by Jack Finney
A man stood in his cabin earnestly talking to his roommate: this was another gold miner returning home, an original forty-niner, in fact. But he had no gold, was coming home broke, and to a wife who had gone insane during his long absence. It was time to move, his roommate told him now, to get out of here and save themselves. But "when the critical moment arrived," the man "refused to make any effort to escape, sitting down and calmly awaiting his fate."
In Captain Badger's cabin, said a passenger who was there with him apparently, the captain upended his valise containing one thousand twenty-dollar gold pieces, and "flung [them] onto the floor of the stateroom…." But the other man had twenty-one pounds of gold that he'd mined himself and he hung on to it; he was young, and thought he could save it.
And now once again—something after six o'clock, "about one hour before sunset," James Frazer said—someone on deck spotted a ship. They watched … then saw it was approaching. It was the little El Dorado, finally here. On her deck Captain Stone studied the Central America: "I could see that she was disabled, and deep in the water. I judged what he might want, and gave orders to stand by the main sheet, to heave our vessel to. The man at the wheel steered within fifty feet of the steamer …" and Stone "fully expected they would throw him a line to which he could make fast, but there was but a moment in which he was near enough for this…."
Each captain, however—shouting to the other in the wind, unable to hear well or much—misread the other's mind: each assumed the other had boats. So "that precious moment," a reporter called it, when a line might have been tossed and the two ships possibly brought side by side, "was lost without any attempt made on board the steamer for this purpose…." And that was too bad, because the El Dorado, "a vessel of two hundred and twelve tons," was large enough to have taken aboard every person still on the Central America.
Steering within fifty feet of the disabled ship, at 6:30 p.m., Captain Stone noted, he "hailed her in the following language: 'Can I render you any assistance.'
"The reply was: 'Lay by me until morning, for I am in a sinking condition.'
"Immediately I gave the order to put the wheel hard down and haul aft the main sheet, and hove to, directly under his lee, say about a gunshot distant; I warned him to commence at once putting his passengers on board, supposing that he had good boats…. During the time that I was talking with the captain I could hear the passengers crying and halloing, sounding like one simultaneous burst of shouting; one voice that I heard above the rest cried 'Send us your boat….' " But "I had but one, a small jollyboat, which would not live in the high sea then running for a moment.
"He again said: 'Lay by me until morning.' I supposed his reason to be for thus delaying that he thought it advisable to await daylight, as he might, in making the attempt to transport them in the night, (it being then near dark,) lose more than he could save, while, by awaiting daylight, perhaps all might be saved.
"I then said: 'Set your lights.' By that time I had drifted out of hailing distance, and I ordered my lights set immediately." The El Dorado, prepared to wait until morning and then to receive the Central America's nonexistent lifeboats, drifted away to leeward, keeping the lights of the Central America in sight.
I don't know why Captain Herndon shouted to Captain Stone, "Lay by me until morning," or if he did; perhaps Stone misheard him in that wind. For if there was any help to be had of the El Dorado, Herndon's sinking ship needed it now. And he ordered Second Mate James Frazer to send up a rocket, which apparently the El Dorado never saw, or if she did, was unable to approach again against the wind. Herndon ordered Frazer "to stop by the rocket box and send up a rocket every half hour…." As Frazer fired the first rocket, he "at the same time saw a [small] boat on the starboard bow. We hailed the boat, and told them to come under our starboard quarter, but could not hear the answer. I suppose that he saw the ship settling down very fast, and kept away for safety."
It was boatswain John Black's lifeboat, returned once more. Black called to Captain Herndon, he said later, that his boat was "in a damaged condition," and he said Herndon shouted in reply "to keep off." Black did keep off, but remained near the ship. It was now "7:45 p.m., or thereabouts," Frazer said, and "the people still kept on bailing."
Across the long stretch of heavy sea, aboard the crowded Marine, Mrs. Mary Swan said she "looked out through a window about 8 o'clock, and saw the Central America's lights burning…." It was dark now. The sinking ship stood, far out to sea, due east of a point somewhere between Savannah and Jacksonville.
