It was clear that in the face of such a report as that, and the
threatening sky that frowned down upon us, it was not a moment in which
to indulge in thoughts of rest, however loudly our poor aching bodies
might clamour for it. There was much to be done to secure our own
safety and that of our injured and helpless comrades, and very little
time in which to do it; I therefore directed Pearce, the boatswain, to
pipe all hands to splice the main-brace; and when this had been done the
little band who were still capable of doing duty were divided into three
parties--one of which, under Henderson, was stationed at the pumps, with
orders to work at them until they sucked; while a second and much
smaller party, under the leadership and guidance of the carpenter, was
given the task of temporarily securing the various openings in the deck
against the possible influx of water--both the skylight and the
companion having been completely wrecked by shot; the third party, under
Pearce, the boatswain, devoting itself to the task of clearing away the
wreck of the spars, and securing as much as possible of the wreckage in
order that we might have the wherewithal to give the schooner a jury rig
that would enable us to take her into port. The pirate schooner,
meanwhile, had continued to run away to leeward upon a course that would
carry her to the northern coast of Hayti in a few hours.
The work went slowly forward--it could not be otherwise with men so
utterly exhausted as were the little moiety of the _Wasp's_ crew who
survived that desperate fight, many of them smarting with the wounds
that they had received--and meanwhile the weather grew ever more
threatening, stimulating us all to exertions of which I am confident we
should have been utterly incapable under more placable circumstances.
Not that there was very much to find fault with at the moment, for it
was not exactly blowing hard; but the gusts, which for the last hour or
more had been sweeping over us, now from this quarter and anon from
that, were steadily growing more frequent and stronger, while the sky
had become black as night. But before night actually fell we had made
shift to pump the schooner dry, the hatches were battened down, the
skylight and companion openings had been protected, after a fashion, and
we had cleared away the wreck of the mainmast, saving the spar and all
attached; and, having done this, the men declared that they must have a
meal and some rest before they could again turn-to. And I felt that
their claim was just; for indeed they had done wonders, taking all
things into consideration. I had not the heart to spur them to further
effort just then, for I had worked with them and, therefore, knew from
personal experience how utterly exhausted they must feel, and how
impossible it would be to get further useful work out of them until they
had rested for an hour or two. Indeed, there did not appear to be any
good and sufficient reason why I should call upon them for more hard
work just then. It is true that much that I intended to do still
remained undone, the most important task of all being the getting up of
something in the nature of a jury rig; but, short-handed as we now were,
that would prove a very formidable task--much too formidable and too
protracted to justify the hope that it could be accomplished before the
expected gale came; and as I considered the question, and talked it over
with Henderson and the boatswain, it seemed that if it could not be
completed beforehand, it would really be better on the whole to defer it
until after the gale had blown over; I, therefore, gave the order to
knock off work and get supper and a rest. Two minutes later the decks
were deserted, save by myself, and I was bracing myself up to keep a
lookout as best I might.
I felt bound to acknowledge to myself that our situation was very much
the reverse of satisfactory; for there we were, totally dismasted,
strained and leaking badly, our crew exhausted, and only nine of us
unwounded, the land barely twenty-five miles to leeward of us, and, to
crown all, a heavy gale springing up. Fortunately, we had been able to
make all the provision that was possible to meet the impending
struggle--for the wreck of our mainmast was now inboard, while the
lanyards of the fore-rigging had been cut away on both sides; and the
wreckage of the foremast was now under the schooner's bows, attached to
the hull by the stays only, so that it served as a floating anchor, to
which the little vessel was already riding head to wind.
I allowed the men two hours in which to rest and refresh themselves, and
then once more summoned them on deck; for upon sounding the well I found
that, although the schooner had been pumped dry before we had cried
"Spell-ho!" there was now eighteen inches of water in her; and I was
determined that this leak should be kept down by frequent spells of
pumping. It would never do to have the little hooker waterlogged while
battling for life in a gale, as there was little doubt that she would be
in the course of the next few hours.
