John Smith's Funny Adventures on a Crutch / Or The Remarkable Peregrinations of a One-legged Soldier after the War

by A. F. Hill

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.