CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY.

“Boldly I venture on a naval scene,Nor fear the critic’s frown or pedant’s spleen.”Falconer.

“Boldly I venture on a naval scene,

Nor fear the critic’s frown or pedant’s spleen.”

Falconer.

A shipwreck, at all times and under any circumstances, is a lamentable occurrence, but it is peculiarly so in instances where out of a whole ship’s company only one solitary individual is left to tell the tale. So far as is known to the compiler of the present work there have been only two such shipwrecks in Australian waters. One was the wreck of the emigrant shipDunbarnear Sydney Heads, Port Jackson, on the 20th August, 1857, when a seaman named Johnson—who is still living and permanently employed by the New South Wales Government, as a lighthouse-keeper at Newcastle—was the sole survivor out of 121 persons.

The other was that of the steamerAlert, near Melbourne Heads, Port Phillip, Victoria, on the 28th ofDecember, 1893, and the relation of which forms the subject matter of these pages. The last named vessel had 16 persons on board and all, save one, perished either by drowning, or by being dashed to pieces against the cruel rocks. Disaster comes to us in all forms, but the stirring story told by Robert Ponting, the survivor from theAlert, partly lifts the veil and shows us how brave men can, and do, even under the most adverse circumstances, battle to the last against the mighty raging sea which finally engulphs them.

It might be fitly said in the language of the poet.

We ask thee, insatiable Deep!How many lone ones weepFor friends who lie buried in thee?Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, all!Sunk ’neath thy heaving pall,Beautiful, treacherous, cruel Sea!In calms, thy smooth and placid breastMight lull a babe to rest,And ne’er disturb its peaceful sleep.In storms, thine awful mountain waves—Not cradles then, but graves—Swallow brave men. Oh! hungry Deep.

We ask thee, insatiable Deep!

How many lone ones weep

For friends who lie buried in thee?

Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, all!

Sunk ’neath thy heaving pall,

Beautiful, treacherous, cruel Sea!

In calms, thy smooth and placid breast

Might lull a babe to rest,

And ne’er disturb its peaceful sleep.

In storms, thine awful mountain waves—

Not cradles then, but graves—

Swallow brave men. Oh! hungry Deep.

To do his duty and face death on the battlefield the soldier requires great courage, even althoughtherehe has only his fellow man—and the instruments created by him—to contend against. The seaman’s courage is, however, of a very different sort. In a storm he has to war with something infinitely more awe-inspiring than anything puny man can make! Hence, however sorrowful and heartrending the detail of suffering and death at sea, still we who read of such cannot but admire the indomitable pluck which characterises the conduct of mariners, even when they believe and feel that all hope has fled. Death is theportion of all; yet, although we are aware it is inevitable, there is a something—call it what we will—that instinctively impels us to fight and struggle for existence. During this struggle there are some well authenticated instances wherein men seem to have passed through the very gates of death, and yet, by the mysterious workings of Divine providence, have been for a time brought back, so to speak, into the land of the living until some purpose or aim had been accomplished. A clear case of the latter sort came within the experience of the present writer, and he hopes that the relation of the incident here will not be considered out of place by his readers:—