In fact, while the men were still toiling at the pumps we got our first
real taste of it. For up to that moment the wind had been coming in a
steadily-increasing succession of scuffling gusts, each more fierce than
its predecessor, first from this quarter of the compass, and then from
that, with quite moderate breezes in between, mostly from a northerly
direction, that sometimes moderated almost to a calm. But now, after a
somewhat longer spell than usual of the moderate breeze, the wind quite
suddenly increased in force to that of a full gale, swooping down upon
us in a mad scuffle that twirled the little craft about like a teetotum
for a minute or two as it howled and raved around us, lashing the whole
surface of the sea into one unbroken sheet of foam and spray, and then
it settled down and began to blow great guns from the northward,
whipping up a nasty short, choppy sea into which, within ten minutes,
the little schooner was plunging to the height of her hawse-holes.
This however, as it turned out, was only the beginning of it; for when
once the gale had fairly broken loose it steadily grew more furious,
with the result that in about half-an-hour we were plunging bows under,
while, to add to our difficulties, the violent motion strained the
little vessel and opened her seams to such an extent that, so far from
getting the pumps to suck, it needed the utmost exertions of all hands,
working in quick relays, to keep the leak from gaining upon us.
Clearly, it would never do to permit such a state of things as that to
continue, for the only partially rested men would soon become exhausted
by the laborious toil of the pumps; and then what would become of us?
I, therefore, summoned a council of war, consisting of the gunner, the
carpenter, and the boatswain, to whom I explained my view of the
situation, and asked their advice. It was my opinion--founded upon our
experiences during the recent fight--that if the pirate schooner was to
be tackled successfully, it would have to be by a bigger craft than the
_Wasp_, or, at all events, that if the _Wasp_ was to be again employed
against the pirates, she would certainly have to be equipped with a very
much heavier armament; her insignificant little array of six 9-pounders
could never be expected to cope successfully with the other craft's
fourteen 12-pounders and her long 32. Therefore, I argued, since our
present armament could never be of further use to us, so far as the
pirates were concerned, while at the present moment they were doing much
to make the schooner strain herself to pieces, and were indeed actually
imperilling her safety and that of all on board her, why not throw them
overboard, and so relieve the little vessel of their weight and give her
the best possible chance to weather the gale? Henderson and the
boatswain were rather opposed to this plan, the gunner suggesting, as an
alternative, that we should cut adrift from the wreckage that was
holding us head to wind, and endeavour to get before the wind and scud;
and to this view they still adhered, even after I had pointed out to
them that the island of Hayti constituted a lee-shore only some
twenty-five miles distant, upon which we must inevitably be dashed
before morning if we adopted their plan. The carpenter, however, took
my view that we must lose the guns in any case if the schooner went
ashore, and probably the ship and our lives as well; while by making a
timely sacrifice of the guns there was at least a possibility of saving
the ship. We were thus two to two; and as I was absolutely convinced
that the plan advocated by the gunner and the boatswain involved the
destruction of the ship and the drowning of at least as many of the poor
fellows below as were too seriously injured to be capable of taking care
of themselves, I unhesitatingly decided in favour of my own alternative,
and at once gave the order to throw the guns overboard without further
ado.
Watching our opportunity, therefore, and taking advantage of the roll of
the ship, we launched our 9-pounders overboard, one after the other,
until all six of them had vanished in the ocean depths; and the
increased liveliness of the little vessel at once demonstrated her
relief at the loss of so much weight from her deck.
The carpenter had just sounded the well, and had announced the joyous
news that at last the pumps were gaining upon the leak--which
announcement was greeted with a feeble cheer from the now utterly
exhausted men, who had for so long been toiling at the almost hopeless
task of clearing the ship of the inflowing water--when a sudden and
dreadful change occurred in the weather. The wind, which had been
blowing a whole gale a moment before, fell dead in an instant, an
appalling darkness overspread the firmament, and the atmosphere suddenly
became so rarefied that it seemed impossible for one to draw a full
breath; the sea, which a moment earlier had been breaking furiously,
ceased to do so, and instead began to leap high into the air, falling
back with a splash that, in the sudden stillness, seemed positively
terrifying, and the schooner, swinging broadside-on, rolled so furiously
that she momentarily threatened to turn bottom-up, while those of us who
were on deck had to seize hurriedly the first fixed portion of the
vessel's framework that we could lay hands on, to save ourselves from
being pitched overboard like a shot out of a catapult. To continue
pumping under such circumstances was impossible, for it needed both
hands and all one's strength to merely hold on.
