Read Online Adventures of a Sea Hunter by James P. Delgado - Free Book Online Page B

Mackenzie’s decision to hang three members of his crew was a controversial one. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and a seaman’s poem, published in the
New York Herald
in May 1843, sums up their view of this ship after the hangings:
    The stains of blood are on thy deck,
Thy freight is curses dark!
And other hands than flesh and blood
Thou numberest ’mongst thy crew;
And a ghostly “mess” thou’lt always hear
Across the ocean blue…
    And ill luck, and misfortune dire
Will follow in thy wake,
Till the ghostly three, where lie their bones,
Thy last dark haven make.
    Then they started, the tales of a haunted, cursed ship. Much later, a member of the brig’s final crew, Midshipman Robert Rodgers, recalled his shipmates’ reactions when he told them he had been posted to
Somers:
“Get rid of that craft as soon as you can, for sooner or later she’s bound to go to the devil. Since the mutiny damn bad luck goes with her.”
    As for
Somers
, the brig sank a few years after the notorious “mutiny,” with Rodgers aboard.
OFF VERACRUZ, MEXICO! DECEMBER 8, 1846
    Ever since the war between the United States and Mexico had broken out in the spring of 1846,
Somers
had stayed off Veracruz, enforcing the U.S. Navy’s blockade of the port. Now, winter had come, and with it, more tedium punctuated by occasional excitement.
    “He’s heading in, sir!” cried the lookout on
Somers.
As
Somers
tacked to pick up the wind and surge towards the incoming ship, the men loaded the guns. Lieutenant Commander Raphael Semmes was sure the other ship was going to try to bypass
Somers
and run into harbor, and it was his job to stop it. Lieutenant Parker, standing on the bulwark, telescope trained on the horizon as they tracked the suspected blockade runner, turned to Semmes. “It looks a little squally to windward, sir.”
    A black cloud was racing across the sea, heading directly for them. The squall would bring powerful gusts of wind as well as rain, and Semmes knew that his ship was in trouble.
Somers
was “flying light” with little ballast, and the tall masts were full of canvas, spread to the wind, to give her the speed she needed to intercept the other ship.
Somers
was built for speed, but running with a full rig was a risky business. “Shorten sail, Mr. Parker,” Semmes ordered.

    An engraving depicting the wreck of the U.S. warship
Somers,
from
Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion,
December 1847.
    “All hands!” Parker bawled. “To the yards. Strike the mainsail and brail the spanker!” Men scrambled up the shrouds and spread out onto the yards, hands clutching at the billowing canvas of the mainsail as the helmsman eased off a bit to slack the sail. With jerks and lurches, as men grabbed handfuls of the thick canvas, the main sail climbed up the mast. After the men lashed the sail in place, they turned their attention to the spanker, its canvas spread out on the boom sling off the back of the mast. As they lowered the sail to half its full length, they tied off the loose canvas with the brails, rows of line sewn into the sail.
    Then the squall hit. A blast of wind slammed into
Somers
, and the brig rolled. As a sailor screamed “She’s going over!” the man at the wheel called out: “She will not answer the helm, sir.” The decks canted sharply, throwing men and loose gear. In seconds, the brig lay on her side, waterpouring into open hatches. Clinging to the rigging, Seninies knew he had one chance to save his ship. “Cut away the masts!” he ordered. Balancing above the waves on the bulwark, the men grabbed knives and axes and started hacking at the thick, tarred lines that supported the masts. But it was too late. The masts and yards lay flat on the sea, and the brig was filling fast, settling deeper into the water.
Somers
was sinking. When the hull started to go under, Semmes yelled out, “Every man save himself who can!” As the men threw themselves into the sea,
Somers
sank. Just ten minutes after the