Hell Around the Horn

10. Rogue Wave

Captain Barker stared at the chart. The plot of their course was a sickening zigzag, back and forth, trying to capture every favoring wind shift while going nowhere but farther south, ever closer to the ice. In three weeks, by his reckoning, they had gone one hundred and seven miles south and lost twelve miles of westing. There was nothing to be done but to hang on and to outlast the westerly winds.

He reached for his jacket and went up on deck. It was two hours into the first watch, 10 p.m. They were hove to under reefed topsails and a storm staysail. The ship was plunging and rolling in the darkness. Barker made his way over to Atkinson, who had tied himself to the mizzen pin rail behind the weather cloth lashed to the shrouds to give him some protection from the icy spray.

Just then, the moon broke through the clouds and, well to weather, the captain saw a wave — a wave like he had never seen before. It seemed three times larger than the other waves and came from the wrong direction. He blinked and looked again. "Oh my God," he said beneath his breath.

It was a wall of water, stretching endlessly northwest and southeast; the top, breaking and tumbling, roaring toward them at an impossible speed. It towered so high above the other waves that they seemed to be barely swells by comparison. The mighty wave was rushing straight at the Lady Rebecca and there was absolutely nothing that he could do. The helm was already lashed down, keeping her bow as high into the wind as it would bear. No change of sail would save them from being hit by this monster, even if there was time.

Barker bellowed with all his might to the watch, "On the deck there, drop everything, jump up into the rigging! Jump for your lives! Climb high! Now!”

The sailors looked to windward and most ran for the rigging. Jerry the Greek stood for a moment, startled, and then turned and ran with the others.

Atkinson, tied to the pin rail, was secure, so Barker ran aft for the wheel and shouted to the helmsman, "Hang on." The captain grabbed the other side of the wheel and waited.

Time seemed to slow. The wave that rushed at them with such ferocity seemed to hang in his gaze for a moment before crashing in upon them. The thought flashed through his mind that no ship could survive such a wave, that they were all dead already. No one could survive such a wave.

The ship slipped sideways into the tremendous trough, momentarily sheltered from the wind, rolling to leeward into the oncoming wave, until the great vertical wall of water crashed over them. The roar of tumbling water was like a thousand cannons. The foaming, breaking crest looked higher than the lower yardarms and it fell upon them in a massive hammer blow that shook the ship, rolling her down, and seeming about to drive her wholly and forever beneath the sea.

The wall of water lifted the captain off his feet. He held on for his life, but the spoke cracked and he was thrown backward, to be stopped by the steel bulwark with a tremendous and painful crash.

The wave rolled the Lady Rebecca on her beam-ends. For what seemed an eternity she lay there, pressed by the wave and the relentless wind, like some great animal struck down, lying on its flank. Captain Barker was crumpled against the bulwark, dazed and confused. Everything was on its side. The deck appeared to be a wall, rising nearly vertically skyward. The masts were canted oddly just above the sea, and the lower yardarms were buried in the roiling water.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the old ship began to right herself. She rolled up, knocked back by a passing wave once and again, but she steadily fought back against the wind and sea like a pugilist too stubborn to stay down. The ship wallowed, as if punch-drunk, but she rolled up once again. The reefed topsails and staysail luffed loudly, cracking like gunfire over the howl of the wind. In a minute or two, the cacophony of the sails died down as the fine old ship fell back onto an approximation of what had been her course, seven points off the wind.

Slowly, Captain Barker tried to move. He crawled across the deck, feeling awash in pain, and pulled himself up on the weather rail. He shivered in the cold in the howling wind, as the icy water drained from his jacket and pants. He was bruised from head to toe, but somehow nothing seemed to be broken. He looked over for the helmsman and saw him jammed against the shattered wheel box. Barker yelled, "You all right?" The helmsman raised his hand and nodded.

“Captain, are you injured?" Mr. Atkinson called, looking wild-eyed.

“I'm fine," the captain responded, not yet sure that that was true.

The deck forward was chaos. The rigging looked all out of kilter, yards akimbo. The main t'gallantmast was bent sidewards, probably cracked. The boats on the poop deck were gone. Only the twisted steel davits remained.

Then he heard a cry behind him. One of the crew had been carried overboard and wailed for help. Who had they lost? Barker just closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the sailor. They couldn't launch a boat in these seas in any case, and now, he thought, looking over at the twisted, empty davits, they had no boats ready to launch.

He turned around and gasped to see the cabin skylight crushed and open to the sky. He ran to the cabin ladder. The salon was flooded. He threw open the door to the stateroom where his wife and children were strapped in their bed. The water was up to his knees. From the moonlight streaming in through the gaping hole in the deck above, he could see that the bed was covered with broken glass and wooden framing.

