Forgotten News

by Jack Finney

  Still: he couldn't see any water, and on this ship he was no officer, so Badger turned away, but as he turned he saw Ashby standing down there listening to something one of his men was saying. Lamps had been relighted, I suppose, and possibly something done about the flooded floors of the coal bunkers. Because Badger overheard Ashby reply, he said, " 'Then call the stewards, and get buckets and set them to work passing coal.' "

  Passenger or not, when Badger heard that, he went down and into the engine room, and now he could see the water flooding the starboard side of the ship. Badger walked into the chief engineer's office in time, he said, to hear Ashby call out, " 'Hurry up, boys, and pass that coal along, or we shall have to set a gang of men bailing.' "

  "For God's sake, Mr. Ashby," said Badger, as he later recalled it, "don't wait until the ship is full of water—set the men to work bailing now." The ship "lay at the mercy of the waves," Badger said, and he went out into a gangway, and found the men passengers Captain Herndon had ordered rounded up, waiting there.

  Badger simply took over. Buckets were "procured from the lower hold," he said, the grating over a forward hatchway in the saloon was taken off, and water-filled buckets passed along until under the open hatchway. Then they were lifted into the saloon, and passed along like this out to the open deck to be dumped overboard. "Capt. Badger giving the orders," said a passenger who was there, "at 2 o'clock all hands commenced bailing." They formed two brigades, about fifty men in each line; and then presently three lines. "One string of pails went to the steerage," said one of the bailing passengers, "one to the cabin, and one to the engine-room. I had charge of the one going to the steerage."

  At first the leak didn't seem too bad; the bailing men down below could see pig-iron ballast just under the surface of the water into which they stood dipping. And up in the saloon passenger Frank A. Jones, in his borrowed red shirt, noted that as he and the others passed their buckets, "the ladies sat very composedly and many encouraged the men in their exertions." Mrs. Amanda Marvin of Sacramento even offered to help.

  Another gang of stewards, waiters, seamen—and of passengers, too, now— were at work passing coal to the engine room, the engineers there struggling to work up steam. Having organized the bailing, Captain Badger came back to the engine room. There he saw that in spite of the bailing the water level "had very sensibly increased." It was up to the ashpan of the lee furnace now, and Frederick Hawley, one of the bucket brigade down here, later told his wife that pretty soon the water came up to their knees. Badger looked around for the source of the leak, and saw it—seawater pouring in "very rapidly at a large leak around the shaft." This was the shaft from engine to starboard paddle wheel; with the ship so steeply tilted, the outside shaft opening lay under the water, thus the leak. Authority or not, Captain Badger said to Ashby—shouted?—that he'd better have that leak "attended to," and Ashby said he already had six men working on it and had sent for blankets to stuff around the leak. Badger left, and—possibly—prowled the ship, because now he found that still more water, a good deal of it, was coming in through the deadlights of an after cabin. Deadlights are covers fitted over portholes and other openings to keep out water, but for some reason these couldn't be closed, and now Badger headed for the deck.

  In the saloon and in their cabins, women and children sat watching crewmen hurry from cabin to cabin gathering up blankets. Below, the engineers were getting some steam, "but, having only the port fires to depend on," said Ashby, "it wasn't enough" and "the steam was soon used up." Broken-up bunks began arriving from steerage, so: "We … commenced firing up with wood…."

  Out on deck, with the paddle wheels motionless, they simply had to get the wallowing ship headed back into the wind. "The fore staysail was set," Mate Frazer said, then they turned the helm "hard to port," trying to make the wind itself pull the ship around. But almost instantly the staysail was "blown to pieces. There was still a very heavy sea, the gale continuing unabated. An attempt was then made"—Captain Herndon, I suppose, shouting the orders in the scream of the wind—"to hoist the foreyard … but before the yard was raised three feet from the deck the sail blew into fragments."

  Herndon ordered a drag prepared. This was a sail tied over a large wooden framework to make a kind of kite-shaped object, and its name was its purpose. Tied to a long rope and thrown over the side, the drag would be pushed back behind the ship by the waves until the line went taut. Then the dragging effect would tend to pull the ship into alignment with the direction of waves and wind, helping to force the prow back into the gale.

