The First Mate: The Story of a Strange Cruise

by Harry Collingwood

It was nearly six weeks after the appearance of the junk when at length I felt strong enough to resume my boat-building operations, and even then I was only able at first to do such comparatively light work as shaping and planing planks. Gradually, however, I got back again to the heavier work which came from time to time when it was necessary to shift the framework of the hull while working upon it. Every day witnessed a certain amount of progress, until at length the open shell was finished and caulked. Then by our combined efforts we placed the boat in position ready for launching, bows first, off our sloping deck, since she was now so heavy that no further lifting would be possible. This brought the time on to five months and a few days from the date of the wreck, during the whole of which period we had been favoured with glorious weather, except for a few days of calms, accompanied by heavy rain, about the time when I was emerging from my state of delirium.

But a few days after we had completed the shell of the boat, and while I was preparing the planking with which to lay her deck, there occurred signs of a change. The wind, which usually blew a moderate breeze from the eastward, died away to a calm, and the sky became veiled by a thin film of haze that gradually thickened until the sun was completely blotted out. The atmosphere grew almost unbearably sultry, so that we seemed to breathe only with the utmost difficulty, while work, even the lightest, became almost impossible. The barometer fell so rapidly that even the veriest tyro in weather lore could not have mistaken the signs; and that night, or rather in the small hours of morning, a thunderstorm broke over us, the like of which for violence and duration I had never seen.

It started dry, and for four hours the heavens were incessantly ablaze with lightnings, the vividness and alarming character of which it is quite impossible to describe, while the continuous crash of thunder, immediately overhead as it seemed, was terrific, causing the very wreck herself to tremble with its vibrations. As I left my cabin and went up on deck to watch it, I felt that sooner or later the wreck must inevitably be struck; and indeed I frequently thought she actually had been, for the lightning seemed to be playing all about her. But I suppose she escaped somehow; or at least, if she was struck, no apparent damage was done.

Then, about the time when daylight was beginning to make itself apparent, it suddenly began to rain, the warm fresh water from the clouds pelting down in a perfect deluge and totally obscuring everything beyond a hundred yards’ radius. The water poured off the decks in cataracts, while from the poop it gushed through a scupper which discharged on to the main-deck as though flowing from the spout of a pump. In ten minutes the decks were as effectually cleansed as though they had been scrubbed with soap and water. Thinking it a pity that so much delicious fresh water should be permitted to run to waste, I went below and brought up several small breakers and proceeded to fill them, one after the other, until I had the lot, numbering about twenty, brimming full. And all this time the thunderstorm continued to rage with unabated fury.

The filling of the breakers during the continuance of that terrific deluge naturally resulted in my getting wet through to the skin. Upon the completion of my task, therefore, I retired to my cabin and effected a complete change of garments; and I had barely finished my toilet when I heard the sound of the gong summoning the party to breakfast.

While I was discarding my drenched garments and donning dry ones, I became aware of the fact that the thunderstorm was at last easing up a little. The lightning flashes were no longer a continuous blaze; the thunder no longer was one continuous, uninterrupted crash and crackle and boom, like the firing of two enormous fleets engaged in fighting a fiercely-contested action, but each peal was separate and distinct, with momentarily increasing intervals between the peals. Thus when we presently met and sat down to breakfast, conversation of a sort was possible, although by no means easy. The topic of the moment was of course the storm, and I was not at all surprised to learn that the entire party had been thoroughly terrified, and were by no means reassured even now, when if was indisputable that the storm was passing.

We were all rather inclined to be silent at that meal. Mrs Vansittart and her daughter both confessed to the possession of distracting headaches, the result, no doubt, of their terror, and even Julius was in a distinctly subdued mood; nobody but myself ate at all heartily, and I think they were all glad when I laid down my knife and fork and made it possible for them to rise from the table. The ladies and Julius announced their intention to retire to their respective cabins in the hope of obtaining relief in slumber; and as work on deck was quite out of the question so long as the rain continued, I decided to follow their example, having myself lost some hours of sleep. I accordingly carried out my resolution, and soon sank into a condition of semi-oblivion, during which I was only partially conscious of the fact that, although the rain was still sluicing in torrents, the thunder and lightning had dwindled away to a few distant rumblings and occasional flashes. Finally this consciousness also passed and I fell sound asleep.

When I awoke rather more than an hour later, I at once became aware that both the rain and the thunder had entirely ceased. It was still so dark that until I referred to my watch I had the impression that I must have overslept myself, and that the night was coming on. Then I flung open the port of my cabin, which had been closed to exclude the rain, and, poking my head out, saw that the sky was still overcast with enormous masses of blackish, lurid-looking cloud which, as I watched, I saw were working slowly in a strange writhing fashion, as though agitated by several conflicting internal forces.

I went up on deck, and observed that the overcast condition of the sky, of which I had obtained a partial view from my cabin port, extended in every direction, right down to the horizon. A visit to the chart-house revealed the fact that the barometer still stood alarmingly low; and it was this fact, perhaps, in conjunction with the disquieting aspect of the sky, that subconsciously awakened in me a sudden anxiety to hasten my work upon the craft which, for want of a better name, I have spoken of as a boat.

Be that as it may, I remember that I flung off the light jacket which, for appearance’ sake, I wore at meal times and when otherwise in the company of the ladies, and set to work as though my very life depended upon it. As I have already mentioned, the shell of the boat was finished, caulked, and placed in position ready for launching; and in addition to this the beams upon which the deck was to be laid were fitted and fixed, and the planking planed up and roughly cut to shape. My next task, therefore, was to complete the fitting of the planks and the nailing of them in position, which I at once proceeded to do, with the fixed determination to finish the job before dark. This determination I carried out, although it necessitated my working for an hour by lantern light; and when at length I knocked off, I had the satisfaction of leaving the boat completely decked with the exception of the cockpit, the coaming of which I also insisted on fixing before I could persuade myself to lay down my tools.