Under the Meteor Flag: Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War

by Harry Collingwood

I had scarcely begun my task when I fancied I smelt a smell of burning, but for the first minute or so I paid little attention to it, as the air had been for a long time pervaded by a strong choking sulphurous odour. I had struck but a few strokes with my tomahawk however, when a very strong whiff assailed my nostrils, and at the same instant a thin wreath of smoke appeared hovering over the fore-scuttle. Dropping my tomahawk, I darted toward the opening, and, looking down, found the place full of smoke, which appeared to be prevented from rising by the peculiar condition of the atmosphere.

“Lay in, Simpson,” I shouted to the quarter-master; “the ship is on fire!”

The old fellow, with his arm raised in the act of striking at the jib-stay, turned, and, catching sight of the smoke, bundled inboard in a trice. We descended to the forecastle together, and found it so full of dense pungent smoke that it was impossible to remain there a moment without adopting precautions of some kind to escape suffocation; we accordingly returned to the deck, and, removing our black silk handkerchiefs from our throats saturated them with water, and then bound them tightly about the lower part of our faces, leaving our eyes only uncovered. Thus protected, we once more descended, and were then enabled to remain long enough to assure ourselves that the forecastle was not the seat of the fire. As we returned to the deck up the steep ladder, I detected smoke issuing into the forecastle in dense jets through the joints in the bulkhead, and this, together with the odour, which at that moment became very strong, led me to suspect that the fire was located in the store-room.

Saturating our handkerchiefs afresh and readjusting them upon our faces, we rushed aft and descended the main hatchway. Here—that is to say, immediately in the wake of the hatchway—there was very little smoke, but with every step forward it became more and more dense, and as we approached the store-room the heat and smoke became so stifling that we could only proceed with the utmost difficulty.

At length, however, we managed to reach the store-room door, and then the heat, the heavy smoke, the dull roar and crackling of the flames, gave us unmistakable assurance that we had found the seat of the mischief. I placed my hand upon the thick planking of the bulkhead and found it to be scorching hot.

We were unable to remain a moment where we were, so intense was the smoke and heat. We accordingly returned to the deck and summoned Hawsepipe and the doctor to our assistance. We informed them in a few words of this new catastrophe, or rather of the unexpected result of the original one—for I had no doubt whatever that it was the lightning which had set the ship on fire,—and received from them in return the news that the four men had been restored to consciousness, but had not yet recovered the use of their limbs; we then at once set about cutting a hole through the deck into the store-room, hoping that by means of the fire-engine and hose we might yet be able to conquer the flames.

A hole was first cut in the deck large enough to admit the end of the hose; the hose was then inserted, and packed carefully round with wet canvas where it passed through the deck, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the access of fresh air to the fire, and we four then manned the engine and proceeded with all our energy to pump water down upon the flames.

We had been thus engaged for about a quarter of an hour, the lightning raging round us all the while in undiminished fury, when, in an instant, down came the rain in a perfect flood.

“Shut the ports!” yelled Hawsepipe.

We understood in a moment the object he had in view, and, leaving the engine, went round the decks, closing the ports and stopping up the scuppers with pieces of canvas, so as to prevent the water from flowing off the deck. The rain was descending in such copious torrents that in a few minutes we were up to our knees in warm, fresh water, when the hose was withdrawn from the hole in the deck and the water allowed to stream down into the store-room. A dense jet of steam rushed up through the hole immediately that we withdrew the hose and its packing.