  Thomas W. Badger reached the deck. And "at my suggestion," he said, before throwing over the drag, Herndon ordered the foremast chopped down, and thrown over to lighten ship. It was five-thirty in the afternoon, "the ship listed over to the leeward so that people could not walk the deck," said Frazer. "I may say that she was almost on her beam ends," which means almost completely on her side.

  If you have ever so much as even helped to cut down a big tree with axes, you know it's a job standing on solid ground. Now three men went at the tree-thick base of the mast with axes: Mate James Frazer, Boatswain John Black, and Captain Herndon. And with the deck on which they stood tilted so far a man couldn't walk it, and pitching and rolling besides, they nevertheless chopped their way through the mast, the fallen chips flooding away like children's gutter boats. The chunk of an ax blade into wood is a land sound, and surely it sounded strange to the frightened passengers hearing it through the howling horror of the gale.

  The mast chopped through, it still hung partly upright and sagging in the rigging. Then the three men cut through the ropes, and "let the foremast go over the side," said Frazer. "In going over, the rigging caught foul of the cathead and anchor"—the cathead is a projecting piece of timber near the bow on which the anchor rests—"which caused the foremast to shoot under the ship's bottom, she was injured by it, and probably the leak increased thereby. I don't know such to be the fact, but she thumped there for some time," still another awful sound for the passengers to wonder about.

  Nothing worked. "After the foremast was cut away," said Frazer, "we paid out the hawser that was attached to the drag to about ninety fathoms in all, giving it a turn about the stump of the foremast." It "had no effect in bringing the ship's head up, and that was the last effort towards that objective which was in our power to make."

  Tons of water repeatedly crashing onto the helpless ship, they did what they could: worked to keep the deck pumps going. Below, they had got up steam in the donkey boiler, possibly with the broken-up bunks, and: "The Worthington Pumps, which had previously worked by steam from the main boilers," said George Ashby, "were then worked by the donkey boilers, and continued to work till about 8 o'clock, with several stoppages of a few minutes each, which were made necessary to free the feed-pipe of the boiler from obstructions. When the donkey engine finally stopped, the feed-pipe had become so choked up that it was necessary to cut and repair it."

  Captain Badger had a different story. He said Second Assistant Engineer Henry Keeler told him they'd "neglected to turn a cock, which was down in the lee bilge, until the water over it became so high and so hot that it could not be reached. No further attempt was made to raise steam to work the pumps, or to repair the pumps…." But the blankets they'd gathered were now stuffed into the leak around the starboard shaft. And they'd gotten a sail wrapped around the shaft end in the wheel outside. So the leak was slowed. All they could do now was bail and hope.

  The men "worked like horses" at bailing, said Mrs. Isaac McKim Bowley, a passenger. The work was endless and terribly hard, passing sloshing buckets hand to hand over and again, and: "Some of the men," Mrs. Bowley said, "became so exhausted that they dropped down in their places as if they were dead."

  "But the leak continued," said Mrs. Thayer, "and the water gained in depth in spite of the exertions made to keep it out. There was then no more doubt as to the peril that we were in, and everybody began to look forward with great anxiety to the
fate which awaited us."

  At eleven that night the long hawser holding the drag far behind the ship—endlessly chafed by the railing over which it lay stretched—parted, and they lost the drag.

  At midnight the chamber of one of the deck pumps burst. Boatswain John Black stayed out on the dark deck, working to keep the remaining pumps going. James Frazer "visited almost all parts of the ship," he said, "lending assistance wherever [I] could be useful …" and so did Captain Herndon. One of the bailing men said, "During the whole time I was on board … the Captain's conduct was truly noble. His example was a splendid one. He omitted no exertion to save the ship or the passengers. While the men were at work he came, every now and then, to cheer them on. 'Work on, my boys,' he said, 'we have hopes yet.' Then he would ask us if we wanted any fresh water, and whenever we did he had it brought to us. He was very active all the time. He told us to 'relieve each other like men, and not to suffer any one of us to drop while another man stood idle.' "

  The observant Amanda Marvin, who had offered to help bail, also liked the captain; everyone seemed to. In contrast to the profane way she had sometimes heard George Ashby talk, Mrs. Marvin thought the captain "particularly mild and respectful in the presence of ladies," but she also thought Herndon "appeared … altogether too easy, and wanting in that stern energy and fearlessness so indispensable in an emergency like the present."

