The Last Volcano Read online

  The next day, Saturday, the entire front page and the top half of the second page of the Globe were filled with news articles about the destruction of St. Pierre and background stories about Martinique. Included on the front page was an account of how Captain Freeman of Suffolk, England, had managed to save his ship, the Roddam, from the disaster. That, though, was enough for Jaggar to act. He went looking for Harvard President Eliot.

  He found Eliot on campus. He reminded the president that they had spoken before about sending Jaggar to study a major eruption. But Eliot advised patience. There was no way to know if the newspaper reports were accurate. They should wait and see if the reports coming from the Caribbean were confirmed.

  By Sunday, May 11, three days after the eruption, much of the world’s attention was focused on Martinique. In the United States, churches and private charities were collecting money to send to survivors. That afternoon, in Washington, D.C., the Senate held a special session and unanimously approved $100,000 for relief supplies for Martinique. The bill was sent to the House of Representatives that evening. Congressman Oscar Underwood of Alabama, a Democrat who was thinking of challenging Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in the next presidential election, advised his House colleagues against haste. The Senate had gone through “a legislative spasm,” according to Underwood. He suggested that a special committee be formed to assess the situation and to write an official report before the House took action.

  The next day, Monday, after conferring with the French ambassador at the White House, President Roosevelt sent a request to Congress for $500,000 in aid for Martinique. Leaders of the House and the Senate met and, after deciding to ignore Underwood’s suggestion, agreed on $200,000. The bill passed both houses of Congress and was rushed to the President, who signed it that night.

  The same day, Jaggar sought out Eliot again. This time Eliot said he had talked with Secretary of the Navy William Moody, a Harvard man, Class of 1876, who said a Navy ship was being prepared to carry relief supplies to Martinique. If Jaggar could get to New York before the ship sailed, he would be taken to Martinique.

  The ship was the USS Dixie, which had just returned from a yearlong cruise to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Originally built as a private steamship, the Dixie had been purchased by the Navy in 1898 at the beginning of the Spanish-American War to transport supplies to Cuba and Puerto Rico because it had more cargo capacity than a regular Navy ship.

  Not to be left out of what had quickly developed into a major news story, also on Monday, May 12, Commanding General Nelson Miles of the United States Army ordered the commissary to purchase 800,000 rations for Martinique, enough to feed 40,000 people for twenty days. The rations would be carried on the Dixie. More than a million pounds of rice, in 100-pound bags, made up more than half of the rations. The remainder included a quarter-million loaves of bread, 2,000 barrels of salted codfish, thousands of cans of condensed milk, hundreds of bottles of vinegar, scores of wooden crates filled with tea or coffee, more than a thousand pounds of bacon and a small amount of tobacco. Someone also thought to order 10,000 pairs of pants and 10,000 pairs of shoes to give to survivors. The purchasing contracts for these supplies did have a stringent requirement: All provisions had to be delivered to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and ready for loading onto the Dixie within twenty-four hours. As one Army officer who was organizing the procurements said to a newspaper reporter, “We’ve not been so busy since the last war.”

  On Tuesday, Secretary Moody issued a press statement that said he had ordered the captain of the Dixie, Robert Berry, to reduce his regular crew of about 700 men to less than 200 to make room for the large amount of relief supplies. Also, the statement continued, the Dixie would be transporting “a number of newspaper correspondents” and “several scientific men.” Only one of the scientific men was mentioned by name, “Thomas Jaggers of Harvard.”

  The statement went on to say that Jaggar would be carrying “many instruments for recording volcanic movements and apparatus for calculating the peculiar actions and disturbances in Martinique.” Jaggar’s “many instruments” included a Kodak Brownie camera he had purchased for the trip, an aneroid to determine elevations by barometric pressure, a mercury thermometer that he would use to measure the temperature of steam vents, as well as a tent with camp utensils and an outfit of picks, shovels and hatchets. He also carried a gold watch—a present from his father on his twenty-first birthday—that he would use to time any volcanic activity that might occur while he was in the Caribbean.

