The Doomed Voyage

High Seas Adventures

Chapter Three – A Doomed Voyage

By Ellen Weaver Bailey

This is a slightly fictionalized version of the biography of early-19^th-century seaman Joseph Bates. While all of the events are strictly true, his Autobiography often lacks detail, so I have added logical dialogue, names and actions to fill in the blanks. I have also somewhat modernized the language.

When the Fanny docked again in New Bedford that November, Joseph felt like a king. For the next several months he lived on his tales of his first ocean voyage. Prudy, for one, never seemed to tire of hearing about his adventures, and he swelled with pride at her rapt attention. Eventually, he needed some new stories. By mid-May, he was at sea again, heading this time for Archangel, Russia. His dreams were coming true; he was seeing the world!

What he saw first were icebergs. With the other hands, Joseph gazed in fascination at these huge “islands of ice,” as they were called, floating on all sides and dwarfing the ship. A strong westerly gale drove the ship forward as a dense fog shut down, limiting vision to a mere ten feet or so. At midnight, Joseph’s shift felt their way to the hatches and retired below to their hammocks.

An hour later, they were jerked from sleep by the helmsman’s frantic cry of “Iceberg!” followed immediately by a horrifying crunch and a jarring crash. The impact threw Joseph across the forecastle, slamming his head against the bulkhead and knocking him out.

Slowly, he came to. For the next few seconds he exerted every fiber of his being to draw a breath. With relief he felt the air rush into his lungs, but he still couldn’t move or speak. He could see a hand lying on the deck. He assumed it was his and that it was attached to his arm and shoulder, but he couldn’t prove it at the moment. He had so sense of physical connection. He heard an urgent voice and looked up to see Warren Palmer, a shipmate about ten years older, leaning over him and calling his name.

“Joseph! Joseph! We’re trapped!” Joseph forced himself to speak, but the words came out reluctantly and inexpertly.

“What…ya…mean…trapped?”

“The rest of the crew went up on deck and shut the hatch! I don’t know where the ladder is!”

“Ladder?” Joseph’s brain was having trouble processing information.

“Yes! The ladder! We need to find it so we can get out of here!” Palmer’s voice was panicky. With his help, Joseph struggled to his feet, and they began to search for the ladder. Their desperation grew amid the noise of disaster. Timbers shrieked as though the ship were being torn apart. Men on the deck above screamed in fear, begging God for mercy. Forgetting their New England reserve, the two doomed sailors clutched each other around the neck, groaning and crying in despair.

As Joseph thought of the teachings of his Christian father, his mental agony was so crushing he couldn’t speak. I’m about to die! He thought. I’m going to go down with the wreck of this ship, to the bottom of the sea, and I am totally unprepared to meet God. I have no hope of Heaven. I’ll be damned forever!

Palmer’s thoughts led him in a different direction.

“I wish I could get my hands on that captain! This is his fault!” he snarled.

“What do you mean?” asked Joseph, startled out of his spiritual agonizing.

“When I was at the helm last night, I heard the first mate begging the captain to round the ship to and wait till morning when we could see where we were going. But, oh, no! ’Don’t worry, we’re past the ice,’ the captain said. ‘We have to keep going; we can’t waste time.’

“Can’t waste time! He threw our lives away because he was in a hurry!” Spittle flew as Palmer soundly cursed the negligent captain.

Just then, the hatch flew open and a face peered into the forecastle.

“Anyone down there?” shouted a sailor.

“Yes! The two trapped crewmen cried in unison, and within moments they were up on deck.

Not that this improved their chances of survival. The bow of the ship was jammed up under a shelf of ice, and the wind filling the sails pounded the hull against the berg. Between the roaring gale and the crashing seas, the vessel seemed about to be smashed to pieces. Picking his way through the wreckage, Joseph arrived at the quarter deck, where he saw the captain and second mate on their knees, pleading with God to save them.

“Mercy, Lord!” cried the captain in panic.

“Have mercy on us!” echoed the terrified mate.

Meanwhile the first mate and several crewmen were trying to hoist the longboat. Joseph snorted. Even with his limited experience, he could see that if the boat were successfully launched, the pounding waves and ice would reduce it to kindling in moments. Just then his attention was jerked back to the captain, whose cries had reached a new level of panic.

“What are you doing, Palmer?” the captain shrieked, struggling against Palmer’s grip on his arm.

“Throwing you overboard!” yelled the furious younger man, dragging his commander toward the rail.

“Let me alone!’ howled the captain. “In five minutes we’ll all be in eternity!”

“You first!” stormed Palmer. “You got us into this!”

“Wait! Palmer!” Joseph leaped across the tangled debris and grabbed his shipmate by the shoulder. “We still have a chance! Come help me work the pump!”