  During the night more blankets were collected to shove into the leak around the shaft. Seventeen-year-old Winifred Fallon had been lying seasick in her bunk for "four days without tasting a morsel of food…. My father was with me most of the time through the gale. When we saw any of the [crew] men, we asked them, and they told us always that there was no danger." Now they knew better. For on "Friday night a man came down and picked up every blanket and counterpane and mattress to stop the leaks," and Winifred had to lie on the bare wood of her bunk.

  At some time during this night James Frazer went out onto the dark wind-and wave-battered deck with a metal saw, and tried to cut through the chain of the starboard bow anchor to let it fall and lighten the ship. But in that gale, on the heaving tilted surface, he could not do it. The wind, he noted, was from "the northwest," and "blowing heavily."

  All through the night men kept bailing, said Captain Badger, who was one of them, of course, the men "being changed as often as they became exhausted." And women stood by encouraging them. A man from Rough and Ready, California, traveling with his wife and an infant child, had been seasick for days, but he kept on bailing. Passenger Thomas McNeich said, "I was at work at the pumps all the time," which I believe meant the deck Dumps. "The crew and passengers behaved nobly. I never saw men with more determination, and under better discipline…."

  But other men gave out, leaving to go to their cabins, lock the door, and drop onto the bed. Others got drunk. The only food served now was hard bread and water, handed out to those who wanted it. But many of the women, "intently watching the efforts of the officers … and the [men] passengers to save the vessel," didn't bother with food, said Ann Small, the new widow from Panama. And: "Owing to the scarcity of food, and the exhaustion consequent on the work of bailing," said Virginia Birch, "liquor was freely supplied to all who wanted it, and of course some took too much…." Mrs. Hawley said that, in fact, some men drank "until stupefied, and all care for life vanished."

  At some time during that terrible night the captain told his steward, Garrison, as Garrison later told Ann Small, that he knew what his mind was: if the ship sank, he would not leave it.

  Toward morning the strength of the men who were still bailing began to give out, too, and inside the ship the water rose ever higher. "On Saturday," said the still-seasick Winifred Fallon, "the stateroom that Mrs. Redding and I occupied had three feet of water in it." Captains Herndon and Badger tried to encourage the exhausted men, "assuring them," Badger said, "that the ship could still hold out. Every passenger remained cool, and seemed to forget his danger in the united efforts to save the vessel. There was no weeping or exhibition of despair, even on the part of the females." One passenger remembered the women repeatedly saying to the exhausted men, " 'It's only another hour to sunrise.' "

  As the chance of saving the ship became clearly smaller and smaller, people seemed to go silent. "When the prospect of the salvation of the ship began to grow darker," Ann Small said, "the conduct of the passengers, officers and crew was so quiet, orderly and considerate as to [leave] a deep impression on the minds of [those who saw it]."

  At 4 A.M. Saturday morning the gale slacked off a little, but only a little, with "a heavy sea running," said Thomas Badger; and at first light Captain Herndon sent a seaman up to the lurching tip of the highest of their remaining two masts, where he tied on a signal of distress.

  Some men kept bailing, and as soon as there was daylight to see, crewmen rigged great empty beef and pork barrels, and milk cans, tying on lines and lowering them down into the holds to be filled with water. These were then hoisted out with rope and tackle by gangs of fifty men each, and in this way they began emptying out 400 gallons a minute, George Ashby said. Frazer went out with his saw again, and this time, able to see, he managed to cut through the heavy chain, the anchor dropping to vanish instantly in the turbulent sea, lightening the ship a little. "The Captain all this time," said Frazer, "using untiring exertions and cheering the people to their work,we continued on bailing and pumping."

