Chapter III.
Becalmed off Cape Horn!
This may sound paradoxical, but calms do occur, though they are not common. But for indescribable grandeur, and as a manifestation of the powers of nature, there are few things that will compare with a calm in this region.
One degree south of the Horn, on the 57th parallel, there is no land around the whole earth’s surface—not even an island; and this is the primary reason why the largest waves to be found anywhere are met with in this locality. Here, unchecked and unconfined, they sweep entirely around the globe; gathering strength and size as they move on, with nothing to bar their resistless march or to make them swerve aside even a hair’s breadth. Lashed into fury by a gale, these waves are sufficiently remarkable, but they are then in such a state of turmoil as to destroy all regularity, making it impossible to tell where one begins and another ends. So, strangely enough, it is in a dead calm that one is more nearly able to conceive of their vast proportions. These periods generally follow a hard westerly gale, and then it is a sight no words can depict, to stand upon a vessel’s deck and watch the approach of those vast walls of water; each one sharply defined, and wonderfully regular in form. From the base of one to the base of the next following is frequently a space of one thousand feet—a great valley, which, contrasted with the long hills on either side, gives one some idea of the magnitude of these waves.
Such a condition of things prevailed on the day after the equinoctial hurricane. The Sagamore had not even steerage way, and lay broadside on to the heavy swell, rolling as only a vessel can roll in a Cape Horn calm. The great blue hills came on slowly but regularly; and each one, as it came beneath the ship, lifted her up on its crest as though she had been a feather, instead of a vessel three hundred feet long, drawing twenty-six feet of water, and with four thousand tons of railroad iron and other heavy stuff in her hold. Then, as it passed on, there was a rattling of blocks and the heavy reports of canvas banged against the rigging, as the Sagamore slid down the side of the hill with her decks at an angle of fifty degrees.
She had the usual nondescript crew found on deep-water ships, and after hearing some of them talk, one might well agree with Mr. Marsh “That the captain or mate who goes to sea now-a-days, should understand Chinese, Greek, Hindostanee, Russian-Finn, and a dozen other tongues, besides having the patience of Job.” It being Sunday, no one was required to do any work but what was necessary in navigating the ship, and the men improved their leisure time in various ways. A few spruced up a bit; among them, Gene, the Frenchman, who was far above the rest in intelligence and ability. After arraying himself in a scarlet woolen shirt, new trousers and shoes, he lay down in his bunk to read, unmindful of the turmoil about him. Several produced sewing materials and mended their clothes, keeping time with their feet while an agile young fellow danced; others sang coarse songs, or told stories. Jack, a tow-headed Scandinavian, devoured “Demon Dick, the Dare-devil.” He had purchased a number of these hair-raising effusions, and read them in preference to the tracts and pious books furnished by the Sailors’ Aid Society, only one of which had been opened, and that was being used up for cigarette papers. Some played gambling games, using plugs of tobacco for stakes, while Jumbo, the smallest man on board (formerly a trapeze performer), gave an exhibition on a tight rope which won applause. One group discussed the subject of provisions, and though all agreed that the “grub” on the Sagamore was satisfactory, some found great fault with the cookery. Then they abused the mates, decided that Captain Meade was afraid to carry sail enough, and speculated as to how much Hartley and Wilbur were worth—for whenever there are passengers on merchant ships the crew seem to consider them millionaires.
But the great “character” in the forecastle was Andrew,—usually called San Quentin, from the fact of his having “done time” in the California penitentiary of that name. He was a hoary-headed old sinner, whose three-score odd years would have rendered him of little account before the mast had he not belonged to that past age when merchant sailors had to know their business, and were able seamen in something besides name. Andrew was a voluble talker, and frequently related with gusto how he had once “knifed” a fellow sailor who had roused his ire.
“A man ought to die when he gets to be fifty,” he remarked, rubbing a rheumatic joint.
“Better jump overboard, then,” answered a voice.
“I’m gettin’ too old for this work,” Andrew continued, “and if the cap’n says a good word for me, I’ll try and get in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor when we comes back to New York. Sure, I’ve been goin’ to sea forty-six year, and I’m no better off now nor I was when I began. They teached me tailorin’ when I was in the pen, but I’d ship on twenty more voyages afore I’d shut myself up in a little shop on shore where they ain’t room to breathe. But I’m a lucky old cuss” (with a laugh), “for I ain’t never been wrecked in all my time at sea,—no, nor ever seed a wreck.”