It took a moment for his words to penetrate Palmer’s fury. The young man shook his head as though to clear it, and then with a sneer he flung the blubbering captain away from him to follow Joseph. They began working the pump with great energy although Joseph didn’t really expect it to work; he had just wanted to keep Palmer from committing murder. To his surprise, though, they were soon rewarded with a giant sucking sound as the pump began clearing water from the hold. Hearing this sound of success and seeing the captain still helpless on his knees, the first mate took command.

“Let go the tap-gallant and topsail halyards!” he called. “Let go the tacks and sheets! Haul up the courses! Clew down and clew up the topsails!” Seamen leaped to obey, the wind spilled from the sails, and the ship backed away from the cleft in the ice, settling down on an even keel broadside to the berg. The crew took a cautiously relieved breath and surveyed the damage. There was good news and bad news.

The bad news was that everything forward of the foremast was destroyed, and the mast itself seemed on the brink of toppling. If the yards and mast struck the ice, the ship would tilt to one side, allowing the heavy seas to wash over the deck and complete the destruction of ship and crew.

On the upside, the ship was strongly built. Breathlessly, the sailors watched and listened in the darkness. Eventually they realized that the waves were pushing them away from the ice. There was hope, but because of the darkness and the height of the iceberg, they couldn’t see if the way ahead was clear, so they were helpless to do anything to guide their craft.

Through the night hours, the sailors worked in the dark to clear away the wreckage. About 4:00 a.m., they heard the lookout’s cry.

“Horizon sighted -- and there’s daylight!” A cheer went up from the sailors. They had passed the iceberg! There was light to see by! The ship could be steered again!

“Hard up your helm,” shouted the captain, his confidence restored, “and keep the ship before the wind!”

Fourteen days later, the damaged craft limped up the Shannon River in Ireland, where she was refitted for the voyage to Russia, and they were soon on their way again. As they neared the Baltic Sea, they joined a convoy of three hundred British merchant ships protected by a fleet of Royal Navy vessels. The warships were necessary because Napoleon controlled most of Europe, and he had declared that any ship coming from England or carrying a cargo from England would be stopped and both ship and cargo confiscated. Denmark vigorously pursued this policy.

But first, the convoy had to negotiate the dangerous Mooner Passage, known for bad weather. Sure enough, no sooner had they entered this narrow strait than a violent storm burst upon them. Darkness closed in as wind and waves battered the ships, the threat of destruction growing by the minute. Finally, the commodore hoisted a lighted lantern, the signal to anchor immediately. The crews anchored their vessels, but the storm was so fierce they could not relax. It was a long, tense night.

When morning came, Joseph and his shipmates watched as, one by one, anchor cables broke and many of the merchant ships, helpless before the gale, were driven disastrously onto the rocks. Then their own cable parted! Working furiously, the crew crowded on all the sail they dared and ran before the wind. In this way, they managed to stay afloat, running before the wind. Within 24 hours, they found themselves well ahead of the convoy. The captain called a council of all hands.

“We have a decision to make,” he told the crew. “Do we wait and rejoin the convoy, or do we go on? Joseph was puzzled.

“Why is it a hard decision?” he asked.

“We have a fast ship, and it’s keeping us ahead of the storm, which is good, of course,” said the captain. “However, we’re so far ahead of the convoy, the commodore might think we’re running off to join Napoleon, so he may fire on us. On the other hand, if we slow down, the storm may do us in.” The vote was unanimous: sail on!

A few hours later, they rejoiced to hear the captain’s announcement: “We’re out of reach of the commodore’s guns!” The sailors cheered. Almost immediately, though, their cheers turned to exclamations of dismay.

“What’s that?”

“Yow!”

“Hey! A cannonball just splashed right next to us! I thought we were out of reach!”

“It’s not the commodore,” said the captain, grimly. “It’s those two ships over there.” Sure enough, two armed vessels were approaching, with obvious hostile intent. The captain had no choice; he rounded to, and the whole crew stood silent as their ship was boarded by Danish-speaking sailors who looked as hostile as the cannonballs.

“Pirates!” spat some members of the crew.

“Nay, not pirates. Privateers,” responded the Danish captain, who could speak English, after all. “We have letters of marque from the king, authorizing us to attack and seize any enemy ship.”

“But we aren’t enemies of Denmark,” protested the first mate.

“We know you were sailing with that British convoy that piled up on the rocks. That makes you liable to seizure and confiscation.”

“Confiscation?” echoed the supercargo in a strained voice. He was part owner; confiscation of the ship and cargo meant financial ruin for him. “We’re not British, we’re Americans!” he protested.

“You will appear in court in a few weeks,” went on the privateer, ignoring the sputtering of the supercargo. “In the meantime, you will be held in jail in Copenhagen.”

            While they waited in jail, the crew were allowed to move around to each other’s spaces. One day early on, the supercargo edged up to Joseph.

