James Johnson was holding on to the gunwale with all his strength. When the collision occurred he had nearly, no he HAD been, tossed overboard, except he never reached the water by the fortuitous accident of getting tangled in the lines on the way down.
James paused for a moment in his struggle to work his way back onto the deck. His arms ached already and it was freezing cold. The ship was already listing a bit to port, so he knew it was bad enough that she was taking on water. He cursed under his breath for having taken this job, knowing that it had never been done before and now realizing that it might never be done again. Maybe they’ll sing songs about us, he thought. But now it looked like it might be a sad song.
James was a deck hand working out of Boston Harbor. He had been sailing for three full years now, and was looking forward to signing on with a ship’s captain who would give him some responsibility, and the increase in pay that went with it. But work had been hard to find since the war had started, since almost all shipping was blockaded by the British. The competition was fierce for jobs on the few ships that were willing to take the chance of running the blockade. But this contract was judged too dangerous even by many of the most experienced sailors. James had considered joining the Navy, but there weren’t enough ships for all of the sailors that the Navy already had, so if he wanted to keep sailing, he had to scrounge for whatever commercial work he could get.
For about six years now, a man that some said was crazy had been selling ice. Selling frozen water! But eventually Boston had grown dependent on it, from the fruit and vegetable sellers, to the fish markets and the taverns. Even the hospitals received daily deliveries now to treat fever patients. The man who started this business was now even shipping ice to New York and Philadelphia. And more and more frequently, ships that would bring lumber, books, tools, fabrics, or any number of other cargoes to Boston, would return to their home port with ice in their hold.
This winter however, had been too warm for the lakes from which the ice was normally harvested to freeze over, so there was no ice to be had. As the Captain had explained it to James as they sat in the Golden Eagle Tavern , the ice businessman had determined that if only he could find a way to get some ice to the city, it would sell for triple it’s normal cost. He had come up with a dangerous scheme to get the ice, but he would be able to pay handsomely any crew willing to take the risk. And running the blockade was not even going to be the worst of it.
Captain Burkett had been quietly rounding up a crew of desperate, hungry, and therefore fearless, sailors. Under the circumstances, one couldn’t just post notices advertising a job to run the blockade, as British spies were everywhere. But James needed the money, and the Captain seemed capable, so James signed up as a deck hand/ rope handler.
For two weeks they had worked on the ship, the Mary Alice, packing hay and sawdust along the inside of the hull, and nailing boards to the ribs to hold it in place. The ship had been sailed upriver to Watertown to keep prying eyes from observing the preparations.
Finally they were ready to sail. And yet they waited six more days for a moonless night. They left at midnight, and were able to sail beyond the blockade before the sun crested the horizon. They sailed four more days before encountering their destination. Most ships steered a wide course around icebergs, but the Mary Alice had been contracted to find a large iceberg, and not only get close to it, but to actually tie up to it and harvest as much of the ice as they could, and bring it back to Boston.
No one had ever heard of such insanity, but the ice man, Mr. Tudor, was very clever, and convinced the Captain that it could be done. As James now hung from the ropes on the side of the ship, he was convinced that those who called Tudor crazy were quite correct.
They actually had not come upon the iceberg until late the previous day. They would not have been able to harvest the ice in darkness, so instead of standing off and risk crashing into the berg overnight, the Captain determined that it would be safer to tie up to it and float with it until morning. This would also give them an early start for harvesting time the next day.
All had gone according to plan, although most of the crew did not sleep very well, what with all the creaking and scraping all night long. Finally, morning arrived, and after some hot soup, they got to work.
A team of eight men were to drive long chisels into the ice to break off large chunks. One man would hold a chisel, and another would hammer it in with a sledge. Another team had long saws with which they were to saw up the chunks into stackable blocks about two feet on a side. Yet another team carried the blocks onto the ship using a kind of stretcher that held three blocks at a times. On the ship there was a team that lowered the blocks into the hold and another team that stacked the blocks.
All had gone well for several hours, when suddenly there was a loud CRACK, and then an ominous groaning. The chiselers had unfortunately broken the iceberg in two! The smaller piece started to float away, but the larger piece, which the ship was tied to, was now unbalanced and began to tip. One by one the ropes began to snap, then the gangplank broke away. The men on the berg were slipping on the tilted surface and falling into the icy water. Then the worst sound of all- a horrendously loud ripping sound, which anyone who sailed the North Atlantic had heard stories about and feared even more than storms. The iceberg was ripping into the hull as it turned over. The ship shuddered, and then slid sideways out from underneath anyone on deck.
The first mate was the first back on his feet, yelling commands to throw more ropes, and lower the small boats. James had been manning ropes when he heard the first crack. His job was to make sure that the ropes tied to the iceberg stayed tight, so he happened to be standing on the top rail when the boat shook, tossing him over. He had been able to snag a rope ladder that had been lowered for the crews to get back and forth to the boat without interrupting the ice haulers.
James gathered his strength and pulled himself back onto the ship. His arms were burning, and his legs felt rubbery, but he began unfastening ropes and throwing them overboard for the men in the water.
Not all of the ropes had broken free of the iceberg. The bow lines had held, so the stern of the ship was now drifting away from the ice. The water was barely above freezing, and those men would not last long in it. But the men belowdecks had come rushing up, the boats were being lowered, and James was helping those who had managed to grab a rope get up and into the ship. The first mate was trying to account for all the hands, but there was too much chaos, and soon, the ship began listing noticeably, so men had to be sent below to start bailing. The only way to get the water out was to form long lines of men to pass buckets. A couple of hands were rounding up some boards and tools to try to patch the damage.
Eventually, there were no more men to be rescued. The small boats were not brought back aboard, but were just tied beside the ship with ropes. Finally, the captain ordered the last lines cut, and the ship drifted free. The foresail was set to draw the ship away from their frozen antagonist, and the ship was turned to southwest.
Two men were missing, and never recovered. Hans Reed and A.S. Simpson. The berg had left a six foot gash in the hull, which had been patched up to stop the worst of the leaking, but bailing was still necessary. It took six days to get back to port, and they only had three fourths of a full load, but Boston got it’s ice, and James got his bonus.
And they do sing a song about this trip. It goes like this:
(A Em G D-A)
One cold winters day
We said anchors aweigh
And we sailed out for
Fortune and glory.
At four days from home
She rose out of the foam,
A vast mountain of white
cause for worry.
The ropes were laid out
And the first mate did shout
And the men and their tools
were soon over.
When finally it cracked
Two men didn’t come back
And the hull she was
split wide asunder.
We packed in the load
And set sail for our home
Wond’ring what we would tell
Their poor ladies.
Upon our return
We all stood on the stern
And said final farewells
to our mateys.
Now the stories are told
of the courage and cold
But no one has ever
returned there.
The edge of the ice
Cut the Mary Alice
And sent two of her sons
To their maker.
The one’s who survived
Drink their whiskey and wine
But don’t ever ask them
To remember
The day they came home
Without two of their own
On that cold winter day
in December.
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Very good story - well told. I wonder if Gordon Lightfoot heard this song before doing the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald?
Posted by: MM | January 21, 2004 at 10:49 AM