“I believe he wants you to bear off!”
Icelander’s face was now a pale blue color. Morgan pulled out a cigar and began rolling it back and forth in his mouth to calm his nerves. He ordered Rasmussen to alter their course in the direction the seas wanted to take the ship. Icelander swung the spokes of the big wheel over so the waves were lifting the Philadelphia from the stern and propelling her forward. The ship now moved like a wide-beamed toboggan speeding downhill over broken terrain. Their new course was southeasterly, somewhere to the south of the Azores in the direction of North Africa. It was all open ocean for hundreds of miles. The waves were rising up and cresting behind them now. The ship steadied herself, but the new danger lay in being swamped by a fast-moving wave looming up unseen over the ship’s stern. He turned to the man on watch on the weather side of the poop deck and told him to hold on to the mizzen rigging and look out for pursuing seas.
Then he shouted a warning to Icelander, who was standing rigidly still, his arms moving crosswise to check and then urge the wheel’s rapidly moving spokes.
“Watch yerself, Rasmussen. Don’t get us pooped. We’re heavy loaded with freight like a sand barge. We only have about eight feet of freeboard, and I don’t want to lose you to a wall of water.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
As night fell, flashes of lightning revealed the chaotic scene. Crashing seas swept across the deck, lifting anything and everything not tied down. Morgan stood by the helm and looked ahead at the whole battered length of his ship as she propelled herself forward in a rolling rush. He could see the cabin below decks was now in total blackness and guessed that all the hanging lanterns were shattered. Breaking seas were thudding and whacking the topsides of the ship like a battering ram hitting a castle’s thick doors.
He wondered what Eliza was doing. He gulped at this thought. There was nothing he could do to help her. It was all he could do to hold on and try to help Icelander steer a course. He imagined her huddled below clutching one of the iron supports, the chairs upturned, broken plates all over the cabin floor. He hoped Lowery was keeping a clear head.
The Philadelphia was now sailing into the darkness with just two sails, the reefed main topsail in the center of the boat and one small jib on the ship’s bowsprit. Fearful sailors in their boots and oilskins clambered up the rigging to escape being swept away by immense volumes of water sweeping the decks. Others crouched by the windward rigging amidships staring upward at the swaying masts above them. Morgan held on to the wheelhouse and yelled out to Mr. Nyles to tighten the lines between the shrouds, but even he couldn’t hear his own voice. Another bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. Morgan turned his face streaming with water to windward and nervously looked at a big, foaming wave climbing and rising high up over the ship’s stern. It seemed at any moment the ocean would swallow the ship and all who were aboard.
The next morning the winds and the rain had slackened, but the ship was still in the midst of the gale, riding enormous waves, and flying along at thirteen knots. Morgan knew the sun had risen because the sky had turned a lighter shade of shadowy gray. He could see the drained faces of the sailors around him, ragged and beaten men looking back at him with bloodshot, sleepless eyes. He wondered if he looked like them. He felt numb and cold. He was soaked through and shaking. They had all gone without sleep or food for twenty-four hours. Many of the men were gripping rails for support. Others had lashed themselves to the rigging. They were silent, tight-lipped, awe-stricken by the ocean’s power. He knew all of them dreaded any call by the mates to go high up into the yards with the masts swaying back and forth from horizon to horizon. Mr. Nyles reported to him that the jib boom on the bowsprit had broken off overnight, ripping the jib to shreds. Morgan nodded. It could have been much worse. The wind and rain had also carried away one of the yards on the foremast. Otherwise, the ship appeared to be sound. No one had been lost either off the deck or from the yard, and they had avoided a demasting.
It was shortly after Nyles gave him that largely positive report that the sailor on watch yelled out a warning. Wild, startled eyes turned toward the stern of the ship in stunned disbelief as a dark green wall of water rose up behind them like a giant curtain blocking out the light. “Grab hold and look out for yourselves,” Morgan yelled. Moments later, a towering wave some thirty feet high crashed over the stern with a loud boom and swamped the boat. Morgan felt his feet give way as he fell with a bang on the deck, the water sweeping him toward the leeward bulwarks on the port side. He felt himself being carried by the rush of water. The heavy weight of tons of water plunged the ship downward to a wrenching stop. The three masts whipped back and forth, threatening to snap and break off. Morgan’s head was submerged. He was powerless to help himself. He felt sure that he was going to be swept out to sea.