  The next day, May 14, Moody released the names of the other scientists who would be sailing on the Dixie. One was Robert Hill, a geologist for the United States Geological Survey. Hill had tried to enlist in Roosevelt’s Rough Riders at the beginning of the Spanish-American War, but was rejected for medical reasons. After the war, he had been sent by the American government to conduct a quick survey of the mining potential of Cuba and Puerto Rico. During the survey, he had found time to travel to several islands of the Lesser Antilles, including Martinique.

  George Curtis, who also worked for the United States Geological Survey and had also been sent to the Caribbean after the war, was a cartographer whose expertise was building detailed models of the nation’s major cities. His most recent model was of Boston, which, it was said, “was so perfect that it was sent to the Paris Exposition of 1900.” Curtis was currently working on one of Washington, D.C., for the United States Senate.

  Edmund Hovey was the assistant curator of the geology exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He was interested in going to Martinique to collect any curiosities related to the eruption of Mount Pelée that he might find and give them to the museum.

  The oldest and most distinguished scientist of the group was Israel Russell. Russell had been one of the founders of the National Geographic Society—established in 1888—and had led the Society’s first expedition, a failed attempt to reach the summit of Mount St. Elias, the fourth highest peak in North America, located along the Alaska-Canada border. Russell was now a professor of geography at the University of Michigan and had recently published the book Volcanoes of North America, which gave him the credentials to join the Dixie on its voyage to Martinique.

  Before the team of scientists boarded the Dixie, both Hovey and Russell gave interviews to newspaper reporters, saying that, in their opinions, the reports received from St. Pierre about the total destruction of the city and deaths of tens of thousands was almost certainly exaggerated, the same opinion offered by other geologists, most notably by Shaler at Harvard. “When the truth is learned,” Russell told the reporters, “you will find that there were 800 to 1000 killed. It is quite clear to me that it was simply a small eruption of one of the volcanoes.”

  Perhaps because he was the youngest and least experienced of the scientists going to Martinique, Jaggar was more circumspect. Before his departure, while still in Cambridge, he was quoted as saying, “I have no opinions yet regarding the eruptions in the Antilles. I haven’t had time to form any. I am simply going to take scientific observations.”

  He was asked how he had managed to get appointed to the scientific team. He answered quite plainly. “I have moved heaven and earth to go on this expedition and now I have succeeded.” The reporter noted that, when Jaggar spoke to him, there was “the embodiment of energy” on his face.

  Because this was his first trip to the tropics, while he was waiting in New York for the Dixie to depart, Jaggar bought a pith helmet to protect himself from the tropical sun and a white suit to protect him from the tropical heat. With these in hand, he hurried to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where he would meet the other scientists and board the Dixie.

  By the time he arrived, the ship was already swarming with newspapermen and other writers. Among them was Carsten Borchgrevink who had led the first expedition to overwinter on the Antarctica mainland. During the expedition, made in 1899, Borchgrevink had seen both Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, the world’s most southerly
volcanoes. As he prepared to board the Dixie, Borchgrevink proudly displayed a pair of asbestos shoes of his own manufacture that he intended to use on the presumably hot ground and scale the heights of Mount Pelée. To his dismay, after arriving at St. Pierre, he would discover that an ordinary pair of rubber boots would have been more useful.

  George Kennan was another writer and seasoned traveler who joined the Dixie. Kennan had spent years traveling across Siberia documenting the effort to find an overland route for a telegraph line that would link Europe and the United States. He had been in southern Africa during the Boer War. More recently, he had covered the assassination of President William McKinley in the previous September. He was making the trip to Martinique as a writer for Outlook magazine, one of the country’s major monthly magazines, whose editors asked him to focus on how the eruption had affected the lives of the local people.

