THE FLYING DUTCHMAN AND HIS HISTORY.--MEETING A SHIP WITH A
STARVING CREW.--RELIEF AND SAILING IN COMPANY.
"As to the Flying Dutchman," said Haines, "there's a good many stories
about him, and I don't know which is the true one. The one that's
oftenest told about him is that a Dutch captain, who wasn't a Christian
or anything else that's respectable, tried to get around Cape Horn
with a heavy gale blowing right in his teeth. He swore by all the bad
words he knew that he would do it; and as the gale grew worse and his
crew was frightened, he laughed at them as he drank his beer and smoked
his pipe. They got up a mutiny, and tried to make him run into port
somewhere; and he threw overboard every man who had joined in it.
"They do say," said Haines, almost in a whisper, "that the Holy Ghost
came down on the ship, and this Dutchman fired at it with his pistol!
Of course he didn't hurt the Holy Ghost at all; but the bullet went
through his own hand, and paralyzed his arm. He cursed God, and was
then condemned to navigate the seas forever, without putting into port,
having nothing but gall to drink and red-hot iron to eat, and to be
standing watch all the time."
[Illustration: THE SIGHT THAT MET HIS EYES WAS A TERRIBLE ONE. Page 70.]
"That's pretty tough, seems to me," I remarked. "Did he really have to
do it all?"
"They do say," continued Haines, "that he's been doing it ever since,
and that's more'n two hundred years ago. It's a misfortune to see his
ship,--an awful misfortune! They say it's worse than to see the Devil
to meet the Phantom Ship that the Flying Dutchman sails on. It always
wants to speak to any vessel that comes within hailing distance, and
always wants to send letters by her; but every ship that takes letters
from her is sure to be lost."
"Well, then, if I was captain of a ship," said I, "and met the Flying
Dutchman, I wouldn't take any of his letters for him."
"No more would I," said Haines; "but, what's more, when you see the
Phantom Ship, even though you don't speak her or take letters from her,
you are liable to have white squalls and hurricanes, waterspouts and
tornadoes. He has a crew that are just as bad scoundrels as himself.
They are thieves, cowards, murderers, and all such sort of fellows; and
they have to do just as he does, stay on watch all the time, and eat
and drink stuff that a Christian wouldn't and couldn't touch."
"Did you ever see the Flying Dutchman's ship?" I asked.
"N-o," said Haines, drawling out the word; "I've never seen the Phantom
Ship myself, but I've a good many friends what has seen it. You're not
likely to see him round these here latitudes; it's always away off
somewhere, generally down by the Cape of Good Hope, and between that
and Cape Horn. The Phantom Ship is always sailing with a fair wind and
everything spread, and she looks like the great big ghost that she is.
'Tisn't such a very large ship, the kind of craft the Dutchmen used to
have two or three hundred years ago; and the men that navigate her seem
to know their business.
"There's another phantom ship a good deal older and bigger than the
Flying Dutchman; so big is she that the ship I've been telling you
about wouldn't make a yawl for her. The French sailors call her the
Lightning Chaser; and she's so big that it takes her a year to make a
tack. Once, when she was bound north, she got stuck in the Straits of
Dover; but her captain smeared the port side of the ship with soap, and
she crept through; but the soap scraped off against the British cliffs,
and that's what makes 'em so white. When she got into the Baltic, the
sea was too narrow, and they had to lighten her. The ballast that she
threw over made the island of"--
A cry of "Sail ho!" from the mast-head attracted the attention of
everybody, and made a sudden end to the story of the Flying Dutchman.
I forgot to say that when we found in the morning that the man-of-war
was quite out of sight we changed our course back to the proper
one; that is, the one on which we were running when we sighted that
unwelcome stranger. The new sail was reported dead ahead: there was a
bare possibility that it might be the one whose acquaintance we made
the day before, and I heard the captain say to the mate that we'd
better change our course and avoid her; but no orders were given to do
so. The captain and mate went out of earshot of the men, and so I can't
tell what they talked about. They kept looking every little while, or
rather the captain did, at the sail which we were steadily nearing.
It was evident that she was not running in the same direction that we
were, or we would not have overhauled her so rapidly.
We had the weather-gauge of her, though, just as the Britisher had the
weather-gauge of us the day before. Consequently, if we did not like
her looks on getting nearer, it was quite easy for us to get out of her
way. It was my watch on deck at the time, and when I could do so I took
a squint at the ship, and wondered why the captain did not turn away
and leave her to herself.
On and on we went; and after a time Haines said to me,----
"I don't believe that's any man-of-war at all!"
"Why so?" I asked.
