A Middy in Command: A Tale of the Slave Squadron

by Harry Collingwood

“Here it comes, lads,” cried I. “Out with your starboard oars, and get the boat’s head round. That will do. Lay them in again; and one hand tend the mainsheet here aft.”

The moaning sound rapidly grew in intensity until it became first a deep roar, like the bellowing of a thousand angry bulls, and finally a deafening shriek, while away to the eastward a long line of white, foaming water became visible, rushing down toward us with incredible rapidity. The next instant the squall struck us, and the white water boiled up high over the sterns of the boats, burying us so deeply that for a moment I thought it was all over with us, and that, despite our precautions, we must inevitably be swamped. But the good canvas of which the longboat’s sails were made fortunately withstood the strain, as also did the stout hemp rigging which supported the mast, and as the furious blast swooped down upon us we gathered way and were the next moment flying to the westward before the hurricane, our bows buried deeply in the boiling surge. And now we had good reason to congratulate ourselves upon the fact that we in the longboat had taken the gig in tow, for the strain of the smaller boat kept the longboat’s stern down, and in a great measure counteracted the leverage of the mast which tended to depress and bury our bows, but for which I feel convinced that the longboat, stout craft though she was, would have been driven under by the tremendous force of the wind and swamped by an inrush of water over the bows.

The outfly was accompanied by a furious storm of thunder and lightning, the illumination of which was most welcome to us, for it enabled us to see where we were going, and incidentally revealed to us our enemy, the pirate brig, scudding away to leeward under a goose-winged fore-topsail, and with her topgallant-masts struck.

We now had reason to congratulate ourselves upon the foresight which had suggested to us the idea of partially covering in the boats with their sails as a protection against the inroads of the sea; for within ten minutes of the outburst not only was the air full of flying sheets of spindrift and scud-water that, but for the precaution referred to, would have kept us busily baling, but in addition to this a short, steep, tumultuous sea was rapidly rising, which at frequent intervals rose above the boats’ gunwales, and would have pooped us dangerously had the boats been left in their ordinary unprotected condition. As it was, beyond a pint or so of water that occasionally made its way inboard despite all our precautions, and needed to be baled out again, we had no trouble.

The first fury of the squall lasted about a quarter of an hour. During that time the thunder and lightning were incessant, but afterwards they gradually died away, while the wind moderated to a steady gale; and it was by the illumination of the last flash of lightning that we caught sight of the brig hove-to on the starboard tack, under a storm-staysail, with her head to the northward. The sight of her thus was a great relief to me, for it seemed to indicate that we had been fortunate enough to escape detection, and that we need have no great fear of interference from her, since the fact of her having hove-to so early indicated a keen desire on the part of her captain to remain as near as possible to the coast.

As the night wore on the sea rapidly became higher and more dangerous, our difficulties and embarrassments increasing in proportion. Our chief difficulty arose from the necessity to keep the gig in tow, for with the rising of the sea this speedily became more dangerous to both boats, from the frequent fierce tugs of the painter that connected the two boats together. The rope was a new and stout one, and there was not much fear that the boats would break away from each other, but the strain set up by the alternate slackening and tautening of the painter, as first one boat and then the other was urged forward by the ’scend of the sea, was tremendous, and strained both craft to a positively dangerous degree. Yet it was not possible for us to cast the gig adrift, for, had we done so, we should at once have run away from and lost her in the darkness; that is, unless she had set her own sails, and this, of course, could not have been done without depriving her of the protection of them as a covering against the breaking seas, which would have resulted in her being instantly swamped. But at length matters became so serious with us both that it was evident that something must be done, and that very quickly too; for some of the drags were so violent that they threatened to tear the stern out of the longboat, which was by this time leaking badly. After considering the matter, therefore, most carefully, I decided upon a course of procedure that I hoped might better our condition somewhat. It happened that among the stores which we had hurriedly stowed away in the longboat when preparing to leave the schooner was a drum of lamp oil, which we intended to use in our binnacle lamps at night, and which we thought might perhaps also prove very useful for other purposes as well, and this I now ordered the men to find for me. Fortunately it was easy to get at it, and it was soon produced. It was a full can, and had never been opened; therefore I gave instructions that, instead of drawing the bung, it should be punctured with a sufficient number of holes to allow the oil to ooze through pretty freely. This done, I instructed the men to clear away the longboat’s painter and to bend it securely round the boat’s oars in such a manner as to make a sort of sea-anchor of them, leaving about a fathom of the end of the painter clear to which to bend on the oil-can. Then, when everything was ready, I shouted to Simpson in the gig, telling him what I proposed to do, and giving him his instructions, after which we in the longboat hauled down the jib, and, watching our opportunity, rounded-to, threw overboard our sea-anchor, with the oil-can attached, and took in our remaining canvas. This business of rounding-to was a very delicate and ticklish job, for had the sea caught us broadside-on we must inevitably have been capsized or swamped; but we were fortunate enough to do everything at precisely the right moment, with the result that the two boats swung round, head-on to the sea, without accident, and without shipping very much water.