  The loading of the Dixie took longer than expected. Because it was a war vessel, it had no loading boom, and so, every bag of rice, every wooden crate filled with coffee, every bottle of vinegar had to be brought on board individually. At one point, one of the ship’s officers heard the clinking of bottles coming from a case marked “Accordions” as it was being carried onto the ship. The officer had the case opened. It was filled with whiskey bottles. He reported the discovery to Captain Berry. Berry called out, asking if anyone wanted to claim it. When no one did, he had the bottles thrown overboard.

  The Dixie finally pulled away from the dock at half past nine o’clock Wednesday night, May 14, almost a week after the explosion of Mount Pelée. As the ship sailed down the East River and under the Brooklyn Bridge, both civilians and military people gathered on deck to see the lights of the New York skyline. They were dressed in overcoats. There was a quiet stamping of feet to keep warm. Soon, as each man knew, he would be in warm tropical waters.

  There were no accommodations on board the Dixie for passengers, and so the scientists were assigned quarters vacated by junior Navy officers. The newspapermen and other writers were billeted at the stern of ship over the hold where the barrels of codfish were stored. The constant unpleasant odor soon gave rise to a running joke among those living on “Newspaper Row.” It was commonly agreed that, if the wind was blowing in the right direction, the survivors on Martinique would smell the Dixie long be they could see it.

  The civilians spent the long days of passage getting acquainted with the ship’s daily routine. After breakfast, when the crew turned out for calisthenics, so did the five scientists and most of the journalists, except two portly ones. It was jumps and vigorous knee bends, then three times running around the deck as the ship’s band played a quickstep. The five scientists competed among themselves to see who was the fastest. Later in the morning, as the ship’s crew ran through fire drills, the civilians lounged in deck chairs under a canvas awning. A giant chessboard painted on the ship’s deck with giant iron pieces to move offered some diversion, as did the ship’s mascot, a monkey, “General Weyler,” acquired during the recent Mediterranean cruise and named for the Spanish general who had been defeated at Havana. For some reason, the monkey was deathly afraid of an empty glove. The crew often gave the monkey a beer that it swigged from a bottle, making the crew wonder how common this was in the jungle.

  At night the volcano men challenged the medical men—a dozen Army officers from the hospital corps were on board to treat those who had been injured by the eruption or who might need other medical attention—to a tournament of table tennis, the ship’s officers standing around smoking and judging the calls and chasing after an errant ball before it headed out an open doorway and toward the sea. Meanwhile, in the background, one could hear sailors playing guitars and singing the popular songs of the day, such as “On the Road to Mandalay.” The most popular tune, which was sung or hummed by almost anyone during the day, was “It Will Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.”

  On the last night at sea, all of the civilians and most of the officers and crew woke early and stood on deck, shoulder to shoulder, hoping to see some volcanic activity. The morning was warm and the sky was filled with stars. A full moon hung low in the west, its light illuminating a line of distant thunderheads. Finally, the rugged outline of Martinique came into view.

  Someone who was familiar with the island directed the attention of the others to the conical profile of Mount Pelée. All was dark. There was a growing concern among those standing on deck that they had arrived too late to see anything interesting when a faint red glow appeared at the top of the volcano, then faded away. A brief cheer arose from the ship.

  Captain Berry steered the Dixie closer to the island. The men could now see two faint red glows at the base of the volcano where the island met the sea. Someone called out, “Is that the eruption?” Someone else answered. “No, that’s where they’re burning the bodies.”

  With that brief exchange, the temper of the voyage changed. The days of lightheartedness had ended. Those onboard the Dixie now realized that they were about to face life’s grimmest reality—the possibility of death.

  At seven o’clock, the sun now high above the horizon, the Dixie steamed slowly into the harbor at Fort-de-France, twenty miles south of St. Pierre. Several warships were at anchor. Each one had maintained full steam since its arrival days earlier in case it had to put to sea at a moment’s notice.

