CHAPTER VIII. A NIGHT ON THE GOODWIN SANDS.
"God help the poor fellows at sea!"
Far away inland, when tempests blow
Wild through the dark'ning night,
We list to the roar of the winds as they go
On their hurricane steeds to the fight;
For the hosts of the storm-king are gathering fast
Where the white-crested waters flee,
And our heart breathes this prayer, as he rushes past,
On the wings of the northern howling blast,—
"God help the poor fellows at sea!"
C. T.
"God have mercy upon the poor fellows at sea!" Household words these, in English homes, however far inland the homes may be; and although near these homes the sea may have no better representative than a sedge choked river, or canal, along which slow barges urge a lazy way.
For when the storm-wrack darkens the sky, and gales are abroad, seaward fly the sympathies of English hearts, and the prayer is uttered, and in many cases, in this sea-loving island of ours, with very special reference to some loved and absent sailor. It is those, however, who live near the sea-shore, and watch the warfare going on in all its terrible reality, that learn the more truly to realize the fearful nature of the struggles for life that go on round our coasts; and who learn as the wild gales rave to find an answer to the murmurings of the fierce blast, in the prayer, "God have mercy upon the poor fellows at sea;" and this especially as they welcome ashore, as wrested from death, some rescued sailor, or mourn over those who have found a sudden grave almost within call of land.
It is a pretty picture enough from Ramsgate Pier, when fifty or a hundred sail are in sight within two or three miles of land, and the day is sunny, and the sea bright, and a good wholesome breeze is bowling along; but anxious withal, when the clouds are gathering, and the fleet of vessels are seeking to make the best of their way to find shelter in the Downs: and a south-westerly gale moans up, and the last of the fleet are caught by it, and have to anchor in exposed places, and you watch them riding heavily, making bad weather, the seas every now and then flying over them. It is winter time, and the weather stormy; day after day brings into the harbour fresh evidences of the deadly contest that rages out at sea—vessels towed in disabled, with bulwarks washed away, masts over the side, bows stove in, or leaky, having been in collision, touched the ground or been struck by a sea; who at such times can withhold their interest or sympathy? the veriest landsmen grow excited, and make daily pilgrimages to the pier, to see how the vessels under repairs are getting on, or what new disasters have occurred.
But it is at night-time especially that your thoughts take a more solemn and anxious turn. As you settle down by the fireside for a quiet evening, you remember the ugly appearance the sky had some two or three hours before, when you stood watching the scene from the end of the pier. You felt that mischief was brewing, as the gusts of wind swept by with increasing force, and you looked out upon a troubled sea that every minute seemed to grow more white and raging.
The Downs anchorage was full of shipping; a few vessels had parted their cables, and had to run for it, while the luggers, heavily laden with chains and anchors, staggered out of the harbour to supply them: other ships made for the harbour; you almost shuddered as you looked down upon them from the pier, and saw them in the grasp of the sea, rolling and plunging, with the waves surging over their bows. Another minute's battle with the tide, you heard the orders shouted out, you saw the men rushing to obey them—the pilot steady at the wheel, and you could scarce forbear a cheer as ship after ship shot by the pier-head and found refuge in the harbour.
Altogether it was a wild exciting scene, and you cannot shake off the effect—the wind rushes and moans by, a minute before it was raging over the sea.
The muffled roaring sound that is heard, is that of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliff. From the windows can be seen, gleaming out in the darkness, the bright lights of the Goodwin light-ships, which guard those fatal sands—sands so fatal, that when the graves give up their dead, few churchyards will render such an account as theirs, not only as to the number of the dead, but also that the Sands are a battle-field which entombs the brave and strong, who go down quick to their grave, quick from the full tide of life and strength, from the eager stern deadly contest in which, to the last, all their strong energies were fully engaged.