“Andrew’s going to turn into a tough old albatross when he slips his cable,” put in Gene, a smile on his clear-cut features.
“Be careful ye don’t turn into a molly-hawk yourself, ye French devil,” retorted San Quentin, hurling his sheath-knife in the air, and dexterously catching the descending point on the tip of his little finger.
“Tumble out, mates,” called a sailor, poking his head through the door. “There’s somethin’ up. All hands aft is squintin’ through the glass at what the matey says is a boat.”
This news brought everyone out on deck in a hurry. Quite a distance from the ship, a small object floated on the swell,—now lifted high on a sea, then disappearing from view in the trough. The officers had been examining it through the telescope for some time, Mr. Marsh finally declaring it to be a boat. The sight of a solitary boat in such a place gave rise to much speculation, and when the calm was replaced by a gentle breeze, the course was changed so as to bring the waif alongside.
Within an hour the tiny craft was close by, and a melancholy spectacle she presented. Bottom upward, with jagged splinters projecting from her shattered sides, she floated by on the sportive waves—an eloquent symbol of recent disaster. How had she come there? Where were her late occupants? None could tell but old ocean, glittering in the frosty sunshine. Upon her stern were the words “Dundee, of Liverpool.” The captain was about to go below in order to look up the Dundee in the shipping register, when a sailor hailed the deck from aloft. A vessel was visible far to the south!
The mate ascended the rigging, followed by the passengers; and sure enough, the naked eye beheld a shadowy ship on the horizon which the glass magnified into a wreck. All was excitement; the course was again changed, and the ship bore down for the distant vessel. She was nearly twenty miles away; the breeze was provokingly light, and it seemed an age before the Sagamore drew near the stranger.
Distress signals were flying from her foremast—the only spar left standing. The others hung over the side, their weight helping to careen the vessel at a dangerous angle, besides pounding against her like battering-rams every time she rolled. Six men could be seen, one of whom stood apart waving a flag, while most of the others ran about in the most frantic transports; now falling upon their knees, then rising and extending their arms toward the Sagamore. The wreck was apparently full of water, so there was no time to be lost.
Nothing short of a case like this could have induced Captain Meade to launch a boat off Cape Horn, for the huge waves and the liability to sudden squalls make it a perilous proceeding at all times. Mr. Marsh took command of the gig with a carefully selected crew, but it required half an hours’ maneuvering to launch her. At length a successful start was made, and the gig went racing up the side of a big sea, was poised giddily on its crest, and then darted down the incline as though bound for the bottom. On she went, her crew rowing like demons, while two men bailed out the water that constantly threatened to swamp her.
As the rescuers neared the sinking vessel, the mate bawled “Wreck ahoy! what bark is that?”
“The Dundee, of Liverpool, bound from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso. We are foundering.”
“We are the American ship Sagamore, from New York for San Francisco. Heave us a rope and we’re ready for you.”
The gig was now on the lee side of the bark, and as near the stern as prudence would allow; so the men rested on their oars while Mr. Marsh deftly caught the rope flung from the wreck by her captain. In order to enter the boat it was necessary for those on the Dundee to slide down the rope, and then be hauled aboard when the end was reached. The steward and three seamen constituted the first load; descending in safety, one by one, though most of them were submerged twice before they were at length pulled into the boat. Two seamen, an apprentice and the captain remained on the wreck, the latter declaring his intention of standing by his craft to the last, though he well knew she was about to take the final plunge. Already that uncanny moaning sound heard only on a foundering vessel was ascending from the black depths of the hold, as the rising waters forced out the sustaining air through every crevice.
