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

be happy. His case will be attended to
later on.
December 14th, the ship is heading for Mona Passage, no great distance
away.
The trade winds are very strong and a heavy cross sea is encountered as
we near 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,