The Log of a Privateersman

by Harry Collingwood

The shadow of death.

The mast and sails of the boat had gone clean over the bows into the water, and would in all probability have been lost to us but for the fact that the shrouds still held; and, this being the case, the boat rode to them as to a sort of floating anchor, keeping her stem-on to the sea. Her trim was such that her bows were considerably more above water than her stern, which may have had something to do with the fact that, although the sea was now higher and more dangerous than ever, the water no longer broke into her. Dumaresq and I, however, were both of opinion that the floating mast, with the sails attached, served in some measure as a breakwater for the seas to expend their most dangerous energies upon, and after discussing the matter a little further it was determined to submit our theory to the test of experiment. The shrouds were accordingly unbent, and the mast hauled alongside, when the boat again began to ship water; moreover, an oar over the stern at once became necessary to keep her bows on to the sea. This experiment satisfied us that our impression was something more than a mere fancy, and we at once went to work to further test it. There were six oars in the boat, and another portion of her equipment was a painter, some six fathoms in length. We securely lashed together the whole six of the oars and the mast, with the sails still attached, in a sort of bundle, by the middle, using the end of the painter as a lashing, and when everything had been made secure we veered away the painter until the whole of it was out, and the bundle of oars and what-not was floating about five fathoms ahead of the boat. This served as a drag, again bringing the gig’s bows on to the sea, and a comparatively short period of observation sufficed to convince us that the arrangement did indeed serve also as an appreciable protection to the boat. By the time that this was done the rain had nearly ceased, and presently it cleared up to leeward, revealing the ship once more, under double-reefed topsails, now broad on our larboard quarter and hopelessly beyond all possibility of being overtaken, even had we dared to resume the chase, which, after our recent experience, and in the face of the terrible weather, none of us dreamed of attempting.

It was a cruelly bitter disappointment to us all to reflect that we had been so near to the possibility of rescue, and yet had missed it, and I caught the rumbling notes of more than one sea-blessing invoked upon the heads of the crew, who ought to have seen us, but apparently did not. It was useless, however, to cry over spilt milk, or to murmur against the mysterious decrees of Providence. Our business now was to do all that lay in our power to keep the boat afloat and enable her to ride out the gale; so we baled her dry, trimmed her a trifle more by the stern to enable her to present a bolder bow to the sea, and then piped to dinner.

And now arose fresh cause for distress and apprehension, for when we came to look into the state of our provisions, it was found that pretty nearly everything that was spoilable had been ruined by the salt-water that we had shipped, our bread especially being almost reduced to pulp. We picked out the least damaged portions, however, and ate them, with some chunks of raw salt beef, washing down the whole with a sparing libation of weak grog, after which we felt in somewhat better spirits.

But, oh! the cold and misery of it all! We were drenched to the skin, and the wind seemed to penetrate to our very marrow. Moreover, there was no hope whatever of the slightest improvement so long as the gale continued, for even though the rain had ceased, the air was full of spindrift and scud-water that fell upon us in drenching showers; while, cooped up as we were within the circumscribed dimensions of a small boat, there was no possibility of warming ourselves by exercise or active movement of any sort. The sea was running too dangerously high to admit of our taking to the oars and keeping ourselves warm by that expedient, and all that we could do to mitigate our misery was to huddle closely together in the bottom of the boat, and so shield ourselves as far as possible from the piercing wind and the drenching spray. Had we been able to smoke, matters would not have been so bad with us, but we had no means of obtaining a light; so there we crouched, hour after hour, our teeth clenched or chattering with cold, our drenched clothing clinging to our shivering bodies, and the gale howling over our heads with ever-increasing fury, while the sheets of salt spray lashed us relentlessly like whips of steel. So utterly miserable did we become that at length we even ceased to rise occasionally to take a look round, to see whether, perchance, another sail might have hove in sight. I believe that some of my companions in suffering found a temporary refuge from their wretchedness in short snatches of fitful sleep; at all events I caught at intervals the sound of low mutterings, as of sleeping men; but, as for me, exhausted though I was, I could not sleep. My anxiety on behalf of these poor wretches, who were in a way under my command, and who were certainly dependent to a great extent upon my experience and judgment, seemed to have driven sleep for ever from my eyes.

And so we lay there, hour after hour, now flung aloft until the whole ocean to the limits of the horizon lay spread around us, anon sweeping down the back of some giant billow until it seemed that the boat was about to plunge to the ocean’s bed, and the passage of every hour was marked by an increasing greyness and haggardness in the faces of my companions, while a more hopelessly despairing expression came into their eyes.

At length, however, shortly before sunset, a welcome break appeared in the sky to windward; a gleam of watery, yellow light spread along the horizon; the pall of murky vapour broke up into detached masses; small but gradually widening patches of blue sky appeared here and here; and finally we got a momentary glimpse of the sun through a break in the clouds, just as the great luminary was on the point of sinking below the western horizon. We greeted the blessed sight with a cheer of reviving hope, for we knew that the gale was breaking, and that with the moderating of the wind and sea we should once again be able to take some active steps toward our preservation; while, apart from that, the finer weather would at least afford us some relief from our present suffering and misery. About half an hour later there was a noticeable diminution in the strength of the wind, which by midnight had become merely a moderate breeze. The sea no longer broke dangerously, the sky cleared, the stars beamed benignantly down upon us, and there was every prospect of our being able to resume our voyage on the morrow. But although, so far as the weather was concerned, matters were greatly improving with us, our suffering from cold was still very acute, for the night wind seemed to penetrate right through our wet clothes and to strike colder than ice upon our skins that were now burning with fever.