Aboard the ship whose lights Mary Swan saw, "the scene among the passengers on deck and throughout the vessel was one of the most indescribable confusion and alarm. The prayers of the pious and penitent, the curses of the maddened, and the groans and shrieks of the affrighted, were all commingled together, added to which were numerous angry contests between man and man, in many instances amounting to outright fight, for the possession of articles on which to keep themselves afloat…."
Frazer said: "At about 8 p.m., or a few minutes after, the ship began to take water on the deck." Hundreds of men stood waiting: some with life preservers, some with planks or wooden fragments of the ship, hatch covers, or doors. Some had nothing. A dozen of the crew stood by one of the rafts they'd hacked out of the hurricane deck. A group of ship's butchers were still working on another raft at the forward part of the ship. Comedian Billy Birch came out on deck, saw the butchers, and walked toward them, hoping to join them, he said.
The Englishman, John George, stood near the wheelhouse beside Second Mate Frazer. Frazer, Captain Herndon, and First Officer Van Rensellaer were together, said a passenger who stood watching them. Countless men, in fact, stood or sat watching the group of ship's officers, among them the young Casey brothers, identical twins, who stood "within a few feet of Lieut. Herndon," and thought he "continued calm and self-possessed in his actions."
Eighteen-year-old Henry O'Conner also waited "for the fatal moment to arrive, determined to do his best to save his life"; and he was determined: besides the tin life preserver he wore, young Henry held two hatch covers he'd pulled off the skylight over the engineer's room.
Up in the rigging near the top of the only undamaged mast two men sat discussing which end of the ship each thought would go down first.
John Taylor stood wearing a life preserver, having "placed, as I thought securely," he said, "in my trowsers pocket all I had, about $300 in gold…."
The man who had wrenched a door off its hinges continued to sit on it, both waiting and guarding it. Among the many men wearing life preservers stood George Dawson, the black man who'd been shipwrecked before. "Anticipating his danger," he had tried to secure a plank," but "it was claimed by another passenger."
John Tice waited with the ten-foot plank he'd found, wearing "thick cloth pantaloons, a stout peajacket, and a heavy cloth pilot overcoat."
"About 8 o'clock," said one of the miners, "… as we all stood forward, I said to the men, 'There will never be as many die as coolly. Boys,' " (he said that he said) " 'let us all die like true Californians.' "
Perhaps two hundred men waited out there on the deck, some of them estimated, but at least as many more were still down in the cabins and corridors or in the steerage: panicked, fighting, hunting for something to keep afloat with, still worrying about gold, or simply lying on their bunks. Naval officer Dobbin, brother of a late Secretary of the Navy, lay on his bunk exhausted, like many another of the bailers. Other men, "in my opinion," Virginia Birch said, "lay stupefied with drink in their staterooms."
Then: "Two heavy seas swept over the steamer," said Henry O'Conner, "the first carrying off a large number of persons, and the second filling the ship." Fireman Alexander Grant rushed up to the deck from below, saw the raft he'd helped make already shoved off the ship, men climbing onto it, and he jumped over the side and swam for it. An officer shouted at Grant to cut the raft loose, which he did. "The vessel gave three lurches, some of the passengers jumping off at each lur
ch. Those who jumped off at the first and second lurches swam off to some distance, but the great mass remained on deck…."
"… every remaining passenger and all the remaining crew resigned themselves to their fate," said James Frazer. "I looked over the side forward and aft; and saw the water spotted with people, jumping over to get clear of the ship before she was submerged. I saw a rocket go off to windward of the port paddle-box."
It was fired by Captain Herndon, said Thomas Badger: Herndon stood on the paddle box, so tipped by the tilted ship that the rocket's mount fired it downward. He fired more, and a mile and a half away the steamer Atalanta saw them and knew—blue rockets fired in succession—that they were a signal of distress. "Captain Herndon remained on the wheel up to the [last] moment, which was eight o'clock," said Badger. "I was standing on the quarter deck. Some jumped over, and put out from the now rapidly descending ship and seized on whatever they could …. Of those who remained on deck "no one shrieked or cried, but all stood calm. The Captain behaved nobly, and said he would not leave the ship. I promised him I would remain with him, as also did the Second Officer Mr. Frazer…."
