Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil | Page 4

the Windward Capes of Tahita. Twenty miles N.W. of Mona Passage, the rudder is disabled. We can put it but two spokes to port, and but half of its proper angle to starboard. With this much, however, she is kept fairly in the wake of the tow-boat; both ships steering excellently well.
December 15th, early in the forenoon, the Destroyer has entered and is passing through Mona Passage. In the afternoon, she hauled to under the lee of the S.W. point of Porto Rico, to receive more coal and water from our supply ship, the Santuit. Thence proceeding instantly to sea, she headed direct for Martinique. Now, if the trade winds were strong outside, they are fierce in the Caribbean Sea. The waves are sharp and fierce in here, where times out of mind, we have all seen it so smooth.
Wet to the bone before, our hope is dampened now! body and soul is soaked in the sea! But there's no help for it, we all know--for nearly all on board are sailors--and if the Destroyer won't go over the seas, go under them she may. All hands will pump her out and hold on, for go to Brazil she shall; nearly all have decided on that, so far as human skill can decide. To encourage this sentiment, and see that the tow-line is always well fast and secure is largely the duty of the "navigating officer" of the good ship Destroyer.
A pump brake more often than the sextant is in his hand, and instead of taking lunar and stellar observations in the higher art of nautical astronomy, he has to acknowledge that the more important part in this case, is of searching out leaks and repairing the defects. To work a lunar distance is one thing, but to free a leaky ship and keep her so in a gale of wind, is quite another thing--it is well at times to have a knowledge of all these fine sciences and arts.
This night, the sea is rough and dangerous. The storm is wild and bad. The port sponson, as well as the starboard one is now waterlogged. He was a clever man who designed those sponsons and saw them constructed in such a manner that both of them didn't fill up together.
The crew have all they can do to keep the ship afloat to-night. The water puts our fires out. All we can do, we can't keep the water down; all hands bailing for life.
The main hull of the Destroyer is already a foot under water, and going on down. The crew have not seen the thing as I have looked upon it to-night, all they have seen is hard work and salt water. Not like driven cattle, do they work either, but as stout, loyal men. The owner of the Destroyer, seeing that she would not insure, will reward these men handsomely (?) for their excessive exertions in keeping her afloat at all. She could not be insured for the voyage; nor would any company insure a life on board.
Well, I left her going down, a foot under water. Believe me, the Destroyer, to-night, was just about ready to make her last dive under the sea, to go down deeper than ever before. The tank that we lived in on deck, was all that buoyed her up; the base of this, too, was well submerged when "Big Alec" of Salem said, "Captain, steam in the man is going down, too; we can't keep up much longer." But the storm was breaking away, and the first streaks of dawn appeared to cheer every soul aboard. With a wild yell the men flew to their work, with redoubled energy and wrought like demons.
This saved the Destroyer, and probably our own lives, too, for it is doubtful if a small boat could have lived in the storm, for it was still raging high.
The Santuit has seen our signals of distress, and is standing by as near as it is prudent to come in the gale. Twice in the night, I was washed from the wheel, and I usually hold a pretty good grip. Dizziness, from a constant pelting sea made me reel sometimes for a moment. To clear my senses and make sure that the voyage was a fact, and that the iron tank on which we were driving through the waves had in reality a bottom to it somewhere under the sea, was all that I could do and reason out.
The storm goes down by daylight, as suddenly as it came up in the night. And we get in under the lee of a small island for shelter and rest--Ye Gods--a rest!
It was the Island of Caja de Muerties, adjacent to Puerto Rico, which gave us this comfort. Here we cast anchor at