Wrecker (ship)

“ The wrecking business in Key West is square and honest as far as I know, but ship captains have put their vessels on the Reef on purpose in the old days and the wreckers helped plan it beforehand. And I can't help wondering if Jerry Pringle came to Pensacola to fix up a deal with this captain of the Kenilworth to lose his ship on the next voyage out from London to Vera Cruz. There would be rich salvage and loot in a general cargo, wouldn't there? She's a mighty big steamer. ”

“ At 61⁄2 o’clock P. M. the captain came off, and immediately the order was given to square away for [Pg 376] home. Every one at once turned-to with a will: the yards were manned in a twinkling; studdingsail booms and studdingsail rigging were rigged and rove aloft and alow, until the masts wore, as it were, an entire sheet of canvass from the royal yards to the deck, extending twice or thrice our beam, and assisting to the utmost our expeditious return. But the wind was aft and light, and our ship by no means kept pace with our impatient desires. ”

“ The love of wrecking is in his blood, and it fairly kills him to be idle with a fine, big ship on the Reef. Now that his plot to lose the Kenilworth is spoiled, why shouldn't he win a nice pot of money by helping save her? Then, again, maybe Captain Jim wants to heap coals on his head till he hollers for a fire-extinguisher. There is going to be something doing on the Reef, Dan. Better come along with us. You will be plenty strong enough if you have eaten up all that calf's-foot jelly I lugged up to you. ”

“ She came without a sound, not even a ripple gurgling from her forefoot; and not a ray of light showed either from her rigging or from her cabin-house. At the wheel, a figure stood silent in the night, a slight turn of the spokes now and then being the only movement to show that the image was that of a man steering. Strung along the deck-house and rail lay six other human forms, but they were as quiet as though made of wood. Not even the glow of a pipe relieved the silent gloom. The wrecker drew near the yacht. ”

“ Helena, taking it very easy—only sending aloft the studding-sails on the foremast and foretopmasts, and at night jogging along under easy sail in that direction: it being our intention to make a short stay at that rock-bound isle for letters, and then to crack on everything for home.
On arriving within a few degrees of the world-renowned prison-rock of the great Conqueror, sail was reduced, and the ship luffed to the wind. The moon being on the change, our captain, anxious to get one more sperm whale, determined to let no means within his power remain unemployed for that purpose. ”

“ Their crews are composed principally of convicts who have served out their terms of sentence, and ticket-of-relief men: with such material it is scarcely possible to form a good crew. Their officers and captains were, in many cases, from the same class of society; and on board one of the barques the master was so ignorant as to be compelled to carry a navigator, who directed all the movements of the ship, except when they were whaling. A few Yankees were amongst them—in every case deserters from American whalers. ”

“ She was a two-masted vessel, carrying three square sails on the foremast, her aftermast being fore-and-aft rigged only. She had one funnel situated abaft the paddle-boxes, which were about amidships. A picture of the vessel is in existence which represents her as three-masted, and with her paddles rather far forward, but this is inaccurate. She was almost a new ship at this time, and it is not likely that a mast would have been taken out of her between her launch and her Atlantic voyage. Her schooner bows bore as figurehead a dog with a star between his front paws. ”

“ There was evidently a struggle going on in Colonel Vereker’s mind between his desire to do his duty, as he thought, to the dying man, and his natural anxiety to be on deck participating in all the excitement of the chase after the runaway ship and the coming fight with the Haytians, when the black rascals would be called to a final account for all the misery and bloodshed they had caused. ”

“ The passengers and seamen had all reached the deck, excepting the carpenter, who lay sick in his hammock in the steerage—some, in nothing but their shirts, and all half dressed, or with some clothes in their hands. On seeing their perilous situation, the clothes were dropped, and they secured their hold to the rigging—the ship continually striking. The captain ordered the steward to secure some articles in the cabin; he descended, but soon came up with the dismal tidings that every thing was adrift and the cabin full of water. ‘Cut away the masts! cut away the masts!’ he then cried out. ”

