Part 7

"Well, try it," said Sir Hyde, which was a great condescension for a man of his temperament to accept the advice of a subordinate. It took two hundred men to wear the ship, but when she was turned about, the sea began to run clear across the decks and she had no time to rise from one sea until another lashed into her. Some of the sails had been torn from the masts and the rest began to fly from the yards "through the gaskets like coachwhips."

"To think that the wind could have such force!" Archer shouted into the gale.

"Go down and see what is the matter between decks," ordered Sir Hyde in a lull.

Archer crept below and a marine officer screamed, "We are sinking. The water is up to the bottom of my cot!"

Archer yelled back, "As long as it is not over your mouth, you are well off." He put all spare men to work at the pumps. The Phoenix labored heavily, with scarcely any of her above water except the quarter-deck and that seldom.

On returning, Archer found Sir Hyde lashed to a mast. He lashed himself alongside his commander and tried to hear what he was shouting. Afterward, Archer tried to describe this situation in his letter. "If I was to write forever, I could not give you an idea of it. A total darkness above and the sea running in Alps or Peaks of Teneriffe (Mountains is too common an idea); the wind roaring louder than thunder, the ship shaking her sides and groaning."

"Hold fast," shouted Sir Hyde as a big wave crashed into the ship. "That was an ugly sea! We must lower the yards, Archer."

"If we attempt it, Sir, we shall lose them. I wish the mainmast was overboard without carrying anything else along with it."

Another mountainous wave swept the trembling ship. A crewman brought news from the pump room. Water was gaining on the weary pumpers. The ship was almost on her beam-ends. Archer called to Sir Hyde, "Shall we cut the mainmast away?"

"Ay, as fast as you can," said Sir Hyde. But just then a tremendous wave broke right on board, carried everything on deck away and filled the ship with water. The main and mizen masts went, the Phoenix righted a little but was in the last struggle of sinking.

As soon as they could shake their heads free of the water, Sir Hyde yelled, "We are gone at last, Archer. Foundered at sea! Farewell, and the Lord have mercy on us!"

Archer felt sorry that he could swim, for he would struggle instinctively and it would take him a quarter hour longer to die than a man who could not. The quarter-deck was full of men praying for mercy. At that moment there was a great thump and a grinding under them.

Archer screamed, "Sir, the ship is ashore. We may save ourselves yet!"

Every stroke of the sea threatened dissolution of the ship's frame. Every wave swept over her as she lay stern ashore.

Sir Hyde cried out, "Keep to the quarter-deck, my lads. When she goes to pieces that is your best chance."

Five men were lost cutting the foremast. The sea seemed to reach for them as it took the mast overboard and they went with it. Everyone expected it would be his turn next. It was awful--the ship grinding and being torn away piece by piece. Mercifully, as if to give the crew another desperate chance, a tremendous wave carried the Phoenix among the rocks and she stuck there, though her decks tumbled in.

Archer took off his coat and shoes and prepared to swim, but on second thought he knew it wouldn't do. As second officer, he would have to stay with his commander and see that every man, including the sick and injured, was safely off the ship before he left it. He wrote later that he looked around with a philosophic eye in that moment and was amazed to find that those who had been the most swaggering, swearing bullies in fine weather were now the most pitiful wretches on earth, with death before them.

Finally, Archer helped two sailors off with a line which was made fast to the rocks, and most of those who had survived the storm got ashore alive, including the sick and injured, who were moved from a cabin window by means of a spare topsail-yard.

On shore, Sir Hyde came to Archer so affected that he was scarcely able to make himself understood. "I am happy to see you ashore--but look at our poor Phoenix." Weak and worn, the two sat huddled on the shore, silent for a quarter hour, blasted by gale and sea. Archer actually wept. After that, the two officers gathered the men together and rescued some fresh water and provisions from the wreck. They also secured material to make tents. The storm had thrown great quantities of fish into the holes in the rocks and these provided a good meal.

One of the ship's boats was left in fair condition. In two days the carpenters repaired it, and Archer, with four volunteers, set off for Jamaica. They had squally weather and a leaky boat, but by constant baling with two buckets, they arrived at their destination next evening. Eventually, all the remainder of the crew they had left in Cuba were saved except some who died of injuries after getting ashore from the Phoenix and a few who got hold of some of the ship's rum and drank themselves to death.

How many times this drama of death and narrow escape may have been repeated in the three great hurricanes of 1780 is not disclosed in the records. But hundreds of ships and many thousands of men were lost. And at that time no one knew the true nature of these great winds. It was not until more than fifty years had passed and Redfield and Reid examined all the reports that these tremendous gales were found to be parts of three separate hurricanes. This ignorance seems strange, for nearly three hundred years had passed since Columbus ran into his first hurricane.

As Reid worked at great length on these old records in logs and letters, he became confident that Redfield was right about the whirling nature of tropical storms. There were ten hurricanes in the West Indies in 1837 and these supplied Reid with a great deal of added information. One of the most exciting was the big hurricane in the middle of August of that year.

This was a vicious storm which was first observed by the Barque Felicity in the Atlantic, far east of the Antilles, on August 12, 1837. The chances are that it came from the African Coast, near the Cape Verde Islands, as many of the worst of them do. By the time these faraway disturbances have crossed the Atlantic and approached the West Indies, they are usually major hurricanes, capable of wreaking great destruction. This one was no exception, but its path lay a little farther to the northward than usual and its most furious winds were not felt on land, even on the more northerly islands in the group.

Ships in its path reported winds which appeared to be of a "rotatory" nature when Reid plotted them on maps. On the fifteenth, the storm passed near Turk's Island and on the sixteenth, was being felt on the easternmost Bahamas.

At this stage, the ship Calypso became involved in the storm and was unable to escape. The master, a man named Wilkinson, wrote an account to the owners, from which the following is taken:

"During the night the Winds increased, and day-light found the vessel under a close-reefed main-topsail, with royal and top-gallant-yards on deck, and prepared for a gale of wind. At 10 A.M. the wind about north-east, the lee-rail under water, and the masts bending like canes. Got a tarpaulin on the main rigging and took the main topsail in. The ship laboring much obliged main and bilge-pumps to be kept constantly going. At 6 P.M. the wind north-west, I should think the latitude would be about 27°, and longitude 77°W. At midnight the wind was west, when a sea took the quarter-boat away.

"At day-dawn, or rather I should have said the time when the day would have dawned, the wind was southwest, and a sea stove the fore-scuttle. All attempts to stop this leak were useless, for when the ship pitched the scuttle was considerably under water. I then had the gaskets and lines cut from the reefed foresail, which blew away; a new fore-topmast-studding-sail was got up and down the fore-rigging, but in a few seconds the bolt-rope only remained; the masts had then to be cut away."

By this time the wind was even more furious and the seas so high none expected the Calypso to survive. The master continued his story: