IT WAS STILL dark when Captain Leyland roughly woke Eliza and told her to hurry and get dressed. As she did so, Eliza was aware the ship was still pitching and tossing, but there was no sense of moving forward now, only an up and down movement, with an occasional fierce jerk, almost as though the ship had been tethered in the middle of the rough sea.
Dressing as quickly as she could, she opened the door to the Leyland’s cabin and found Agnes struggling to dress, her husband with her. He looked gaunt and anxious and when Eliza asked what was happening, he replied, ‘I don’t know exactly where we are, but we are close to land – far too close. We can hear surf pounding against cliffs and have put two anchors out to keep us offshore. I hope they’re going to hold, but in case they don’t, we must prepare for the worst.’
With this stark warning he hurried from the cabin, leaving Eliza to help Agnes complete her dressing. When this had been accomplished, the captain’s wife began gathering her jewellery, adorning neck, wrists and fingers with as much as was possible, fearing that the box in which they were kept would be lost if the ship foundered.
Before she finished a cry went up on deck that an anchor rope had parted and there were fears for the one remaining.
Eliza and Agnes remained in the cabin, uncertain of what they should do, when the door crashed open and a fraught Jim Macleish stumbled into the cabin.
In answer to Agnes’s demand to know exactly what was happening, he replied, ‘Exactly? I wish I knew. The only thing that’s certain is that we’ve missed the Cornish coast. The storm has driven us up the Bristol Channel so we might well be in danger of being driven on to the Welsh coast, although I wouldn’t have thought we’d gone quite that far. It’s just possible it’s Lundy island out there. If it is then God help us! Get up top as quick as you can, but beware of waves when you come out on deck. If we lose the second anchor I’ll try to get you in a boat and clear the ship. It will be a desperate measure and our last resort, but there’s nothing else that can be done to save anyone.’
A sudden thought struck Eliza and she asked, ‘What about the women in the forward hold? How will they escape?’
‘Just worry about yourself and Mrs Leyland, girl. We can’t look for too many miracles.’
‘But … they’ll be given a chance, same as the rest of us?’ Eliza persisted.
When the mate would not meet her gaze Eliza feared the worst and his reply confirmed her suspicions.
‘Having a couple of dozen terrified convict women running amok on the ship at a time like this would risk the lives of everyone on board. They have as much chance of survival in the hold as anyone else.’
‘You have had their irons taken off?’
Eliza was aware that if the women found themselves in the sea wearing their heavy fetters they would have no chance at all of survival.
‘Right at this moment I have every sailor on board fighting to save Cormorant. I’ll send someone to remove their irons as soon as a man can be spared – now hurry and get up on deck. We’ve got only one anchor holding us off the rocks now. When the rope breaks – and it will – we’ll need to act fast to have any chance of survival. So move yourselves!’
As the trio emerged from the hatch on to the open deck they were almost washed overboard by a wave which crashed down on the stricken ship with all the force of an avalanche.
Agnes was emerging from the hatch ahead of Eliza when the wave struck and had it not been for Eliza’s tight grip on her she would have been lost. As it was, they were both thoroughly soaked.
There was a great deal happening on the deck with men shouting and countermanding orders, voices vying – for the most part unsuccessfully – with the noise of the storm. The sailors’ activities were illuminated intermittently by lightning, which also showed heaving waves thundering against high cliffs, perilously close to Cormorant.
At that moment the bow of the ship suddenly reared up, and when it crashed down again the movement was accompanied by the frightening sound of splintering wood. This was followed by a writhing motion that brought to Eliza’s mind an incongruous memory of her early years, when, as a small child in the basement London room where she lived before being taken off to the workhouse, she had witnessed the death throes of a rat, caught in a home-made snare.
The memory brought back the same feeling of terror she had experienced on that occasion. Then, above all the other sounds she heard women screaming and, knowing from whence the sounds came, and their implications, the horror she felt had a frightening immediacy – but at that moment someone blundered against her in the darkness.
Staggering off-balance, she was caught by strong hands and Macleish’s voice demanded, ‘Where’s Agnes … Mrs Leyland?’
‘She’s here …’ Agnes had fallen to the deck but Eliza could feel her gripping the hem of her skirt as the captain’s wife struggled to regain her footing on the wet deck.
‘Hold on to her. Don’t lose her – and don’t lose me. We’re going to the boat.’
Eliza had noticed two boats on the deck at Cormorant’s stern, one on either side and she asked, ‘Which one?’
‘There’s only one … the other was washed overboard.’
Remembering the size of the boat compared with the giant waves battering Cormorant and the nearby cliffs, Eliza said fearfully, ‘We can’t trust our lives to a small boat like that in this sea!’
‘It’s our only chance, the ship is breaking up on the rocks and nothing can save it now … Hurry!’
As Eliza pulled Agnes to her feet, the captain’s wife, half-hysterical with fear, cried, ‘Where’s my husband? Where’s Arnold?’
Without slowing in his efforts to drag the two women along the wildly bucking deck towards the ship’s stern, Macleish, head down against the wind and blinding rain shouted, ‘He’s ordered me to get you into the boat and pull away from the ship. He’ll try to escape with the crew over the rocks to the shore. You couldn’t make it that way.’
‘I’m not going! I want to stay with Arnold….’
‘He’s busy trying to save his crew. Here we are – but be careful, the boat’s swinging about like a mad thing.’