He shouted, "Mary," but there came no reply. He frantically pulled the wood off the bed, digging down to reach the blankets. Then he heard his wife's soft sobbing. He pulled the blanket back. She was holding both children, who looked frightened beyond tears or speech.

“James?”

“Thank God that you are all alive.”

“Is the ship sinking?”

“No," he replied, not sure that it was true either. "We'll be all right." He ran to the locker and pulled out dry blankets and spread them across the bed. He had to try to keep Mary and the children warm.

“Walter," he yelled, calling for steward, and was both gratified and a bit surprised when he heard the steward's reply.

“Yes, captain?”

“Get some hot soup or tea for Mrs. Barker and the children. And more dry blankets.”

He turned back to Mary, pale and shivering, beneath the blankets, her eyes wide with fear. "Walter will tend to you now. I must tend to the ship.”

As he left, he heard Amanda begin to scream. Little Tommy followed his sister's example as their mother tried to calm them. He could hardly blame the children. If he could have, he would have broken into tears himself, but he had no time for emotion until he knew whether or not his ship would survive.

Fred was asleep when a deep roll to leeward nearly pitched him out of his bunk. Shaken awake, he grabbed the bunk boards to stop from falling when, a moment later, there was a deafening roar, the moan of bending steel and the crack of fracturing timber. The ship rolled back to windward and Fred was thrown violently against the bulkhead. Icy water cascaded into the fo'c'sle, as if they were suddenly all beneath a cataract. As the roar and the deluge subsided, men sputtered and shouted in bewilderment and rage. Fred was sure that he was going to drown. The torrent subsided but he was still pressed against the bulkhead.

Then, finally, the ship began to roll back. Several feet of water, sloshing on the deck, was draining out through the cabin door, which was sprung and hung weirdly by a single hinge. Everything seemed twisted and out of shape. The outboard fo'c'sle bulkhead, heavy wood planks over steel frames, was bowed in and broken. Moonlight streamed in through the broken planks in the overhead casting weird light and shadows across the cabin. Sea chests were scattered, some knocked open, their contents floating in the sloshing brine.

Fred rolled from his bunk, knocking into Donnie.

“What hell was that?" Fred asked.

Donnie just shook his head as they both stumbled out on the deck.

The deckhouse was stove in. The boats were gone. Santiago had been lookout on the deckhouse by the boats. Fred closed his eyes and shook his head. Santiago would never make it home to see his mother or sister. Fred suddenly wondered if any of them would make it to Chile alive.

Will hung in the futtock shrouds just below the main top, where he had scrambled after hearing Captain Barker shout. He had seen the wave and was sure that he was going to die. His eyes were closed. His arms and legs were wrapped tightly around the heavy steel cable. The world was rolling over. He no longer hung from the shrouds. Gravity was pressing his body against them. The ship was capsizing. They would all drown. He was sure of it.

Then slowly the world began to right itself again. Up and down returned to their rightful places. He slowly opened his eyes. In the moonlight, the deck was a shambles. Nothing was in its place. Waves were still breaking across the deck. He knew that he wasn't dead only because his muscles hurt and the howling wind was bitterly cold and raw. He still wondered how he could possibly be alive, how the ship could still be afloat.

“Back down to the deck everyone" Mr. Rand yelled. "Work to be done. No skylarking.”

As he climbed down the ratlines, he looked along the deck edge and saw a large lump of canvas that seemed to be blocking the freeing port in the bulwark. In an instant, he realized that the lump was a man. He jumped on deck and yelled, "Help me. Somebody's hurt.”

It was Jerry the Greek. Most of his body was inboard but one leg had washed through the freeing port and the heavy steel flap was slamming down viciously on his leg as the ship rolled. He wasn't conscious but was moaning, which meant he had to be alive.

Will was shoved aside by the mate. "Get a wedge to block the damn flap. Now haul him out. Easy.”

Will staggered back as they carried Jerry to the fo'c'sle.

Captain Barker climbed on number three hatch with the sail maker, Pugsley. The wave had ripped the tarpaulins from the hatches and shifted the deal boards. With every wave that broke aboard the ship, more water flowed into the hold. Number three hatch was the worst.

“Get every tarp we have. We need to seal the hatches or we will all go to the bottom.”

“Captain," said Gronberg, the carpenter, standing at the hatch coaming.

“How bad is it?" the captain asked.

“Close to three feet of water in the holds, sir.”

Pugsley swore behind him.

“Are you sure?" The captain preferred not to believe what he just heard.

