The Castaways

by Harry Collingwood

We rescue the crew of a French barque.

We were now drawing close down upon the barque, steering a course that, if persisted in, would have resulted in our striking her fair amidships on her starboard broadside, but which, by attention to the helm at the proper moment, with a due allowance for our own heavy lee drift, was intended to take us close enough to the sinking craft to enable us to speak her. Presently, at a word from the skipper, the third mate—who was acting as the captain’s aide—sang out for some men to lay aft and back the main-topsail; and at the same moment the helm was eased gently up, with the result that our bows fell off just sufficiently to clear the barque’s starboard quarter.

I shall never forget the sight that the unfortunate craft presented at that moment. Her foremast and jib-boom were under the bows, with all attached, and were hanging, a tangled mass of raffle, by the shrouds and stays, leaving about twenty feet of naked, jagged, and splintered stump of the lower-mast standing above the deck; and her main-topmast was also gone; but the wreckage of this had been cut away and had gone adrift, leaving only the heel in the cap, and the ragged ends of the topmast shrouds streaming from the rim of the top. She had been a very smart-looking little vessel in her time, painted black with false ports, and under her bowsprit she sported a handsomely-carved half-length figure of a crowned woman, elaborately painted and gilded. She carried a short topgallant forecastle forward, and a full poop aft, reaching to within about twenty-five feet from the mainmast; and between these two structures the bulwarks had been completely swept away, leaving only a jagged stump of a stanchion here and there protruding above the covering-board. She was sunk so low in the water that her channels were buried; and the water that was in her, making its way slowly and with difficulty through the interstices of her cargo, had at this time collected forward, and was pinning her head down to such an extent that her bows were unable to lift to the ’scend of the sea, with the result that every sea broke, hissing white, over her topgallant forecastle, and swept right aft to the poop, against the front of which it dashed itself, as against the vertical face of a rock, throwing blinding and drenching clouds of spray over the little group of cowering people who crouched as closely as they could huddle behind the meagre and inadequate shelter of the skylight.

I counted fourteen of these poor souls, and in the midst of them, occupying the most sheltered spot on the whole deck, I noticed what at first looked like a bundle of tarpaulin, but as we swept up on the barque’s starboard quarter I saw one of the men gently pull a corner of the tarpaulin aside with one hand, while he pointed at the City of Cawnpore with the other, and, to my amazement, the head and face of a woman—a young woman—looked out at us with an expression of mingled hope and despair that was dreadful to see.

“Good God, there’s a woman among them!” exclaimed Dacre. “We must save her—we must save them all, if we can; but it looks as if we shall not be given much time to do it in. I suppose they want to be taken off? They’ll never be mad enough to wish to stick to that wreck, eh? Hail them, Mr Conyers; you know what to say!”

“Barque ahoy!” I hailed, in French, as, with main-topsail aback, we surged and wallowed slowly athwart the stern of the stranger, “do you wish to be taken off?”

At the first sound of my voice, the man who had pointed us out to the woman rose stiffly to his feet and staggered aft to the taffrail, with his hand to his ear.

“But yes,” he shouted back, in the same language; “our ship is sinking, and—”

“All right,” I interrupted—for time was precious—“we will endeavour to get the end of a hawser aboard you. Have you any light heaving-line that you can veer down to us by means of a float? If so, get it ready, and we will try to pick it up on our return. We are now about to stand on and take room to wear, when we will come back and endeavour to establish a connection between the two craft. Have the line ready and veered well away to leeward at once.”

“But, monsieur,” replied the man, wringing his hands, “we have no line—no anything—you see all that we have,”—indicating the bare poop with a frantic gesture.