Macleish was fully aware that neither the captain nor any of the crew remaining on board stood any chance of survival. Agnes knew it too but before she could protest any further, the mate bundled her and Eliza into the wildly swinging boat and scrambled in after them.
There was a sudden, stomach-churning drop as the seamen holding the ropes attached to the davits released their grip, sending the boat crashing into the sea. It immediately began bouncing around in an alarming manner, at the mercy of the waves.
‘Push away from the ship’s side!’
Macleish bellowed the order to the eight or nine seamen who were in the boat, his voice only just discernible above the din about them. Using oars, the sailors levered the boat clear of the stricken Cormorant, snapping two oars in the process.
Eventually, to the relief – and disbelief – of everyone on board the small craft they cleared the ship’s stern and suddenly the boat was in open water at the mercy of the sea and still far from safety.
‘Get the oars in the rowlocks and pull together. We have to get clear of Cormorant – and the rocks. Pull as you never have before … your lives depend on it! Come on … put your backs into it. In … out … in … out…!’
The mate of the stricken Cormorant shouted the time for the oarsmen in a desperate effort to make them pull on the oars together and power the small boat clear of the mother ship.
It was not easy. The boat was rising and falling with the mountainous waves, the blades of the oars digging into water at one moment, flailing the air uselessly in the next – and not all the water stayed outside the boat. Eliza had been aware of water soaking her feet when she climbed inside and now she felt it swilling about her ankles.
Macleish was aware of it too. Struggling to hold the tiller with one hand, he felt beneath his seat in the stern of the boat and from a small locker pulled out two dish-shaped objects. Kicking them towards Eliza, he said, ‘You and Agnes use these. Try to get rid of some of the water; we can’t afford to ride any lower than we are now.’
Eliza handed one of the dishes to Agnes who, ill and terrified of all that was happening about her, only feebly followed the example of Eliza who began baling out water as fast as she could.
The task was not easy. The boat was pitching and rolling wildly and, despite all her efforts, Eliza felt that only half the water she was bailing out reached the side before spilling back into the boat but she urged the distressed wife of the Cormorant’s captain to follow her example.
Suddenly, the movement of the boat changed perceptibly. It was still highly mobile but now the waves seemed higher, the rise of the small boat greater than before and the drop into every trough even deeper, with a longer time between the two.
‘We’ve left the lee of the land and are in open water,’ Macleish shouted to the seamen in the boat. ‘It’s as I thought, Cormorant must have struck the rocks on Lundy. If we can raise the mast with not too much sail the wind should take us towards the Cornish coast.’
‘The north coast,’ one of the seamen growled, ‘Most of that’s as rocky as Lundy.’
‘Most of it,’ Macleish agreed, ‘but there are harbours and beaches too. By the time we get there it should be light and we’ll be able to choose where we go ashore. Let’s get that mast up.’
The mast was raised and a modicum of sail set. Although the sail added to the boat’s speed and made it easier for Mate Macleish to keep the boat on course, it did nothing to help Eliza and Agnes with the bailing. Half-an-hour after clearing the comparative shelter of Lundy Island the amount of water inside the Cormorant’s boat had reached alarming proportions. It hardly improved when Macleish made two of the sailors take the balers, telling Eliza and Agnes to do what they could with cupped hands in a feeble attempt to help.
It was evident they were fighting a losing battle and Eliza asked, ‘How far are we from land?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ the mate replied, ‘And that’s all I can make … a guess. It could be a mile – or it could be ten! What’s far more certain is that unless we get there soon we’ll be in serious trouble. We’re so low in the water it’s coming in faster than we can bail it out. I’ll raise more sail and hope to reach the coast before we go under.’
‘Is that wise?’ The nearest oarsman put the question to the mate. ‘The wind has strengthened and is likely to drive us straight into a large wave, instead of riding it.’
‘We have no choice. The water in the boat is already so high we probably have no more than a few minutes afloat. If I raise more sail you can all stow the oars and bail as best you can – and pray while you’re doing it.’
More sail was raised, but the oarsman was proved right. The wind had actually increased, making the boat far less manoeuvrable. Within minutes of the mate’s last order – disaster struck.
The boat was riding the crest of a wave when a sound like a musket shot was heard above the noise of the storm – and the mast snapped. In doing so it carried the sail and jib with it, sweeping three of the boat’s occupants into the sea.
One was Agnes Leyland, who had just straightened up to ease the pain in her back brought about by baling.
Eliza screamed as her late mistress disappeared over the side, but nobody was able to help those swept overboard now. The boat had become unmanageable. Nothing could save its occupants.
Suddenly, Eliza found the mate at her side, a knife in his hand. For a moment she cringed in terror, convinced he was about to kill her to save her from suffering in the water.
Instead, he shouted, ‘I’ve cut the sail away and am tying you to the broken off mast. Keep your senses about you in the water and cling to the mast as tightly as you can. Don’t let go of it, whatever else you do!’
With seamanlike efficiency he carried out his task, even as he was speaking. Moments later he uttered his last words as the boat sank from under the shipwrecked occupants, leaving them at the mercy of the raging sea.
‘God bless you, girl! If you make it to safety say a prayer for me and the others.’
Then she was alone in the water, clinging to the broken mast, her cry of terror cut short by a mouthful of cold salt sea water….