Ignoring the waves breaking over the boat, Tom hurried to the companionway. He peered down into the gloom below decks, glimpsed the swirl of foam and heard the ugly gurgle of water as it flooded through the boat.
He hesitated for a moment, then lowered himself down the companionway, battling through the chest-deep water to his cabin. The watertight cases of the sextant and chronometer were floating on the icy water swirling around him. He struggled to the bottom of the companionway and threw them up on deck, but Stephens had now abandoned the helm to join the other two in the dinghy, and the next wave breaking over the stricken ship washed the instruments overboard.
Tom was now alone on the sinking yacht. He knew it could keel over at any second, but he forced himself to stay below. He entered the galley and grabbed six tins of what he thought was canned meat floating among the debris, then heard a shout: ‘Captain, she’s sinking!’
He hurried on deck as he felt the yacht lurch. Still clutching the tins, he tried to clamber down from the stern, but then jumped for the dinghy, as he felt the yacht shudder and begin to founder beneath him. He fell heavily, sprawling in the near-waterlogged boat. ‘Only one tin had found its way in the boat with me in the fright of coming on deck and seeing her going down.’
The remainder of the armful of tins had dropped into the sea. They scrabbled for them as they were tossed on the waves, but only managed to snare another one.
Tom pulled himself up at once and seized one of the oars as Stephens took the other, and Brooks jerked free the rope binding them to the ship. The gunwales were barely clear of the surface as waves continued to break over the dinghy and water flowed in through the hole in its side. Brooks grabbed the wooden baler and began baling for their lives. Richard used the hat of his oilskins to scoop out more water as Tom and Stephens bent to the oars, hauling the boat astern of the Mignonette.
They were the bare length of the dinghy from it when the outline of the bow rose vertically into the darkening sky as the yacht began to sink by the stern. It loomed above them for one terrifying moment, then the ship slid downwards and the waves closed over it. It was less than five minutes since the mountainous wave had struck her. A single giant bubble of air broke surface, the death rattle of the Mignonette.
Chapter 8
In the immediate traumatic stress of a shipwreck, the body is flooded with adrenalin. Heart rate and blood pressure increase, the surface blood vessels constrict, minimizing heat loss and feeding more blood to the muscles, and the liver releases more sugar.
Without the necessary experience, knowledge and strength of will, however, much of this energy can be misdirected and shipwreck survivors often make catastrophic mistakes during this brief initial period of intense activity.
As the adrenalin ebbs and realization of the enormity of their predicament dawns, men respond in different ways. Some become dazed and disorganized, incapable of action or decision, and await the end with dumb passivity. Others react with strength and resolution, but over time, the physical effects of thirst and starvation aggravate the psychological impact of being adrift on the ocean and the mental and emotional stability of even the strongest man begins to falter.
Keeping to a routine, formulating plans to improve the chances of rescue, and keeping up morale by prayer, meditation, conversation or song, enhance the prospects of survival. Those who survive for days and weeks in an open boat do so on strength of will more than any physical characteristics, but ultimately even the strongest-willed person will be tempted to evade reality through dreams, fantasies or simply torpor. Dehydration, malnutrition, sleep deprivation, and the effects of sunburn and exposure will eventually lead to delirium and hallucinations.
Some will be driven to the extreme of self-destruction: suicide. Others will adopt the other extreme of self-preservation: the practice of cannibalism.
In the fading light they rowed through the slick of debris from the wreck. They found the chronometer and sextant as they were tossed on the swell and they also rescued the wooden base of the water-breaker, but the barrel itself had disappeared and the other four tins of provisions had been swept away. The only other items they managed to salvage were the wooden grating from the head sheets, which had floated off as the yacht sank, and a handful of sodden oakum.
Brooks pulled the oakum from the waves and used it to make a rough plug for the hole in the dinghy’s side, slowing the rush of water into the boat. ‘The seas were mountainous high and at times it was dreadful. We had formed a hole in our boat but we had managed to stop the great rush and had got her free when a great sea came in and filled her up to the thwarts, but we again managed to get her free and we all of us offered up prayers to be brought through our present danger.’
They baled with everything to hand, using the two halves of the chronometer box as well as the baler, but the level in the boat still rose higher as each wave flooded in faster than they could throw water over the side.
Tom shouted to Brooks. ‘We must head her into the sea or she’ll founder.’
Half drowned by the waves crashing over them, the others kept baling, while Tom worked with frantic haste. He lashed together the breaker stand, the wooden grating and all the boards that could be spared from the boat and then threw them over the bow. The rope tightened with a snap and the dead weight of the makeshift sea-anchor began to drag the dinghy head-to-sea.
Each giant wave still seemed certain to bury the frail boat under tons of water, but each time the bow rose to meet the wave towering above them and followed it down into the trough. There was barely a moment’s respite before the next wave was upon them.
Despite their fatigue, they were driven by the adrenalin of fear and maintained the frantic pace with the baler until the water level inside the boat at last began to fall. Nothing more could be done until daybreak and the men were too tired and dispirited to speak.
Tom stared into the darkness. ‘I began to think of our position: no water and only two one-pound tins as our stock of provisions, it just coming dark, seas mountainous high at times and the thoughts of our dear ones at home. It was dreadful to think about.’
Each man baled for an hour, then took a turn on watch, while the others, still soaked to the skin, snatched what rest they could.
The dinghy was still pitching on a steep swell when around eleven that night, as near as Tom could judge from the moon, he was jolted from a fitful doze by a thud against the underside of the boat. It was followed by a grinding noise and the dinghy lurched to one side. For a moment he thought they had run aground but there was no sound of breaking waves, no phosphorescent surf-line to be seen on the black sea.
Tom peered over the side and sensed as much as saw a swirl in the water ahead of them. A great shark, almost as long as the dinghy itself, sped back towards them, ‘knocking his tail against our frail boat’.
Tom saw a glint of moonlight on its grey, leathery hide as it broke surface. There was another crash as the shark thrashed its tail against the side of the boat. Waking from their daze, the other men gripped the gunwales and turned their frightened faces towards him.
The shark moved a short distance away, but then appeared to swim to and fro, as if keeping station ten or fifteen yards from the starboard side of the dinghy. Tom felt a surge of fear as it turned and surfaced again. He grabbed one of the oars and slapped the flat of the blade down on the sea. Even in the midst of the gale, the crack was like a musket shot and the splash of white foam caused the shark to veer away. There was a swirl of water and it disappeared.