparse little Captain Antonio Lena. "It is my duty and mine alone to go down the side!" cried the Captain.
Up spoke Gennaro Amatruda, Able Seaman: "No, no, not you! Let me go!"
Dramatically as in an Italian opera a beam from an emergency floodlight suddenly lit the tableau. The emergency dynamos were working.
"Corragio!" cried the Captain and over the side went Gennaro Amatruda, a rope round his waist, a hammer in his belt, a monkey rope with a wooden plug and a rope mat in his hand. Seventy feet down he worked, sometimes swinging high in the air, sometimes soused deep in the creamy waves. Five other men were on shorter ladders trying to keep him from being dashed against the side of the ship. After a breathless, drenching hour, the monkey rope was passed through the hole, the plug hammered home. On the inside Staff Captain Giorgio Cavallini and the chief engineer, waist deep in water, sealed the patch with cement mixed-with scrap metal.
While the crew cheered and the passengers applauded, up over the side came Gennaro Amatruda. Captain Lena kissed him on both cheeks.
"Do you want me to put in another block of wood?" asked Seaman Amatruda.
"No, no, it is enough. Amatruda. You are Italy's great hero. I thank you from my heart."
The passengers went down to dinner and Gennaro Amatruda went to change his clothes. There was free champagne. A $700 purse was subscribed and a resolution voted that "Captain Lena, his officers and crew—all were magnificent."
"It is the passengers who were magnificent," cried Captain Lena. The ship proceeded, reached Manhattan only eight hours late.