The wind, for the only time that night, aided John Deane and his crew. The force of the gale snapped the masts before Deane and company could do any real damage to them. The ship’s masts fell toward the mass of rock barely discernible in the dark. A crew member risked his life by climbing onto the bowsprit and trying to see what it was exactly that the ship had struck. He was the first to make out the small land mass and reported his observations to the captain. The masts had formed a bridge and a possible route of escape, should the hull of the ship be breached. Deane summoned Christopher Langman, the first mate. He called on Langman because he was a strong swimmer. Deane selected two more equally skilful swimmers and gave them the task of reaching the rock and finding the safest place for the remainder of the crew to join them. Once Langman and company had found a safe point of disembarkation they were to alert Deane. Langman and company shimmied across the masts toward the rock. Deane returned to his cabin.
John Deane had gone back to the cabin in order to retrieve anything that might have been of value to the crew if the ship sank. He was looking for official papers, money and the means to make a fire, namely gunpowder and a flint. He was making provision for the dual prospect of either being marooned or rescued. Deane descended the steps below deck and entered his cabin. As he began gathering his things the ship lurched and the stern sank deeper into the ocean. The walls of the ship bulged inward. Seawater entered the ship at a frightening rate. Deane had underestimated the damage that had been done. The spine of the Nottingham Galley had been shattered and she was drowning in salt water. Deane grabbed what he could and struggled to get back on deck. It was a near call. He had come dangerously close to drowning in the belly of his own dying vessel.
Nothing had been heard from Christopher Langman or the two swimmers that had accompanied him, so John Deane decided to traverse the fallen mast himself and try and reach the rock. He removed his outer clothing. He waited for the movement of the sea to carry the ship that bit closer to the rocks and then climbed onto the mast. The mast was predictably slippery but Deane moved forward as best he could. He reached the end of the mast. The mast didn’t quite touch the rocks. Deane would have to jump the gap and hope that he could gain purchase on the rocks without injuring himself too badly. Deane jumped. He reached for the rocks but the rocks were slippery. He slid into the freezing water. He was lifted by the sea and flung back against the rocks. He found it hard to gain purchase. He struggled to climb to a safe part of the island. He would make a small amount of progress and then fall back in the ocean. As he hung onto the rocks, as he repeatedly tried to drag himself up and onto the island, the rocks cut into his fingers and ripped out some of his fingernails. Eventually Deane hauled himself to a place of relative safety and coughed up and spewed out the salt water he had taken into his lungs.
Deane shouted back to his men. He guided them across the mast and onto the island. All the remaining crew members reached the island in safety. Deane and the ten men whose rescue he had just engineered walked across the island seeking higher ground. They met Christopher Langman and his two companions. It was ten o’clock in the evening. All fourteen men huddled together and prayed, thanking God that they were all still alive.
Deane and his crew travelled leeward looking for any kind of natural shelter. There was none to be found. As they walked, the dimensions and character of the island were becoming clearer to them all. The island was a scant 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. Besides rockweed there was virtually nothing in the way of vegetation. The ground was a mass of jagged rock. The simple act of walking was painful. The sharpness of the rocks also negated the only way, at present, they had of keeping warm, the stone prohibiting walking around to generate warmth and protect their circulation. Deane and his crew were forced to huddle together, motionless, their only defence against the wet and cold on their first night on Boon Island.
Deane began his first morning on Boon Island with a degree of optimism. If the night’s labours had been principally concerned with abandoning ship and keeping his men warm and alive, then the morning was to be about salvage, rescuing whatever he could find from the broken corpse of the Nottingham Galley and using the provisions to sustain his men until rescue.
Deane made his way to shore. He expected to see much of the ship still skewered on the rocks. But there was virtually nothing there. The bulk of the Nottingham Galley had been carried away and buried by the ocean. Masts, yards and detritus floated on the water, secured by the ship’s anchor. This was nature’s taunt to Deane and his men, as the wreckage was at the mercy of the waves and too far out to sea to safely retrieve. Bits of tent, wood, canvas and sail had washed up on the shore or else could be found in the rocks. At present these were the only materials Deane had to work with. They would have to do.
Most of the food had gone down with the ship. Fragments of cheese were found among the rockweed. Added together they amounted to the equivalent of three whole pieces of cheese. Even rationed carefully they wouldn’t last long. Gulls circled the island and floated on the water. Seals were spotted nearby but not on shore. The island was presumably their home so it could only be a matter of time before one of them ventured onto land and sacrificed itself to the needs of an already hungry crew. During his stay on Boon Island, John Deane would make frequent midnight hunting trips to capture a seal. He never did. But there were more pressing needs than seal or gull meat. The men required a fire. Between them they had a flint, some gunpowder and a drill. For the next ten or so days they would repeatedly try to utilise these tools to start a fire. Their efforts would prove useless. Their materials and everything around them was irredeemably sodden.
Two gunpowder horns had been rescued from the Nottingham Galley. These became the crew’s water receptacles. One was designated for common use among the men. One was reserved for the sick. On Boon Island there was always rain enough to provide a steady source of fresh drinking water. There was enough snow and ice on the island to provide a secondary source of water, although the snow and the ice had a predictably salty tang to it. However desperate things would get, the absence of drinking water would never be a serious impediment to their survival. It was one of nature’s few concessions to Deane and his crew in the painful ordeal that lay ahead of them.
At the end of their first full day on Boon Island the men tried to sleep. Their situation had been fractionally improved by a canvas sheet that had washed up on shore. They crawled underneath it and huddled together.
On the morning of the second day the elements had improved somewhat. Up until now, any view of the mainland had been obscured by the hostile weather. It was still frosty but John Deane could see land and had an inkling of where they were. He believed that he was looking at Cape Neddock. It was fishing country and so the chances of being spotted by a shallop improved the possibility of rescue. At least that was what he told the men. Privately he was doubtful that any shallop would risk the winter sea to sail close enough to the island to ever spot them. He kept his doubts to himself but let his men dine for a while on the succulent half-truth, good morale being as valuable as food, water or warmth at this point in their endeavours.