“ I quickly went below, and awoke the captain, who was in a secure and profound sleep! by violently shaking him; and with a loud cry of ‘breakers!’ aroused the passengers. I then went forward to get ready another anchor, and several men were clearing the cable tier below. The captain had just gained the deck, when, at quarter past twelve, the vessel struck. The shock sunk upon the hearts of those on board, like the summons for sudden death—and with reason. All knew that while the ship rode clear of the ground, they were in safety ”

“ Almost at the same instant that the excited deck force of the Resolute glimpsed a red light winking far off to starboard, they saw the mast-head light of the stranded vessel almost dead ahead.
"That red light out yonder belongs to J. Pringle," muttered Captain Wetherly, "And we must be pretty near the same distance from that mast-head light on the Reef. It's going to be a whirlwind finish, all right."
The Resolute kept full speed ahead as if she intended to cut her way through the stranded steamer. ”

“ They'll swarm aboard like rats and be ripping the cargo out of this vessel in a jiffy."
The youthful wrecking master was at his wits' end and his head began to throb as if it would split, for he had little endurance left. He remained in hiding on the bridge and tried to think out a plan of action as the Bahama schooners swooped across the frothing sea, laying their courses in a bee line for the Kenilworth. Dan's only hope was that he might be able to stay [Pg 104] aboard until Captain Jim should return to enforce the law of the Reef with his crew of hard-fisted tow-boat men to back him up. ”

“ The German battle-cruisers were now close enough for their hulls to be distinguishable. The outline of each ship stood forth, clear-cut and black, against the sky-line. Each was rushing forward at its topmost speed, bearing down with inevitable precision upon the defenceless cargo ship, which, like an exhausted, hunted animal, strained every bolt, bar and rivet to save herself from unutterable disaster. Suddenly, it became apparent that, in addition to the Dreadnought cruisers, the sea was alive with a host of smaller craft--light cruisers and torpedo-boat-destroyers. ”

“ The craft dropped anchor about twenty fathoms astern of the yacht, and when Dunn came from below, bringing with him an odour of gin and bitters, the crew of the sloop regarded him silently.
"Hello, a wrecker!" exclaimed Dunn.
His sailing-master had come to the taffrail and was gazing at the stranger, while Mrs. Dunn, careless of nautical neighbours, read her magazine.
"Yes, seems like one of the wreckers," said Captain Smart; "an ugly-looking crew, for a fact. They say these spongers divide their time between wrecking and smuggling. ”

“ Whew! this is a snorter; and we must keep well aft, or else a sea from over the bows there, will throw us off our legs, or a spray give us a drencher to freshen our eyelids. D—n her, how she jumps and pitches; well, for my part, give me a ship under sail, with the wind a-beam to steady her, instead of lying here at anchor, where she tumbles about like a chip in a frog pond.’ The moon was now about half an hour high. From the feeling of the lead, I was fearful that the ship had been, and was still fast drifting. ”

“ In our time, at any rate, no shipwrecked sailor would meet with anything but kindness at the hands of Englishmen. The real race of wreckers has died out—that is to say, the cold-blooded wretches who would lure a ship ashore, and then murder the crew by way of precaution before proceeding to plunder the cargo. ”

“ But if the ship was plunging, and the spars and rigging creaking from the pressure of their snow-white pinions, he would be delighted; and, jumping on deck to assure himself that everything was drawing, he would chuckle forth, in the height of his glee, [Pg 378] “Give it to her, old boy! She is all oak. She knows where she is bound to; so, pack on your tappa—she will hear it!” If some one remarked that she was heeled down very much, and sail was being dragged instead of carried, he was hooted at for a soldier, and sent to the cook to learn seamanship. ”

“ I'm so full of cinders inside that I rattle when I walk. But give me another week and the boat will be fit to hitch a hawser to this benighted island of Key West and tow it out to sea. Anything new ashore?"
Captain Jim sat down beside the engineer and made sure that they could not be overheard as he began:
"Dan has been watching Jerry Pringle's fleet of wrecking vessels for me. Those two schooners he bought in the Gulf have come into port, and it is mighty little sponging he intends to do with them at present, Bill. They look fast and they can stow lots of cargo. ”

