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The Whaler's Return
- University of South Carolina Press
- Chapter
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The Whaler's Return He wondered with a frightened, empty feeling ifshe had married Most seafaring men have their superstitious side, and so did Edward Pond. But he had no premonitions when his ship headed out to sea from its home port at Stonington, Connecticut. His heavily muscled arms and rough, scarred hands were used to hard work for he had been a whaler for some thirty years before signing on with the crew of the Charles Sprague. Pond was unusually happy about this voyage just before Thanksgiving in 1886. The Sprague was a fine new three-masted schoonerwith a long quarterdeck. His only son would be serving with him as third mate-the first time they had ever sailed together. On board he watched the boy with pride. A tall blond young man, Sylvester Pond was born and raised to go to sea. Only twenty, he had a keen eye for how a sail should be bent and a strong, skilled forearm that could make a coil of rope leap and twist like a writhing snake. They were only a few days out of Stonington when a moderate chop began, but it was hardly felt in a vessel like The Whaler's Return 23 the Sprague. The crew awakened to hear rain pelting the deck and every direction was a curtain ofgray. The sun did not rise that day. By afternoon the schooner Sprague was hurtling down the side of one mountainous wave and up another, scudding before the storm. Father and son were both on deck when it happened. In one billowing black onslaught the sea boarded the ship! Veteran whaler Edward Pond looked up to see a wall ofwater high as a tidal wave. Suddenly he became a tiny particle of humanity encased in unbearably heavy wetness, unable to breathe, propelledthrough endless reaches ofblackness with momentum so great he thought it would strip off his very flesh. His chest was ready to burst, the pressure in his ears was excruciating, and he was almost unconscious when, with tremendous impact, the water hurled him against the side of the cabin. Seconds later a yawl, its davit broken, smote him with such cruel violence that it crushed his limp body against the cabin wall. Sylvester managed to reach his father while he still lived and release him. He took his father to a bunk and arranged pillows around his bruised and broken body, but mercifully Edward Pond never regained consciousness. Five hours later, with his son's arms around him, he died. The fourth day of the storm was Thanksgiving, and the tempestraged on, theSprague scuddinghelplesslybefore hurricane-force winds. About midday a monstrous wave reached up from the tumult offoam and blackness below to seize and crush the vessel. In a second of horror Sylvester Pond saw the toweringgray-green wall ofwaterloominghigh above his head and knew he was doomed. The water crashed down upon him with stunning force and swept him from the deck into the seething black [3.140.185.170] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:56 GMT) 24 Shackleford Banks cauldron below. He fought to come up, reached the surface, only to have the icy arm ofa wave push him down again. His body grew numb from cold-his will to live was fast ebbing when he was lifted up in the grip of another mountainous wave, pulled under, battered, swept on with the sand of the shore scraping his flesh raw, and then, miraculously, tossed upon the beach. The place where the limp, sodden body of Sylvester Pond lay was a narrow golden spit of sand off the North Carolina coast called Shackleford Banks. When he finally opened his eyes he was being cared for in the modest cottage ofa fisherman, and it was not until the second day that he felt strong enough to talk. "My shipmates? Are they alive?" he breathed weakly. "Aye, almost all of them," replied John Chadwick. "We're taking care of them here at Diamond City." "And my ship-still afloat?" Chadwick nodded and Sylvester, spent from his ordeal , fell asleep once more. John Chadwick looked over at his wife and shook his head. "He will have a long wait before he's fit to set sail on a whaling voyage again," said she. "What about the vessel?" "They're towing the ship into the bight to repair her. None can say when she will be seaworthy for the mizzenmast lies broken in half across her deck." There...