"Now what's goin' to happen, I wonder!" growled the gunner, who was
clinging with me to a belaying-pin in a part of the rail that still
remained intact in the wake of the main rigging. "I can understand a
gale o' wind, Mr Delamere, but this here sudden calm don't seem natural
to me."
"It is not natural," said I; "the mere look of the sky is sufficient to
assure us of that. There is something behind it, you may be certain,
though what it is I am sure I cannot say; possibly it may be a fresh
outfly from some other point of the compass, or it may end up with a
violent thunderstorm, though I do not think it will; that sky--"
"No, no," interrupted Henderson, "there's no thunder there, sir, ye may
take my word for it. Listen, Mr Delamere! D'ye hear that?"
I thought for an instant that he was directing my attention to the
pitiful cries and moans that were being extorted from the unhappy
wounded down below as they were flung hither and thither by the furious
lurches of the schooner, and I was about to make some sort of reply when
a low moaning smote upon my ear, increasing with appalling rapidity to a
fierce medley of sounds, in which the savage roars of maddened beasts
and the shrieks and wailings of mortally terrified human beings seemed
to be about equally mingled; a long line of phosphorescent white
appeared upon the northern horizon, showing up with ghastly distinctness
against the background of black scowling sky; a fierce scuffle of hot
wet wind swept over us and was gone again, leaving a taste of salt upon
our lips, and with a deafening howl, as of concentrated fury, the
tempest leapt upon us, filling the air with drenching spindrift and
scudwater, while, taking the schooner fair abeam, it heeled her over
until the water was up nearly level with the coamings of her hatchways.
For nearly a minute she lay thus, and despite the fact that she was
dismasted I believed that she was about to turn turtle with us, when
gradually, as the drag of the wreckage ahead brought her round head to
wind again, she righted to an even keel once more and rode almost as
still as though she were in harbour, while the spindrift and scudwater
raked her decks fore and aft like a continuous tempest of small shot,
which stung our faces and hands so severely that it was literally
impossible to face it, and turning our backs to it and dropping upon our
hands and knees, we were driven to creep for shelter wherever we could
find it.
The sea had gone down as though by magic, for such was the power of the
wind that the slightest irregularity of surface, the slightest lift of a
wave, was at once torn off and swept away to leeward in the form of
spray so dense that it was impossible to see farther than a few yards in
any direction. And perhaps the worst and most terrifying feature of the
whole experience was that there was nothing to be done--nothing that we
could possibly do to abate the peril of our situation; we were as
absolutely helpless as though we had been bound hand and foot, and could
merely crouch impotently waiting for the end, whatever it might be.
But it was not possible for matters to continue very long as they were;
the hurricane endured only for about twenty minutes, and then moderated
to the strength of a heavy gale, whereupon the sea began to rise again
with frightful rapidity; and half-an-hour after the first stroke of the
hurricane the schooner was pitching bows under, and shipping increasing
quantities of water at every plunge. And now, as we once more bestirred
ourselves, we were confronted with a fresh calamity. For our makeshift
protection of the damaged companion and skylight, as well as the
fore-scuttle, had been swept away, probably at the first stroke of the
hurricane, although not one of us had observed it, and already vast
quantities of water were pouring into the little vessel's interior,
principally through the fore-scuttle. We had scarcely made this
alarming discovery when Saunders, the surgeon, who had remained below
through all the hubbub, busily engaged in attending to the wounded, came
up on deck and confirmed our worst fears by informing us that the
schooner was rapidly filling, the water having already risen to the
level of the cabin floor!
