THREE MONTHS OF THIRST

Evening Star, Issue 21130, 16 June 1932, Page 1

THREE MONTHS OF THIRST

THE LOG OF THE SLOOP SEA HORSE ’ EPIC OF COLONIAL SEAFARING The log of the sloop Sea Horse is an epic of colonial seafaring. Seventy years have passed since the day on which the little craft sailed over the blue tropic waters of Fanning Island, in the Pacific Ocean, south of Hawaii; hut the grim voyage still lives in the musty pages of the captain’s private log, written with the brevity of a hardened master mariner, in a little, cheap, cloth-covered notebook, writes G. H. Johnston, in the Alelbourne 1 Argus.’ The Sea Horse, a small sloop belonging to Air Inglis, of Fanning Island, sailed from her home port on June 9, 1862, under the command of Captain Giles Gariy, with a small cargo of hardware for Washington Island, seventy miles distant, and loss than a day’s sail with a fair wind. The offshore breeze soon died away to a flat calm, and the drift of the current gently took the vessel out of sight of land. Shortly after the ship left the chronometer was allowed to run down, and that fact was the chief couse of ninety days of suffering. The crew consisted of Captain Gariy, Wheeler, an Irishman, and two “boys ’’ of Sandwich Island. William Nichols and Alacow. For days the calm prevailed. There was not a breath of wind to stir the glassy waters; not a cloud was visible iu the brazen tropic sky. Try as they would, it was impossible to make any headway to Washington Island. When a slight breeze arose on June 15 Gariy decided to pull away eastward for Fanning Island, for already provisions were ominously low. Here the failure of the chronometer proved to be fatal. Gariy miscalculated his position, overran his distance, and was lost! On June 28 was written the ffrst entry in the diary to show the beginning of apprehension in the skipper. It was the terse statement, “ Provisions getting low.” The following day there was a little more detail:—“ June 29, 1862.—Caught a shark and salted it, hut our wood getting short', also provisions. Took a meal off porpoise and shark, hut even so we have only one meal a day.” Shark seems to have been the staple diet, , lor the men caught another the following day. It was a large specimen, which nearly burst the plunking of the ship. The new month of July was heralded by the capture of a small shark. The meat was salted to eat, and the liver was saved for oil. On July 5 came the ffrst bitter disappointment of the tragic voyage. Early iu the forenoon the Irishman, Wheeler, noticed a pearly speck;on the horizon. It-sooh took .the. shape of a Urge, square-rigged ship. The crew of the Sea Horse went wild with excitement and delight, especially as the barque rapidly drew closer until the two ships were within hailing distance. Abject despair followed. The barque was French. The captain would give the Sea Horse neither food nor water. He only shouted the longitude as his barque surged past. Gariy anxiously watched her as she sailed, hoping that she would put about and return, but the Frenchman dwindled until nothing was seen but the glint of her topsail above the rim of the sea. THE FIRST FEARS. A month had passed. The entry of July 7 discloses growing disquiet.— “No cooking to-day; our wood ami grub are all gone excepting some hard bread and shark; on an allowance of bread equal to half a biscuit a day.” Days of hard living followed, with nothing but scraps of bread to eat and a few drops of water to drink. Occasionally the men had a morsel of salted shark, and on the 20th they were overjoyed to catch a little skipjack. A vote was taken on the question whether they would cut the skipjack or use it as bait for a shark. The fish made a small meal. “July 28.—A very short allowance of bread and a little shark is all we get- “ July 30.—Hungry times; barely any bread now. “ August 7.—We have only about fourteen pounds of bread left between four of us. “ August 9.—We have only got ten more days of bread, and after that wo have nothing to oat. God have mercy upon ns! “ August 11.—A very short allowance of bread, nothing else to eat, and very little of that. “ August 12.—Still working to windward, but the old boat goes very slow; half a biscuit a day’s allowance, and only a very few days more of that. J should dearly like to see a vessel about tills time. 1 expect sonnj of us will croak by and by.” Two days later the unhappy men ate the last of their bread. There was then not a single mouthful of food left in the boat. The wind had died away altogether, and the sloop hung listlessly in a sea of copper and a sky which seemed to quiver with heat. Long before this the thirst-tortured and hungry men had ceased to watch the horizon, for it was quite unbroken by signs of a sail or the thin streamers of a steamer’s smoke. The horrible monotony is expressed in the simple lino; “Lonesome times these; no eating,, uo smoking, very little water, and very dull.” A week went by without a scrap of food, and the weakening condition of the men is expressed in the log: “ August 16. Nothing to eat this day; pretty hungry T can toil you. “ August 17.—We have had nothing to eat for four days.

“ August 19.—Our boys have given up, and I expect that we shall have to

before long if we don’t see land. Nothing to eat. What would a man give for something to eat? I tell you we are a pretty hungry set of fellows; but "we must trust in Providence. We are still in hopes of seeing a ship or catching a shark. “ August 20.—Still crawling to windwa rd; only two of us to do anything. “ August 21.—Nothing to eat. Hard limes; our boat leaks considerably. Only the two of us to do anything, for the two boys are‘la id up or weak, and can’t work. Hard times, I tell you.” 'DEATH OF THE “ BOYS.” Two days later they had another meal of a couple of Hying fish and some old coffee grounds which Captain Gariy found in an old tin in the bilge. The two native “ boys ” were in a terrible condition. With native fatalism they had abandoned themselves to death, and seemed to take no interest in surviving. They were on their last legs, and the following day comes the record of the death of William Nichols, “ who died with a sort of fever and part hunger.” The captain now decided to work for the Sandwich Islands. On the eightieth day of the voyage comes the longest entry in the diary;— “ August 26.—Now working for the Sandwich Islands. This day a native boy, by the name of Macow, died; something the matter with his inside. He had not had much to eat for so long I expect was tho cause of his death. Last night we caught a shark (hook was baited with a piece of tho other dead boy), small, but good for us. It will last, I suppose, about fifteen days by pinching. Oh, God! When shall we get’ in? If we don’t see land to-morrow.l shall tack ship for America, and see if we can reach the coast, and run tho risk of seeing some vessel on the way?” Accordingly a course was steered to the northward. Tho two white men were now far too weak to work the ship. She was allowed to drift wherever the wind and currents took her. Next day Wheeler collapsed while cutting up the remains of the shark, and the precious meat fell from his nerveless hands into the water and disappeared. The Irishman broke down and swore that ha would attempt to live no longer. Next day Gariy managed to catch a gannet, which made excellent eating when skinned. Wheeler- mentioned that ha “would like to catch ' another to-mor-row,” so apparently ho had abandoned his intention of dying! Some water had been caught, but the ration was - now only a few drops a day. After the gannet had been eaten there was again not a thing left in the way of food. A battered old rubber sea boot was cut in two and was shared out to chew! THE RESCUE. The entries on September 4,5, and 6 are the same, simply “ Nothing at all to eat.” On the seventh the two men were almost at the end of their tether, for it was now their ninetieth day of hunger and thirst. They lay huddled on the deck. As Gariy lifted his weary head a glint-tyte Uvjleeyard caught his eye. The semblance pfi;i ship! Hd groaned wearily. It was jUst another of those dreadful visions which had tortured his bewildered mind for days, he thought. Ho would look the other way, and It would disappear. Hut when he looked back again many minutes later the image was still there, clearer and more detailed than before. He could even sec tho tumble of white at tho ship’s sharing fore-foot. He staggered clruukeuly to his feet, and danced, and shouted, and cried, until he fell unconscious to the deck. Ho recovered that evening in the cabin of Her Majesty ■ ship Topaz.