"Why, don't you see?" said he, "a man-of-war always looks a great deal
more trim and neat than a merchantman: they've plenty of men on board
to do all the work they want, and more too; and sometimes the officers
sits up nights to study up things to keep the men busy. The captain has
made out long ago that she ain't no man-of-war; for I can see it with
my naked eye. Her sails are all hanging lopsided like, and I'll bet
from the looks of her she's mighty short-handed in crew. Our captain's
running to speak to her; or, at all events, he's running near enough
for it."
The wheel had been put over a point or two and the yards braced around,
so that we were headed directly for the stranger. All the sailors on
the Washington were studying her, and wondering what she could be, and
she was guessed to be anything and everything that ever sailed the
seas. One of the men even guessed that she was an Indiaman, bound home
from round the Cape of Good Hope. I had seen pictures of Indiamen and
she certainly wasn't anything of that kind. Then she was thought to be
an English or French trader to the West Indies, and one of our men
thought she was a Spanish craft from some Spanish port to Mexico. The
suggestion that she was an Indiaman was laughed at, as she was quite
out of the course of vessels from the Cape of Good Hope for England,
and at that time we had practically no ships sailing between American
ports and the East Indies.
As we came nearer it was plain to perceive that there was something
wrong on board the stranger, as she was steering very wildly, and not
more than half her sails were pulling at all. She had a flag flying,
and when we were near enough to her to make it out, we saw that it was
the British cross of St. George, with the union down. Then we knew why
our captain had steered so straight for her; he had seen through his
glass the signal of distress and was going to her relief.
When we got near the ship two or three heads appeared above the rail.
Ordinarily there would have been a dozen or more on a craft of that
size, and we all wondered why so few were visible. The captain hailed
the vessel, and a faint answer came from her, too faint to be made out.
Then we lowered a boat, which was manned by Haines, Herne, and two
others of the crew, and carried our first mate, to visit the ship.
On reaching the strange vessel there was no rope hanging over the side
by which the mate could ascend to the deck; so he went up by the
forechains, which he managed to grasp by standing up in the boat. He
ordered his men to stay where they were, and climbed into the ship with
the quickness of a circus performer.
The sight that met his eyes was a terrible one. One man stood at the
wheel, but he was so weak from lack of food and water that he was
really unable to keep the ship on her course. Another man lay half
dead near him, and a third in the same condition was stretched at the
foot of the mainmast. As he went on board, the mate observed the name
"Warwick" on the bows of the ship, and the name, together with the flag
that was still flying, indicated her nationality to be English. He
spoke to the man at the wheel and asked where the captain was.
"Captain's dead, sir; dead a week ago," the man answered, in a very
feeble voice, scarcely more than a whisper. "First mate's in command,
sir; in the captain's cabin; just able to creep on deck once in a
while; he was up here when you hailed, but hadn't strength enough to
answer. We're out of water and provisions, and have been holding on and
holding on in hopes of help!"
The mate stopped to hear no more; he sprang to the side of the Warwick
which was the nearest to the Washington, and yelled with all the force
of his powerful lungs,--
"Water and provisions wanted, quick! Officers and crew dying of
starvation!"
Instantly our captain gave the order for water and biscuit to be placed
in the second mate's boat, and the boat lowered away at once. Other
things were added in the shape of boiled beef, some bread made the day
before, and a big pot of coffee which the cook had placed on the galley
when he heard that the strange ship was flying a signal of distress.
In a few minutes the boat was dancing on the waves, and at the same
time the first mate's boat was returning to the Washington. It was not
desirable to have both mates and eight of the crew away at once, and
the movement was made in this way so as to gain time in taking relief
to the unfortunate people on board the Warwick.
Before coming away from the Warwick our mate lowered ropes and the
ship's ladder over her sides, so as to facilitate the movements of the
second mate and the handling of the provisions. In addition to what I
have mentioned there was a bottle of brandy among the supplies sent
forward, and also two bottles of rum. Mr. Johnson, our second mate,
acted with great celerity in relieving the wants of the sufferers.
He gave each of them a small pannikin of coffee, with about a
tablespoonful of rum in it, along with a piece of bread, which he told
each man to eat very slowly, and take occasional sips of the mixture of
coffee and rum.
"After a while," said he, "you can have some salt horse, but you're not
ready for it now."
The man at the wheel and the three others on deck were first cared for,
two of our sailors assisting the mate, while the other two remained
in the boat at the ship's side. After attending to those on deck the
mate went to the cabin, where he found the Warwick's first mate lying
in his bunk, and hardly able to move. He gave him the same sort of
food and drink that he had given to the men on deck, except that he
put brandy in the coffee instead of rum, and then he proceeded to the
forecastle, where he found four of the crew, one of them in a dying
condition, and the other three but little better off. All these were
relieved in the manner already described, with the exception of the one
whom I have mentioned as in a dying condition; he was too feeble to
speak, and the muscles of his throat were so swollen that he could not
swallow anything. He died within an hour of the arrival of relief, and
it was Mr. Johnson's opinion that if the Warwick had failed to obtain
relief for another forty-eight hours she would have been quite without
officers or crew.
