In ship and prison

There is an ebb in the current of fortune as well as in the deep. The neap tides often follow the highest flood of prosperity. We set out on another cruise, our tenth, and as I now attempt to write of it, it brings to mind the old Roman adage: “The tenth wave surged.”

Our misfortunes began with a storm so severe and prolonged I even now recall our experiences with dread. All day the clouds had been gathering; the wind blew from the north-east, and there was that peculiar sough in it, which through a long life at sea I have come to recognize as the indication of an unusual tempest.

Towards sundown the temperature suddenly grew colder, and a fine sleet began to fall. Soon deck and spars and sails were covered with an icy garment which made it difficult to keep one’s feet and to handle the shrouds and guys. Before midnight the wind had increased to such violence the stiffened canvas could not stand before it, and cracked and split and shivered to pieces like sheets of thin glass. We were soon obliged to turn and run before the gale under bare poles, while the great waves followed us like monsters seeking to devour us.

For four days there was no let-up to the storm, and our ship became so top-heavy with its cargo of ice and snow we staggered along like a drunken man. Then the wind suddenly changed to the south-east, the temperature moderated, the snow and sleet turned to rain, and for twenty-four hours we were driven to the north-west at a more furious pace than that with which we had taken our southing. Spiteful as the tempest was, however, it was not so disagreeable as the first. We were saved the biting cold, and the ropes and sails could be worked more readily and to better advantage.

We were just beginning to congratulate ourselves that the force of the gale was spent when the wind whipped again into the north-east, and the experiences of the first four days were repeated and prolonged to nearly a week. In fact, we escaped the clutches of the norther only by being driven so far south the icy hand that grasped us had to yield before the warm breezes of the semi-tropics.

It took us another week to repair the damages we had suffered, to get out and bend to their places our spare sails, and to regain the course we were on when the storm first struck us.

Then followed a month during which we did not sight a vessel; it seemed as though the gale had swept clean the surface of the ocean, and left us the sole survivor of its fury.

The month of failure to discover a sail was succeeded by two weeks during which every ship we sighted ran away from us, and when they came to an end we had been eight weeks at sea without so much as the ghost of a prize to cheer our hearts.

We now were off the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and the orders had been given us to take a homeward course, when our lookout called out:

“Ship ahoy! Two points off our weather bow. She’s a large ship, and carries the English colors.”

Hoping at last we had found a prize, so that we need not return to port empty-handed, we changed our helm, and ran down towards her.

We had not gone a mile before the man at the masthead again called out:

“She’s a British frigate, a big one, sir, and she has headed down this way.”

Lieutenant Barrows, our executive officer, sprang into the shrouds and gazed at the ship through his glass for some minutes. Then he jumped down, saying to me:

“It is the Hind, Sir William Young commander, and carrying fifty-four guns. I’ve seen her too many times to be mistaken. Will you notify the Captain, Lieutenant Dunn?”

Somewhat startled by his announcement, for I knew if he was right the Thorn was no match for so formidable an antagonist, I hurried away to inform Captain Tucker.

He came to the deck and took a good look at the approaching frigate, and then he said:

“I presume you are correct in your surmise about yonder vessel, Lieutenant Barrows. She certainly carries more than double our number of guns, and probably has a crew triple our own. So I have got to do what I never did before, and what I do now with very bad grace, I assure you—I must run away from a British ship. We are no match for her.”

He gave the order to about ship and to spread every stitch of canvas we could carry to the stiff breeze then blowing from the north-west. In a few minutes the Hind was under a similar cloud of canvas, and the race which meant escape or capture for us was begun.

We were soon making ten knots, and for three hours the British frigate did no better. The distance between the ships certainly had not lessened, and we began to hope that we might shake off our pursuer. But the ill-luck which so far had attended us during that voyage continued to manifest itself. All at once, and without the slightest warning our maintopmast snapped in two and came tumbling down to the deck. It struck our first officer and two seamen, knocking the former overboard, and injuring the latter so that they had to be taken down below and put under the surgeon’s care. We hove to as soon as we could, and put over a boat for the unfortunate officer. He was a good swimmer and managed to keep afloat until we came up with him; but a half-hour had elapsed before we were back on board the ship, and in that half-hour the Hind had so gained upon us there were but two things we could do, and we must take our choice between them: to fight or to surrender.

