In the Heart of the Sea

following day, the wind had moderated enough that the men dared to poke their heads above the raised gunwales of the boats. Incredibly, all three boats were still within sight of one another. “To an overruling Providence alone must be attributed our salvation from the horrors of that terrible night,” Chase wrote. “It can be accounted for in no other way: that a speck of substance, like that which we were, before the driving terrors of the tempest, could have been conducted safely through it.”
    None of the men had slept all night. All of them had expected to die. When Chase ordered his crew to raise the masts and set sail, they resisted. “My companions . . . were dispirited and broken down to such a degree,” the first mate remembered, “as to appear to want some more powerful stimulus than the fears of death to enable them to do their duty.”
    But Chase was unrelenting. “By great exertions,” he induced them to restep the masts and set a double-reefed mainsail and jib, even though dawn had not yet arrived. All three boats were back to sailing again when “the sun rose and showed the disconsolate faces of our companions once more to each other.”
    As they sailed to the south, the large waves left over from the storm pummeled the boats, opening up their seams even wider. The constant bailing had become “an extremely irksome and laborious task” for these starved and dehydrated men. Their noon observation on Saturday, December 9, put them at latitude 17 °40’ south. In their seventeen days at sea, they had stayed ahead—just barely—of their target of a degree of latitude a day, traveling close to 1,100 nautical miles. However, because of the easterly direction of the winds, they were now farther from South America than when they’d started.
    They had close to three thousand miles left to go if they were to reach their destination. They were starving and thirsty. Their boats were barely holding together. But there was a way out.
    On December 9, well into their third week in the open boats, they drew abreast of the Society Islands. If they had headed west, sailing along latitude 17° south, they would have reached Tahiti, perhaps in as little as a week. There were islands in the Tuamotu Archipelago that they might have sighted in less than half that time. They would have also been sailing with the wind and waves, easing the strain on the boats.
    However, despite the numerous setbacks they had already faced, despite the extremity of their sufferings, Pollard, Chase, and Joy pushed on with the original plan. Nickerson could not understand why. “I can only say there was gross ignorance or a great oversight somewhere, which cost many . . . fine seamen their lives.” The men’s sufferings only narrowed and intensified their focus. It was “up the coast” or nothing.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Centering Down

    F OUR YEARS EARLIER, in 1816, the French ship Medusa was wrecked on a shoal well off the coast of west Africa. The vessel was transporting settlers to the colony of Senegal, and it soon became apparent that there were not enough boats to go around. The crew constructed a crude raft from the ship’s timbers. Initially the captain and the rest of the officers, who had all taken to the boats, started towing the raft. Before long, however, they decided to cut the tow rope and abandon the passengers to their fate. With only a few casks of wine to share among more than 150 people, the raft quickly became a chaotic hell ship. Vicious fighting broke out between a faction of alcohol-crazed soldiers and some more levelheaded but equally desperate settlers. Two weeks later, when the brig Argus sighted the raft, only fifteen people were left alive.
    The story of the Medusa became a worldwide sensation. Two of the survivors penned an account that inspired a monumental painting by Théodore Géricault. In 1818 the narrative was translated into English and became a best-seller. Whether or not they had heard of the Medusa, the men of the Essex were all too aware of what might happen if sufficient discipline was not maintained.
    At eleven o’clock on the night of December 9, the seventeenth night since leaving the wreck, Pollard’s boat vanished in the darkness. The men on the other two boats cried out for their lost companions, but there was no response. Chase and Joy discussed what to do next. Both were well aware of what they should do. As had been agreed the last time one of the boats had become separated,