The White Squall: A Story of the Sargasso Sea

by John C. Hutcheson

“Well, Tom,” said he, “the best thing we can do now will be to ride round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from. I think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty; and, I daresay, we’ll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there.”

As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince’s back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to Dandy’s tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee.

On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into the launch of the Josephine, which was moored right under the crane. The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily see it.

On dad’s telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.

To me, this delay was not very tedious; for, as the overseer made the negroes “hurry up” with their task, I was much amused with the brisk way in which they trundled the huge hogs-heads along, running them up to the pier-head, slinging them to the chains of the crane, and then lowering them down into the launch. There was much creaking of cog-wheels and cheerful, “Yo-heave-hoing!” from the men in the boat below, as they stowed them away in the bottom of the craft as easily as if they were only so many tiny little kegs, the darkeys joining in the sailors’ chorus with much good-humour.

Bye and bye the job was finished, when, room having been reserved for dad and myself in the stern-sheets, the seaman in charge of the boat told us to jump in.

Then, some of the negro gang coming on board also to help man the long oars, which, like sweeps, were ranged double-banked along the sides of the launch, she was pulled away slowly from the jetty out towards the Josephine in the offing, Jake, who had been left ashore to mind the horses, casting longing looks of regret after us. He, too, would have dearly liked to have gone off to the ship.

It was heavy work, even with the aid of the sweeps, rowing such a distance under the broiling mid-day sun, for there was no breeze to aid the boat’s progress through the water, and the heavy ground-swell that was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers. Every moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea, then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being high in the air. I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured and quite enjoyed the motion.

It seemed ever so much nicer than swinging to me; for the up and down movement was as regular as clockwork, in rhythmical harmony with the undulations of the unbroken billows that swept in, one after another, in measured succession from seaward—pursuing their onward course until they broke on the curving shore of the bay, inside of us, with a dull low roar, like that of some caged wild animal kept under restraint and unable to exert its full strength.

After an hour’s hard pulling, the boat got alongside the ship at last, but the vessel floated so high out of the water that I could not help wondering how we should ever be able to climb on board; for the square portholes, which were the only openings in her massive wall-like sides that I could see, were far above the level of the launch, even when the swelling surge lifted us up every now and then on the top of a heaving roller.