"Just as she was about to go down, there came a flash of lightning which, for a moment, gave a full view of the entire deck … ," said a man aboard her. "Upon the wheelhouse stood Captain Herndon, with his hat in one hand and the other upon the iron rail, and with nothing to cling to when he went down…. In a moment the stern began rapidly to sink…."
"All at once," said Badger, "the ship as if in an agony of death herself, made a plunge on an angle of 45 degrees…." James Frazer "was lifted by the sea, and hove in amidships, and back to the starboard side. Then the ship sunk," he "came to the top of the water, [and] the only thing I saw was about ten feet of the ship's funnel…." "With a shriek from the engulphed mass," said Captain Badger, though I doubt that he shrieked, "she disappeared." One man remembered that mass cry even as the suck of the sinking ship pulled him under with it: "… there arose a hoarse yell, as if coming from the bottom of the sea." Another man heard the sound of the sinking, "like … inserting a red-hot bar of iron into a tub of water—a moment's hissing and seething … ," and the young Englishman, who'd been standing beside James Frazer near the wheelhouse, also heard "the seething rush and hiss of waters that closed above her" even as she pulled him under.
"She went down stern foremost," said Henry O'Conner, who was swept from her sinking deck, but—with life preserver and two hatch covers—he stayed floating on the surface, as did others who were either well prepared or lucky. But O'Conner saw countless men pulled "down in the vortex" of the sinking ship. "Many were sucked into the hatches and never came up."
Even men wearing life preservers were sucked under. Captain Herndon was one, and First Mate Charles Van Rensellaer, and engineer John Tice, who was "carried a good distance under water, a distance which seemed to him unfathomable, with such tremendous and irresistable force was he drawn underneath."
The Englishman George, "sucked in by the whirlpool caused by her swift descent," was carried "to a depth … and into a darkness that he never dreamed of … ," and the gold miner determined to die like a true Californian was carried down "fifteen or twenty feet—so far at least and so long that I had to breathe while under water…." John Taylor, in life preserver and with $300 stowed in his "trowsers pocket," was washed clear of the ship, but his foot got snagged in the rigging of a submerged mast, and he was dragged down with it. So was George Dawson, who "caught hold of the gangway near the pilot-house" as the ship went under, "and the next instant found himself under water going down with his heels above his head. He let go his hold and came to the surface…."
Watching at a distance, from his lifeboat, John Black saw the sinking, and "immediately afterwards," he later told a rescued passenger, saw "the heads of the drowning passengers like blackbirds on the water." One of those heads was that of Billy Birch, who never reached the butchers' raft he'd been walking toward across the deck. "Just as he got opposite the smoke stack, a tremendous sea struck the ship, and she went down." The butchers were never seen again, but Birch was left alive and floating.
Others, too, stayed on the surface. The young gold miner wearing two life preservers, his pockets stuffed with gold, floated clear. The man sitting on the door was swept off the deck, still sitting on it. Another man felt "the ship sink under my feet, and I was adrift in the sea. I saved myself by swimming." The hurricane-deck raft and its men seesawed in the waves, some of the men tied onto it with rope. But it was only inch-thick wood covered with oiled canvas, and only twelve feet square, so the weight of a dozen men submerged the raft and they lay underwater, heads awkwardly lifted to the air; Alexander Grant among them, shipwrecked now for the fourth time. Out in the darkness George Dawson, with whom Grant had once been shipwrecked, was still afloat even though a drowning man had grabbed him around the neck. But Dawson was "tall, well-built, muscular and young," and he broke free, "managed to get hold of three pieces of board, placed them together, and they assisted in keeping his body afloat."
Of those pulled under with the ship, a great many stayed under. Others made it back to the surface. A passenger came up gasping, his life preserver and most of his clothes peeled right off him by the power of the suction that had dragged him under. All around him others were popping to the surface, too, and so was timber, pieces "breaking loose from the ship as she continued to descend." These "leaped to the surface, and fell back with a heavy splash," but other timbers and various wooden objects Herndon had ordered chopped loose came up directly under some of the men who'd just escaped drowning, and they were "killed, stunned and drowned."