We were coming from Quebec, Canada, bound to Milford, England, with a timber-laden ship called theMarmion. When about half way across the Atlantic the captain became very ill with something understood by us to be British cholera. He was confined to bed, but persisted, every day the sun was to be seen, in being carried up on deck to take observations at noon. We could all see he was dying, and though every attention was paid to him, we expected each day to be his last. Just three days before we sighted land our captain died apparently, and it being cold winter weather, we determined, if possible, to bring his body on for burial when we arrived in port. To our astonishment, some hours after we believed him dead, he suddenly revived, and asked for something to eat! He continued improving so much that one night about six o’clock, when we had just sighted Kinsale light, on the Irish coast, he, without any assistance, came up on deck, took thebearings of the light, and altered the ship’s course. A heavy gale was blowing, and the weather as thick as a hedge; still the ship, under close reefed topsails, was kept running all night before the wind, the captain, meanwhile, against all persuasion, insisting upon remaining on the poop. At noon next day, when the ship was still rushing along in the midst of a thick fog which prevented any land from being seen, the captain said quietly to the man at the wheel: “If the ship has been steered properly since we saw Kinsale light, she will be in Milford Haven in about three hours’ time; if she hasn’t been steered properly, she will be God knows where.” Almost immediately after speaking to the helmsman the skipper muttered in a bitter tone, as if communing with himself: “Anyway, it won’t make much difference to me.” In two hours more the weather cleared a bit, the we saw the land very “close to,” and we were heading straight for St. Ann’s—an island which lies in the entrance to Milford—as an arrow from a bow. By three p. m. we were safe in port with the anchor down. In the flurry of letting the anchor go we, for the time being, forgot all about our captain’s condition, but on walking aft and going below, we found him lying on the sofa in the saloon, dead for certain, as it proved, this time! He was, physically, a weak man, but had a powerful will and a taciturn nature. The anxiety of getting the ship safe into port had no doubt kept him supernaturally alive. The anchor down, he felt his task was done; he had quietly gone below, and unseen, passed away beyond the cares and troubles incidental to human life!

The voyage of life is anything but plain sailing, and whether we like it or not—aye, whether our duty lies in the hut of the shepherd—in the palace of the prince—in the workshop—in the forest—in the camp—or on the ocean—we may expect to encounter some phase or other of that perpetual conflict with the material forces of the universe, or that scarcely less persistent conflict with the moral force of circumstances, which, together, make up so much of the tragedy of life, and after all, impart to it so much of its dignity. Knowing then that storms and trials have to be encountered it is clearly our duty, so far as we are able, to take every precaution to minimise disaster of every kind. Disasters, of course, will occur, both on sea and shore, even when everything has been done that thought and skill can suggest, but with regard to shipping matters can we say that, in the interests of life and property, all is done that could and should be? Without presuming here to enter into the cause, or causes, of theAlertgoing to the bottom, it is saddening to think that though the vessel went down in broad daylight, and not far from the shore, still the accident was not seen. It may be that even if it had been seen, nothing, owing to the state of the weather, could have been done to help the sixteen men who were left to buffet with the waves, but, nevertheless, it must have added another pang to the suffering of these men to see and know the land was “So near and yet so far.”

The incidents which occurred after the foundering of theAlertare so extraordinary that if they were not authenticated beyond a doubt, the recital of themwould at once be classed as a narrative from the prolific pen of a dealer in romance. Indeed, it might be fittingly said that the wonderful endurance displayed by the survivor, Robert Ponting, in battling with the waves for fifteen hours on what must have been to him a terribly long, and dreary night—his being cast upon the beach—his curious discovery and ultimate resuscitation—all partake of the miraculous!

Moreover, as if to make matters still more sensational, somebody conveyed the news to Ponting’s wife, at South Melbourne, that her husband was amongst the lost, and Messrs. Huddart, Parker, and Co., the owners of theAlert, also, on the 4th January, 1894—six days after the date of the wreck—sent a cablegram to London, stating that Ponting was drowned.

The following extract from a letter, lately received at Melbourne by Mr. Robert Ponting from his brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Hutton, in London, clearly gives the particulars of this unaccountable blunder:—

