When I saw that we soon would touch, I ordered the ship
brought around broadside to the wind, and there we hovered a
moment until a huge wave reached up and seized us upon its
crest, and then I gave the order that suddenly reversed the
screening force, and let us into the ocean. Down into the
trough we went, wallowing like the carcass of a dead whale,
and then began the fight, with rudder and propellers, to
force the Coldwater back into the teeth of the gale and
drive her on and on, farther and farther from relentless
thirty.

I think that we should have succeeded, even though the ship
was wracked from stem to stern by the terrific buffetings
she received, and though she were half submerged the greater
part of the time, had no further accident befallen us.

We were making headway, though slowly, and it began to look
as though we were going to pull through. Alvarez never left
my side, though I all but ordered him below for much-needed
rest. My second officer, Porfirio Johnson, was also often
on the bridge. He was a good officer, but a man for whom I
had conceived a rather unreasoning aversion almost at the
first moment of meeting him, an aversion which was not
lessened by the knowledge which I subsequently gained that
he looked upon my rapid promotion with jealousy. He was ten
years my senior both in years and service, and I rather
think he could never forget the fact that he had been an
officer when I was a green apprentice.