It was now obvious that the little ship was doomed; the hurricane,
coming so close upon the heels of the fight, and smiting us before we
had had time to repair our damages, was proving too much for her; she
was strained and battered all to pieces, and nothing that we could do
out there, short-handed, and buffeted by that pitiless wind and sea,
could avail to save her. She was doomed, and now the utmost that lay in
our power to do was to make some sort of provision for our own safety
and that of our wounded shipmates.
Yet, when one came to consider the question, what could we do? Our
boats, badly damaged by the shot of the pirates in the first place, had
been utterly destroyed and swept away by the first furious stroke of the
hurricane; while by the same agency our decks had been swept clear and
clean of everything not actually bolted down, except the wreckage of the
mainmast, which we had lashed firmly to ring bolts in the deck before
the gale arose. There was that wreckage, it is true, and also the
wreckage of the foremast under the bows; if it could possibly be got
alongside, a raft of sorts might perhaps be constructed out of that, and
there our resources would end. But there was no time for pondering and
consideration, whatever was done would have to be done at once; I
therefore called the gunner, the carpenter, and the boatswain to me,
hastily explained to them my ideas as to the construction of a raft, and
bade them muster all available hands and get to work forthwith, while
Millar (the purser) and the cabin steward were instructed to get
together as large a quantity of provisions and water as possible,
wherewith to stock the structure when finished.
Now that the wind had moderated from hurricane force to that of a heavy
gale, the sea rose with really startling rapidity, and was already
running so high that when we came to set about the task of cutting
adrift the wreckage of the foremast, with the idea of hauling it
alongside and utilising it in the construction of a raft, it at once
became evident that the time for undertaking such a piece of work was
already past; for even alongside the schooner, and partially under her
lee, the wreckage would be swept so violently by the breaking seas that
it would be impossible for men to go over the side and work upon it
without being washed off and drowned; we were, therefore, compelled to
abandon that part of our plan and turn our attention to the construction
of a raft on deck which would float clear when the battered hull sank
from under our feet. But alas I even that was not to be; for we had
scarcely got the wreckage of the mainmast cut adrift from its lashings,
and were busily engaged in arranging it, with the topmast and the
mainboom, in the form of a triangle as a base upon which to construct a
platform, when it happened that the schooner, having just surmounted a
sea, got pinned down by the head, in consequence of all the water in her
rushing forward as she settled down, stem-on, into the succeeding
trough. At this critical moment a yell of dismay from the carpenter
caused us all to look up from our work, and we beheld him, with his eyes
almost starting from their sockets, glaring and pointing ahead. A
single glance in that direction sufficed to account for his terror. For
there, sweeping down upon us with deadly implacability, towered a
perfect mountain of a sea, its front almost as steep as the side of a
house, and its foaming, hissing crest reared threateningly aloft as high
as our lower-mastheads--had they been standing. It was at once apparent
to us all that, pinned down as the schooner was at that moment, by the
bulk of the water in her interior having concentrated itself in the fore
part of her, she could not possibly lift in time to rise over the summit
of that on-sweeping sea, it must inevitably break on board her, sweep
her from stem to stern, and send her to the bottom! For a second we all
stood, petrified with consternation; then, with a yell of "Hold on
everybody for your lives!" I dashed to the companion opening and
shouted to those below, "On deck, all hands of you; up you come, men,
this instant; you have not a second to lose!"
A dreadful, wailing cry of despair floated upward from below in response
to my warning, and was echoed by the people on deck as that awful liquid
mountain hovered above us, seeming to pause for an instant, as though in
sentient enjoyment of our helplessness and terror. The next moment its
crest curled over and the whole mass of water seemed to hurl itself
headlong upon the hapless schooner, foaming in over her bows and burying
them fathoms deep in its heart. I felt the poor shattered hull quiver
and tremble beneath me like a frightened thing as the giant wave smote
her, and then I was seized by the on-rushing water, swept off my feet,
overwhelmed, whirled helplessly hither and thither in the midst of a
medley of whirling wreckage, flying ropes'-ends, and struggling men.
