Tom McCarthy - Pirates and Shipwrecks: True Stories

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Contents

Arrrrrrgghh! Imagine youre asleep in a swinging hammock on a creaking ship, miles from any land, surrounded by people who havent had baths in weeks. Now, imagine that a crack of lightning signals the start of a terrible storm, a storm that will toss your ship high over waves and deep into trouble. Do you survive the storm? Do you find a raft and make it to shore? What then? Whos there to greet you? Are they friends or are they bloodthirsty pirates?

In this book, you wont find any boring stories about people doing ordinary things in ordinary places. Instead, youll meet people who find themselves in dire situations where the wrong move could mean death or disaster.

Daniel Collins was a young man from Maine who was on his way to becoming a captain of his own ship. He had second thoughts about long cruises after his trip to Cuba was cut short by piratesreal pirates, not the storybook kind.

Theres also Captain Francis Leopold McClintock, who was the perfect man to try to solve the mystery of Captain Sir John Franklin and his crew, who disappeared into the frozen landscape of the Arctic in 1845. Captain McClintocks main goal, beyond surviving the excruciating living conditions? To settle nasty rumors that Captain Franklin and his men suffered a fate worse than death.

In this book, youll meet a woman who spent most of her life dressed as a man, and to great effect. Mary Read was known and feared as one of the fiercest pirates to ever sail the Caribbeanshe was brave enough to outfight her own shipmates alongside her friend, Anne Bonny, another fearsome female pirate!

On some deserted islands, its not pirates you have to be afraid ofits cannibals! This is what Captain William Clement Doutty was concerned with when his ship ran aground on a tiny island near India, right next to another British ship that had weathered the same terrible storm. Will the two groups be able to keep from starving and from becoming a celebration dinner for the hostile islanders?

Then there is Barbarossa, a short, one-armed captain who frightened everyone, especially the fussy and prim crews of some of the royal ships he attacked and burned and plundered. From a childhood spent selling his fathers pottery to becoming the most feared pirate in the Mediterranean, Barbarossa shows what motivation and cunning can do for a career on the high seas.

Ready to take a sea voyage?

A tale of desperate men, fierce pirates, and missing heads, adapted from the Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and Murder of Five of Her Crew, By Pirates, on the Coast of Cuba, Dec. 1824. It is by Daniel Collins, one of only two survivors.

Walk slowly into an old Maine graveyard today and you can still see the tombstones of the young men. They are farther back, behind neater rows of graves from more recent times. But you can find them if you look, and you can still make out the words carved into the granite markers almost two hundred years ago.

In those days, young men went to sea and many did not come home. Unexpected storms, leaky ships, bad charts, and maybe just bad luckit was a hard life to go to sea.

Daniel Collins was an ambitious, up-and-coming sailor, and he knew from the time he was a boy that he wanted to go to sea. He was already third mate of the Betsey, just two men away from being a captain, which was his goal.

In November 1824, the plan was to get some good Maine lumberpine and birch from the nearby banks of the Sheepscot Riverload it onto the Betsey, make the fairly safe trip down to Cuba, unload it, and come back home.

The seven-man crew didnt know that five of them would soon have their names carved into tombstones in graveyards around the small village of Wiscasset. They didnt know their bones would soon be scattered on the white, sandy beach of a small island called the Cross of the Father, not too far from Cuba.

We know where the bones are. But we dont know whether the heads of those young sailors are in the same place.

Things began to go wrong very quickly on the way down to Cuba. The captain, Ellis Hilton, an experienced and kind man who had made the trip to Cuba before, was sick almost the whole way. He spent a lot of time in his bunk in his cabin. That made the mood on board a bit tense. Crews need leadership to give them confidence.

Three weeks after they left Wiscasset, Maine, the Betsey made it to the warm and shallow waters of the Caribbean Sea, a place dotted with islands. Some of the islands were regular stops for boats from Maine. Other islands meant danger, with rocks and hidden underwater reefs lying in wait to trap sailors who didnt know where they were going or were tired and a little careless. Maybe they had a sick captain who couldnt give directions.

The captain ordered that the Betsey anchor and the crew take a well-deserved rest near a beautiful, unknown island. That would be the last rest all of them would take.

That night, Daniel Collins had an unsettling dream.

The dream frightened him so much he couldnt get back to sleep. He bolted upright in his bunk, worried, but not sure why. The dream put him on edge. In a very short time, that uneasiness would save his life.

The next day, they pulled up anchor. They were almost to Cuba and the captain was anxious to deliver the lumber and be paid. That night, the wind picked up, becoming stronger and more unpredictable. Captain Hilton, who had been in his cabin as usual, came out briefly to take a look.

When Daniel Collins saw the captain emerge from his cabin, he asked if he could drop some of the sails to slow the boat down and make things a bit safer. He worried about a storm.

Captain Hilton said no. Time was money, and there was no time to slow down now that they were so close to dropping off the cargo. When the captain went back to his cabin, Daniel Collins took charge as the night became so dark and starless he could barely see his hand in front of his face.

Later that night, when the first mate, Joshua Merry, came up to take over steering, Daniel Collins told him, All is well.

Daniel Collins went to his bunk, but couldnt sleep. A half hour later, any chance of nodding off ended quickly and violently when the Betsey hit something very hard and unforgiving. There was a tremendous crashing explosion of noise. Daniel Collins was thrown from his bunk and covered with boxes and barrels from storage.