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Updated: June 13, 2025
The captain called out to the men on the foreyard to "hold on for God's sake," as the vessel lurched over so far that the man on the lee yardarm said that he felt his foot touch the water. With almost superhuman effort the seamen, already worn out with pumping and with lacerated limbs, managed to secure the sail and make their way on deck to renew the fight to keep the vessel afloat.
I hate your honey-mouthed, easy-going skippers, who simper out, `Please, my good men, have the goodness to brace round the foreyard when the ship's taken aback. No, no give me a man who knows how to command men. Depend on it. Duff, you'll like Captain Fleetwood before you've sailed with him a week, if you are worth your salt, mind you, though."
The seamen had hauled the foreyard aback during the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again, and, as there was a light wind from the north and east, the barque began to draw slowly away from us.
I could not help reflecting how very justly this captain had got his vessel into jeopardy by first allowing a man to be seduced from his allegiance, and then placing confidence in him. "Let us now take a look at the chase," said the captain. "Zounds, she draws up with us. I can see her bowsprit-cap hen she lifts; and half an hour ago I only saw her foreyard.
In the face of so decided an opinion as this there was of course nothing further to be said, and five minutes later the Europa was leaping and plunging madly through the short, choppy Channel seas, with her topmasts and topgallant-masts whipping like fishing rods under the strain of the increased canvas, while the whole of her fore-deck was deluged with the spray that came in over the weather cathead, in cataracts that leapt almost as high as the foreyard.
"There may be salvage," muttered the second mate. "Then we will run down upon her lee side, and lie to." We were not more than a hundred yards from her when we swung our foreyard aback, and there we were, the barque and the brig, ducking and bowing like two clowns in a dance. "Drop one of the quarter-boats," said I. "Take four men, Mr. Allardyce, and see what you can learn of her."
The Captain, however, coming on deck, observed indications of a change, and ordered canvas to be reduced. Roger's duty required him to remain on deck; Charlie Ross ran up with the two other midshipmen to the foreyard to superintend the operation of taking in a reef.
It took a good while to do this, and once, while working on the foreyard, Jack was delighted to find himself by his captain's side. "I hope that rebel officer didn't see you come up," said Jack. "If he did he will be on his guard, and then good-by to all our chances of taking the ship." "Do you take me for a dunce?" asked the captain, in reply.
Her sails were also torn, her mainmast and main-topsail yard and foreyard a good deal injured. Yet though she had received these serious damages aloft, strange to say one man alone of her crew had been slightly injured. "We must repair damages, lads, and then go and look after the enemy," cried the commander.
The captain now hesitated to slip his ship, lest she might pay off on the wrong tack and come ashore; but as the vessel was steadily drifting and the sea terrific, the lifeboat being now and then hoisted up to her foreyard, while mountainous seas wallowed over both the lifeboat and the vessel, the Deal lifeboatmen said, 'If you don't slip her, we will.
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