One of the men who'd sat in the ship's rigging discussing which end of the ship would go under first made it up still alive, escaped the flying timber, saw a hatch cover, and climbed onto it. The other was never seen again.
The gold miner who had not, after all, died like a true Californian came to the surface, "found plenty of things to cling to, and got hold of a door, which I held onto…." John Taylor, dragged under by the rigging, jerked and yanked his foot till it came loose, and his life preserver brought him to the top in time to draw breath again.
But some came up too late for that, and Taylor saw "a great many dead bodies floating about. I struck against many of them, they were all provided with life-preservers, yet dead, and with their heads down in the water. It was a horrible sight."
The man who'd been stripped of life preserver and most of his clothes swam aimlessly to keep afloat, then came to a friend who had two life preservers, and who gave him one. Then each found pieces of wreckage to hang on to. "An occasional flash of lightning, showed to each other a sea of struggling forms. Each strove to encourage his friend with hopes he scarce felt himself."
One of the men struck by wooden fragments bursting to the surface was Billy Birch, hit not once but several times. Now, with a few others, he lay on "a floating hatch window," painfully injured. Captain Herndon and First Mate Charles Van Rensellaer made it back to the surface alive. In their life preservers, they rose and fell with the waves, conversing with A. J. Easton, one of the ship's young bridegrooms. Van Rensellaer told Easton that "he was devoted to Herndon, rose with him"—in promotions, I think is meant—"and declared that he would not leave him."
Engineer John Tice "came up safe with his plank in his possession." He tried to pull off his water-heavy boots, couldn't, and lay hanging over his plank. The Englishman John George, "luckily escaping all injury from the timbers," came back to the surface, too. He wore a life preserver, but saw a couple of "strips of boards," and grabbed them. "The waves as they rose and fell revealed a crowd of human heads," he said, and: "Those … who had lost their life-preservers or planks while under water, owing to the force of the whirlpool, were frantically snatching at … pieces of the wreck…."
Far across the wild night sea on the distant Marine, Mary Swan, who had seen the Central America's lights across the water, "looked out again shortly afterwards. I saw no li
ght. I then felt sick at heart, for I knew that my husband must have perished in the meantime." Mrs. Bowley said, "When it was known on board the brig that the ship had gone, there was great wailing, for there were women there whose husbands had gone down with the wreck."
The El Dorado "continued drifting," said her captain, "but was not more than two miles distant when the lights of the steamer which up to that time had been plainly visible … disappeared…." They searched, said Captain Stone, but could find no one. The Atalanta, which had seen the blue bursts of the sinking ship's rockets, searched, too, but at night and in that sea found no one either. But in their lifeboat John Black and his crew sat watching the men afloat and struggling among the drifting wreckage, but Black said that his crewmen "positively refused to venture among them, afraid that the boat would be swamped by the multitudes that would endeavor to scramble into it…." Presently they rowed away toward the far-off lights of the Marine.
By occasional flashes of lightning, Second Mate James Frazer saw "over one hundred men and great quantities of driftwood," and others made the same estimate of about a hundred men. From them "cries arose that mingled into one inarticulate wail, then the lustier and less terrified shouted for assistance to the Marine, which was far beyond hailing distance…. The swell of the sea was great, and successively the poor floaters, holding onto their planks with the energy of despair, were riding on the brink of a precipice and buried in a deep valley of water … respiration was very difficult, owing to the masses of water which were constantly dashed upon them as wave after wave rolled by." The man adrift on his door had "great difficulty in holding on, on account of the roughness…." And the "true Californian," also afloat on a door, hung on to it for "about fifteen minutes till three Irishmen grabbed it, when I left it, as I was becoming so numb I was obliged to warm up by a little swimming exercise. Though a large quantity of material was floating about, still there was a good deal of desperate struggling and fighting to appropriate articles promising the most security. I got hold of a trunk, but it soon fell to pieces. But a flour barrel directly came in my way; in clinging to it I soon got chilled and had occasionally to leave it and swim to get warm. But I did not let it get far out of my way. I observed the Irishmen still fighting for the door the last I saw of them…. After a while I came across a board, concluded the board was better than the barrel, and so swapped…."