"To make a long yarn short, we found later in the day that the storm was
easing a bit and that though there was a terrible lot of water in the
ship, which, try as we could, we could not reduce, it certainly had
ceased to rise to any great extent. We had reason to hope then that we
might keep her afloat till the pump wells could be cleared. Had the storm
lasted another day, God knows what our state would have been, if we had
been above water at all. You cannot imagine how utterly helpless we felt
in such a sea with a tiny ship,--the great expedition with all its hopes
thrown aside for its life. God had shown us the weakness of man's hand
and it was enough for the best of us,--the people who had been made such
a lot of lately--the whole scene was one of pathos really. However, at 11
P.M. Evans and I with the carpenter were able to crawl through a tiny
hole in the bulkhead, burrow over the coal to the pump-well cofferdam,
where, another hole having been easily made in the wood, we got down
below with Davy lamps and set to work. The water was so deep that you had
to continually dive to get your hand on to the suction. After 2 hours or
so it was cleared for the time being and the pumps worked merrily. I went
in again at 4.30 A.M. and had another lap at clearing it. Not till the
afternoon of the following day, though, did we see the last of the water
and the last of the great gale.
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