Afloat and Ashore (15 page)

I was extremely pleased with the manly, benevolent countenance of
Captain Dale, and had half a desire to ask leave to join his ship on
the spot. If that impulse had been followed, it is probable my future
life would have been very different from what it subsequently
proved. I should have been rated a midshipman, of course; and, serving
so early, with a good deal of experience already in ships, a year or
two would have made me a lieutenant, and, could I have survived the
pruning of 1801, I should now have been one of the oldest officers in
the service. Providence directed otherwise; and how much was lost, or
how much gained, by my continuance in the Tigris, the reader will
learn as we proceed.

As soon as Captain Digges had taken a glass or two of wine with his
old acquaintance, we returned to our own ship, and the two vessels
made sail; the Ganges standing off to the northward and eastward,
while we ran in for the capes of the Delaware. We got in under Cape
May, or within five miles of it, the same evening, when it fell nearly
calm. A pilot came off from the cape in a row-boat, and he reached us
just at dark. Captain Robbins now became all impatience to land, as it
was of importance to him to be the bearer of his own bad
news. Accordingly, an arrangement having been made with the two men
who belonged to the shore-boat, our old commander, Rupert and myself,
prepared to leave the ship, late as it was. We two lads were taken for
the purpose of manning two additional oars, but were to rejoin the
ship in the bay, if possible; if not, up at town. One of the
inducements of Captain Robbins to be off, was the signs of northerly
weather. It had begun to blow a little in puffs from the north-west;
and everybody knew, if it came on to blow seriously from that quarter,
the ship might be a week in getting up the river, her news being
certain to precede her. We hurried off accordingly, taking nothing
with us but a change of linen, and a few necessary papers.

We got the first real blast from the north-west in less than five
minutes after we had quitted the Tigris's side, and while the ship was
still visible, or, rather, while we could yet see the lights in her
cabin-windows, as she fell off before the wind. Presently the lights
disappeared, owing, no doubt, to the ship's luffing again. The
symptoms now looked so threatening, that the pilot's men proposed
making an effort, before it was too late, to find the ship; but this
was far easier said than done. The vessel might be spinning away
towards Cape Henlopen, at the rate of six or seven knots; and, without
the means of making any signal in the dark, it was impossible to
overtake her. I do believe that Captain Robbins would have acceded to
the request of the men, had he seen any probability of succeeding; as
it was, there remained no alternative but to pull in, and endeavour to
reach the land. We had the light on the cape as our beacon, and the
boat's head was kept directly for it, as the wisest course for us to
pursue.

Changes of wind from south-east to north-west are very common on the
American coast. They are almost always sudden; sometimes so much so,
as to take ships aback; and the force of the breeze usually comes so
early, as to have produced the saying that a "nor'-wester comes
butt-end foremost." Such proved to be the fact in our case. In less
than half an hour after it began to blow, the wind would have brought
the most gallant ship that floated to double-reefed topsails, steering
by, and to reasonably short-canvass, running large. We may have pulled
a mile in this half hour, though it was by means of a quick stroke and
great labour. The Cape May men were vigorous and experienced, and they
did wonders; nor were Rupert and I idle; but, as soon as the sea got
up, it was as much as all four of us could do to keep steerage-way on
the boat. There were ten minutes, during which I really think the boat
was kept head to sea by means of the wash of the waves that drove
past, as we barely held her stationary.

Of course, it was out of the question to continue exertions that were
as useless as they were exhausting. We tried the expedient, however,
of edging to the northward, with the hope of getting more under the
lee of the land, and, consequently, into smoother water; but it did no
good. The nearest we ever got to the light must have considerably
exceeded a league. At length Rupert, totally exhausted, dropped his
oar, and fell panting on the thwart. He was directed to steer, Captain
Robbins taking his place. I can only liken our situation at that
fearful moment to the danger of a man who is clinging to a cliff its
summit and safety almost in reach of his hand, with the consciousness
that his powers are fast failing him, and that he must shortly go
down. It is true, death was not so certain by our abandoning the
effort to reach the land, but the hope of being saved was faint
indeed. Behind us lay the vast and angry Atlantic, without an inch of
visible land between us and the Rock of Lisbon. We were totally
without food of any sort, though, luckily, there was a small breaker
of fresh water in the boat. The Cape May men had brought off their
suppers with them, but they had made the meal; whereas the rest of us
had left the Tigris fasting, intending to make comfortable suppers at
the light.