We chose the former, large as our foe was; so the drum beat our men to quarters; our guns were shotted; and, with about as much hope of victory as a bantam might have in a contest with a game-cock, we turned to meet the enemy.

She was evidently surprised at our action, and was, therefore, not ready for the fight quite so soon as ourselves. That gave us a slight advantage, and we poured a broadside into her before she fired a gun.

But she soon made up for her delay, and for some minutes the unequal contest waged. Great gaps were torn in our sides; our decks were swept; our sails were riddled; a score or more of our men were killed or wounded.

But the Hind had also suffered. Our guns had been aimed largely at her rigging, for it was the hope of Captain Tucker to so disable her that she would be unable to follow him, and then he would continue his flight. The time for that movement now seemed to be ripe, for her foremast had been shot away, and the spars of her mizzen and mainmasts sadly injured. So he gave the command to sheer off and sail away.

We were coming about when a well directed shot from the Britisher, who had divined our purpose, struck our rudder, breaking it into splinters and causing our frigate to spin around like a top. We were helpless, and in another instant the Hind had grappled with us, and poured a large boarding party down upon our deck.

There was a short hand-to-hand fight, and then, overpowered by numbers, Captain Tucker did the only thing he could do to save the remnant of his men—he surrendered.

Only thirty-eight of our crew were able to line up on the deck of the Hind and answer to our names as they were called from the ship’s roster; forty-five more of our men were alive but so severely wounded they were under the surgeon’s care, while forty-two had been slain.

The Englishmen had not passed through the struggle unscathed, however. More than one hundred of them had been killed or wounded, and it was clear from the deference shown us by Captain Young that the battle we had been able to put up with our small numbers had won his respect.

It seems to me now as I recall the fight that it was a singular circumstance that both Captain Tucker and myself should have come out of it unharmed. I know he was ever at the front of his men, and I am not conscious that I in any way attempted to shield myself, yet it remains a fact, unaccountable though it may be except on the belief that an overruling Providence protected us, we had not received the slightest injury.

Our brother officers had not fared so well. Lieutenant Barrows, saved only a half-hour before from a watery grave, was one of the first among us to be slain. Our third officer, and two of our five midshipmen had been wounded, and one of our midshipmen killed. There had been even greater havoc among our warrant officers, as all but four had given up their lives in defense of the flag they loved so well, and the four who survived were among the wounded.

Proud that his men had fought so well, yet grieved over the terrible loss among them, Captain Tucker asked, after our names had been taken, that we might be permitted to care for the injured—a request firmly though courteously refused.

“It would be a departure from our usual custom,” Sir William said, “but I promise you that they shall have the best care we can give them, the care that such brave men deserve.”

For ourselves, men and officers alike, we were sent to the brig, where we were closely guarded until the Hind could reach port in the Isle of St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island.

As I lay there in the darkness of the hold, I wondered over the fact that when I had responded to the name of Lieutenant Arthur Dunn, the officer calling the roll had manifested no surprise or seemed to attach no special significance to it. It was so different from the treatment I had been accustomed to receive when the name was given to the British officials, I could not help calling the attention of the Captain to the circumstance.

“It may be they think you are some other Dunn,” he suggested. “It is not an uncommon name, and the higher rank here, and reported death at Charleston may help to conceal your identity.”

“They may forget, too, that I am five years older now than when I first left the Saint George,” I added, “and so are looking for a younger person.”

“Possibly,” he acknowledged, “though I think the official record of your death does more to prevent the recognition than all else. But whatever the reason for this failure to identify in the lieutenant the runaway midshipman, let us be thankful for it. It will doubtless save us many anxious moments in the days that are to come.”

We were forty-eight hours in the Hind, and then she arrived at Charlottetown, where we were transferred to the garrison and put under the care of the commandant, General William Patterson, who was also the governor of the colony.

Within the walls of the fort there was a huge log building used as a prison, and in this we were confined. For some reason never known to us, our officers were now separated from our crew, the latter being put in the large room with the other prisoners, while we were given a small room directly back of the office of the prison overseer. It may be the authorities thought we would be safer where the superintendent could keep his eye on us.

Our confinement was irksome, but nothing like what I had experienced in the Halifax prison a few years before. We had a clean room, there was plenty of fresh air, good water, and wholesome, though coarse food, and there was no disease. As the hot months came on, however, the tediousness of our confinement grew upon us. We became restless, and one day the Captain put into words what for some time had been in the thoughts of us all:

“We can’t stand this much longer, lads. We must find a way to get out of here, and back to our homes. If we are ever to do it, this is the time. When the cold weather comes on everything will be against the attempt.”

