On Board the Esmeralda / Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story

by John C. Hutcheson

Captain Billings then called over the list of the crew from the muster roll, which he held in his hand along with the rest of the “ship’s papers”—such as the Esmeralda’s certificate of registry, the manifest of the cargo, and her clearance from the custom-house officers at Cardiff; when, all having answered to their names, with the exception of the two invalids, Mr Ohlsen, and Harmer, the seaman, both of whom were already in the long-boat, the skipper gave the word to pass down the gangway, apportioning seven hands in all to the jolly-boat, under charge of Mr Macdougall, and the remainder of our complement to the long-boat, under his own care.

Including the invalids, we were seven-and-twenty souls in all—now compelled to abandon our good ship, and trust to those two frail boats to take us to the distant coast of Tierra del Fuego, of which we were not yet even in sight; and it was with sad hearts that we went down the side of this poor Esmeralda for the last time, quitting what had been our floating home for the two months that had elapsed since we left England, for the perils we had encountered in her had only endeared her the more to us!

Captain Billings was the last to abandon the ship; lingering not merely until we had descended to the boats, seven in one and nineteen as yet only in the other without him, but waiting while we settled ourselves along the thwarts; when, turning round, he put his feet on the cleats of the side ladder and came down slowly, looking up still at the old vessel, as if loth to leave her in such an extremity.

The jolly-boat had been already veered astern on receiving her allotted number, the long-boat only waiting alongside for the skipper, with a man in the bows and another amidships, fending her off from the ship’s side with a couple of boat-hooks, so that the little barque should not dash against the hull of the bigger one, now she was so loaded up—a collision would have insured destruction to all in her, the huge billows of the Southern Ocean rolling in at intervals, and raising her so high aloft as to overtop the ship sometimes, and again carrying her down right under the Esmeralda’s counter, thus making her run the risk of being stove in every instant.

It was too perilous a proximity; so, as soon as Captain Billings had got down into the stern-sheets, he gave the order to shove off.

“Easy her away gently, men,” he said, as he took up the tiller lines, watching with a critical eye the movements of the men amidships and in the bow, as they poled the boat along the side of the ship until it passed clear of her by the stern. “Be ready there with your oars, sharp!”

In another moment the boat was tossing about in the open sea, the height and force of the waves becoming all the more apparent now that we had lost the protection of the Esmeralda’s lee. The flames just then, as if angry at our having escaped them, darted up the mizzen rigging, and presently enveloped the poop in their blaze, so that the whole ship was now one mass of fire fore and aft, blazing like a tar-barrel.

The skipper would have liked to have lain by and seen the last of the vessel, but there was too much sea on, and the wind seemed getting up again; so, knowing how treacherous the weather was in the vicinity of the Cape of Storms, he determined, for the safety of those under his charge, to make for the land as speedily as possible—an open boat not being the best craft in the world to be in, out on the ocean, when a gale is about!

As Captain Billings could see, the wind was blowing on shore, in the very direction for us to go; and, as the rollers were racing towards the same goal, the only way for us to avoid being swamped by them was to travel at a greater rate forwards than they did, or else we would broach-to in the troughs of the waves, when a boat is apt to get for the moment becalmed, from the intervening wall of water on either side stopping the current of air, and taking the breeze out of her sails.

The long-boat was fitted with a couple of masts, carrying a large mainsail and a mizzen, both of which the skipper now ordered to be set, the former close-reefed to half its size. A bit of a staysail was also hoisted forwards in place of the jib, which was too large for the wind that was on; and then, it was wonderful to see the way the long-boat began to go through the water when the sail was put on her! She fairly raced along, dragging astern the jolly-boat, which we had taken in tow, the little craft leaving a curly wave in front of her cutwater, higher than her bows, and looking as if it were on the point of pouring over on top of those in her.