Among the latter were Devereux, Paul, and O’Grady, with Reuben Cole. The next day they, with a party of men, volunteered to visit the wreck, to report on her condition, and to bring back some bread, of which they stood greatly in need. They succeeded in getting on board, and found the ship in even a worse condition than they had expected. She was on her beam ends, with upwards of seven feet of water in her, apparently broken asunder, the quarter-deck separated six feet from the gangway, and only kept together by the ice frozen round her. Their task accomplished, with a few articles of value and a supply of bread, they returned to the shore.
Considering that the risk was very great, the captain decided that no further visits should be paid to the ship.
However, one morning, the weather becoming very fine, it being understood that the captain had not actually prohibited a visit to the ship, Devereux, Paul, and O’Grady, with Cole and another man, set off to pay, as they said, the old barkie a farewell visit. The captain, who was ill in bed, only heard of their departure too late to recall them. The frost was so severe that the ice was well frozen, and thus they must have got on board; but it was supposed that they had remained on board till the tide changing made their return impossible. They were looked-for anxiously during the evening, but no tidings came of them. At night the wind again got up, and their shipmates, as they sat by the fires of their hospitable host, trembled for their safety. As soon as daylight returned the greater number were on foot. Not a vestige of her could be seen. The tide and wind rising together must have carried down the masses of ice with terrific force, and completely swept her decks.
When Captain Order heard of this, his feelings gave way. “To have lost my ship was bad enough,” he exclaimed; “but to lose so many fine young fellows on a useless expedition is more than I can bear. It will be the cause of my death.”
The few officers who remained with the captain could offer no consolation. The pilots and other people belonging to the place were consulted. They declared that from the condition of the ship when last visited, it was impossible that she could withstand the numerous masses of ice which during the past night must have, with terrific violence, been driven against her, that she had probably been cut down by degrees to the water’s edge, and that thus the ice must have swept over her. They said that if even those on board had been able to launch a boat, no boat could have lived amid the floating ice; and that even, had she escaped from the ice, she must have foundered in the chopping sea running at the mouth of the river. Probably, when the weather moderated in the spring, portions of the wreck would be found thrown up on the shore, and that was all that would ever be known of her fate. The captain, after waiting some days, and nothing being heard of the frigate or the lost officers and men, being sufficiently recovered, proceeded with the remainder of the crew to Cuxhaven.
Devereux, Paul and O’Grady were general favourites, and their loss caused great sorrow among their surviving shipmates; but sailors, especially in those busy, stirring days, had little time for mourning for those who had gone where they knew that they themselves might soon be called on to follow. Some honest tears were shed to their memory, and the captain with a heavy heart wrote his despatches, giving an account of the loss of his ship, and of the subsequent misfortune by which the service had been deprived of so many gallant and promising young officers. The ambassador and his suite had for some time before taken their departure, as the French were known to be advancing eastward, and might have, had they delayed, intercepted them. For the same reason Captain Order and his officers and crew anxiously looked forward to the arrival of a ship of war to take them away, as they did not fancy finishing off their adventures by being made prisoners and marched off to Verdun, or some other unpleasant place, where the French at that time shut up their captives. At length a sloop of war arrived, and they reached England in safety. Captain Order and his officers had to undergo a court-martial for the loss of the frigate, when they were not only honourably acquitted, but were complimented on the admirable discipline which had been maintained, and were at once turned over to another frigate, the Dido, lately launched, and fitting with all possible dispatch for sea.
But there were sad hearts and weeping eyes in one humble home, where the loss of two deeply loved ones was mourned; and even in the paternal hall of O’Grady, and in the pretentious mansion of Devereux, sorrow was expressed, and some tears were shed for those who had thus early been cut off in their career of glory. We will not attempt to pry into the grief which existed in Gerrard’s home. It did not show itself by loud cries and lamentations, but it was very evident that from one heart there all joyousness had for ever flown. Still Mary bore up wonderfully. All her attention seemed to be occupied in attending to her mother, who, already delicate, felt Paul’s loss dreadfully. Her young brothers and sisters, too, required her care. As usual, she taught them their lessons, made and mended their clothes, helped to cook their dinners, and attended them at their meals. None of these things did she for a day leave undone, and even Sarah and John, whispering together, agreed that Mary could not have cared so very much for Gilbert, and still less for poor Paul.
Some weeks passed on, when one day, when Mary was out marketing, Mrs Gerrard received a letter curiously marked over—not very clean, and with a high postage. Fortunately she had just enough to pay for it. She read it more than once. “Poor, dear, sweet, good Mary!” she exclaimed; “I almost fear to tell her; the revulsion may be too great. I know how much she has suffered, though others don’t.”
A writer has a great advantage in being able to shift the scene, and to go backwards or forwards in time as he may find necessary. We must go back to that fine, bright, but bitterly cold morning when Lieutenant Devereux and his companions set off to visit the frigate. They were strong and hardy, had thick coats, and, besides, the exercise kept them warm. The way was difficult, often through deep snow, into which they sank up to their middles. They looked in vain for trace of any of their lost shipmates. They were already entombed beneath the glittering snow, not to be again seen till the warm sun of the spring should expose them to the gaze of passers by. They at length reached the ship, and climbed up through a main-deck port. How silent and melancholy seemed the deserted ship, lately crowded with active busy human beings never more again destined to people its decks.
They looked into the cabins and selected a few articles they had before forgotten, taking some articles from the cabins of their messmates which they thought might be valued. On the main-deck the injuries which the ship had received were not so apparent.