  The United States Navy cruiser Cincinnati had arrived twelve days ago, two days after the eruption. Other cruisers in the harbor were the French Navy Suchet, the British Pallas and the Dutch Koningen Regentes. All four ships had unloaded their extra stores and had sent medical teams on shore. Also at Fort-de-France was the sea-going tug Potomac of the United States Navy. It had been at San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the time of the eruption and had received orders to sail at once to Martinique. Since its arrival, the Potomac had been making trips around the islands rescuing survivors.

  As soon as the Dixie anchored, an officer from the Cincinnati came alongside in a launch and shouted to Captain Berry that new orders had arrived from Washington, D.C. Enough supplies, so the orders stated, had been delivered to Martinique. Berry was to sail the Dixie south to the island of St. Vincent and give out supplies and provide medical aid to victims of the eruption of Soufrière.

  Berry gathered his passengers and told them that he could give them only one day at St. Pierre. After that, each man would have to decide for himself whether to remain on Martinique, and find his own way back to the United States, or continue on the Dixie and sail to St. Vincent.

  At 10:30, the Potomac pulled up next to the Dixie and took onboard those who wanted to go to St. Pierre. A party of officers from the Cincinnati and from the Dixie, as well as most of the journalists and all five American scientists, transferred to the Potomac, almost overloading it.

  The tug cruised north, keeping close to shore. From what those on the Potomac could see, the upper reaches of the volcano were still covered with dense vegetation. Lower down were fields of sugar cane ready to be cut and along the coast fringes of coconut palms swaying in the sea breeze. Nowhere was there any sign of a disturbance from the volcano. Occasionally, a village was spotted comprised of a few whitewashed houses and a parish church with a high spire. People were usually nearby, standing and waving at the boat.

  As the Potomac proceeded, headland after headland was passed. Each one was the truncated end of a sharp-crested ridge that ran from near the volcano’s summit to the sea. After an hour of travel, the Potomac rounded yet another headland, seemingly like the others. Though, this time, as Jaggar remembered the scene, in front of him “burst into view one of the most weird, spectral sights I ever expect to witness.”

  The changed occurred immediately. It had the precision of a knife edge. To the south was dense green foliage. To the north and continuing as far as Jaggar could see was a featureless plain of drab browns and grays. Later inspection would show that in some places the change was so abrupt that it was no wider than the trunk of a single tree, one side green a
nd the other scorched brown.

  The plain itself was completely barren—no indication that, just two weeks before, this had been one of the most popular ports in the Caribbean. There was no evidence of the recent hustling of people. The only movement came from short lines of steam that crisscrossed the plain and where, along the shoreline, small balls of steam were rising passively into the air.

  “St. Pierre is over there,” said Lieutenant Benjamin McCormick, in command of the Potomac, pointing to where muddy surf was breaking against a bleak and sandy shore. Jaggar looked in vain for a pattern of streets, but all he could see were vague outlines of a few low walls that marked where St. Pierre once stood.

  A few rusted metal buoys were still bobbing close to shore. The crew tied the Potomac to one. Then small boats were made ready to land those who wanted to go ashore.

  Lieutenant McCormick had walked through St. Pierre the previous day, leading members of his crew on a search of the ruins, hoping to recover the bodies of the American consul and his wife, Thomas and Clara Prentiss. But Mount Pelée had exploded again, sending McCormick and his landing crew racing back to the shoreline. Some people later said it had been larger than the explosion on May 8. Fortunately, no one was injured, but, now, the next day, McCormick was obviously nervous.

  “There is danger today,” he told those who were entering the small boats. “The mountain is behaving badly.” He instructed the members of each landing party that if the ship’s whistle should blow, they were to run for their boats and return to the Potomac immediately.

  Jaggar and his party were put ashore at a stone jetty near the center of the now-dead city. With no streets to guide them, they wandered about, stumbling and falling over rubble and ash heaps. Many walked away in groups of twos or threes. Jaggar set off alone.