‘Seaman’s friend dies, 86. Mr L. N. (Dickie) Tucker, founder of the Bermuda Sailors’ Home and the Guild of Holy Compassion, died suddenly Monday evening [December 19] at his home, Valhalla, Paget, aged 86. He had recently complained of heart problems … Mr Tucker is remembered not only for his unselfish life but for his salty wit and unassuming manner’ The Royal Gazette, December 21, 1988On New Year’s Day 1918, a gunshot reverberated on the waters of St George’s Harbour and an innocent bystander lay dead on the deck of a military tugboat. That shot, if not heard around the world like that of Lexington or even in remotest Somerset, yet echoes in Bermuda waters thanks to L.N. Tucker, who established the Guild of Holy Compassion following the burial of the seaman the following day.That story of the sea and graveyard began as the Great, or First World War was entering its last year of carnage (unprecedented in human history for battlefield deaths, excepting perhaps for the rampages of Genghis Khan), when several American vessels were passing through Bermuda on their way to the killing fields of Europe.Without consulting the newspaper of the day, one of the ships was the USACT Fred E. Richards, upon which the death took place, and another, by reference on the tombstone, was the Kingfisher, the former a tugboat and the latter possibly a requisitioned motor launch. While we expect the universe of the internet and that the universe is there represented, references to the first vessel were scant, particularly as regards its Bermuda sojourn and little could be obtained on the second.For researchers, however, the internet is a boon unavailable when I was once an official student all those years ago and it allows for moments of ‘Eureka’ that would otherwise have taken a lifetime or not occurred at all. The great scholar Archimedes seems to be the first who is recorded to have used the expression, which translates as ‘I have found it’ and has become an ‘expression of triumph concerning a discovery’, in the Greek’s case for finding a means for determining the purity of gold. He apparently took ‘to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he forgot to dress’.Sparing the Scaur Hill neighbourhood the visual abomination of such a mindless display, one was nevertheless quite ‘Eurekaphoric’ when another researcher, Jane Downing, presented one with a wonderful picture of the Fred E. Richards at Bermuda in 1919, from the collections of Bill Pantry in Smith’s Parish, found trolling the information seas of the World Wide Web. The image was kindly provided at an instant’s notice for inclusion here.Thus the story of a disastrous harbour altercation can begin with a decent picture of the tugboat, for that from a Tucker family album is indistinct and undistinguished. The Pantry image shows the vessel at anchor alongside another similar one, the both moored to the makeshift quay provided by the sunken wreck of the sailing ship Taifun in St George’s Harbour, overseen by the house with a widow’s walk above the old Meyers’ shipyard to the east of the town and the whitewashed crenellations of Mr Meyers’ fort.We know something of the presence of the tugboat in St George’s in 1919 and that it was returning to the United States after the War, which ended on 11th hour of 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, through a watch inscribed ‘Douglas Sargent Blais, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, USA, Bordeaux France, No. 2182, USAC Fred E Richards’. From an internet source, we can confirm that ‘DS Blais was a member of the American Expeditionary Force and crew that returned the US Army tug, Fred E. Richards, from France to New York in 1919. He was the Engineer and was only 26 when they sailed across the Atlantic and the Captain was only 30.’The boat is bedecked with flags, perhaps signalling the end of the conflict and a return to Bermuda and home, for the ship passed through the Island on the way to war in late 1917. According to local lore, several Russians of Red and White persuasions were aboard and it was they who had a fight on board on January 1, 1918, a battle perhaps between King and Commies that they resolved to settle in gunfire.One hapless seaman stuck his head out of a porthole and received the bullet intended for one side of the Russian roulette and thus met his Maker and obtained permanent residency in the heights overlooking Murray’s Anchorage. His gravestone, recorded several years ago by Hilary and Richard Tulloch and produced in their book on Bermuda Memorial Inscriptions (2011), reads as follows: ‘In memory of Thomas A. Crealy, Seaman of U.S.A.C.T. Fred E. Richards. Died at Bermuda, January 1st, 1918, aged 33. Erected by the Officers and crews of U.S.A.C.T. Fred E. Richards & Kingfisher.’In the audience at the graveside service on January 2 was 16-year-old Leonard Tucker, later universally known as ‘Dickie’. One of the seamen turned to Master Tucker and asked that he care for his departed shipmate’s tomb, to which request Dickie agreed, starting his own-termed ‘Guild of Holy Compassion’, apparently found nowhere but Bermuda, to care for the dead at sea who are found at graves in Bermuda.Other seamen have since died at sea and the Guild of Holy Compassion yet exists to honour those individuals and care for their graves. Since the sinking of the Lloyd Bermuda, the Guild, which is run by former St George’s Mayor Henry Hayward and Dr Derek Tully, with the assistance of the Bermuda Pilot Service, has conducted a ceremony of wreath-laying on an annual basis.This year the Guild ceremony included members of several families whose forebears were lost at sea on a pilot boat in 1927, in this instance the Brangman, Smith and Pascoe families. The Reverend David Raths of St Peter’s Church officiated at the laying of wreaths upon the waters, usually carried out when a vessel is leaving Bermuda, in this case, Veendam, when visitors may observe it. Perhaps Thomas Crealy would thereby see some merit and take some credit in the creation of the Guild of Holy Compassion and its role to care for the dead of the sea at Bermuda, a guild promulgated by his untimely demise almost a century ago.In this overly materialistic age, it speaks well for all those at Bermuda who continue to show compassion for those lost at sea and who care for the graves of those who here remain forever in a foreign field.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum at Dockyard. Comments may be made to –director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.