From the machinery hatch where I was keeping one eye out for my clumsy engines and the other out for my last long glimpse of home, I watched in puzzled surprise as the Monterey silently disappeared astern, then looking up at the bridge nearly overhead, caught a glimmer of a wry smile on De Long’s face as he watched the Monterey. A navy expedition, we were sailing without the presence of a single naval representative in that vast crowd of men and ships cheering us on; worse perhaps, for it seemed as if we were being studiously ignored. Why? I have often wondered. Not enough rank on the Jeannette, perhaps.
But this was the only cloud on our departure, and I doubt if overwhelmed in the roar of the guns from the Presidio, the cheers from the citizens of San Francisco, and the shrieking of whistles from the flag-decorated vessels we passed, others, especially civilians, ever noticed it.
Slowly, under engines only, we steamed out the Golden Gate and met the long swells of the Pacific. Astern, one by one the escorting yachts turned back. On the starboard wing of the bridge at her husband’s side stood Emma De Long, a sailor’s daughter, and after a hectic courtship terminating finally in a sudden shipboard marriage in the far-off harbor of Le Havre, for eight years now a sailor’s wife. Silently she looked forward through the rigging, past furled sails, past yards and mast and bowsprit, across the waves toward the unknown north. Occasionally she smiled a little at De Long, rejoicing with him on the surface at least that at last his dream had come true, her eyes shining in her pride in the strength and the love of the man by whom she stood. But what her real feelings were, I, a rough seaman, could only guess, for she said nothing as she clung to the rail, her gaze riveted over the sea to the north into which in a few brief hours were to disappear forever her husband and her husband’s ship.
We stood on a few miles more. The coast line astern became hazy, our escorting fleet of yachts dwindled away to but one. Then a bell jangled harshly in the engine room below me, the engines stopped. For a few brief minutes the Jeannette rolled in the swells while to the shrilling of the silver pipe in the mouth of Jack Cole, bosun, our starboard whaleboat was manned, lowered, and shoved off, carrying toward that lone yacht which now lay to off our quarter, Emma De Long and her husband. There in that small boat, tossing unevenly in the waves a shiplength off, was spoken the last farewell. A brief embrace, a tender kiss, and De Long, balancing himself on the thwarts, handed his wife up over the low side of the yacht.
Another moment, and seated in the sternsheets of the whaleboat, De Long was once more simply the sailor. Sharply his commands drifted across the waves to us,
“Shove off!”
The bowman pushed clear of the yacht.
“Let fall!”
In silence, except for the steady thrash of the oars, our whaleboat came back to us, rounded to under the davits, was hoisted aboard. Again the bell jangled below. Our engines revolved slowly, the Jeannette sluggishly gathered speed, the helmsman pointed her west northwest. Off our quarter, the yacht came about, swiftly picked up headway, and with the two ships on opposite courses, she dropped rapidly astern. For a few minutes, with strained eyes I watched a white handkerchief fluttering across the water at us, then it faded in the distance. The bosun secured the whaleboat for sea, piped down, and without further ceremony, the sea routine on the Jeannette commenced. I took a final look at the distant coast and went below to watch the operation of my engines at close range.