At length Captain Robbins consulted the boatmen, and asked them what
they thought of our situation. I sat between these men, who had been
remarkably silent the whole time, pulling like giants. Both were
young, though, as I afterwards learned, both were married; each having
a wife, at that anxious moment, waiting on the beach of the cape for
the return of the boat. As Captain Robbins put the question, I turned
my head, and saw that the man behind me, the oldest of the two, was in
tears. I cannot describe the shock I experienced at this sight. Here
was a man accustomed to hardships and dangers, who was making the
stoutest and most manly efforts to save himself and all with him, at
the very moment, so strongly impressed with the danger of our
situation, that his feelings broke forth in a way it is always
startling to witness, when the grief of man is thus exhibited in
tears. The imagination of this husband was doubtless picturing to his
mind the anguish of his wife at that moment, and perhaps the long days
of sorrow that were to succeed. I have no idea he thought of himself,
apart from his wife: for a finer, more manly resolute fellow, never
existed, as he subsequently proved, to the fullest extent.

It seemed to me that the two Cape May men had a sort of desperate
reluctance to give up the hope of reaching the land. We were a strong
boat's crew, and we had a capital, though a light boat; yet all would
not do. About midnight, after pulling desperately for three hours, my
strength was quite gone, and I had to give up the oar. Captain Robbins
confessed himself in a very little better state, and, it being
impossible for the boatmen to do more than keep the boat stationary,
and that only for a little time longer, there remained no expedient
but to keep off before the wind, in the hope of still falling in with
the ship. We knew that the Tigris was on the starboard tack when we
left her, and, as she would certainly endeavour to keep as close in
with the land as possible, there was a remaining chance that she had
wore ship to keep off Henlopen, and might be heading up about
north-north-east, and laying athwart the mouth of the bay. This left
us just a chance—a ray of hope; and it had now become absolutely
necessary to endeavour to profit by it.

The two Cape May men pulled the boat round, and kept her just ahead of
the seas, as far as it was in their power; very light touches of the
oars sufficing for this, where it could be done at all. Occasionally,
however, one of those chasing waves would come after us, at a racer's
speed, invariably breaking at such instants, and frequently
half-filling the boat. This gave us new employment, Rupert and myself
being kept quite half the time bailing. No occupation, notwithstanding
the danger, could prevent me from looking about the cauldron of angry
waters, in quest of the ship. Fifty times did I fancy I saw her, and
as often did the delusive idea end in disappointment. The waste of
dark waters, relieved by the gleaming of the combing seas, alone met
the senses. The wind blew directly down the estuary, and, in crossing
its mouth, we found too much swell to receive it on our beam, and were
soon compelled, most reluctantly though it was, to keep dead away to
prevent swamping. This painful state of expectation may have lasted
half an hour, the boat sometimes seeming ready to fly out of the
water, as it drifted before the gale, when Rupert unexpectedly called
out that he saw the ship!

There she was, sure enough, with her head to the northward and
eastward, struggling along through the raging waters, under her fore
and main-top-sails, close-reefed, and reefed courses, evidently
clinging to the land as close as she could, both to hold her own and
to make good weather. It was barely light enough to ascertain these
facts, though the ship was not a cable's length from us when first
discovered. Unfortunately, she was dead to leeward of us, and was
drawing ahead so fast as to leave the probability she would forereach
upon us, unless we took to all our oars. This was done as soon as
possible, and away we went, at a rapid rate, aiming to shoot directly
beneath the Tigris's lee-quarter, so as to round-to under shelter of
her hull, there to receive a rope.