As for me, I envied my more fortunate companions who were able to sleep. I was deadly weary, worn out with prolonged watching and anxiety and exposure; my eyes were burning and my head throbbing with the fever that consumed me, while my teeth were chattering with cold to such an extent that I could scarcely make my speech intelligible. Wild, fantastic, irrelevant fancies were whirling confusedly through my brain, and I found it simply impossible to fix my mind upon the important question of the direction in which we ought to steer upon the resumption of our voyage. For the impression now forced itself upon me that poor Captain Chesney had committed an error of judgment in adhering to his determination to make for the Azores, after the breeze had sprung up from a direction which placed those islands almost dead to windward, and his only alternative of making for the Canaries appeared to be open to the same objection, although in a considerably lesser degree. Then arose the question: If he was mistaken in thus deciding, what ought he to have done? But to this, in the then disordered condition of my mental faculties, I could find no satisfactory reply. At length, while mentally groping for a solution to this knotty problem, I sank into a feverish semi-somnolent condition that eventually merged into sleep, and when I again became conscious, the sun was flashing his first beams across the surface of the heaving waters, now no longer scourged to fury by the lashing of a gale, but just ruffled to a deep, tender blue by the gentle breathing of a soft breeze from the north-east. A very heavy swell was still running, of course; but it no longer broke, and there was nothing whatever to prevent our resuming our voyage at once, saving the question—Whither?

The matter, however, that called for our first and most imperative attention was our own condition. We were still suffering greatly from the effects of prolonged exposure in our still damp clothes, and we could hope for little or no amelioration until our garments were once more dry, and the healthy action of our skin restored; so, to facilitate this, I suggested that we should all strip, and spread out our clothing to thoroughly dry in the sun’s now ardent beams, and that, while the drying process was in progress, we should all go overboard and indulge in a good swim. The greater portion of our party thought this advice good enough to be acted upon, and in a few minutes seven of us were in the water and swimming vigorously round the boat; the other three were unable to swim, but they imitated us so far as to strip and pour buckets of water over each other. The water felt pleasantly warm in comparison with the temperature of the air, and we remained overboard for nearly half an hour; then we scrambled back into the boat again, rubbed ourselves and each other vigorously with the palms of our hands, while our bodies were in process of being dried by the joint action of the sun and air; and finally we donned our clothes again, they being by this time quite dry, feeling much refreshed and in every way considerably the better for our bath. Our next business was to go to breakfast, but our bread was by this time so completely destroyed as to be quite uneatable. We therefore threw it overboard, and made a meagre and unpalatable meal off more raw salt beef, washed down as before with weak grog.

And while the meal was in progress I brought up the question that had been vexing me during the previous night; namely, the direction in which we should steer. I had been giving this matter my best consideration during the time that I had been overboard; indeed Dumaresq and I had been discussing it together as we swam industriously round and round the boat, and we both agreed in the conclusion that the appearance of the sky warranted the belief that we were on the very margin of the north-east trade-wind, if not actually within its influence. And if this were indeed the case, it appeared that the proper course for us to adopt would be to bear up and run for the West Indies, instead of attempting to reach the Azores or even the Canaries. For while Corvo was only seven hundred and twenty miles from the spot where the Indiaman was destroyed, while Teneriffe was about thirteen hundred and eighty miles, and Saint Thomas, in the West Indies, fifteen hundred miles from the same spot, we could reckon with tolerable certainty upon reaching the latter island in about twelve days if the breeze now blowing actually happened to be the young trade-wind; while, under the same supposition, it was exceedingly doubtful when, if ever, we should succeed in reaching either the Azores or the Canary Islands. It was altogether too momentous a question for me to settle off-hand and upon my own responsibility, so I laid the matter before the whole boat’s company, inviting them to decide it by a preponderating vote. I found that the majority agreed with me in the opinion that we might be on the fringe of, if not actually within, the influence of the trade-wind, but when it came to the question of bearing up and running for the West Indies, the great distance to be traversed seemed to frighten them. They were hardly prepared to face the prospect of nearly a fortnight in an open boat, even although we might reckon with tolerable certainty upon a fair wind and moderate weather all the time. They pointed out that our stock of provisions was wholly inadequate for such a voyage, unless we were all prepared to go upon an exceedingly short allowance forthwith, and they appeared to consider that, by adhering to Captain Chesney’s plan, we should stand a better chance of falling in with and being picked up by a ship. As to whether we should make for the Azores or the Canaries, we were pretty unanimously of opinion that, despite the much greater distance of the latter, if we were, as we supposed, within the influence of the trade-wind, we should stand a much better chance of fetching it; and after some further discussion it was definitely determined to shape the best course we could for Teneriffe.