At the back of the world

by George Pugh; Jennie Pugh

On the fourth of September we sighted the desolate islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam, passing close to them to see if there were any shipwrecked seamen on them, so many vessels and their crews were lost on that track, that the English Government have built a hut and erected a flagstaff on the island. A man-of-war visits the island and leaves provisions at intervals, with written instructions that anyone who has the misfortune to be shipwrecked, may use the provisions but not waste them, and they are requested to hoist the flag on the flagstaff, as all vessels going that route are expected to be on the look-out for the flag and take off anyone who may be stranded there. These islands are volcanic and have nothing on them to support life. As the flag was not hoisted when we passed, we concluded that there was no one there.

From thence we had a succession of westerly gales right up to Snares Rocks off the South Island of New Zealand. The crew were merely standing by to attend sails if required, the wind and sea being too rough to do any work about the decks, and many an hour did I spend under the forecastle head listening to their yarns of other lands and of other ships they had been in, of hairbreadth escapes and shipwrecks. How eagerly I listened and how it stirred my heart, until I almost fancied I had been through such adventures myself.

On the night watches the second mate kept me aft on the poop to pass the word along if the men were required. One night when about a hundred miles off the South Island of New Zealand, the gale suddenly died away, and it fell dead calm, with a high sea, such as I had not seen, running. The ship wallowed and rolled unmercifully until every bone in our bodies ached with tumbling about. The officers were afraid of the masts coming down with a crash. All night the water fell on her decks in huge green seas, sometimes it seemed as if she had settled down, then she rolled and rose gradually, the water washing from side to side like cataracts, until about a foot remained on her decks, then another sea would sweep aboard, and under its sudden weight the ship would quiver and stagger like a frightened steed. Sometimes she literally seemed to buckle fore and aft, at others she laboured like a frightened animal, the tumult of seas literally leaping aboard the ship, until she seemed a mere plaything of the elements. And so the night passed and the day slowly followed, now and then the sea would rise above the rail so high that it looked as though nothing could save us from being engulfed, but by a merciful Providence the vessel lived through it. Then, towards evening, the gale moderated a bit, the night came on with a densely eerie darkness—pitch-dark the sailors called it—with the sea still like a boiling pot, still tumbling on board and filling the decks.

About midnight we heard a loud report to the south, and immediately out of the blackness great flames shot up, and we saw huge columns of smoke with flames darting here and there. As the fire increased we could see the outline of a large sailing ship. It was on fire and we were powerless to render her any assistance. There was not a breath of wind, the night was pitch dark, and no boat could have lived five minutes in the sea that was running. We could only look on and pray to God to help them. All hands were kept on deck ready to work the sails should a breeze spring up or the sea go down sufficiently to allow of the launching of a boat.

It was a terrible night, one never to be forgotten. “Oh, for a breeze!” was the cry of all on board our ship, but no breeze came and for four hours we had to watch a terrible struggle with death, and feel we were helpless. We could see the flames like angry demons leaping from shroud to shroud, and from yard to yard, then only great dense volumes of smoke lit up by the flames behind. Then again the awful flames would belch forth and light up the whole heavens above them. We were too far off to distinguish any human beings. God alone knew their sufferings and heard their prayers, He alone saw that fight with death, and while we looked, our hearts wrung with a sense of our helplessness, without a moment’s warning, the ill-fated vessel disappeared, and the night was black as before.

Our captain ordered several lights to be hung about the rigging, in case there were any boats, rafts, etc., afloat, but none were seen, and when towards daylight, a breeze springing up, our ship cruised about to pick up anyone who might have escaped by any means, not a vestige of the ship or boats could be seen to tell what ship she was, and what port she was bound for, nothing but a quantity of loose wreckage, so we continued our journey with sad hearts thinking of the unfortunate ship and her ill-fated crew.

Towards noon the following day the sea fell dead calm, and became as smooth as a millpond. A light breeze sprang up from the north-east, and presently we ran into a large shoal of bottle-nosed whales and grampus. The sea became thick with them, all leisurely lolling and tumbling about on the surface, and many apparently standing upright like great posts, or milestones in the sea. There must have been hundreds of them. The sailors, on seeing them, said we were in for a dressing down, the presence of the grampus on the surface being a sure sign of dirty weather, and their instinct or superstition, whichever it is called, was correct again, and presently I noticed that Mr. McLean, our chief mate was looking with earnest eyes at the horizon astern. I looked too and saw a large black cloud sailing up the sky exactly on a line with the course we were making. I have never before or since seen a body of vapour wear such an ugly look. Its hinder parts wore the true aspect of thunder; its brow of pale sulphur, darkened into a swollen livid curve, its dreadful shape made one think of some leviathan, a flying beast, a mighty dragon, such as one reads about, or some huge horrible creature descending from another world, casting its strange shadow over its prey ere it descended to its work of destruction.

Little by little the cloud overtook us and then it overhung the vessel like an immense black canopy plunging us and the sea around into gloom and then passed on, but before midnight we were in the midst of a fierce north-east gale or hurricane. Fortunately for us we were partly sheltered by Stewart’s Island and did not get the high sea that we should have got had we been further to the westward.

On it came with awful speed and fury. At first there was a stifling heat in the atmosphere, then the clouds spread over the sky, shutting out the stars, mysterious changes seemed to be taking place in nature around, noiselessly for a time, then the war of the elements began with a burst of heaven’s own artillery. At first it was distant, muttering, prolonged and fitful, like the rattling musketry of advancing skirmishers, soon a roar of deafening thunder rent the sky, another and another followed with blinding flashes of lightning between, corposant lights were seen on the yard arms, and the tips of the masts, then the rain came down in torrents. For twenty-four hours the hurricane lasted and the ship kept dodging under the lee of the south end of Stewart’s Island, then gradually the storm abated and the wind veered into the north-west, the ship was put on her course for Wellington, where we arrived safely in a few days.