Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

A young lieutenant fell into the hands of these maniacs, and again there were volunteers to rush in against overwhelming numbers and effect a rescue, regardless of their grievous wounds. Bleeding and exhausted, M. Coudin had fallen upon a barrel, but he still held in his arms a twelve-year-old sailor-boy whom he was trying to shield from harm. The rebels tossed them both into the sea, but M. Coudin clung to the lad and insisted that he be placed upon the raft before he permitted himself to be helped.

During these periods of hideous combat among men who should have been brethren and comrades in tribulation, as many as sixty of them were drowned or died of their wounds. Only two of these belonged to the little party of finely tempered souls who had shown themselves to be greatly heroic. They had withstood one onslaught after another, and there were never more than twenty of them, in honor preferring one another, untouched by the murderous delirium which had afflicted the others.

True, they saw phantasms and talked wildly, but the illusions were peaceful. M. Correard imagined that he was traveling through the lovely, fruitful fields of Italy. One of the officers said to him, quite calmly, “I recollect that we were abandoned by the boats, but there is no cause for anxiety. I am writing a letter to the Government, and in a few hours we shall be saved.” And while they were babbling of the cafés of Paris and Bordeaux and ordering the most elaborate meals, they chewed the leather of the shoulder-belts and cartridges, and famine took its daily toll of them. In these circumstances it was inevitable that sooner or later they would begin devouring one another for food. The details are repugnant, and it is just as well to pass over them. With this same feeling in mind, one of the survivors confessed:

It was necessary, however, that some extreme measure should be adopted to support our miserable existence. We shudder with horror on finding ourselves under the necessity of recording that which we put into practice. We feel the pen drop from our hands, a deadly coldness freezes all our limbs, and our hair stands on end. Readers, we entreat you not to entertain, for men already too unhappy, a sentiment of indignation; but to grieve for them, and to shed a tear of pity over their sad lot.

On the fourth day a dozen more had died, and the survivors were “extremely feeble, and bore upon their faces the stamp of approaching dissolution.” Shipwrecked crews have lived much longer than this without food, but the situation of these sufferers was peculiarly dreadful. And yet one of them could say:

This day was serene and the ocean slumbered. Our hearts were in harmony with the comforting aspect of the heavens and received anew a ray of hope. A shoal of flying fish passed under our raft and as there was an infinite number of openings between the pieces which composed it, the fish were entangled in great numbers. We threw ourselves upon them and took about two hundred and put them in an empty barrel. This food seemed delicious, but one man would have required a score. Our first emotion was to give thanks to God for this unhoped for favor.

An ounce of gunpowder was discovered, and the sunshine dried it, so that with a steel and gun-flints a fire was kindled in a wetted cask and some of the little fish were cooked. This was the only food vouchsafed them, a mere shadow of substance among so many, “but the night was made tolerable and might have been happy if it had not been signalized by a new massacre.”

A mob of Spaniards, Italians, and negroes had hatched a plot to throw all the others into the sea and so obtain the raft and what wine was left. The black men argued that the coast was near and that they could traverse it without danger from the natives and so act as guides. The leader of this outbreak was a Spaniard, who placed himself behind the mast, made the sign of the cross with one hand, waved a knife in the other, and invoked the name of God as the signal to rush forward and begin the affray. Two faithful French sailors, who were forewarned of this eruption, lost not a moment in grappling with this devout desperado, and he was thrown into the sea along with an Asiatic of gigantic stature who was suspected of being another ringleader. A third instigator of the mob, perceiving that the plot was discovered, armed himself with a boarding-ax, hacked his way free, and plunged into the ocean.

The rest of the mutineers were hardier lunatics, and they fought wildly in the attempt to kill one of the officers, under the delusion that he was a Lieutenant Danglass, whom they had hated for his harsh manners while aboard the Medusa. At length they were repulsed, but when the morning came only thirty persons remained alive of the one hundred and fifty who had left the frigate. Occasional glimpses of reason prevailed, as when two soldiers were caught in the act of stealing wine from the only cask left, and were put to death after a summary courtmartial conducted with singular regard for form and ceremony.

Among those who mercifully passed out at the end of a week was the twelve-year-old sailor-boy, whose name was Leon. M. Savigny describes it so tenderly that the passage is worth quoting: