The Lakewood boys in the South Sea islands

by L. P. Wyman

"I reckon we are more than a bit curious," Bob confessed.

"And I don't blame you. In fact, I wouldn't give a hill of beans for a boy who wasn't curious. Well, it's a pretty long story but, seeing that we've got this compartment all to ourselves, I reckon now'll be as good a time as any to spin the yarn, as a sailor would say. This story begins back before you boys were born. I wasn't as old then as I am now and, believe me, I don't consider myself an old man now. Probably your father has told you that I've always been something of a rover and, as a matter of fact, I have. There aren't many countries that I've not been in one time or another. I always did have a longing to travel, and when I was about your age I quit school and started out to see the world. My first trip, but, there, I'll have to spin that one some other time and stick to the one I started out on.

"It was the twenty-fifth day of February of the year 1899 that I started from New York on a five-masted schooner bound for Australia. You may think it strange that I can tell you the exact day, but it was my birthday and it was the winter after the big storm when the Portland went down off Cape Cod and everyone on board was lost. I was a pretty husky lad in those days and had the reputation of being about as capable a sailor as the next one. We had about the usual crew, a mixture of Swedes, Half-Breeds and Yankees with an Irishman or two and a Scotsman thrown in for good measure. They were a pretty rough crowd, but no more so, I reckon, than the ordinary run of sailors. The old man, as we called the Captain, was a typical Down East Yankee from somewhere on Cape Cod. I remember he was a short stout man with an arm as big around as an ordinary man's leg, and hands almost as big as hams. He was a God-fearing man, and I never heard him cuss but once, and that was the time a big Swede stepped on his pet corn, and then he let loose for about ten minutes; but he didn't use the Lord's name once but the devil sure did come in for his share of mention.

"Well, we had bad weather from the start, running into one storm after another, and one night, off Hatteras, I thought she was going down. But Cap'n Ezra sure knew how to manage a ship, and we pulled through. After that we had better weather and everything went along just lovely and we made excellent time down to the Horn. Then we ran into another storm and it was five days before we got around and into the Pacific.

"The Second Mate was a big Irishman by the name of Mike Mulligan and he seemed to take a fancy to me from the first and by the time we had rounded the Horn we were more than ordinary good friends. Mike was a real man, let me tell you. Six feet three he stood in his stockings and weighed 260 pounds and there wasn't a pound of fat on him. Strong? Why, man alive, I've seen him take a barrel of salt horse and put it on his shoulder as easily as I could a barrel of flour, and I used to be called more than middling strong.

"Well, once fairly around the Horn the wind, which for five days had been dead against us, changed and we bore away for Australia on a straight course. As if to make it up to us for blowing so long and so hard against us the wind held fair day after day and the blue waves slipped beneath our bow at a rate which bore us rapidly toward the big island. Already we had sighted several of the small islands on the outskirts of the South Sea group when, early one morning, the barometer began to fall rapidly. How well I remember that morning. Not a cloud showed in the sky and the wind, which had held fair and strong for so long, had fallen to a light breeze which barely filled the sails. It didn't seem possible that a storm was brewing, but we knew that the barometer was more to be trusted than any outward signs. At eight o'clock the glass had registered thirty inches and two hours later it had fallen to 29.75. I knew the old man was worried when he gave orders to take in sail. In another half hour, a dirty bank of clouds was rising in the west, and by eleven o'clock the entire sky was overcast. The light breeze had entirely faded away, but the barometer had fallen to 29.60, and we knew it was only a question of minutes when the storm would strike, and the glass indicated that it would be a bad one.

"When the first whisper of the coming gale stole over the sea, the old man took the wheel and ordered one of the men to put the gilguy around him, so that there would be no danger of being swept overboard. Then it came with a suddenness I had never seen before or since. One moment we were lying lazily floating on a perfectly calm sea, and the next we were scuttling under bare poles over and through waves which looked like mountains. Now we were mounting up the side of an immense wall of water until it seemed almost as though the ship would stand on her tail, and then she would lift by the stern and dive, a mountain of sea coming over her bow, until it seemed that we were all bound for Davy Jones's Locker. My, how that wind howled and shrieked. One by one the breaking waves carried away our life boats, until not one was left. There was absolutely nothing we could do save cling on to something and pray that we would outride it. It was dark as night, and it was hardly possible to see the length of the ship. Then came the rain. Not in sheets, as we say, but in a deluge. We hoped that the falling water would lessen the size of the waves but if it did, it was not noticeable, and for hour after hour we drove on expecting that every plunge would be our last.

"Then suddenly the end came. I remember the ship seemed to stand almost on her beam's end, as she rose to the top of a giant wave and she seemed to have hardly begun her dive when she struck with a shock which must have broken her clean in two. I had been clinging to the mast, well up in the bow, and, in some way, the shock threw me clean over the rail and I went down until it seemed that my lungs would burst. All the time I was, of course, struggling to reach the surface and finally my head popped out above the water, but I was almost instantly nearly smothered in a whirlpool of salt spray as I was dashed forward at express train speed. But I had managed to fill my lungs with air, and held my breath as the undertow dragged me back and down a moment later. I never knew how many times this was repeated, but at last I felt bottom beneath my feet, although I was unable to get a foot hold against that fearful back-wash. But the next time I was carried farther up, and managed, in some way, to hold against the drag, and to crawl up beyond the reach of the breakers. For a long time I must have lain there, too tired and sore even to move. But finally a beam of sunlight brought me back to the world and, opening my eyes, I saw that the storm had cleared and that the sun, almost directly over head, was peeping out through the clouds.

"Not a sign of the ship was to be seen, and my heart sank as I realized that, in all probability, I was the only one left alive of the crew. But, a moment later, glancing along the beach, I saw an object lying on the sand just at the water's edge, which brought me to my feet. I was so weak that I could hardly stand, but I managed to walk and creep until I was bending over the form of a man. He was lying face down, and when I had turned him over I saw that it was my friend, Mike Mulligan. At first I thought he was dead from a nasty cut over the right ear, but my ear over his heart caught a faint beat and I knew that he still lived. But it was over an hour before he opened his eyes, and not until several more had passed was he able to stand. But once on the mend, his wonderful constitution made his recovery rapid, and by sundown he was much himself again.

"But we were both weak, and more than half sick from the salt water we had taken in, and, dragging ourselves up well beyond the reach of the tide, we slept on the sand through the night.