The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862. Various
of a barely practicable land track of which we knew, and which, as it led about among the marshes, was also circuitous. And the necessity of choosing this land path added to our difficulties, in that we were forced to provide ourselves with a small batteau and drag it behind us, to be able to cross many ditches and sloughs with which it was barred, and which, particularly along their edges, were never really frozen. After toiling and battling for a long period, and at the same time having to face the most painfully cutting wind that burst unobstructedly over the level area of the marshes, we at last reached the house wherein the life-boat lay, and when old Bill had scrutinized its oars, and stored it with a mingled collection of cordage, canvas and spars, we ran it into the water. But now another trouble arose. The bay, like the sounds of which indeed it formed a part, was covered with ice,—either in solid sheets, or that thick slush, peculiar to ocean estuaries, which is chiefly known as 'porridge ice,'—and, from its comparative shallowness, covered so densely, too, that if we had trusted to getting our boat out of it by sheer rowing, it would have taken us the entire day so to do. In this emergency nothing would serve but that we must advance bodily into the water, and, crushing and clearing away the ice with our feet, drag the boat, in a depth at least sufficient for her to float, to the entrance of the inlet, where the current ran so strongly that no ice could gather. After a severely trying amount of labor, this point was finally gained, and we stood fairly in front of the tall, thundering breakers; whereupon each man nimbly jumped to his place in the craft, that of steersman being the post of old Bill.
As we gave way on our oars, we shot along the inlet without much difficulty; and presently old Bill announced that, he caught a faint sight of the wreck in the distance—to all appearance 'most all gone but the hull.' But we had little or no opportunity to indulge in speculation or remark on the discovery, for in a moment or two we began to oppose the wildness of the open main, and the hour of our real trial set in. For the first time we could now appreciate the full force of the gale. Good Heavens, how it blew! The waters seemed alive and in direst convulsion. Everywhere huge walls of breakers were constantly upheaved to be felled and shattered with a roar as of some terrific cannonade; while the air became the arena for a helter-skelter tossing of sheets of spray, clots of froth, and spirts of brine, which plentifully assailed our poor boat in their madness, and, besides partially filling her with slush, encased every man in a complete coating of ice. If our craft had not been modeled with the very highest degree of skill, and if our steersman had not been one of a thousand, we could have made no headway at all in this appalling tumult. As it was, our advance was of the weakest, and its success seemed very doubtful, let our efforts be what they might. Not but what we could sufficiently hold our own in the swirl of the vanquished waves; but when they swooped upon us in their full stature, they not only sent the boat back as if she had been a mere feather, but with a second's awkwardness on the part of old Bill they would have flung her clean over from stem to stern, and our places among the living would have been vacant. Having strained every nerve for nearly two hours, we were still but part way through the breakers, while some of the men began to complain of fatigue; with which old Bill seized a favorable opportunity to put the boat about, and we were swept ashore on the beach as in the twinkling of an eye. Here, we secured our boat by hauling her high and dry on the strand; freed her from the slush and water which had gained in her bottom; and then retired to the leeward of a range of sand hills near by, to recruit our energies.
With full leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the presence of danger, and could never be brought to look on it other than as a rough sort of irresponsible horse-play, over which he was sure in one way or another to gain the mastery), that he had now weighed all the conditions of the pass, and that the next time we attempted it we should assuredly prevail. This assertion, coming from such a source, encouraged one and all very greatly; and ere long we cheerfully launched our boat once more, and again began to tug at the quivering oars. In a very little while it became apparent enough that the tactics that Bill intended to adopt in our present venture were very different from those put in practice with the last. Instead of boldly facing the breakers as he had heretofore done, he now began his maneuvering by laying us directly in the trough of the sea,—planting the boat a little crosswise, however, so as to prevent an untoward swell from riding over her side and thus filling her,—and the instant he saw an advancing breaker beginning to fracture, as a prelude to its downfall and destruction, he boldly sped us, when the thing was at all practicable, straight in the teeth of the gap, and as it proceeded to widen, we shot through it, with the surf leaping and tossing on either hand high above our heads. This stroke could have been possible only to a steersman possessed of herculean strength, combined with the rarest daring and coolness; and, as the result of these qualities, it was exceedingly effective. It lessened the danger of our being capsized almost entirely. Indeed, the sole mishap that was threatened by so doing, was the liability to being swamped by the falling fragments of the breakers; but this peril old Bill declared we might safely trust he would also avert. It being the nature of humanity to experience a mood of high exaltation with the surmounting of any serious obstacle, we now worked our way with minds light and cheery, and with all thoughts of anything like fatigue completely forgotten. Though our course was on the whole a zigzag one, and though we certainly met with one or two serious rebuffs, we were constantly gaining headway, and in something over an hour forced the last line of the breakers, and stemmed what on ordinary occasions would have been simply the blue body of the Atlantic. But even here a huge commotion was reigning, though our progress was far less tedious than it had previously been; and with about another hour's labor we were alongside the wreck, and had climbed to her deck.
The plight of the vessel was mournful enough. She had evidently been built for a three-masted schooner, but, as Bill had observed when he first obtained a view of her, everything about her was well-nigh gone save her hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the partially standing mast, we discovered several ice-bound figures rigidly hanging therein, which, being cut away and lowered to our boat, proved to be the body of a negro perfectly stark and dead, and three most pitiable white sailors, whose life was so far extinguished that they could neither move hand nor foot, nor utter more than the feeblest moans.
When we had covered the face of the dead and sheltered the well-nigh dead as best we could in the bottom of our boat, of course our chief thought was to return to the shore as swiftly as possible. But on this head there was no call to entertain the smallest solicitude; for after old Bill, from a motive that we could not yet name, had 'stepped' a mast through one of the foremost thwarts of the boat, and rigged a sail all ready to be spread, we cast off from the wreck, and presently, dropping into the full strength of the wind, were swept onward like an arrow, with scarce the least use of any other oar than that in the hands of our stalwart steersman. Speedily crossing the outer waters, we leaped and bounded over the breakers; and when old Bill, as we were rushing along the inlet, gave orders for the hoisting of the sail, we not only hastened to obey him, but immediately saw an all-important reason for the command. For we were now about entering the ice of the sounds; and as the boat flew in its midst, her stiff, tight sail drove her through the stubborn obstruction as easily and in much the same manner as the steam plow rips up the matted bosom of the prairies. In due season we reached the landing where we usually disembarked from the sounds, and where we found a wagon awaiting us, to which we bore our sad freightage, and led the way for old Bill's house. On arriving, we laid the corpse in an outbuilding and carried the sailors into a bedroom. But what was to be next done? To tell the truth, most of us knew no more than so many children. But here our leader again showed his knowledge. Strongly condemning the lighting of a fire in the apartment,—which some one was about to do,—he set us busily at work bringing him a good supply of tubs, and buckets of cold water, into which he dipped the naked persons of the sufferers; and as this treatment, combined with a patient, gentle chafing, which was also administered, at last restored the flow of their vital forces, he gave them a