BY morning—Saturday, the twenty-third of March—a fearful gale was blowing, and the weather was so heavy that the dismal, misty clouds seemed to float on the bosom of the sea.
The ship was leaking worse than ever, the water in the hold was actually gaining; and the second mate, who was on watch, told the captain that unless the vessel was hove to soon, she must go down, as it was impossible, with the gale astern—the chief leakage being aft—to keep her from filling. The captain told him to call all hands on deck at once; and he came to the cabin door and called the first mate.
Mr. Trufant, the first mate, “turned out” hastily, put on his water-proof clothes, and stepped forth on deck. Just then a heavy sea swept over and carried him off his feet, dashing him against the starboard bulwark, where both his feet slipped under one of the spare spars that was loosely lashed there, and was floating on the water. As the wave receded, and the water ran off through the rents in the bulwarks, the spar settled down again, its immense weight resting on one of his legs, which he could not withdraw in time. He uttered an exclamation of pain, and Mr. Gorham and the sailors at the pumps, hurried to his assistance. They could not move the heavy spar, and the unfortunate man was obliged to lie there, suffering the most excruciating pain, till another sea swept over, half drowning him, and floated it again.
Then Mr. Gorham and the sailors hastily dragged him from the bulwark, and carried him, groaning and fainting, into the cabin. His leg was broken about five inches below the knee.
Here then was another important portion of our force rendered useless; to say nothing of the depressing influence their officer’s misfortunes and sufferings had on the sailors, who, like most seamen, were superstitious, and were heard declaring that the Brewster was an “unlucky ship.” Mr. Trufant was an exemplary seaman, and could have handled the ship as well as the captain.
At this most distressing time, the gale grew more violent than ever; heavy seas swept over from stern to stem, in rapid succession; the main hatch-house was stove to pieces; both galley doors were stove in, and the sea dashed through, putting out the fires, washing away provisions and important utensils, and hurling the steward out against the bulwark, and almost overboard; nearly all the remaining planks of the bulwarks were torn away; the wheel-house began to go to pieces; the lower fore top-sail was blown to ribbons; and the ship broached to—that is, came round into the trough of the sea, and lay with her side to the wind and waves.
The captain hurried out upon the after-deck, had the lower mizzen top-sail taken in, and ordered the lower main top-sail to be braced so that the ship should lie close to the wind, and steer over the waves. This done, he returned to the cabin, and he and I “set” Mr. Trufant’s broken leg—and a deuce of a “set” we made of it. I had read “anatomy” in my time, and fancied I knew something of surgery and the general construction of the human frame; but, tossing about as the ship was at that time, the most skillful surgeon could scarcely have done justice to the case.
Only the tibia—that is, the large bone of the leg—was broken, and we applied three splints to it, bound it too tightly, with too much bandage, and fancied we had “reduced the fracture,” in a scientific manner. When we arrived in New York Harbor, nine days later, and the mate was taken to the Brooklyn City Hospital, the surgeons there had to set it over again, and attach a forty-pound weight to the foot to keep it in its place.
Our troubles were not over when Mr. Trufant’s accident occurred. Another man at the wheel had his shoulder dislocated, and was carried to the forecastle. Every wave that swept over did some additional damage—crushing in a panel of the house on deck, or tearing a plank from the bulwarks. Mr. Gorham told the captain that the water in the hold was increasing, and that one of the two pumps was out of order. The rigging grew slack again; the shrouds had endured such a strain that some of them were beginning to give way and were flapping loosely in the wind: and it began to be pretty clear that the main-mast would soon go.
The sky was not quite so heavy as it had been; and the captain went aft with his glass and anxiously scanned the horizon. There was a schooner in sight, three or four miles to windward, and as she rose on the waves we could see her distinctly. So, he went into the cabin, got an odd-looking flag from his private state-room, took it out and hoisted it at the mizzen-mast. It was a signal of distress.
“Mr. Gorham,” he shouted, “don’t give it up! Keep the pump going! She may not see us!”
“Ay, ay, sir!” responded the brave mate. “I will not give it up!—Work away with a will, men!”
The remaining effective pump was worked with unusual energy for half-an-hour; during which time, I climbed up the companion-way, went out on the stormy after-deck, clung to a rope with which the wheel-house was lashed, and anxiously watched the schooner. She was standing several points off, and did not change her course. Whether she had failed to see our signal, or was herself in a bad condition, or both, I am unable to say: but she moved on, and finally grew dim at the misty horizon.
Again the captain scanned the ocean on all sides; but no sail was in sight. He then, with an air of sadness and disappointment, hauled down the signal. Next, he went to Mr. Gorham, and asked him how the water was. There was no hope in that direction. He could not tell how much water was in the hold, but any one could see that the ship was slowly settling. If any one had mentioned hope to us now, we would have laughed at him—laughed with the wild laugh of despair!
A thousand thoughts of home and friends came crowding upon me; and I wondered how many months the fathomless waters would roll over me—how many months I should lie entangled, perhaps, among some slimy sea-weeds, if not immediately devoured by the monsters of the deep, before the dear ones, whom I had seen for the last time, would give me up for lost. They could never know how I perished, I mused; none would be left to tell the tale.
In an hour, perhaps the waves would be dashing a thousand fathoms above us all. Time would roll on, the Brewster would never be heard of, no letter from San Francisco would ever bear to my friends the welcome words, “All is well!” Years would pass away—no tidings of the wanderer—one by one, all who were dear to me would grow old and die, and sink down into the grave, thinking of the lost one who disappeared in the dim years gone by, and wondering how he died!
These thoughts were saddening indeed to one who believed that his end was nigh; but I remembered that no fretting, or repining, or yearning for loved faces, could at all help the matter; and made up my mind to die like a man!
The captain returned to the after-deck, and I went down into the cabin and stayed with Mr. Trufant, whose sufferings, as the vessel tossed about, were indeed heartrending. He was a brave fellow, though, and stood it with fortitude. He had served in the navy, and his face was disfigured from the explosion of a shell; and he told me he had been unlucky all his life. He did not know the extent of our danger—and I did not tell him—and related some of his misfortunes, as I sat there on a sofa, near his berth, clinging to it to retain my seat. He said that, only a year before, he had met with an accident on a ship, had nearly been crushed by a falling yard, that it had taken him eight or nine months to recover, during which time he had spent, in doctor-bills, and the like, all the hard-earned money he had saved up in the course of years; that now, just when he had got able to start on a voyage again, with hopes of a brighter future, this sad accident had occurred, and would lay him up for months, should we reach shore. It was hard, he said, after what he had suffered in the navy; and I thought so, too.
Well, his misfortunes and sorrows, my misfortunes and sorrows, and the misfortunes and sorrows of the whole crew would soon have ended, had the storm continued so much as an hour longer. But at six bells—vulgarly called on land, eleven o’clock—it began to abate, as though its very strength was exhausted; and by evening, had entirely subsided. The ship was again comparatively relieved from water; and there’s no use in any ordinary mortal attempting to give a passable description of our joy, as we found ourselves once more basking in the full light of hope!