Men who, a few hours before, were reckless and merry, anticipating no danger and ready to laugh at the thought of death; who, if homeward bound, were full of joy as they seemed almost to stand upon the threshold of their homes; or by whom, if outward bound, the kisses of their wives, which seemed still to linger on their cheeks, and the soft clasping arms of their little ones, which seemed still to hang about their necks, were only to be forgotten in the few hours of terrible life struggle with the storm, and then again to be keenly remembered in the last gasping moment, ere the Goodwin Sands should find them a grave almost within the shadow of their homes.
There is a sudden report; surely the firing of a gun, a wreck, a vessel on the Sands—watch, yes, there! A rocket streams up from one of the light-vessels, and the gun and the rocket five minutes after, form the signal that calls to the life-boat for assistance. The breakers on the Sands could be clearly seen from the shore during the day, as they rose and fell like fitful volumes of white eddying smoke, breaking up the clear line of the horizon, and tracing the Sands in broken broad leaping outlines of foam.
Yes! and now, amid those terrible breakers, somewhere out in the darkness, within five or six miles, near that bright light, there are twenty, thirty, fifty, you know not how many, of your fellow-creatures, struggling for their lives.
Ah! listen to the storm blast, with what dread force it rushes by, what a dirge it seems to moan; and well it may, for if the gale lasts only a few hours, and there is no rescue, the morning may be bright and fair and calm, and the sea as smooth as a lake, but nothing of either ship or crew shall any more be seen.
But, thank God! there will be a rescue! You know that already brave hearts have determined to attempt it; that strong ready hands are already at work in cool, quick, preparation; that, almost before you could urge your way against the tempest down to the head of the pier, the steamer and life-boat will have fought their way out against the storm and darkness upon their errand of mercy.
"God have mercy upon the poor fellows at sea; upon the shipwrecked in their dismal peril; upon the brave Storm Warriors speeding out in danger and hardship!" this is the prayer that indeed often finds utterance, when the sleeper is awakened in the dark hours of the night by the howling of the wind or the boom of the signal gun. And at Ramsgate the prayer may be uttered fervently indeed by those, who, when they hear the signal of distress, know that the endangered vessel is experiencing all the dread dangers of the Goodwin Sands, for the vessels wrecked upon them have indeed, if the weather is bad, but a poor prospect of ever sailing the broad seas again.
The Goodwin is a quick-sand, and it is this, as well as the tremendous sea that beats upon it in heavy weather, that makes it so terribly fatal to vessels that get stranded on it.
At low tide a portion of the sand is dry, and hard, and firm, and can be walked on for a distance of about four or five miles; but as the water again flows over any part of it, that part becomes, as the sailors say, "all alive," soft and quick, and ready to suck in anything that lodges upon it. Suppose a vessel to run on with a falling tide, where the sand shelves, or is steep, the water leaves the bow and the sand there gets hard; the water still flows under the stern, and the sand there remains soft a longer time; down the stern sinks lower and lower; the vessel soon breaks her back, or works herself deeper and deeper by the stern; as the water rises she fills and works and still sinks deeper in the sand every roll she gives, until at high tide she is, perhaps, completely buried, or only her topmasts are seen above water.
Other vessels, if the sea is heavy, begin to beat heavily, and soon break up.
Lifted up on the swell of a huge wave, as it breaks and flies away in surf and foam, the vessel thumps down with all its weight upon the sands, the timbers give and strain, the seams open; she soon ceases, as she fills with water, to rise upon the wave; great gaps are torn from the bulwarks; the decks burst open with the air seeking to escape from the hold, and as the sea rushes over the vessel, each roll she gives wrenches her more and more; the masts fall over the side; her cargo floats and washes away, and speedily, even in a few hours, she is in a torn and shattered condition, completely wrecked and destroyed. The broken hull is full of water and lurches heavily to and fro with each wave, rolls and slightly lifts and works, until it has made a deep bed in the Sands in which it is soon completely buried—so that many vessels have run upon the Sands in the early night, and scarcely a vestige of them been seen in the morning.
By way of illustration, let me tell what happened one dark stormy night some few years back. The harbour steam-tug Aid and the life-boat had started from Ramsgate early in the day, to try and get to the Northern Belle, a fine American barque, which was ashore not far from Kingsgate; but the force of the gale and tide was so tremendous, that they could not make way against it, and were driven back to Ramsgate—there to wait until the tide turned, or the wind moderated.
