Presently half-a-dozen of us descended to the stokehold in order to send ashes up to the deck to be spread under the hoofs of the struggling animals. Out of that stifling hole bucketful after bucketful was hoisted until the deck was strewn with débris. But the heat of the stokehold and the unusual labour caused the amateur stokers to sicken, and, exhausted and nauseated, we climbed to the deck again and lay there gasping.
With morning the storm grew worse. At nine o’clock Captain Raicich determined to heave the ship to, but the plan had to be abandoned, owing to stress of weather. The steamer was compelled to head directly into the wind, which eddied in dizzy concentric circles around a larger circumference. My diary contains the following notes jotted down on the afternoon of October 1st, written mainly in shorthand while I lay ill in my bunk:—
“Good heavens! Another such day and night as we have been having and I believe I shall become insane. Buffeted and tossed about like a feather, careening, rolling, and pitching, the Siam seems ready to take her final plunge. Just now a great wave lifted the bow until it seemed the vessel would stand straight upon her stern; the stern went down and threw us up again with a terrific lift. A wave strikes the bow and races the full length of the vessel, tearing everything loose it can rip from its fastenings. It is sickening. I am writing this in the very midst, the centre, of the worst kind of storm one can encounter at sea. The men are shouting and cursing, the animals pawing and uttering plaintive sounds.
“We don’t know where we are. We know we are heading north-east to get away from ragged reefs which lie to the north of Luzon. We are steaming directly in the face of the typhoon and make no progress. The barometer has fallen twelve points since noon. May Heaven have mercy on us!
“7 a.m., October 2nd.—What terrible sights I have witnessed during this awful time! The storm increased every hour of the night, the barometer going down from 82 to 30, disclosing the fact that we were heading directly toward the centre of the typhoon. We have rolled so heavily that the rail goes under at each dip. The men remained at their posts in the stable division, striving to keep the animals from plunging out of their stalls from sheer terror. Suddenly a mule falls. Men hurry to raise it. A return lurch, and down go a score—a mass of maddened, screaming brutes. From every part of the ship whistle-signals are heard calling for help. None can be offered, and there the poor beasts lie piled up on each other, sliding upon their sides and backs from one side of the ship to the other, tearing strips of flesh from their bodies, causing them to groan piteously in their helplessness. The ship is tossed every way, up and down, side to side. Heavy seas break across the decks.
“Crash! There goes the cowboys’ bunk-house on the poop deck. It is flooded, and the men’s belongings are sweeping into the sea. The water is pouring down into our cabins. Destruction everywhere. Another crash—the rending of timbers in the stable sections. I hear the men shouting warnings and hear their feet tramping across the decks. The stalls have given way entirely. Horses are plunging through the hatchways into the lower stable divisions. A thud, a groan, and they are dead. The rest are piled up in sickening, agonizing masses, rolling, snorting, kicking, and endeavouring to get upon their feet. No man dare move from his holding-place. One has to stand almost upon the cabin wall to keep erect.
“There they lie, all our pets, the captain’s thoroughbred, General Wheeler’s own charger. There are twenty horses dead in one heap. A mule has plunged right down into the engine-room, breaking its legs. It lay there for two hours before Captain O’Neil could shoot the suffering beast. The engineers crawled over the carcass as they stood at the throttles to ease the engines down as the propeller races.
“The terrific battle of the elements outside beggars any description from me. Intensify any storm you have experienced on land a couple of thousand times, add all the terrors that darkness can furnish, add the thoughts of terrible death staring you in the face every minute, with the sights and sounds of Dante’s Inferno, and then perhaps you can gain some idea of our misery.