The oars, lashed together in the middle, and kept squarely athwartships by means of a span, afforded, after all, only the merest apology for a sea-anchor, and barely gave just sufficient drag to keep the boats stem-on to the sea without appreciably retarding their drift to leeward; but it was none the worse for this, since, with their drift scarcely retarded, they rode all the more easily; and presently, when the oil began to exude from the can and diffuse itself over the surface of the water, there was a narrow space just ahead of us where the seas ceased to break, with the result that in the course of ten minutes we were riding quite dry and comfortable, except for the scud-water that came driving along. This, however, we soon remedied by converting our mainsail into a kind of roof, strained over the lowered mast, similar to the arrangement in the gig, after which, save for the extravagant leaps and plunges of the boats, which were very trying to the wounded, we had not much to complain of.

The gale reached its height about four o’clock on the following morning, at which hour it was blowing very hard, with an exceedingly heavy and dangerous sea, in which the boats could not possibly have lived but for the precautions which had been taken for their preservation; and even as it was, we repeatedly escaped disaster only by the merest hair’s-breadth, and by what seemed to be more a combination of fortuitous circumstances than anything else. Taken altogether, that night was one of the most tense and long-drawn-out anxieties that I had ever, up to then, experienced. About two bells in the morning watch the gale broke, and from that moment the strength of the wind moderated so rapidly that by eight bells all danger had passed, the boats were riding dry, and we were able to get breakfast in peace and comfort—all the greater, perhaps, from the fact that when day dawned the pirate brig was nowhere to be seen. By nine-o’clock the wind and sea had both moderated sufficiently to enable us to resume our voyage. I therefore, with some difficulty, secured an observation of the sun for the determination of our longitude, and we then proceeded to re-bend our sails, step the masts, and get under way, steering to the northward and westward under double-reefed canvas. Finally, about noon, we were able to shake out our reefs and proceed under whole canvas, the sea by that time having almost completely gone down, leaving no trace of the previous night’s gale beyond a long and very heavy swell, in the hollows of which the two boats continually lost sight of each other.

But although, by the mercy of Providence, we had weathered the gale, we had not by any means escaped scathless, for when we had once more settled down and had found opportunity to overhaul our stock of provisions, it was found that, despite our utmost precautions, an alarmingly large proportion of them had become damaged by rain and sea water, to such an extent, indeed, that about half of them had been rendered quite unfit for use, and we therefore threw that portion overboard, since there was obviously no advantage in wasting valuable space in the preservation of useless stores. And I did this the more readily, perhaps, because I calculated that, despite this heavy loss, we should still have enough left to carry us to our destination—provided that we were not detained by calms on the way.

We made excellent progress all that day, our reckoning showing that at three o’clock that afternoon we had traversed a distance of just forty miles since getting under way that morning, which distance was increased to fifty-eight by sunset. Moreover we had done well in another way, for the wounded had all been carefully looked after, and their hurts attended to as thoroughly as circumstances would allow, with the result that at nightfall each man reported himself as feeling distinctly better, notwithstanding the night of terrible hardship and exposure through which all had so recently passed.