            “Listen, young Bates,” he said in a low voice, “when you get into court, testify that we came directly from New York.”

“But we stopped in Ireland – “ Joseph began.

“Ssst! Don’t say that!” the supercargo insisted, looking around furtively. “Tell the court we’ve had nothing to do with England. We don’t have any English cargo. And above all, we were not part of that convoy!” Joseph was stunned. He had never told a lie in his life.

“Do as I ask, and I’ll make it worth your while,” the supercargo promised. “Some of the others have already agreed. Be a good lad and stick with your shipmates.” Joseph’s mind was in a whirl. He could certainly use the money, but… How would he ever face his honest father again if he told this lie? He shook his head.

“You might as well,” urged the supercargo. “Others already have. You don’t want to be odd man out, do you?” Joseph took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

“Tchah!” the supercargo turned away in anger.

The youngest member of the crew, Joseph was called first to testify. There was no jury. Instead, three judges sat at the high bench. Joseph tried not to show his nervousness as he took his place in the witness box.

“You are very young,” intoned the deep voice of the chief justice. Stung, Joseph stood straighter and tossed his head of long, dark curls. “Are you sure you understand the nature of an oath?”

“I certainly do,” Joseph answered with confidence.

“We’ll see,” continued the judge, unimpressed. “Look at that box next to you.” For the first time, Joseph noticed the box, about 15 inches long and eight inches high, with a hole on the side that faced him.

“In that box is a machine that will cut off the thumb and first two fingers of anyone who swears falsely in this court. Hold up the thumb and first two fingers of our right hand.” Joseph did so. “There, you have sworn to tell the truth,” said the judge. Now, put your right hand in the box.” Carefully, Joseph did so. He didn’t want to take a chance on tripping whatever mechanism was inside.

As the judges questioned him, he just as carefully answered with the complete truth: the refurbishing in Ireland, falling in with the British fleet, the storm that separated his ship from the convoy and the capture by the privateers. Each time he spoke, he tensed, afraid that the judges might not believe him and would activate the slicing machine. At last he was dismissed and returned to the jail. He lost no time in telling the other crew members about the threat of the box. As a result, even those who had decided to lie forgot the supercargo’s promised reward and told the plain truth. Later, they met a Dutch crew, who showed their hands, minus thumbs and forefingers. The threat had not been a bluff.

Joseph and his mates were allowed to return to the ship for the time being, but both ship and cargo were declared confiscated. They had also lost any chance of getting paid, so they had to find another berth as quickly as possible. By now it was nearly winter. Joseph haunted the waterfront until one day he saw a Danish brig being readied to sail.

“Ahoy the ship!” he called in English as he walked down the wharf. A face looked over the railing.

“What you want?” asked the Dane.

“I’m looking for a berth,” returned Joseph. “Where are you headed?”

“A bert’?” asked the seaman in a Danish accent. “We are going to Pillau, Prussia [now Baltiysk, Russia].You want to go t’ere?”

“Any port in a storm,” cheerfully answered Joseph, who did not know where Pillau was, but having been through a stormy trial of his courage, all he wanted right now was to get out of Denmark. He knew only a few Danish words, but the Danish captain knew quite a bit of English, and soon the 16-year-old seaman was aboard the brig as its newest crew member.

His relief soon faded, however, as the ship proved to be a leaky tub. With shifts of sailors operating the pump 24 hours a day, they were barely able to keep it afloat. An exhausted Joseph was glad to say goodbye when they finally limped into the harbor of Pillau.

There he signed on with an American brig coming from Russia. The brig would head back down the Baltic Sea – at least the Danish privateers would leave this ship alone, since it came from Russia, which was an ally --  through the Scottish islands in the North Sea to Belfast, Ireland. But it was a winter voyage, on a ship that proved to be just as leaky as the last.

Worse, the captain was stingy, cruel and addicted to hard liquor. Continuous intoxication only worsened his temperament. Again, the crew pumped continuously in shifts to rid the ship of enough water to keep it barely afloat. This was especially hard since all they had to eat were scanty rations of ship’s biscuit, or hardtack. Inevitably, there were complaints, but these merely infuriated the drunken captain.

“Do what I tell ye, ye filthy varmints!” he raged. Any more complaints and ye’ll work with no rations at all! See how long ye can keep it up then!” Too drunk to realize that if the sailors became too weak to operate the pump the ship would take him down along with them, he grew ever more threatening to the shivering, exhausted men. “Faster on that pump! Harder! Or I’ll keelhaul the lot of ye!”

At last they reached Dublin, where Joseph and Garrett Perrin, another young American, immediately crossed the Irish Sea as passengers to Liverpool, where they planned to get a berth that would take them back to New Bedford. Joseph hoped they would be able to find a berth without delay. He could hardly wait to tell Prudy all about his adventures!