It was about four o’clock on Thursday morning when a new disaster occurred, which, added to the sweeping away of the hatchway on the preceding day, may be said to have sealed the fate of the vessel. A tremendous sea struck the stern of the ship, and stove in four of the windows of the upper or poop cabin. Through the breaches thus made the water rushed in, and the ’tween decks were soon flooded. The carpenter was immediately set to work to remedy the disaster, and he found that the force of the sea had driven back the strong shutters of the dead lights, and broken the glass of the sashes inside, and the sea was pouring in in great quantities. He endeavoured to secure the ports by shoring them with a spar placed against a post on the main deck, so as to make the shutters once more firm, although the sashes had been driven in. The stratagem succeeded for a little while, but as the ship got deeper in the water the sea drove the ports entirely in, and soon rushed about unchecked through the upper and into the lower saloon.
Meanwhile, on deck the efforts of both passengers and crew were directed more earnestly than ever towards keeping the gaping aperture over the engine-room covered. The ship was fast settling down, and was more than half full of water. Captain Martin went down with Mr. Greenhill into the room, and, upon the engineer taking soundings it was found that there were fourteen feet of water, the whole of which had come through the hatchway, notwithstanding all the efforts made to keep it out. There was also a considerable increase of water between the decks. Every time the ship lurched in the trough of the sea she was taking in tons of water over the gunwale. Captain Martin did not lose heart, but at the same time told Mr. Greenhill that he had now little hope of saving the ship. Nevertheless, upon going on deck, after this examination of the engine-room, he cried to those who were baling out water, “Men! put down the buckets and come and try to secure the engine-room hatch, for that is the only chance to save the ship. Secure that, and we may keep her up!”
Instantly the Captain’s order was obeyed, and once more the men tried to nail down sails and tarpauling, which the sea, however, washed ruthlessly away, or flapped down into the engine-room. Among those who laboured hard at this work, useless though it too soon proved, was John King, who had been hurt the preceding evening by his fall overboard. The violence of the sea and storm was such, that men were driven hither and thither by it on deck, knocked against casks and pieces of the wreck, and were in imminent danger of being washed overboard, as King had been. But there was no relaxation of effort. Mr. Angell was at the donkey-engine, Dr. Woolley, Mr. Brooke, and other passengers at the pumps, and many were engaged in vigorously baling out the water from the lower saloon, through the upper saloon, and over the upper deck.
All efforts, however, were unavailing. Mr. Wilson, one of the survivors, said, that as it was getting light, he asked Captain Martin if he should go on baling out the water, to which the Captain replied, “You may, but I think it is of no use.”
About eight o’clock the carpenter received orders to see to the boats! On board now there were the port cutter, the two pinnaces, and the jolly boat, for two lifeboats and the starboard cutter had been washed away previously. All the boats were immediately plugged and made ready for sea, and bread and water put in them. A little before ten o’clock the starboard pinnace, which was of iron, and which would hold fifty persons, was got ready for lowering, and John King with five others got into her. Being lowered too fast, however, she swamped, and sunk headforemost: the men were of course thrown with great violence into the sea. After having been twelve seconds under water, King was washed up to the rail of the ship, and got on board, and the rest also were saved.
Shortly after the foundering of the starboard pinnace, the Captain entered the saloon, and said, by way of answer to the mute appeal made to him on every face, “Ladies, there is no hope for us, I am afraid. Nothing short of a miracle can save us.” These were his exact words, and Mr. Draper calmly replied to them by saying, “Then let us pray!”
At two o’clock on that wild, stormy afternoon the vessel was sinking rapidly, and the channels were nearly level with the water. Captain Martin now told Mr. Greenhill, that as the port cutter was ready for lowering, he had better take the command of her, and of as many as it would hold. As for himself, he had no thought of leaving his ship; he would sink with the London and her doomed passengers. The crew, as they remembered the fate of the starboard pinnace a few hours previously, were at first not over-anxious to set about lowering the port cutter, and, for reasons that will appear in the next chapter, the passengers generally made no attempts to escape.
John King, with a few other seamen, had already provisioned the cutter with a bag of bread, a beaker with about a quart of fresh water, and a few bottles of brandy, which a bright and intelligent young midshipman, Walter Edwards, greatly to his credit, as Mr. Traill the magistrate observed at the Board of Trade Inquiry, managed to conceal from the men after he had got on board. A few here and there could not see an attempt being made to escape, notwithstanding its seemingly hopeless character, without being desirous of joining in it. This lad, who was on his first voyage out, said, that after the starboard pinnace had been swamped, he heard Captain Martin earnestly dissuading a lady, Mrs. Owen, from going in the port-cutter boat. He himself was talking with Mrs. Owen when the Captain came up to where they were. She told him she intended going, and had asked one of the men to take care of her and her little child, and the man had promised to do so. Captain Martin, as if he knew of the spirits that had been put on board the port cutter, told her earnestly that there might be drunken seamen in the cutter, and that she would only be exposing herself, perhaps, to a painful and lingering death.
“Captain Martin,” said the lad gently, “was quite calm and composed. The only time I saw him give way was when he told Mrs. Owen that there was no use in her going into the boat: his feelings then quite overcame him, and he cried. All the officers of the ship worked well. The sailing-master, Mr. Harris, was working all day on Monday and Tuesday with his coat off, and Mr. Grant also behaved exceedingly well. They were all attentive to duty, and had not lost their mind up to the time when the ship went down. All the passengers, you could see, had death in their faces.”
“And what were your own thoughts, you brave young Walter?”