While this enterprise was under way, a party of fifty Indians, men, women, and children, found the camp and built wigwams, evidently intending to settle for a while and do some trading. Their canoes were filled with seal, shell-fish, and live sheep, and the visitation was immensely valuable to the castaways; but some of the ruffianly sailors insulted the women, and the indignant Patagonians soon packed up and departed, bag and baggage. As a result, the ravages of famine became so severe that the muster-roll was reduced to a hundred men. This meant that a third of the survivors of the wreck were already dead.
Throughout the whole story of suffering, mutiny, and demoralization the deeds of those who bravely and unflinchingly endured seemed to gleam like stars against a somber background. You will find frequent mention of Midshipman Byron, a lad in his teens, who was the real hero of the Wager, although he never realized it. He achieved nothing spectacular in a way, but he always tried to do his duty and something more. The British midshipman of that era was often a mere rosy-cheeked infant who pranced into the thick of a boarding-party with his cutlass and dirk or bullied a boat’s crew of old salts in some desperate adventure on an enemy’s coast. The precocious breed survives in the Royal Navy of to-day, and in the great battleships of the Grand Fleet, at Rosyth or Scapa Flow, you might have seen these bantam midshipmen standing a deck watch with all the dignity of a four-starred admiral.
Midshipman Byron of the Wager built himself a tiny hut in which he lived alone after the captain killed his messmate Cozens, and his companion was a strayed Indian cur, which adored him. The dog faithfully guarded the hut when Byron was absent from it, and they shared together such food as could be found, mostly mussels and limpets. At length a deputation of seamen called to announce that they must eat the dog or starve. Byron made a gallant fight to save his four-legged friend, but was subdued by force, and for once during the long and terrible experience he wept and was in a hopeless state of mind.
Among the minor characters who commend themselves to our approval was a reckless devil of a boatswain’s mate, who noticed that the seabirds roosted and nested on reefs and islets out to seaward. In the words of one of his shipmates:
Having got a water puncheon, he scuttled it, then lashing two logs, one on each side of it, he went to sea in this extraordinary and original piece of embarkation. Thus he would frequently provide himself with wild-fowl when all the rest were starving; and the weather was bad indeed when it deterred him from adventuring. Sometimes he would be absent a whole day. At last he was unfortunately overset by a heavy sea when at a great distance from shore; but being near a rock, though no swimmer, he contrived to scramble to it. There he remained two days with little prospect of relief, as he was too far off the land to be visible. Luckily, however, one of the boats happened to go that way in quest of wild-fowl, discovered his signals, and rescued him from his forlorn condition. Yet he was so little discouraged by this accident that, soon after, he procured an ox’s hide from the Indians and, by the assistance of hoops, fashioned something like a canoe in which he made several successful voyages.
In August the three boats had been made seaworthy enough to undertake an escape from the miseries of this hopeless island. Then, as usual, there arose confusion of purpose and violent disagreement. This ship’s company could be trusted to start a row at the drop of the hat. As long as there was breath in them, they were sure to turn against one another. The majority proposed that they try for a passage homeward by way of the Strait of Magellan. Captain Cheap and his partizans were for steering northward, capturing a Spanish vessel of some sort, and endeavoring to find the British squadron from which the Wager had become separated. He blustered about his authority, insisted that his word was law, and so on, until the high-handed majority grew tired of his noise and decided to take him along as a prisoner and hand him over to justice for killing Midshipman Cozens.
They hauled their commander out of bed and lugged him by the head and the heels to the purser’s tent, where he was guarded by a sentry of marines and very coarsely derided by these unmannerly rebels. The gunner informed Captain Cheap that he was to be carried to England as a prisoner; at which he retorted, with proper spirit, that he would sooner be shot than undergo such humiliation and, given his choice, he preferred to be left behind on the island. This was agreeable to the mob, who gave three cheers and thought no more about him. His two loyal companions, the surgeon and Lieutenant Hamilton, elected of their own free will to remain with the fallen commander, and this devotion was one of the admirable episodes of the tragedy. The mutineers recognized it as such, and they distributed the provisions fairly with these exiles and gave them arms and ammunition.
THE “CHARLEMAGNE,” A NEW YORK PACKET SHIP
From the painting by Frederic Roux of Havre, 1838