“Dear brother Bob,—Weheartily congratulate you on your wonderful escape from the sad fate that befel your shipmates through the foundering of theAlert. You also have our sincere sympathy for the terrible ordeal and physical suffering you have passed through. At the same time I may tell you that all your relations here had five weeks’ mental suffering on your account. It came about thus—On Saturday, 30th December, 1893, I read in the “London Morning Post” a telegraphic report of the loss of theAlert, in which it stated there was only one survivor, but no name was given. Of course we allhoped that you were the survivor, and in order to ascertain this I went, on the 2nd of January, as soon as the office opened after the holidays, to Mr. James Huddart’s office, 22 Billiter street, London, but they could give me no information. They told me they would bring my request for information before Mr. Huddart, and that evening I got a letter from him stating that he would be glad to cable to his Melbourne branch if I wished, at my expense. I sent him, as desired, a cheque for £1 18s 8d, or 4s 10d per word for eight words—five words for the message and three for the answer. He deeply deplored the sad necessity there was for such a cable, but stated that he would send it on at once, and immediately communicate the result to me. Mr. Huddart got the reply from his Melbourne office on the 4th January, and then he forwarded a telegram to me as follows:— ‘Much regret to inform you, brother (R. Ponting) drowned in theAlert.’ Of course I had the sad duty of letting mother and father and all the other members of the family know the mournful news that had reached me. You, dear Bob, can imagine our feelings when we thus knew for certain that you were lost. We all purchased mourning clothes and wore them for five weeks, until, on 6th February last, we received a letter from Mr. James Huddart which filled us all with joy. This letter enclosed a cutting from a Geelong paper, stating that you had been saved and that you were the sole survivor. Mr. Huddart’s welcome communication also stated that owing to a strange error, on the part of his Melbourne branch, the word “drowned” had been cabledinstead of “saved.” In reply I thanked Mr. Huddart for his kindness in sending the good news to us, but I did not further refer to the painful mistake they had made, although it had caused us such grief. I need scarcely tell you we are all truly thankful that God in his mercy, saved you from the dangers of the deep.”

“Dear brother Bob,—

Weheartily congratulate you on your wonderful escape from the sad fate that befel your shipmates through the foundering of theAlert. You also have our sincere sympathy for the terrible ordeal and physical suffering you have passed through. At the same time I may tell you that all your relations here had five weeks’ mental suffering on your account. It came about thus—On Saturday, 30th December, 1893, I read in the “London Morning Post” a telegraphic report of the loss of theAlert, in which it stated there was only one survivor, but no name was given. Of course we allhoped that you were the survivor, and in order to ascertain this I went, on the 2nd of January, as soon as the office opened after the holidays, to Mr. James Huddart’s office, 22 Billiter street, London, but they could give me no information. They told me they would bring my request for information before Mr. Huddart, and that evening I got a letter from him stating that he would be glad to cable to his Melbourne branch if I wished, at my expense. I sent him, as desired, a cheque for £1 18s 8d, or 4s 10d per word for eight words—five words for the message and three for the answer. He deeply deplored the sad necessity there was for such a cable, but stated that he would send it on at once, and immediately communicate the result to me. Mr. Huddart got the reply from his Melbourne office on the 4th January, and then he forwarded a telegram to me as follows:— ‘Much regret to inform you, brother (R. Ponting) drowned in theAlert.’ Of course I had the sad duty of letting mother and father and all the other members of the family know the mournful news that had reached me. You, dear Bob, can imagine our feelings when we thus knew for certain that you were lost. We all purchased mourning clothes and wore them for five weeks, until, on 6th February last, we received a letter from Mr. James Huddart which filled us all with joy. This letter enclosed a cutting from a Geelong paper, stating that you had been saved and that you were the sole survivor. Mr. Huddart’s welcome communication also stated that owing to a strange error, on the part of his Melbourne branch, the word “drowned” had been cabledinstead of “saved.” In reply I thanked Mr. Huddart for his kindness in sending the good news to us, but I did not further refer to the painful mistake they had made, although it had caused us such grief. I need scarcely tell you we are all truly thankful that God in his mercy, saved you from the dangers of the deep.”

It will be seen from the foregoing that Robert Ponting was placed in the unique position of being able to read of incidents which took place after his supposed death.

boats near shore

SORRENTO.From a Photo by the lateJ. Dodd, lost with theS.S. Alert.

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