From that day we talked of nothing else, planned for nothing else.

It was the Captain who finally hit upon a scheme which we hoped would succeed. Our room was in the south-west corner of the prison, the west side of the apartment forming a part of the rear of the building. This we knew could not be far from the west wall of the fort, but as there was no window on that side we could not tell exactly how far.

With a knife allowed us for cutting our food the Captain one day made a small aperture between the logs which had been hewed so smoothly as to fit tightly together. Placing his eye to this, he made his own estimation of the distance to the wall, and then had each of us in turn make his estimate. Comparing notes, we found we did not differ two feet in our opinions of the distance—ten feet being the longest amount guessed by any of us.

“Very well,” commented our leader, “we will now allow five feet for the thickness of the wall, an ample allowance. That will make fifteen feet from here to the outside—not a long distance, surely, and one the six of us here ought to be able to tunnel in two or three weeks.”

“But to dig a tunnel we must get under the floor,” I objected. “How are we to do that?”

Our berths were arranged in a double tier on the north side of the room, the Captain occupying one of the lower ones and I the other. In answer to my question he led us over there, and, removing the blanket from his own berth, showed us how one of the bottom boards had cracked in two under his weight.

“It broke just before I got up this morning,” he explained, “and when I arose I took a look at it to see how serious the damage was. Then I discovered this,—” as he spoke he bent the two ends of the board downwards until they had parted several inches at the center, and we all saw what he meant. The floor of the room did not extend under the tier of berths, and we were looking down upon the bare ground.

Of course, the broken board did not give us an aperture wide enough even for the smallest of us to crawl through, but with the knife that had served to make the small opening between the logs we at length succeeded in cutting out the entire bottom of the captain’s berth, and then any of us could crawl beneath the building at his will.

Rude paddles were made from the pieces of boards we had removed, and that night the tunnel was begun. I will not attempt to describe the feverish anxiety with which we slowly dug our way down the passage that we believed would finally give us the one thing we desired above all others—our liberty.

We worked only through the night hours, carefully covering all traces of our work during the day. First we sank a pit about four feet deep, and large enough for us to turn around in. The dirt from this we hoisted in a blanket and emptied it in the open space under the floor of the building.

Then the real tunnel began. We made it big enough for the largest man among us to crawl in and out easily. The dirt from this was pushed back to the pit, from which it was removed to the open space under the floor.

The work went slowly. We gained only about twelve inches each night, and therefore over two weeks elapsed before we had gone the fifteen feet which we had estimated would carry us beyond the outer wall of the fort. All was now ready for our last task, the making of the opening from the tunnel into the open air. We reserved this for the last night—the night we hoped to escape, and waited therefore for one that would be favorable in every respect for the enterprise. It came on the last night of July, at the end of the seventeenth day since we had begun the digging, a rainy, drizzly evening when a dark pall hung over the fort and all its surroundings.

Captain Tucker had asked that his own hands might do the last work, and about nine o’clock he entered the tunnel for that purpose. Midshipman Lawrence attended him to draw back the blanket as he filled it with dirt. The rest of us gathered about the inner opening, waiting for the word that should send us down the passage one by one—down the passage to the outer world from which we had been shut off for weeks.

Three times Master Lawrence drew back the filled blanket for us to empty. The third time he said:

“The Captain had one hand up through the surface when I started back here. He says we are beyond the fort wall, and by the time we can come out there one after the other, he will have the opening large enough for us to pass through. So come on.”

The order of our going had been pre-arranged. I was to be the last. One by one I saw my comrades go down the tunnel, and then I entered. As rapidly as I could I crept along, touching now and then the heels of the man in front of me. Then he rose to his feet, and I knew we had reached the outlet. I could even feel the fresh air as it blew down upon me. How good it felt! One quick spring and I would be free!

An exclamation from the man in front of me as he went out of the opening—an exclamation quickly smothered as it seemed to me—reached my ear. I wondered what it could mean, but there was no time now for investigation, nor even for hesitation. So up I arose, placed my hands on the firm ground, and leaped out of the hole into the arms of two British soldiers who were waiting to capture me.