Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 1 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

On a sudden I heard a cry. It came faint and weak to my ears through the deck and through the door; but I heard it, and I caught the note of horror in it, and never shall I forget that cry! Whenever I recall it I think of the wailing scream of some strange wild tropic beast, wounded to the death and faltering to the edge of a river, and there sending its death cry into the quiet Indian night.

The sound was re-echoed over my head, followed by a hasty rush of feet. A few moments later there was a terrific blow. The concussion was as though the brig had blown up. I heard the rending and smashing and splintering noises of falling masts and of bulwarks crushed. The brig heeled over and over, and yet over; one might have supposed that some mighty hand had grasped her side and was slowly swaying and pressing her upside down. Fortunately for me the wild and inexpressible slope of the vessel to one side laid me against the wall to which my sleeping-shelf was fixed, and so I could not fall out. Had it been the other way about I must certainly have been flung from my bed, when, in all probability, I should have broken a limb if not my neck.

Whilst the brig was in the act of heeling over, something heavy immediately outside my berth gave way, struck the door, which, opening outwards, was not burst, though the blow it received might well have demolished the whole of the wooden wall in which the door was hung. I tried to get out of the sleeping-shelf, but the slope continued so sharp that I could not stir. There were many noises, but my cabin was situated in the stern of the brig, and the confused sounds reached my ears dully. When the vessel leaned over immediately after she had been struck, the cargo in the hold gave way, raising an instant’s thunder of rattling and clattering, and shaking the whole structure to its heart. I strained my ears for human voices, but caught but a dim far-away shout or two. I could not get out of my sleeping-shelf, and, believing that the brig was sinking, I screamed to the young Frenchman, who I supposed was in the next cabin, but got no answer. I screamed again and yet again, but no reply was returned.

What had happened? Ignorant as I was of the sea, how could I imagine what had happened? Was Captain Regnier wholly wrong in his calculations, and had he run his brig ashore? The sea was leaping angrily over the sloping side in which the little porthole of my cabin was fixed. It broke over the window as though the hull of the brig had been an immovable rock, and every billow roared and hissed as it fell back after its furious leap shattered and boiling. Presently the vessel regained a somewhat upright posture, but her movements were terribly staggering. She rose and fell, and rolled from side to side convulsively. She appeared to be labouring in the heart of an angry sea that was ridging towards her from all points of the compass.

I was almost out of my mind with terror, and the moment the decreased slope of the brig enabled me to stir, I sprang from my shelf, and hastily putting on the few articles of raiment which I had removed, and clothing myself in mate Hénin’s cloak, I made for the door, too terrified to appreciate the blessing of having a light to see by or to guess what my sensations would have been had the berth been in darkness. I grasped the handle of the door, but the door would not open. I pushed it with all my might, but it would not stir an inch. I looked to see if, when I turned the handle, the latch shot back. Yes! the latch shot back, and if it depended upon the handle, the door was to be easily opened. Something pressed against it outside, something that would not yield by the fraction of an inch though I pushed with the strength of frenzy.

I continued to push and to scream until I was seized with faintness; my arms sank to my side and my knees gave way. Oh! am I to be left to drown, locked up in this berth? I cried to myself, and I reeled to the arm-chair and sat down in it incapable of standing.

The noise caused by the lashing of the sea just outside and the sounds of cargo rolling about in the hold overwhelmed all that I might else have heard sounding from above. Whilst I sat panting and half-swooning a man cried out at my door.

‘Oh, help me! help me!’ I shrieked, and new strength coming to me with the sound of his voice, I staggered to my feet.

‘Oh my God!’ cried the voice of Alphonse in French, ‘I cannot move this cask. Help! help!’