The Roll-Call of The Reef | Page 3

leastest list to
starboard; but a man could stand there easy. They had rigged up ropes
across her, from bulwark to bulwark, an' besides these the men were
mustered, holding on like grim death whenever the sea made a clean
breach over them, an' standing up like heroes as soon as it passed. The
captain an' the officers were clinging to the rail of the quarterdeck, all
in their golden uniforms, waiting for the end as if 'twas King George
they expected. There was no way to help, for she lay right beyond cast
of line, though our folk tried it fifty times. And beside them clung a
trumpeter, a whacking big man, an' between the heavy seas he would
lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he blew
the men gave a cheer. There [she says]--hark 'ee now--there he goes
agen! But you won't hear no cheering any more, for few are left to
cheer, and their voices weak. Bitter cold the wind is, and I reckon it
numbs their grip o' the ropes, for they were dropping off fast with every
sea when my man sent me home to get his breakfast. Another wreck,

you say? Well, there's no hope for the tender dears, if 'tis the Manacles.
You'd better run down and help yonder; though 'tis little help any man
can give. Not one came in alive while I was there. The tide's flowing,
an' she won't hold together another hour, they say.'
"Well, sure enough, the end was coming fast when my father got down
to the point. Six men had been cast up alive, or just breathing--a
seaman and five troopers. The seaman was the only one that had breath
to speak; and while they were carrying him into the town, the word
went round that the ship's name was the 'Despatch,' transport,
homeward-bound from Corunna, with a detachment of the Seventh
Hussars, that had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas
had rolled her further over by this time, and given her decks a pretty
sharp slope; but a dozen men still held on, seven by the ropes near the
ship's waist, a couple near the break of the poop, and three on the
quarterdeck. Of these three my father made out one to be the skipper;
close by him clung an officer in full regimentals--his name, they heard
after, was Captain Dun-canfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if
you'll believe me, the fellow was making shift there, at the very last, to
blow 'God Save the King.' What's more, he got to 'Send us victorious,'
before an extra big sea came bursting across and washed them off the
deck--every man but one of the pair beneath the poop--and he dropped
his hold before the next wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went
out of sight at once, but the trumpeter--being, as I said, a powerful man
as well as a tough swimmer--rose like a duck, rode out a couple of
breakers, and came in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see
him broke like an egg at their very feet; but when the smother cleared,
there he was, lying face downward on a ledge below them; and one of
the men that happened to have a rope round him--I forgot the fellow's
name, if I ever heard it--jumped down and grabbed him by the ankle as
he began to slip back. Before the next big sea, the pair were hauled
high enough to be out of harm, and another heave brought them up to
grass. Quick work, but master trumpeter wasn't quite dead; nothing
worse than a cracked head and three staved ribs. In twenty minutes or
so they had him in bed, with the doctor to tend him.
"Now was the time--nothing being left alive upon the transport--for my

father to tell of the sloop he'd seen driving upon the Manacles. And
when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage, and
believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen they
couldn't see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and have a
look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the Manacles
nor anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my father a liar.
'Wait till we come to Dean Point,' said he. Sure enough, on the far side
of Dean Pont they found the sloop's mainmast washing about with half
a dozen men lashed to it, men in red jackets, every mother's son
drowned and staring; and a little further on, just under the Dean, three
or four bodies cast up on the shore, one of them a