Harper's Round Table, June 9, 1896

by Various

Instantly there was a tumult on the cutter, but it was not the crew of the Corwin that made it. The court officials from Sitka and their wives had come on deck to see the fishing-sloop examined, and the instant they saw Jensen fall and heard the splash of the water as he struck, they set up a shout of "Man overboard!" Then they began to throw things over to the sailor-man, who was rapidly drifting astern. The first signal to the fishing-sloop had been accompanied by an order to the engine-room to stop and back, but the Corwin was still under good headway when Jensen fell. As the dingy struck the water it turned bottom up, and all the oars and cushions and movable gratings in the bottom fell out and floated astern with the sailor-man. Added to these things were a lot of deck-gratings and things slung over by the excited Sitkans. Half a dozen life-buoys that were thrown over at the first alarm promptly went to the bottom. They had been cleaned and painted so many times that not even the heavy salt water would float them.

At the cry of "Man overboard!" Captain Hooper's orders were short and sharp. In response to them a boat's crew leaped at the big whaleboat. Almost in the twinkling of an eye it was in the water, and eight sturdy fellows were responding with all their might to the bo's'n's exhortations to "give way." But at the same time another crew had cleared away the Captain's gig, and the young Lieutenant who was to have boarded the suspected sloop from the dingy was placidly going about his errand in the gig.

It takes a long time to tell it, almost as long, perhaps, as it seemed to Jensen, but all this really occupied a very few minutes. The people from Sitka, hanging over the taffrail and wondering if the cutter would never begin to go astern, saw Jensen go down, and held their breath with the instant's fear that he had given up. But presently he bobbed up again, and then one, with a glass, made out that he had taken off his heavy oil-skin coat. He had his big sou'wester in his teeth, and was treading water. As he stood up out of the water he lifted one side of the heavy coat. He caught the air under it, when he dropped the edge of it again, and the man with the glass could see the coat float by itself. Then Jensen disappeared under the water again. He was down what seemed an interminable time, and they thought that surely this time he was gone for good. But he came up again, and this time he had his long rubber boots in his left hand. He caught his sou'wester in his teeth again, and, swimming with his right hand and holding his boots in his left, and pushing his coat with his brawny chest, he struck out comfortably for the whaleboat that was rapidly bearing down on him.

Before it reached him, however, there floated by one of the gratings that had been flung over after him. They were half a mile or more astern of the revenue-cutter, and the thick day prevented the nervous watchers on the Corwin from seeing what happened. But the bo's'n in the whaleboat saw Jensen grasp one end of the grating with his right hand and try to crawl up on it. Its buoyancy wasn't enough to stand the weight of the burly Swede and his heavy boots. His end sank, and the other end rose out of the water further and further as Jensen scrambled up. At last, with a smash, it turned end for end, and cracked the plucky sailor-man a resounding whack on the head. He went down as if he had been lead, and even the bo's'n in the whaleboat thought it was all up with him. But Jensen apparently was not born to drown. He was up again almost as soon as the grating was, and as the whaleboat dashed alongside he flung his big boots in and crawled over its side, helped by half its crew.

Then the whaleboat started back for the Corwin, and as it went along it stopped at intervals, and picked up the oars and cushions and seats and gratings and things that had been spilled out of the dingy, or flung over for Jensen. The water was desperately cold. A glacial current sets down the coast through Chatham Straits, and it was this ice-water that Jensen had been in for what seemed half an hour, but was really not half so long. His teeth chattered when he got into the whaleboat, and he needed something to warm him up. When the whaleboat returned to the cutter the court officials and their wives crowded along the rail, expecting to see a half-drowned man lying in the bottom of the boat. They saw only the boat's crew, and one extra man, not Jensen, standing up in the stern sheets, beside the bo's'n.

"Why, where's Jensen?" some one asked Captain Hooper.

"There he is," said the Captain, "pulling the bow-oar."

That was Jensen's way of warming up. He scrambled up on deck in his wet clothes and in his stocking feet, with his coat and rubber boots under his arm, saluted the Captain, and stood at attention. There was an ugly cut on his face where the grating had hit him.

"How did you fall?" asked the Captain.

"The bolt broke, sir," said Jensen, "and she went down."