It was a hard pull back to the Sagamore,—against the wind all the way,—and while the mate steered the heavily-laden gig, the steward narrated the story of the catastrophe. The Dundee, commanded by Captain Murray, had sailed from Buenos Ayres without a cargo, taking aboard for ballast eight hundred tons of dirt scooped from the river bottom; and to this improper ballast the disaster was due. She labored heavily during the first day of the hurricane, and sprang a leak in several places. The incoming water soon converted the ballast into a liquid mass, which surged about in the hold, finally hurling her upon her side, and rendering her unmanageable. While in this position, great seas swept over her, smashing all the boats and loosening heavy spars, which washed about the decks, knocking down the crew. Two sailors and the carpenter received broken limbs in this manner, and before they could be rescued, all three were washed into the sea and drowned before the eyes of their shipmates. The mate was killed the following night by the falling main mast, and to complete the horror of the situation, the pumps became choked with mud, rendering them useless. With water pouring into every open seam, those aboard the settling bark had resigned all hope, and were passively waiting for death when the Sagamore hove in sight.
The ship’s side having been safely reached, the rescued men were quickly drawn up to the deck, and the boat again started for the Dundee. It was a desperate chance whether she remained above water until the gig could reach her; and each time the little craft was lifted upon a wave the mate looked anxiously towards the wreck, half expecting her to have vanished while his boat was in the trough. What kept the bark afloat during this interval was a mystery, but float she did, though suspended as it were by a single hair above the fathomless depths.
When the gig brought up under her stern, the rope was again placed in position, and the apprentice told to descend. The youth was half way to the boat when he became panic-stricken at sight of a great sea coming on him, and cried for help. The wreck rolled heavily towards the boat, slackening the rope still further; the wave rolled over the apprentice, and when it passed, there was the rope all on the surface, but the hands that had grasped it a moment before were gone. The bark’s captain ran to the rail with a coil of rope ready to fling to the youth the instant he should appear, but he was not seen, and hope of his rescue had about gone, when Gene, with a sudden exclamation, reached over the boat’s side. He had the drowning man by the hair! After a struggle which nearly capsized the gig, the apprentice was dragged into it, more dead than alive. Then the two remaining seamen made the trip without accident, and the captain was ready—the last man to leave.
He paused an instant, his eyes slowly taking in every detail of the familiar scene. For fourteen years had he been master of that bark, and even his unsympathetic nature was stirred to its very depths at the moment of leaving her forever. Now, in these last seconds of their long association, a hundred past events were kindled into life again, and flashed through his brain like the successive views of a panorama.
Hastily turning away, he tossed into the boat a package containing his sextant, a favorite chronometer, and the bark’s papers. He grasped the rope,—was soon in the water,—at the boat’s side,—and then safely on board. At a signal from the mate, Gene severed the line with his sheath-knife, and the Dundee was abandoned to her fate.
“Now then,” cried Mr. Marsh, “give way with a will—look out! she’s going. Row, row for your lives!”
The wreck gave a sudden lurch and then recovered herself with a staggering motion just at the moment when those in the boat so dangerously near expected to see her founder. The oars were plied vigorously, and the gig was more than half way to the ship when Jumbo exclaimed, “Look at her now!”
The bark’s last moment had come. Her bows rose gradually out of the water, and she rolled slowly over, disappearing stern foremost, as easily as though she were being launched into that element which she had sailed so many years, and which was now ending her existence. The fore mast, with the distress signals fluttering in the breeze, was the last thing to vanish; and as it sunk beneath the whirling vortex a groan escaped Captain Murray. As chief owner of the Dundee, his financial loss would be considerable, but there was another stronger feeling. In the vessel which had just descended to unknown depths he had traversed all the waterways of the globe; she had been his only home for many years, and seemed almost a part of himself. Kindred he had none, and the old bark had absorbed whatever of latent affection there was in his cold nature. Now she was gone as completely as if she had never existed; a few spars, an empty cask, and the torn British ensign, alone remaining to show where she had last been seen.
There was a dead silence in that little boat (save for the sound of the oars) for many minutes after the final scene. All seemed awed, and when at length the ship’s side was reached, Captain Murray raised his head for the first time since he had looked on his lost vessel. His eyes were moist with the only tears that they had known since childhood. As he climbed over the bulwarks, Captain Meade came forward—the American warmly grasped the Englishman’s hand. With rare tact, he spoke no word, but led his guest down the companion-way and into the privacy of his own room, leaving Mr. Marsh to attend to the proper disposition of the remainder of the rescued.