Opening my eyes I beheld the hull of the schooner, a short distance
away, standing almost perpendicular, and slowly gliding downwards, bows
first. Even as I looked she vanished into the dark profundity beneath,
and then I directed my glances above me. It seemed that I was fathoms
deep, for the phosphorescent foam that boiled overhead looked almost as
far aloft as a frigate's lower yard; and by the same ghastly
phosphorescent light I could distinguish vaguely a number of swirling
objects, some of which appeared to be merely inanimate wreckage, while
others looked like struggling human beings. Then, suddenly conscious of
the fact that I was within the influence of the downward draught of the
sinking schooner, and was being dragged down after her, I instinctively
struck upward desperately with hands and feet, fighting to return to the
surface. I must have been dragged down to a very considerable depth,
for I presently lost sight of the phosphorescent light on the surface
caused by the breaking of the seas, and found myself involved in pitchy
darkness, struggling madly, and with my lungs almost bursting. How long
this awful struggle lasted I have no means of determining; probably it
was much less than a minute, but the time seemed to drag itself out
first to minutes, then to hours, and finally I lost all idea of time,
all sense of my terrible situation, all recollection of the dreadful
catastrophe that had just happened, and found myself, as in a vivid
dream, re-enacting many a long-forgotten episode of earlier days. Then,
in a moment, all these scenes vanished, and I was suddenly--I knew not
how--on the surface, gasping for breath, half smothered with the seas
that were breaking over my head, and convulsively clutching a rope that
had somehow found its way into my grasp. Gradually it dawned upon me
that this rope must be fast to something--for it alternately tautened
and slackened with the sweep and swirl of the sea--thereupon I proceeded
to haul cautiously upon it, with the result that I presently found
myself alongside the floating wreckage of the mainmast. With some
difficulty I at length managed to drag myself up and get astride this
substantial spar; and then, finding that it did not roll over and throw
me off, as I more than half feared it would, I gradually worked my way
along it until I found myself close up against the crosstrees. And then
I thought I perceived the reason why the spar maintained its stability
so well. The mainsail had been set when the mast was shot away, and the
gaff, with the sail attached, still retained its position on the mast,
the main halliards having somehow jammed in the block, and this it
evidently was that prevented the spar from capsizing. The rope by which
I had hauled myself alongside the spar proved to be the end of the
peak-halliards, and I thought that if I made this fast, and so prevented
the peak from sagging, I should secure still further the stability of
the wreckage; I accordingly did so, knotting the bight round one arm of
the crosstrees, and then firmly lashing myself to the same arm with the
loose end of the halliard.
I was now much better off than when I first found myself overboard, for
I had a stout spar to support me, and might remain afloat until I fell
off from exhaustion; moreover, even when my end of the spar was
submerged--as of course it very frequently was--I was never buried
deeper than my armpits, while there were moments when I was hove up
clear out of the water altogether. Besides, the water was quite warm.
I was therefore by no means uncomfortable, notwithstanding my situation.
Having made myself secure, I next began to look about me with the view
of ascertaining how many of my companions in misfortune had survived the
catastrophe; for I had not a doubt that a few at least would be as lucky
as myself. But to my horror I found that I was the sole occupant of
this particular mass of wreckage; and although I shouted at the full
power of my lungs until I was hoarse, in the hope that if there were any
more survivors they would hear me and thus be guided to the same refuge
that I had gained, the sole response was the howling of the gale and the
hissing wash of the breaking seas. True, there was a moment when I
fancied that I heard a faint shout in reply to my cries, but I concluded
that it was only imaginary, for I did not hear--or fancy that I heard--
it again. Then, as opportunity offered, I looked about me in quest of
other wreckage, thinking that possibly there might be a few fragments to
some of which one or more of my shipmates might be clinging, but the
darkness was so intense that I could not see farther than some two or
three fathoms in either direction; and indeed it was only the faint
phosphorescent light given off by the breaking seas that enabled me to
see anything at all, even at that short distance. The thought occurred
to me that, as whatever floating wreckage there might be would all drive
in the same direction, possibly I might be more fortunate in the
morning; and with this reflection I composed myself as well as I could
to rest, for I was by this time literally half-dead with fatigue.
