THREE MONTHS OF THIRST

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 June 1932, Page 10

THREE MONTHS OF THIRST

THS LOG OF THE SEAHORSE. The log pf the sloop Sea Horse is an epic of colonial seafaring. Seventy years have passed since the day °U which tiie little craft sailed over the blue tropic waters of Fanning Island, in the Pacific Ocean smith of Hawaii; but the grjm voyage still lives in the musty pages of the captain’s private leg, written with the brevity of a hardened master mariner, in a littlq, cheap, clotli’coverqd notebook, writes G.‘ H. Johnston in the Melbourne Argus.' ' The. Spa Horse, a small sloop bfc longing to Mr Inglis, of Fanning Island, sailed from her home port pn June. 9, “1862, under the command of Captain Giles Gariy, with a small cai> go of hardware for Washington Island, 70 miles distant, and less than a d§y’s sail' with a fair wind. , The pffshpre breeze soon died away to a flat calm, and flip drift of the cur: pent gently tqojc the vessel out of sjght of lapd. Shortly after the ship left the chropmpetey allowed to run down, and that fact yras the chief cause of‘9o days'of sphering. The crew consisted of Captain Parly,’ Wheeler, qn Irishman; and two “boys” of Sapdwiph Island, William Nipliols and' Macow. For days the calm prevailed. There was not a breath of wind to stir the glassy waters; not a cloud was visible in 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 ppll away eastward for Fanning Island, for already provisions were ominously low. Here the failure of the chronometer proved to he fatal. Gariy miscalculated his position, overran his distance, and was lost! On June 28 was written the first 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 move detail: —’‘June 29, 1862—Caught a shark and salted it, but our wood getting short, also provisions. Took a meal off porpoise and shark, but even so we have only one meal a day.” Shark seems to have been the staple diet, for the men caught another .the following day.” It was a large specimen, -which nearly burst the planking 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 camo the first bitter disappointment of the tragic voyage. Early in the forenoon .the Irishman, WheelPr, noticed a pparly speck on the horizon. It soon took the shape of a large, square-rig-ged 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 atj his barque surged past. Gariy anxiously watched her as she sailed, lipping that she would put qbcut and return, but the Frenchman dwindled until nothing was seen but the glint of her topsail above the rim pf the sea..

THE FIRST FEARS. A month had passed. The entry of July 7 discloses growing disquiet.— “No cooking to-day; qur wood and grub are all gone excepting some hard bread and shayk; 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 eat the §kipjack 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

got. “July 30.—Hungry times; barely any byead 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 breacj, and after that we have nothing to eat. God Haye merpy upon us! “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 v/ery few days more of that. I should dearly like to see a ’vessel about this time. I expect some of us will croak by-and-by.” Two days later the unhappy men ate the ' last of their bread. There was then not a sipgle 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 thirsttortured and hungry mep had ceased to watch tfie 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 line, “Lonesome times these; no eating, no smoking, very little water, and very dull.” A week went by without a scrap of food, and tha weakening condition of the nieii expressed 'in the log: — “August 16.—Nothing to eat this day; pretty hungry I can tell you. “August 17.—We have nothing to eat for four days. “August 19—Our hoys 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 stiil in hopes of seeing a ship or catching a shark. “August 20— Still crawling to windward; only two of us to do anything. “August 21.—Nothing- to eat. Hard tiipes; our boat leaks considerably. Only the two of iis to do anything', for the’two boys ar-e lai 4 HP dr weak, and cap’t work. Hard tithes, I tell

you.” . Two days later they had another meal of a cppple of flying-fish and spine old coffee grounds which Captain Gariy found in an old tin in t|ie bilge. The two native '“boys” were in a terrible condition. With native fatalism they had abandoned themselves to death, and seemed to tpke no interest in surviving. They were on their last legs, and the following day comes the rgpqrfl of the’death of Wjiiiam Nichols, “who died with a sort of fever and part hunger.” The captain now decided tp work for the Sandwich Islands. On the 80th day of the voyage comes the longest entj-J' in the diary: — “August 26.—Now working for the Sandwich Island. This day a na-

time 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 the cause of his death. Last night, we caught a shark (hook was baited with a piece of the other dead boy), small, but good for us. It will last, I suppose, about 15 days by pinching. Oh, God! when shall we get in? If we don’t see land to-morrow I shall tack ship for America, and see if we can reach the coast, and run the risk of seeing some vessel on the way?

Accordingly a course was steered to the northward. The two white men were now far too weak to work the ship. She was allowed to drift wherever the wind and currents took jier. Next day Wheeler collapsed while cutting up the remains of thp shark, and the precious meat fell from his nerveless hands ipto the water and disappeared. The Irishman broke down and swore that he would attempt to live no longer. Next dqy Gariy managed to catch a gannet, which made excellent eating When skinned.. Wheeler mentioned that he “would catch another to-iporrow,” so apparently he had abandoned his intention of dying! Some water had been caught, but the ration was now only a few drops a dgy. After the gannet had been eaten there was again nqt a thing left in the way of food. A battered old rubber sea boot was cut ip two and was shared out to chew! The entries op September 4,5, and 6 are tfie same, simply, “Nothing at all to eat.”' On the seventh the two men were almost at the end of their tether, for it wks now their 90th day of hunger. As Gariy lifted his weary head a glint of white to leeward caught hjs eye. The -semblance of a ship! He groaned wearily. It was just another of those dreadful visions which had tortured his bewildered mind for days, he thought. He would look the other way and it would disappear. But when he looked back again many minutes later- the image was still there, clearer and mpre detailed than before. He could even see the tumble of white at the ship’s shearing forefoot. He staggered druukenly to his feet, and danced, and shouted, and cried, until he fell unconscious to the deck. He recovered thpt evening in Che cabin of Her Majesty’s.ship Topaz.