Free Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder Page B

saved, he would not leave his ship.
    But outside his quarters, Herndon was the forthright commander. He might lose his ship, the mail, and millions in gold, but he still had nearly six hundred souls entrusted to his keeping, and until that final moment when the sea closed over the decks of the Central America and dragged them all into eternity, he still harbored a waning hope that lives might be saved. On deck and in the cabin he exuded enthusiasm andcontrol and talked as if only a short amount of time separated the dismal and trying present from a glorious and certain rescue. The passengers caught his hope and themselves clung to little things that buoyed that hope.
    Addie Easton wrote of Saturday morning. “How we thanked God for his mercy and the daylight for its cheering presence. Then commenced renewed exertions. Barrels were rigged through the skylight—three of them—and for a time they seemed to gain on the water, or at all events, it did not increase. The clouds began to disperse, and the wind to lull. Every countenance changed and brightened, and all labored more heartily and cheerfully. The steamer nearly righted. How I watched to see the lamps hang level! But no sail in sight yet. We talked of another steamer that floated eleven days water logged, and felt more hopeful.”
    T HEIR HOPE LASTED but a few hours. By noon, the clouds had thickened again overhead, and the wind blew fiercely, and the sea swelled even higher, and as hard as they worked, more than five hundred men could not keep up with the water rushing into the hold. The Central America now sat so low that the sea had begun to seep through the starboard portholes, and some of the cabins were three feet deep in water.
    â€œAlas,” wrote Addie, “even with all our increased efforts, it was soon evident that the water was gaining, and to our unspeakable dismay the fury of the storm returned.”
    Without complaint, without demonstration, one woman solemnly gathered her children in their small stateroom, “thinking that if we went down we would all go together.”
    When her husband left Captain Herndon’s quarters and came to comfort her, Jane Badger said to him, “I am prepared to die.” But her husband was short with her; it would not help for anyone to abandon hope. Hundreds of men continued to work, and their efforts could not cease, or, yes, everyone would die. He had to help keep them going. Before his wife could finish, Badger turned away and climbed again to the hurricane deck, and though she tried not to let the other women see her, Jane Badger wept. Then after moments of struggling to control herself, she turned to a woman near her and in a strained but cheerful countenance she said, “The Lord is merciful. Perhaps some vessel will come in sight, and we may yet be saved.”
    As the prospect of salvation grew darker, the bailing continued throughout the ship, but time and the sea finally had beaten all hope out of the men. They showed little fear, little anguish, working methodically on, resigned to their fate, and almost too exhausted to care. A few more left the bailing lines and returned to their berths or locked themselves in their staterooms. Deeply fatigued and spiritually broken, they refused to come out.
    The men still bailing no longer labored under the delusion that their efforts would allow the engineers to start the engines once again. Now every bucketful of water thrown overboard simply bought time and only a sliver of it, but most of the men preferred the exhaustion of their labor to the anxiety of sitting and awaiting whatever fate had in store.
    They had been passing the buckets or manning the pumps or hauling the barrels up on pulleys with little rest and no sleep for twenty-four hours, when, nearing two o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, September 12, they heard the cry, “Sail ho!”
    O N THE TWENTY-NINTH day of August, the Marine , a