John Holdsworth, Chief Mate

by William Clark Russell

“Take a pull at this,” said Holdsworth, offering him some rum, and heartily commiserating the man’s sufferings. But St. Aubyn shook his head, and gazed with distended eyes at the water, shivering repeatedly, and sometimes talking to himself.

In order to let the hinder boats come up, the long-boat ahead from time to time stopped her way by putting her helm down, which example Holdsworth regularly followed; and so they sailed throughout the whole afternoon, the breeze remaining steady and the sea smooth.

The boat commanded by Holdsworth was about twenty-seven feet long, with seven feet or thereabouts of beam. There was a locker aft, which had been filled with small bags of bread, as they call biscuits at sea; and forward were one small and two large kegs of water, and a tin pannikin to serve out the allowances with. At the bottom of the boat was a set of gratings, meant to keep the feet clear of any water that might be shipped, with a well convenient to get at, and half a cocoa-nut-shell with a handle let into it, to bale the boat with. The boat was new, stoutly built, and rigged with a lug-sail. A small compass had been put in her, and Holdsworth had lashed it carefully to a thwart. This was the only nautical instrument they had with them, and unless they could guess their whereabouts, it would not, after a time, be of much service.

They had during the afternoon ascertained the quantity of provisions and water they carried, and discovered that there was enough to last for about ten days, providing each person had no more than two biscuits, and a quarter full of the pannikin of water, a day. They had also three bottles of rum. The first allowance was served out by Holdsworth at five o’clock in the afternoon. A biscuit was handed to each person; the little boy and the two seamen ate theirs hungrily: the General and Holdsworth nibbled only a portion of theirs: but Mrs. Tennent and the actor ate nothing. The mother gave half her biscuit to her boy, and put the other half in her pocket for him to eat during the night. The actor refused his allowance altogether, and Holdsworth returned it to the bag he had taken it from.

All the other boats remained in sight; the long-boat ahead, and the other two at unequal distances astern. From time to time they encouraged each other by waving their hats; and just before sunset some of the men in the long-boat struck up a hymn, the chorus of which stole faintly across the breeze, and mingled with the bubbling play of the water round the boat’s bows.

The sun went down, branding the great ocean with an angry glare; but nothing was visible upon either horizon but the deceptive tail-ends of clouds rising or dwindling. The breeze grew stronger as the darkness crept on, and they lowered the sail and took a couple of reefs in it, whilst there was light enough abroad for them to see what they were about. They soon lost sight of the other boats, and Holdsworth finding the wind drawing ahead, put the boat round, judging that the others would do so likewise.

Now, if at no other time, was the sense of the profound helplessness of their position forced upon them. It is easy to write and read of an open boat far out in the Atlantic Ocean, and darkness around; but none save those who have experienced the situation can realise all the horror of it. Waves which would scarcely more than ripple against the sides of a ship, make a dangerous sea for an open boat, and arch their seething heads over her with a threat in every one of them of destruction.

But the overpowering sensation is the near presence of the sea. Your feet are below its surface; your head but an arm’s length above it. And you hear the quick splash of the boat’s bows as she jumps awkwardly into the hollows of the waves, wobbling as she goes forward with jerks and many stoppages, while now and again the sea chucks a handful of spray into your eyes as an earnest of the way it means to deal with you presently, when the wind has made it more angry.

The stars came out and shone placidly among the clouds which were rolling away to the north-west. There was a short quick sea, which made the boat dip uncomfortably, and now and again whisked a sheet of spray over the seamen who sat forward. But there was more south than east in the breeze, which kept the temperature of the night mild. The little boy fell asleep in his mother’s arms; Mr. St. Aubyn reclined against the mast, his arms folded, and his head drooping on his breast, starting at intervals as the spray fell like a shower of rain in the boat, but speedily relapsing again into the sluggish or semi-unconscious state into which he had fallen shortly after the sun had gone down. The General and Holdsworth sometimes conversed. Presently Winyard, turning his coat collar over his ears, slipped under the thwart, where he coiled himself like a cat, and went to sleep.

“I wish I could induce you to lie down, Mrs. Tennent,” said Holdsworth. “My coat will make you a capital pillow. I don’t want it indeed. I have slept on deck in my shirt-sleeves in colder nights than this. I shan’t put the boat about again to-night if this wind holds, and you will lie with your boy alongside of you as snugly as possible on this seat.”