So utterly exhausted was I that, despite my desperate plight, I believe
I actually did lose consciousness in sleep at brief intervals during
that terrible night, for the dawn came very much more speedily than I
had dared to hope, and with its appearance the gale broke, the wind
perceptibly moderating with the rising of the sun. As soon as it was
light enough to permit objects to be distinguished I aroused myself from
the lethargy that seemed to have gripped me, and proceeded to search the
heaving surface of the ocean as well as my aching eyes would allow.
As a matter of fact, there actually were a few small scattered fragments
of wreckage floating at no great distance from me, but there was no sign
of a human being, far or near. Then I scanned very carefully the
horizon in every direction, but particularly to the northward, in the
hope of discovering a sail of some sort heading toward me; but the
horizon was bare, save to the southward, where the high land of Hayti
loomed up with startling and quite deceptive distinctness. Although I
had hoped that I might perchance be so fortunate as to sight a sail, the
hope was a very feeble one, and my disappointment by no means acute, for
I was perfectly well aware that I was many miles too far to the eastward
to render the appearance of a sail of any sort in the least degree
probable.
With the pangs of hunger beginning to assail me, and not the smallest
fragment of any kind of food wherewith to relieve them, I began for the
first time to realise fully the exceeding awkwardness of my situation,
and to realise, too, that if deliverance was to come to me I must bestir
myself and do what might be possible to meet it, for to remain passively
lashed to that inert piece of drifting wreckage might very well mean a
slow and agonising death by starvation. Yet, after all, what could I
do? The land was my nearest refuge, and that, I considered, must be at
least twenty miles distant, altogether too far to dream of swimming to
it, although I rather prided myself upon my prowess as a long-distance
swimmer. But twenty miles! The idea was ridiculous, especially in that
heavy sea, in my exhausted condition, without food, and with no means of
getting any. I looked rather longingly at the smaller fragments of
wreckage floating in my neighbourhood; if I could but secure one of them
of sufficient size to support me partially, yet not large enough
materially to hamper my progress through the water, I might perhaps with
its aid be able to accomplish the distance, great though it was, before
my strength entirely gave out. But the run of the sea and their greater
buoyancy were already widening the distance between them and the
comparatively massive piece to which I had lashed myself, and I
regretted that it had not occurred to me earlier to abandon the mainmast
in favour of one of them the moment that the light of dawn revealed them
to me.
I struggled into a standing position on the spar that supported me,
steadying myself upon my somewhat precarious perch by grasping the arms
of the crosstrees, and carefully examined such fragments as came within
my ken with the heave of the sea. The detached pieces, which seemed to
consist mostly of pieces of planking, with what looked very like a
hatch, were all floating together, pretty much in a bunch, with only a
few fathoms of water separating any two pieces; I thought that if I
could but get in among them surely I ought to be able to find a piece
that would serve my purpose. The point that worried me was whether, in
my exhausted state, and in so heavy a sea, I dared make the attempt to
swim unaided the comparatively short distance that separated me from
those coveted fragments; but I reflected that, if I had not the strength
to achieve so simple a feat as that, I should certainly never be able to
accomplish the longer swim, even with the advantage of a support; the
choice seemed therefore to lie between the risk of drowning on the one
hand, and that of starvation upon the other; and it took me but a moment
to decide in favour of the former. Yes, I told myself, better in every
way to drown than to starve, and the sooner the matter was decided, the
better.
To give myself the best possible chance I flung off my jacket and kicked
off my shoes, retaining only my shirt and trousers. Then, casting off
the lashings by which I had secured myself to the shattered mainmast, I
stood up, and carefully took the bearings of the _flotsam_ relative to
the sun, to guide me when swimming. This done, I poised myself upon the
spar preparatory to diving off the mast, and had raised my hands above
my head, when not half-a-dozen fathoms away, and immediately between me
and the spot for which I was bound, I saw the dorsal fins of two
enormous sharks sculling quietly to and fro, as though to blockade me
and cut me off from my only hope of escape.