My First Mission

by George Q. Cannon

We had not passed through the Gate when we began to be sea-sick. Those ocean swells will produce sea-sickness very quickly. There was no place on deck to be sick without being in the way, so we ran below. I vomited freely and felt relieved, and then went on deck again. The sun was declining in the west, and the sky was angry-looking and threatening, giving every indication of a storm. We were outside the heads, and before us stretched the great Pacific; but there were islands around, of which the captain knew but little. He did not like the idea of the pilot leaving him in such a position with darkness approaching and every prospect of a storm.

If the captain was anxious to have the pilot remain, the latter was equally desirous of getting away from the ship before nightfall. He had no wish to remain through the storm and to run the risk of being carried out to sea; so when a pilot boat hove in sight, he hailed it, and descended into the little yawl which came from it for him in such haste that he forgot his water-proof coat.

It was very natural, I suppose, for him after piloting the ship out of the harbor, to be eager to get back before the storm broke upon us; but I believe we all should have felt better if he had remained with us.

The captain, especially, felt the responsibility of his position. Here he was outside of a strange harbor, on a dangerous coast, with a strong wind blowing directly on shore, and darkness upon him and he ignorant of his surroundings!

We had no time to indulge in many reflections upon the subject. Our time was occupied in another direction, for we were all suffering severely from the effects of sea-sickness; and notwithstanding the dangers of our situation, the sense of the ridiculous, in my case—only one bucket among us for every purpose—overcame fear, and I could not help laughing.

Many of our Elders and foreign settlers have been in a similar position, and all such can imagine our feelings better than I can describe them. My levity, however, under circumstances so inconvenient and perplexing, offended one of the Elders so much that he reprimanded me for it.

While we were thus engaged, the noise on deck was very great. The captain had as first mate a half-caste East Indian, and the most of his hands were Malays. His orders to the mate, and the latter’s cries to the hands, and their chattering to one another, made a clamor that sounded loud above the noise of the storm.

Right in the midst of our sickness we heard the startling cry from the mate of “breakers ahead,” and that we were close upon them. At any other time this would have excited us; but we were so sick we did not mind it.

Shortly after this, we felt the vessel strike something solid, and she trembled from stem to stem; this was directly followed by a grating sound and a thumping at the stern. The first thought was that she had struck a reef; but as we felt her settle in the trough of the sea, we knew that if she had struck, she had passed over it.

The shock that we felt was caused by a heavy breaker striking us; it had broken the wheel ropes, and the grating noise that we heard was the thumping of the helm. Had the breaker gone over us it would have swept the decks clean, or, had the wheel ropes broken a short time before, it is probable the vessel would have been lost.