[Grammar] past perfect progressive/past grogressive + "when" past tense

[sitifan]

1. The Karen had been sailing in a convoy to Russia when she was torpedoed by an enemy submarine. (Developing Skills, by L. G. Alexander, page 82)
2. He was still mumbling something about hospitals at the end of the party when he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his left leg. (Developing Skills, by L. G. Alexander, page 76)
3. The Karen was sailing in a convoy to Russia when she was torpedoed by an enemy submarine. (written by me)
4. He had still been mumbling something about hospitals at the end of the party when he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his left leg. (written by me)

Are #3 and #4 also acceptable to native speakers?

 

[Tarheel]

They are quite good.
:up:

 

[terryfrd]

Didn't the mumbling and the falling happen at the same time in the past? If so, use the past progressive "was still mumbling". The past perfect implies it took place before.

 

[sitifan]

Didn't the mumbling and the falling happen at the same time in the past? If so, use the past progressive "was still mumbling". The past perfect implies it took place before.

But in the quotation below, doesn't the past perfect imply that it took place after the past tense?
https://www.enfamily.cn/thread-15855-1-10.html
When the brothers were re-united, Hans explained how it was that he was still alive. After having been wounded towards the end of the war, he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit. The hospital had been bombed and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot. Meanwhile, his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed. Hans returned to his family home, but the house had been bombed and no one in the neighbourhood knew what had become of the inhabitants. Assuming that his family had been killed during an air-raid, Hans settled down in a Village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since.

 

[5jj]

Hans settled down in a village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since ... up until the time of the reunion with his brother.

 

[sitifan]

Hans settled down in a Village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since ... up until the time of the reunion with his brother.

Hans settled down in a Village fifty miles away (from his original home) and then stayed in the same Village up until the time of the reunion with his brother.

 

[5jj]

Hans settled down in a Village fifty miles away (from his original home) and then stayed in the same Village up until the time of the reunion with his brother.

Fine but that doesn't work with 'ever since'.

 

[sitifan]

Fine but that doesn't work with 'ever since'.

Ever since when?

 

[5jj]

Since the time of his settling in the village.