As Cheap watched, Bulkeley, Byron, and the small team of recruits set off in a boat; the welfare of the entire group was now in his hands. As they rowed past the fragments of the Betthe waves hit them. Once their boat was moored to the warship, they slid over the wreckage, crawling across the collapsed deck and broken beams, which continued to break even as the men sat on top of them.
As the explorers inched their way through the sunken ruins, they saw, in the water, the corpses of their compatriots floating between the decks; One misstep, and they would join them. “The difficulties we had to encounter on these visits to the wreck cannot easily be described,” Byron wrote.
They detected some barrels among the wreckage and tied them up and transferred them to their boat. “I found several barrels of wine and brandy,” Bulkeley said excitedly. At one point, he arrived at the captain’s store and opened the door: “I took out several barrels of rum and wine and brought them ashore.”
Cheap soon sent more groups to help with the excavation. “By order of the captain, we worked on the wreck every day, except when the weather did not permit,” wrote Midshipman Campbell. All three ships were deployed. Cheap knew that the castaways had to salvage as much as possible before the wreck was completely submerged.
They tried to drill deeper into the hull, into the flooded chambers. Seeping water pooled around them as they burrowed through layers of debris, like shipworms devouring a hull. Labor hours often had little value. Eventually, the men broke into part of the hold, extracting 10 barrels of flour, a barrel of peas, several barrels of beef and pork, a container of oatmeal, and more barrels of brandy and wine. They also recovered canvases, carpentry tools and nails which, Campbell noted, “in our situation were of infinite service.” And there was still more: several chests of wax candles, bundles of cloth, stockings, shoes, and several watches.
Meanwhile, the hull had further crumbled—”exploded” as Bulkeley put it. And as the wreck became increasingly dangerous to climb, with little more than a few rotting planks sticking out of the sea, the men devised a new strategy: they attached hooks to long wooden poles and, reaching out above the overboard, they tried to fish blindly. additional supplies.
On land, Cheap had pitched a tent next to his house, where he stored all his supplies. As he had done in the Bet, he relied on the strict hierarchy of officers and NCOs to enforce his edicts. But, amid the constant threat of rebellion, he relied mainly on an inner circle of allies, a structure within a structure, which included the marine lieutenant, Hamilton; the surgeon, Elliot; and the flight attendant, Harvey.
Cheap also secured all the guns and ammunition in the store’s store; no one was allowed access without his permission. The captain always carried a pistol and authorized Hamilton, Elliot and Harvey to do so as well. Guns gleaming, they met the transport ships as they came ashore, making sure everything was properly moved to the store and recorded in the purser’s accounts. There would be no robbery, another You shall not do in the articles of war.
Cheap found that Bulkeley sometimes raged at all the rules and regulations. On nights when there was a moon, the artilleryman wanted to continue digging the wreck with his friends, but Cheap forbade it due to the risk of theft. Bulkeley complained in his journal of Cheap and his inner circle: “They were so careful that nothing was embezzled that they would not allow the ships to go out to work at night. … By this we omit several opportunities to get provisions and other useful things, which we will soon be in great need of”.