“Yes, sir. Threaded a hose down the pipe to block the water flowing down. Got the same sounding, three times at three hatches.”

Three feet meant many hundreds of tonnes of water. It meant the ship floated deeper and had less freeboard. Lower in the water, she was easier for the seas to break over and had less buoyancy to rise up again. She could act more like a half-tide rock than a cork.

“Very good, Mr. Gronberg. If you should see Mr. Rand, send him to me.”

In a few minutes, the mate appeared.

“Mr. Rand, get your crowd to stretch the tarps and make the hatches tight. That is our first order of business. Put any free hands you have on the pumps.”

“Aye, sir," Rand responded. "Captain, I think the starboard fo'c'sle house is stove in. May have to double up on the port house. And the portside pump is sheared clean off the deck. Not sure about the starboard.”

Barker shook his head. "Very well. Get the hatches tight first.”

“And a man has been injured. Jerry the Greek is hurt bad. His leg.”

“Broken?”

“No, sir, crushed. We got him strapped in his bunk.”

“Who did we lose overboard?”

“Santiago, sir. Lookout on the cabin top. He was washed away along with the boats. Wave stove in the deckhouse and swept the cabin top clean.”

“The boats . . . ?" He didn't need to finish the sentence. So now they had no boats at all. All swept away by a single wave.

Once back in the cabin, Captain Barker wondered if Santiago hadn't heard him shout his warning or whether the sailor thought he was safe on top of the fo'c'sle cabin. It didn't matter. The man was dead regardless. No one could survive those icy seas. Barker tried not to think of Santiago or anything other than the Lady Rebecca.

The enormity of the damage was still sinking in. Three feet of water in the holds and one pump gone. All four boats gone. One man lost and other crippled. Who knew how much damage to the deck and the rigging. He'd find out soon enough once the sun rose. In the mean time he would see to his family. The children were still upset and Mary was doing her best to be stoic, but could only do so much. Why had he brought them along on the voyage? It was a pointless thought which he pushed from his mind. They were with him and he would have to do all he could to keep them safe. He wondered if what he could do would be enough.

At first light, Captain Barker met the carpenter by the portside pump, or at least where the portside pump had been. Perhaps one of the boats had hit it on its way over the side. Whatever had happened, the bolts that had held the pump to the deck had sheared off. The pump shaft was bent and broken. What was left of the twelve-man pump lay crumpled against the bulwark.

“How's the starboard pump?" Barker asked.

“Better'n this one to be sure," said Gronberg. "I think she's OK. She's just not pumping.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think the suction be jammed with coal dust. Have to send somebody down to clear it maybe, if things calm down. Be crazy to try it now, with this sea running.”

“Thank you, mister," the captain replied, turned and walked aft, holding tightly to the lifeline. Spume flew over the rail and struck him in the side of his face. As he walked, he tallied the damage he had seen this morning. One pump destroyed and the other not pumping. The foremast ready to topple and the main t'gallantmast shattered. And the westerlies showed no sign of abating. Maybe Mr. Rand was right. As soon as he allowed himself to think the thought, he swore out loud, "No, Goddamn it. We are not beaten yet. Not by a long shot.”

With daylight, Captain Barker and Mate Atkinson surveyed the damage to the rig. When they worked their way forward, they saw the jib-boom, the spar forward of the bowsprit, skewed oddly upward. "Fractured at the gammoning band," the captain said, and the mate noted it in his notebook.

At the foremast, Barker mumbled to himself. "Bloody Christ." A riveted strap over a butt in two sections of the mast had ripped off. Both the rivets and the strap were gone, leaving a gaping space between the sections of steel pipe. In the running seas the mast sections flexed, opening and closing like angry jaws. He was surprised that they hadn't lost the entire mast and the rest of the top-hamper. "Clew up the topsail and get crew aloft to furl it. We can't afford any load on this mast until we reinforce it.”

Captain Barker climbed the weather ratlines on the mainmast. He caught a look of surprise from several sailors. A lot they don't know about me yet, he thought. Still a few tricks up my sleeve.

As he climbed, he looked for problems. The mainmast looked fine, as did the topmast. The t'gallantmast, however, was bent slightly sideways, a six-inch crack at the base. Could it be repaired? He had a few ideas but it couldn't be done in these seas.

When he returned to the poop deck, he turned to Mr. Rand. "Set a course nor'-nor'east. Square away for Staten Island. We'll make repairs in the lee.”

“Aye, sir, nor'-nor'east it is. Turning back to Staten Island." Rand smiled smugly.

Barker scowled. "No, sir. We are not turning back. We will make repairs in the lee of Staten Island and then stand on. We are bound for Chile. No place else.”