Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Some of the passengers were frightened, and others professed an eagerness to engage in a “set-to.” Dr. Law, the half-pay naval surgeon, strode the deck with a drawn sword. He was filled with valor and Scotch whisky, and offered to wager any man a hundred guineas that he would be the first to board the enemy. Mrs. Commodore Lock waddled about uttering loud lamentations, and vowed that a friend of hers had been eaten alive by pirates. Nightfall closed down, however, before the brig could overtake the Blenden Hall, which surged before the wind with studding-sails spread.

Captain Greig was in some doubt as to his reckoning, because of thick weather, when the ship had entered the lonely expanse of the South Atlantic, and he therefore steered for a sight of Tristan da Cunha in order to make certain of his position. He proceeded cautiously, but soon after breakfast, on July 23, 1820, breakers were descried close at hand. The wind died, and the ship was drifting. Anchors were let go, but the water was too deep to find holding-ground, and a dense fog obscured the sea. The ship struck in breakers so violent that the decks were swept, the boats smashed, and the houses filled with water. The masts were promptly cut away, but the Blenden Hall was rapidly pounding to death with a broken back. All hands rushed forward and crowded upon the forecastle just before the rest of the ship was wrenched asunder and floated away.

Two seamen had been killed by falling spars, but all the rest of the ship’s company, eighty souls of them, were alive and praying for rescue. After several hours of misery, a few sailors managed to knock a raft together and so reached the shore, which had disclosed itself as frightfully forbidding and desolate. The ship had been wrecked among the reefs of Inaccessible Island, one of the Tristan da Cunha group. By a sort of miracle the bow of the ship finally detached itself from among the rocks and washed toward the tiny strip of beach. Clinging to the stout timbers of the forecastle, all the survivors were safely delivered from the terrors of the sea.

Through the first night they could only shiver in the rain and wonder what fate had befallen them. At dawn they began to explore the island, which appeared to be no more than a gigantic rock, black and savage, which towered into the clouds. Fresh water was found, but hunger menaced them. The first bit of flotsam from the wreck was a case of “Hibbert’s Celebrated Bottled Porter,” which was a beverage with a kick to it, and for the moment life looked not quite so dismal. On the beach were huge sea-lions, creatures twenty feet in length, but there was no way to slay and use them for food. Many sea-birds were killed with clubs and eaten raw, which postponed famine for the time.

And now there floated ashore bales of red broadcloth, which was promptly cut up for clothing. It was grotesque to see the sailors and passengers parading in gorgeous tunics and robes of crimson, with white turbans fashioned from bolts of muslin. With bamboo-poles, also washed from the ship, Captain Greig set his men to making tents for the women. There was very little material, however, and most of the people sat around in a sort of wretched stupor, drenched, benumbed, hopeless. Several barrels of strong liquors came rolling in with the surf, and the sailors, of course, drank all they could hold. One of them, an old barnacle named John Dulliver, showed a streak of marked sagacity. After tapping a barrel of Holland gin and guzzling to the limit of his stowage space, he stove in one end, emptied the barrel, and crawled snugly into it to slumber. This seemed such a brilliant notion that as fast as the ship’s water-barrels drifted ashore they were tenanted by castaways who resembled so many hermit-crabs.

For six days the party forlornly existed in continuous rain, with no means of kindling a fire, and eating raw pork that was cast up by the sea and such birds as they could obtain. Then a case of surgical instruments was found on the beach, and it contained a providential flint and steel. Fire was made, and spears were contrived of poles, with knives lashed to them, so that the monstrous sea-lions could be killed and used for food. There were millions of penguins, and their eggs could be had for the gathering. It was hard, revolting fare, but other castaways had lived for months and even years on food no worse, and the horrors of famine were averted.

Captain Greig was taken ill, and his authority therefore amounted to little. His officers were not the men for such a crisis as this, and they do not appear to have been able to master it. The sailors were insolent and lazy, no doubt of it, and young Mr. Greig devotes many pages of his diary to abuse of them. It is quite evident, however, that the officers and passengers felt themselves to be superior beings and expected the sailors to wait on them as menials. In such a situation as this one man was as good as another, and the doctrines of caste and rank properly belonged in the discard. It was rather pitiful and absurd, as one catches glimpses of it in the ingenuous narrative of the very young Mr. Greig.

For a few days after the wreck it was hail fellow, well met, but Jack, once put upon an equality, began to take unwarrantable liberties, and as familiarity is generally the forerunner of contempt, so it proved in this case. Quarrels soon began and the passengers now took the opposite course of attempting to issue orders to the sailors and treating them as servants. This exasperated the crew and they swore that no earthly power should ever induce them to render the least assistance to the passengers. Large sums of money were offered the sailors to forage for provisions, but I am firmly persuaded that the man who accepted such an offer would have been murdered by his comrades. Mrs. Lock, for instance, incensed a seaman by telling him,—“You common sailor, why you no wait on lady? You ought to wait on officer’s lady! You refuse me, captain will flog you plenty.”

Inaccessible Island was properly named, and one week after another passed without the sight of a sail or any tangible hope of rescue. Flimsy shelters were contrived, and nobody died of cold or hunger, but they were a gaunt, unkempt company, with much illness among them. Arrayed in their makeshift garments of crimson broadcloth, the camp was more like a travesty than a tragedy. No hardship could dull the militant spirits of Mrs. Commodore Lock and that young and handsome virago, Mrs. Lieutenant Painter. During one of their clashes, which was about to come to blows, the little lieutenant was trying to drag his strapping spouse into their tent while several passengers laid hold of the ponderous Mrs. Lock. Poor Captain Greig was heard to murmur:

“Thank God we have almost no respectable ladies with us to witness such scenes as these!”