“ When on the whaling-ground, however, the ship is allowed to glide along under easy sail, royal yards, studding-sail booms, and, if in boisterous latitudes, the foretopgallant mast is sent down, and the flying jib-boom is sent in, so that if bad weather comes on suddenly, the little canvass spread makes her easy to handle. Another advantage the whaler possesses, she has thirty-four or five men to handle a vessel of three or four hundred tons, whereas a merchant ship of the same size would not have more than a dozen ”

“ Because the Gulf Stream flows north along this crowded highway, the steamers and sailing craft bound south skirt the Reef as close as they dare in order to avoid the adverse current. Tall, spider-legged, steel light-houses rise from the submerged Reef, but its ledges still take their yearly toll of costly vessels, as they have done for centuries. When such disasters happen, the wreckers flock seaward to try to save the ship and cargo. ”

“ Mention was made just now of the Werribee (alias Wonganella, etc.) . On February 3, 1916, this ship, which had been fitted out at Gibraltar, under the command of Lieut.-Commander B. J. D. Guy, R.N., left Port Said to cruise on the Malta to Egypt trade route. She was a steamer of 3,848 tons, and had taken in 2,600 tons of sand as ballast. About 9 o’clock on the morning of February 9, Werribee was steaming along when she picked up a signal on her wireless to the effect that the S.S. Springwell, of 5,593 tons, was torpedoed and sinking by the head. ”

“ Java very frequently on fire from firing through the wreck which lay on the side. Engaged till 4-35, when the Constitution made sail a-head, and got out of gun-shot; where she remained an hour, repairing her damages, leaving us a perfect wreck, with our main-mast only standing, and main-yard [errata 2] gone in the slings. Every exertion was made by us, during this interval, to place the ship in a state to renew the action; we succeeded in clearing the wreck of our masts from the guns, and endeavoured to get before the wind by setting sails on the stumps of the bowsprit and fore-mast ”

“ Near the brigantine lay a three-masted schooner, [Pg 300] also a creditable specimen of American naval architecture, and which was likewise sold during our stay in the port. Several other Americans came in: one, the Spitfire, of Boston, last from Calcutta—in distress, leaking badly—a noble clipper-ship, of two thousand tons; and the barque Agnes, of and from New York, whence she had been seventy-six days on her passage—also a handsome clipper. Besides these, several clippers came in under the French flag, which, on inquiry, we were informed had also been built in the United States of America. ”

“ An’ thanks be to Hivvin there’ll be no bo’sun burrds for to be a-perchin’ on the yarrds an’ a-scarin’ the loife out of us all.”
Even when the ship was reconditioned there was much to be done. The boys had thought that the old Hector had carried vast quantities of stores, but when they saw the mountain of barrels, shooks, boxes, cases and casks that were piled on the wharf, and the steady stream of trucks and drays that kept adding their loads to the accumulation, they declared that the Narwhal would sink at the wharf if all the supplies were stowed aboard her. ”

“ As soon as their ship had departed, they came out from their hiding place, but could find no one to relieve their necessities, nor could they get employment. They finally joined the natives, who fed and clothed them. Becoming tired of this kind of life, they eagerly caught at the offer of a berth aboard a whaler. This poor fellow, my informant, was almost destitute, and had sent to us for clothing, of which a bundle was collected for him. He was a German, with a very thick head, and although the captain of the schooner was disposed to push him forward, he found little ground for cultivation. ”

“ These whaleships often undergo striking changes between the date of their leaving home and the period of their return: the captain possessing a discretionary power to pull down and build up any of his ship’s arrangements. But, woe betide him! if he does anything that results disastrously, unless he makes a good voyage (which last is the New-Bedford apology for a multitude of sins) . Some old-fashioned skippers are content with leaving things as they find them ”