Fifty-two Stories of the British Navy, from Damme to Trafalgar.Miles, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
History
Fifty-two Stories of the British Navy, from Damme to Trafalgar.
Miles, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Great Britain -- History, Naval -- Juvenile literature
"Upon examining what we had to subsist on, I found a bag of bread, a
small ham, a single piece of pork, two quart bottles of water, and a few
of French cordials. The wind continued to be southward for eight or nine
days, and providentially never blew so strong but that we could keep the
side of the boat to the sea; but we were always most miserably wet and
cold. We kept a sort of reckoning, but the sun and stars being somewhat
hidden from us, for twenty-four hours we had no very correct idea of our
navigation. We judged, at this period, that we had made nearly an
east-north-east course since the first night's run, which had carried us
to the southeast, and expected to see the island of Corvo. In this,
however, we were disappointed, and we feared that the southerly wind had
driven us far to the northward. Our prayers were now for a northerly
wind. Our condition began to be truly miserable, both from hunger and
cold; for on the fifth we had discovered that our bread was nearly all
spoiled by salt water, and it was necessary to go on allowance. One
biscuit divided into twelve morsels for breakfast, and the same for
dinner; the neck of a bottle broken off, with the cork in, served for a
glass, and this filled with water was the allowance of twenty-four hours
for each man. This was done without any sort of partiality or
distinction; but we must have perished ere this, had we not caught six
quarts of rain water; and this we could not have been blessed with, had
we not found in the boat a pair of sheets, which by accident had been
put there. These were spread when it rained, and when thoroughly wet
wrung into the kid with which we baled the boat. With this short
allowance, which was rather tantalising than sustaining in our
comfortless condition, we began to grow very feeble, and our clothes
being continually wet, our bodies were in many places chafed into sores.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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