  A passenger friend of George Ashby's, Charles McCarthy, chief engineer of the steamer Golden Gate, was down in the engine room helping. And they once again got up steam enough in the donkey engine boiler to work the pumps. But nevertheless the water continued to rise, presently submerging the pumps, which stopped. The boiler still had steam, and someone suggested boxing in the pumps, but they couldn't find the carpenters, couldn't find tools, and then the water burst through the blankets stuffed around the leaking shaft, and the water rose faster than ever and put out the boiler fire.

  "About 10 o'clock on Saturday," said teenager Winifred Fallon, still lying on her blanketless bunk, her room awash, "a gentleman came down and took us up to the saloon; my father was with us; he handed me his money and told me to keep it—perhaps I might be saved and he not."

  In the engine room the water, George Ashby thought, stood nine or ten feet deep, and he gave up all further attempt at raising steam, and left to report to Captain Herndon.

  Badger was there before him. He "went to Captain Herndon's room and said to him that the storm was abating, but the water in the ship was gaining upon them rapidly, and the vessel must go down. Captain Herndon said he believed she must; that he had made up his mind to that; that it was very hard to leave his family thus, but it could not be helped. Mr. Ashby came into the room at this time, and [I] said to him, 'The ship will sink.' He seemed startled at the remark, and replied with earnestness, 'She shan't sink; I'll be d----d if she shall. We must all go to work and bail her out.' [I] replied that [I] wished talking in that style would do it, but [I] and all the rest on board had been very hard at work all night bailing, without avail. Captain Herndon seemed dejected and perfectly resigned, and laid [no blame] to Mr. Ashby."

  No radio in this world: news came to shore only by ship. And on this day, Saturday, September 12, the only word of the Central America to reach the mainland came to New Orleans by a steamer from Havana. New Orleans routinely passed it on to the New York papers by telegraph: "The steamship Central America, from Aspinwall … and The Empire City, from New Orleans, left Havana at 9 am on the 8th inst., for New-York."

  But out on the Atlantic that Saturday morning the Central America was lying well over on her side, "with her portholes in the water," said socialite passenger Frank Jones. "By this time the water was up to the second cabin floors. We all knew our danger." They were bailing for their lives, each emptied bucket and barrel now only a few seconds' postponement during which the signal of distress, standing stiff in the still-terrible wind, might yet be seen. And so the morning passed, water endless
ly dumped over the side, but endlessly coming in faster still, the ship steadily lowering into the sea.

  3

  In the early afternoon the lookout saw a distant white speck. He called down the news, and out on the awash and tilted deck men suddenly went motionless; staring over miles of tumbling ocean to see whether the speck swelled or shrank to nothingness. Herndon ordered the ship's signal gun fired, but the distant vessel—it was a ship—did not hear the explosive bark over the howl of the storm.

  The eye of her captain, however, was caught by a tiny spark: the muzzle flash of the gun. He stared, saw something, and ordered his ship swung toward it. And on the deck of the Central America moments later, our people saw the far-off white speck grow just slightly clearer, barely larger, and then they knew: it was a ship and might have seen them. The news, the hope, shot through the Central America, people hurrying out to join the others on deck, or to portholes and windows to stand staring.

  I don't think imagination can often tell us, with anything we ought to feel certain about, what long-ago people once thought or felt; we can be wrong enough about people we've lived with for years. And when someone tells me in print what Alexander Hamilton felt upon waking the morning of the duel, I put the book down and pick up the comic section. Once in a while, though, we do know what people felt because a mistake isn't possible. In your mind put yourself out on that wet and slanted deck, or peer through a glass pane, trying to wipe it clearer … and then, across a fast-moving expanse of gray ocean, suddenly glimpse that remote white flash. Watch it, forgetting to breathe, and then—yes, see it grow! And you know what our people on the Central America felt: not the intensity of it, but at least a pale tincture of their ecstasy of relief.