John Holdsworth, Chief Mate

by William Clark Russell

“Crowd to windward, all hands!” he roared. There was no time to say more; the great broad, livid cloud was upon them even whilst Holdsworth sang out the command; the men held their breath—unless the masts went the vessel was doomed.

Crash! A noise of wood shivered into splinters, of flogging ropes and sails thundering their tatters upon the wind; the fore and main masts went as you would break a clay-pipe stem across your knee—the first, just below the top, the other clean off at the deck; and the huge mass of spars, ropes, and sails lay quivering and rolling alongside—a portion on deck, but the greater bulk of them in the water—grinding into the vessel’s side as if she had grounded upon a shoal of rocks.

The ship righted, and then another crash; away went the mizzen-topmast, leaving the spanker and cross-jack set. The wind caught these sails and swept the ship’s head round right in the eye of the storm, and off she drove to leeward, disabled, helpless—dragging her shattered spars with her, like something living its torn and mangled limbs.

There was no situation in the whole range of the misfortunes which may befall a ship at sea more critical than the one the “Meteor” was now in. The sea was rising quickly and leaping high over the ship’s bows, pouring tons of water in upon the decks (the weight of the wreck alongside preventing the vessel from rising to the waves), and carrying whatever had become unlashed—casks, spare spars, and the like—aft to the cuddy front, against which they were launched with a violence that broke the windows, and soon promised to demolish the woodwork.

But the worst part of the business was—the action of the sea set the spars in the water and the hull of the ship rolling against each other, and the thump, thump, thump of the bristly wreck against the vessel’s side sent a hollow undertone through the hooting of the tempest that was awful to hear.

Though the mizzen-mast still stood, the weight of the other masts in falling had severely wrenched it, and it literally rocked in its bed to the swaying of the great spanker-boom. Add to all this the midnight darkness in the air, which the flashes of lightning only served to deepen by the momentary and ghastly illumination they cast.

Yet, if the ship was not to be dragged to destruction, it was imperative that she should be freed, and freed at once, from the ponderous incumbrance of the wreck that ground against her side. The captain had shouted himself hoarse, and was no longer to be heard. But now Holdsworth made himself audible in tones that rose above the gale like trumpet-blasts.

“We must clear the wreck or founder! All hands out with their knives and cut away everything!”