We pulled like giants. Three several times the water slapped into us,
rendering the boat more and more heavy; but Captain Bobbins told us to
pull on, every moment being precious. As I did not look
round—
could
not well, indeed—I saw no more of the ship until
I got a sudden glimpse of her dark hull, within a hundred feet of us,
surging ahead in the manner in which vessels at sea seem to take
sudden starts that carry them forward at twice their former apparent
speed. Captain Robbins had begun to hail, the instant he thought
himself near enough, or at the distance of a hundred yards; but what
was the human voice amid the music of the winds striking the various
cords, and I may add
chords
, in the mazes of a square-rigged
vessel's hamper, accompanied by the base of the roaring ocean!
Heavens! what a feeling of despair was that, when the novel thought
suggested itself almost simultaneously to our minds, that we should
not make ourselves heard! I say simultaneously, for at the same
instant the whole five of us set up a common, desperate shout to alarm
those who were so near us, and who might easily save us from the most
dreadful of all deaths—starvation at sea. I presume the fearful
manner in which we struggled at the oars diminished the effect of our
voices, while the effort to raise a noise lessened our power with the
oars. We were already to leeward of the ship, though nearly in her
wake, and our only chance now was to over take her. The captain called
out to us to pull for life or death, and pull we did. So frantic were
our efforts, that I really think we should have succeeded, had not a
sea come on board us, and filled us to the thwarts. There remained no
alternative but to keep dead away, and to bail for our lives.

I confess I felt scalding tears gush down my cheeks, as I gazed at the
dark mass of the ship just before it was swallowed up in the gloom.
This soon occurred, and then, I make no doubt, every man in the boat
considered himself as hopelessly lost. We continued to bail,
notwithstanding; and, using hats, gourds, pots and pails, soon cleared
the boat, though it was done with no other seeming object than to
avert immediate death. I heard one of the Cape May men pray. The name
of his wife mingled with his petitions to God. As for poor Captain
Robbins, who had so recently been in another scene of equal danger in
a boat, he remained silent, seemingly submissive to the decrees of
Providence.

In this state we must have drifted a league dead before the wind, the
Cape May men keeping their eyes on the light, which was just sinking
below the horizon, while the rest of us were gazing seaward in ominous
expectation of what awaited us in that direction, when the hail of
"Boat ahoy!" sounded like the last trumpet in our ears. A schooner
was passing our track, keeping a little off, and got so near as to
allow us to be seen, though, owing to a remark about the light which
drew all eyes to windward, not a soul of us saw her. It was too late
to avert the blow, for the hail had hardly reached us, when the
schooner's cut-water came down upon our little craft, and buried it in
the sea as if it had been lead. At such moments men do not think, but
act. I caught at a bob-stay, and missed it. As I went down into the
water, my hand fell upon some object to which I clung, and, the
schooner rising at the next instant, I was grasped by the hair by one
of the vessel's men. I had hold of one of the Cape May men's legs.
Released from my weight, this man was soon in the vessel's head, and
he helped to save me. When we got in-board, and mustered our party it
was found that all had been saved but Captain Robbins. The schooner
wore round, and actually passed over the wreck of the boat a second
time; but our old commander was never heard of more!

"Oh! forget not the hour, when through forest and vale
We returned with our chief to his dear native halls!
Through the woody Sierra there sigh'd not a gale,
And the moonbeam was bright on his battlement walls;
And nature lay sleeping in calmness and light,
Round the house of the
truants
, that rose on our sight."
MRS. HEMANS.

We had fallen on board an eastern coaster, called the Martha
Wallis. bound from James' River to Boston, intending to cross the
shoals. Her watch had seen us, because the coasters generally keep
better look-outs than Indiamen; the latter, accustomed to good
offings, having a trick of letting their people go to sleep in the
night-watches. I made a calculation of the turns on board the Tigris,
and knew it was Mr. Marble's watch when we passed the ship; and I make
no question he was, at that very moment, nodding on the hencoops—a
sort of trick he had. I cannot even now understand, however, why the
man at the wheel did not hear the outcry we made. To me it appeared
loud enough to reach the land.