At Thursday Island we were both prostrated by a sharp attack of fever. This was the first time it had seized me since I came to New Guinea, and it is not unusual when a man has been living in the wilds for some time, and has escaped malaria, that he falls a victim to it almost as soon as he returns to comparative civilisation and better food. In spite of this drawback, we were successful in getting our collections despatched, and at 8 P.M., on the 23rd of May, on a dark, dirty, and very gusty night, with a nasty sea running, we left Thursday Island, and steered our course for Hall Sound. In the vicinity of Bramble Cay—a dangerous sandbank, about 160 miles from Yule Island—we had our sails blown away, and were left in an almost helpless condition, only two small sails remaining. For the three following days we beat about in a heavy sea, not knowing exactly where we were, for we had not been able to take an observation since we left.
On the evening of Friday the 29th May we managed to get under the shelter of Yule Island, inside the reef, and into smoother water. This was fortunate, for that night it blew a hurricane, and there was a heavy sea, even where we were lying. When daylight broke we went on, and anchored off the mission station at Yule Island, whence we sent word to Port Moresby by whaleboat that, owing to our disabled condition, it would be impossible for us to go there to clear, for the Customs regulations are that all vessels crossing to New Guinea must clear at Port Moresby, Samurai, or Daru. Of course, we could not beat up to Port Moresby against the S.E. monsoon without sails, so we lay there five days, until the whaleboat returned with our clearance. Our stay was anything but pleasant, for we had to remain on board the small ketch under a blazing sun, as we were unable to land until we got our clearance from the Customs.
There was, however, one remarkable diversion during this weary time of waiting; for on our arrival we found, to our surprise, a large iron sailing-ship at anchor in the sound—certainly the largest vessel that ever entered it. She proved to be the W. C. Watjen, a German barque that had gone through a terrible experience in the very centre of the typhoon, the tail of which had given us so much trouble. I made friends with the captain—a hero in his way—who, without being aware of what an extraordinary feat of seamanship he had performed, told me in the quietest possible manner one of the most wonderful tales of the sea it has ever been my lot to hear. It was indeed, in many particulars, almost an exact parallel to Mr. Conrad’s remarkable story, “Typhoon.”
1.—LOW TIDE AT HANUABADA, SHOWING THE PILE-BUILT HOUSES.
2.—SIMILAR HOUSES FROM ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW.
The vessel was bound from New York for Yokohama with kerosene. She had been out from New York for 196 days without sighting a single ship, and when off the coast of New Caledonia she encountered the typhoon. The captain’s first warning that a tempest was brewing was, of course, a sudden and unaccountable fall of the glass. Suspecting what was in store for him, he went on deck and gave orders to prepare for a typhoon. In fifteen minutes he returned to his cabin, and found that in that short space of time the mercury had actually fallen seven-sixteenths more, and he knew from that indication that he would shortly have to face a storm, which he may well have doubted the powers of his vessel to weather.
Before very long the tempest struck her in all its fury. For five days she encountered the direst perils. Her cargo had originally consisted of 80,000 cases of kerosene, and during the worst of the tempest 20,000 had been thrown overboard. On the very first day the rudder was carried away, but by extraordinary efforts the crew contrived to rig a staging at the stern for steering, and they managed to fit up a primitive rudder. The captain was injured when the rudder was carried away, for the long tiller (the W. C. Watjen was so old-fashioned that they did not use a wheel) swept round and hit the master heavily on the groin. A huge hole, six feet in diameter, had been knocked in the stern when the rudder was carried away, and this flooded the cabin and the middle part of the ship. They managed to stop the hole and bale out the cabin, but the tremendous seas denied the crew all access to the forward part of the vessel, where the store of fresh water was kept, and for five days they had nothing to drink but the dish-water which had been left in the cook’s galley. Strangely enough, there was only one very serious casualty, the second mate being disabled by an accident to his knee. The captain told me that during the worst of the storm they were continually under water; the seas seemed to strike them simultaneously at bow, stern, port, and starboard, and at times seemed to descend even from the heavens. How terrible the force of the tempest must have been was proved by the fact that the great steel masts of the vessel, six feet in circumference, had all gone over the side.
Although thus disabled herself, however, the W. C. Watjen was enabled to play good Samaritan to a smaller German vessel in a like plight, and took up her crew and brought them safely to Hall Sound. All the bulwarks were carried away, iron plates one-eighth of an inch thick were peeled from the sides of the ship, and crumpled up like paper by the force of the wind and sea. After the fifth day the captain was able to take an observation, and, by the help of an old chart, he concluded that New Guinea must be his nearest land. Crippled as he was, he endeavoured to make for Yule Island, where his chart, which was incomplete, told him there was a mission station, and, curiously enough, he was quite close to his desired haven when he was discovered and towed in by the Moresby after seventy-six days’ stress. Had the vessel drifted farther west, she must have gone on the reefs, and the crew would certainly have fallen victims to the cannibal natives. It is really extraordinary how she managed to escape all the dangers of the coral islands that dot the seas for at least 200 miles west of Hall Sound.
The same typhoon wrecked Townsville, unroofed an hotel, reduced brick buildings to débris and killed seven men; at the same time the sea receded and left the shipping dry.
When we had been lying in Hall Sound some three or four days, the Merrie England came up with the Administrator, Mr. Ruthven Le Hunte, who asked us to breakfast, and told us that for some days he had been very anxious about the St. Andrew and had been keeping a sharp look-out for us on his passage from the west.