“Come topside,” he said. “We’ll take to the boat and ride this out.”
At the wheel of Mary Celeste, Richardson watched in amazement as a pair of waterspouts formed to each side of the vessel. Seconds before, it had been relatively clear, a light mist, a few random gusts, a sprinkling of rain. Then, all at once, the fury had descended like a slap from an angry lover.
“Use the main peak halyard to tie to the painter,” he shouted to Harbens and Goodschaad, who were preparing to lower the boat over the side. “It’s already out.”
The line, three hundred feet in length and three inches in diameter, remained on deck at all times; to take out another line would require the men to go forward to the lazeret where the spares were stored.
“Okay,” Harbens shouted.
Goodschaad tied the line to the boat’s painter, then he and Martens hoisted the boat over the rail and into the water. They played out the line around a deck stanchion and let the boat float back to the stern.
Briggs appeared on deck, just as Sarah, who was carrying Sophia in her arms like a football, made her way to the ladder topside.
“Furl the main sails,” Briggs shouted to Harbens and Goodschaad, as Sarah stepped on deck.
“Honey, what is it?” Sarah asked.
“We scraped bottom,” Briggs said. “I think I have the flow stanched, but just to be safe, I want to take to the shore boat for a time.”
“I’m scared,” Sarah said, as Sophia began to whimper.
Just then a wall of rain washed across the deck and disappeared just as quickly. Briggs stared aft; a wooden box with the items he had ordered Harbens to secure sat on the deck awaiting loading.
“Open the main and lazeret hatches,” he shouted to Harbens, “then make your way aft to the stem.”
The Lorenzen brothers appeared on deck.
“Help Sarah and Sophia aboard the boat, then board yourself,” he told the brothers.
“Should I lash the wheel?” Richardson asked.
“Leave it free,” Briggs ordered.
In the last few minutes, Gilling had remained out of the fray — his mind was clearer than the others’, and he believed that Briggs was overreacting. Even so, he was in no place to question the captain’s decisions, so he had gone to the galley and, along with Edward Head, had prepared food and water to load on the boat. Steadying the boat alongside the stem ladder, he waited until Head loaded the stores. Next, steadied by the Lorenzen brothers on each side, Sarah and Sophia boarded.
“Go ahead and board,” he told the brothers, who entered and took a seat.
The loading was going quickly. Harbens and Goodschaad, then Head and Richardson. Briggs came alongside and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Climb on in,” Briggs told him. “I enter last.”
Ten people total, on a small boat attached to the mother by a thin line.
A whale breached near Dei Gratia and blew water from its blowhole.
“Whale a port,” Deveau shouted.
Moorhouse made a note in the ship’s log, then shot the horizon with the sextant. They were on a true course and making time. The weather had moderated, and the sun was peeking through the clouds. All in all, it was an ordinary day at sea.
He had no way to know of the drama unfolding five hundred miles distant.
Pulled like the last child in a game of crack-the-whip, Briggs stared at Mary Celeste in the distance ahead. An hour had passed, and the ship was riding the same — his caulking job must have worked. By now, with the hatches off the hold would be vented. The fresh air had cleared his head, and now he was doubting his decision. “I think it’s safe to pull in the line and board,” he said to the others on the boat.
The men nodded; their heads, too, had cleared. Although they were at home on the water, being crowded on a small boat far from land was disconcerting, to say the least. Everyone wanted to board Mary Celeste and return to their normal duties. It had been a scare and nothing more — a tale to tell their children. A lesson to be learned.
“Do you want me and Gilling to start pulling?” Richardson asked.
Right then, before Briggs could answer, another squall descended. Two hundred and seventy-five yards ahead, Mary Celeste surged forward like a greyhound leaving the starting gate. The line connecting them to their home at sea went slack, then pulled hard against the stanchion and snapped. Almost instantly, the small boat began to slow, as the brigantine loaded with alcohol continued on. Richardson raised the now-limp line and stared back at Briggs.
“Row, men, row,” he shouted.
Ten days adrift and they were dying. They lost sight of Mary Celeste the first day, and all efforts to row back to St. Mary’s Island had been in vain. There had been no food and water for a week, and now when they most needed it, there was no rain.
Baby Sophia was gone, committed to the sea with Sarah soon after.
Harbens, Gilling, and Richardson were gone as well. Goodschaad had died quietly in the night and lay in the bottom of the boat, while Head had died of a heart attack but three days adrift. A broken heart, Briggs had thought to himself as soon as he realized he would never again see his bride.
“Help me with Goodschaad,” Briggs said near 10 A.M. when some strength returned.
Boz and Volkert helped him over the side.
Briggs stared at the Germans — it gave him an idea of his own condition. The skin on both men’s faces was peeling off in sheets. Their cracked and dried lips were as plump as sausages. Dried blood was below Volkert’s nose, while greenish pus was visible at the comer of Boz’s eyes.