Our captain said that he would lie by the Warwick for the entire day,
and supply her with everything she needed that he could possibly spare.
After the men on board the unfortunate vessel had regained their
strength somewhat, they told their story.
The Warwick had sailed from Rio Janeiro nearly a year before, her
destination being London. She had been caught in the calms just south
of the equator, and lay there without moving a mile for several weeks
together. Then she got a breeze that carried her two or three degrees
north; the breeze died away, and left her in the doldrums as before.
For ten weeks she was held there as though she had been anchored, in
the terrific heat that prevails at the equator. She had two passengers,
an Englishman and his wife, on their way home from Brazil. Both of them
sickened and died from the effects of the heat, the wife being the
first to go. Three of the sailors, and also the second mate, became ill
during this period; and though they survived the period of calms they
never recovered; but died not long after. After a time a wind sprang up
which carried the ship to the northward, out of the equatorial belt of
calms and into the winds of the tropics.
Then followed a series of gales, some of them reaching the severity of
hurricanes. The ship was damaged considerably by the gales, and on two
or three occasions it was thought she would founder and carry with her
to the bottom of the ocean every one on board. At starting the Warwick
had taken provisions and water for six months, expecting long before
the end of that period to be safely anchored in the Thames.
She was blown far out of her course, water and provisions ran short,
the crew were put on half rations, and afterwards on quarter rations,
and on the day we sighted her not one of her party had drunk or eaten
anything for nearly twenty-four hours. Starvation, or what is nearly as
bad, cannibalism, stared the unfortunate mariners in the face; and Mr.
Johnson, our second mate, was no doubt within bounds when he said that
not one of the party could have survived forty-eight hours longer.
Several deaths had already occurred from lack of food and drink; the
captain died a week before the encounter of the ships, and the second
mate died on the same day. All the men had succumbed except those I
have mentioned,--the four that Mr. Johnson found on deck, four in the
forecastle, and the first mate in the captain's cabin.
It was plain that the crew of the Warwick, exhausted as they were by
famine and death, would be unable to navigate the ship safely to port.
When we met them they were drifting much more than sailing; the weather
had been very mild for the past fortnight, so the Warwick's mate told
us, and it was due to this circumstance, he added, that they were alive.
"If a gale had come up," said he, "we couldn't have done anything to
meet it. We couldn't have stowed a sail or tautened a brace, and there
isn't strength enough in all the crew together to put the ship's wheel
hard over and hold it there. You'll have to take us into port, or else
stay by us till we get strength enough to do it ourselves."
When Mr. Johnson came back and reported this our captain called his
officers into the cabin and held a consultation. Exactly what was
said I don't know; but when they came out on deck the captain gave
orders for twenty barrels of beef, and a corresponding amount of other
provisions, together with a good supply of water, to be put on board
the Warwick. While this was going on, our mate went to the Warwick
and had a talk with her mate; I suppose I ought to call him captain,
as that is what he really was at the time. When he came back there
was another conference, and then our second officer and six men were
transferred to the other ship.
Soon after the transfer was made the men on the Warwick, I mean those
that had been put aboard by the Washington, made sail as quickly as
they could and steered away to the eastward. We did the same thing, and
the two ships went along together, keeping from a few hundred yards
up to two or three miles apart. The indications were that we were to
sail in company, and an hour or two later I learned from Haines that my
surmise was correct.
"The old man has planned it," Haines explained, "that we shall keep
along, side by side, just as well as we can. The Warwick appears to be
about as good a sailer as the Washington, and though we lose a little
time in keeping together it won't be very much."
"But suppose," I asked, "a squall comes up in the night and blows us
apart, so that we can't see anything of each other next morning, what
then?"
"Oh, it's easy enough to fix that," Haines answered, "and that's fixed
already. If we get blown apart we'll meet at a point somewhere ahead;
our captain will tell Mr. Johnson, perhaps I ought to call him Captain
Johnson now, that we shall meet at a certain place. He'll give him
the latitude and longitude every day where we are to meet at noon the
next day, and the first ship that gets to that point will wait for the
other."
"Oh, I understand," said I, "and that's a very good way of doing."
"I s'pose, too," continued Haines, "that as long's we're together all
the observations for latitude and longitude will be made on board the
Washington, as we're not near so short-handed as the Warwick is. Our
captain or first mate will take the sun every day and work up all the
figuring, and then we'll signal the result over to the Warwick. The
second mate's a good sailor and understands navigation, but it takes
time to do all these things, and he hasn't any to spare. If he gets
blown out of sight of us, why, then he'll have to work up his own
position, but he needn't do so as long as we're in company."