About two in the morning, while they were making ready for another attempt to reach the Northern Belle, rockets were fired from one of the Goodwin light-vessels, showing that some vessel was in distress on the Sands. They hastened at once to afford assistance, and got to the edge of the Sands shortly after three in the morning. Up and down they cruised, but could see no signs of any vessel.
They waited until it was daylight, and then saw the upper portion of the lower mast of a steamer standing out of the water. They made towards it, but found no one was left, and no signs of any wreck floating about to which a human being could cling.
They concluded, that almost immediately upon striking, the vessel must have broken up, sunk, and been buried in the quick-sand. Poor fellows! poor fellows! a sharp, sudden death: would that the vessel had held together a little longer. Away, then, now for the Northern Belle.
They had not made much way ahead when the captain of the Aid sees a large life-buoy floating near. "Ease her," he cries, and the way of the steamer slackens. "God knows but what that life-buoy may be of use to some of us." The helmsman steers for it; a sailor makes a hasty dart at it with a boat-hook, misses it, and starts back appalled from a vision of staring eyes, and matted hair, and wildly tossed arms. They shout to the life-boat crew, and they in turn steer for the buoy; the bowman grasps at it, catches it, but cannot lift it, his cry of horror startles the whole crew, and some spring to his help; they lift the buoy and bring to the surface three dead bodies that are tied to it by ropes round their waists. Slowly and carefully, one by one, the crew lift them on board, and lay them out under the sail.
The Violet, passenger steamer, had left Ostend about eleven the previous night; at two in the morning she struck on the Goodwin Sands; a little after three there was no one left on board to answer the signals of the steam-boat that had come to their rescue, and show their position; at seven there was nothing to be seen of the steamer, crew, or passengers, but a portion of one mast, the life-buoy, and the three pale corpses sleeping their long last sleep under the life-boat sail. Such are the Goodwin Sands.
It was a storm-ridden November day, the weather was very threatening throughout; it was blowing hard, with occasional squalls from the east-north-east, and a heavy sea running. At high tide the sea broke over the east pier. As the waves beat upon it and dashed over in clouds of foam, the pier looked from the east cliff like a heavy battery of guns in full play. The boatmen had been on the look-out all day, but there had been no signs of their services being required; still, they hung about the pier until long after dark.
At last they were straggling home, leaving only those on the pier who had determined to watch during the night, when suddenly some thought that they saw a flash of light. A few seconds of doubt, and the report of the gun decided the matter.
At once there was a rush for the life-boat. She was moored in the stream about thirty yards from the pier. In a few minutes they had unmoored her, and got her alongside; her crew was already more than made up; some had put off to her in small boats, others had sprung into her when she came within a few feet of the pier. She was over-manned, and the two last in had to turn out.
In the meantime, a rocket had been fired from the light-vessel. Many had been on the look-out for it, to decide beyond all doubt, which of the three light-vessels had fired the gun. It proved to have been the North Sands Head vessel that had signalled. The cork jackets were thrown into the boat, the oars and ropes overhauled, all things seen to be right, and the men in their places and ready for their start in a comparatively few minutes. The crew of the steam-tug Aid had not been less active. Immediately upon the first signal, her shrill steam-whistle resounded through the harbour, calling on board those of her crew who were on shore, and her steam, which is always up, was rapidly got to full power, and in less than half an hour from the time of the firing of the first gun she was gallantly steaming out of the harbour with the life-boat in tow. As she went out a rocket streamed up from the pier head. It was the answer to the signal of the light vessel, and told that assistance was on the way.
Off they went, ploughing their way through a heavy cross sea, which frequently swept completely over the boat.
The tide was running strongly, and the wind right ahead; it was hard work breasting both sea and wind in the face of such a gale; but they bravely persevered, and gradually made head-way.
They steered right for the Goodwin, and having approached it, as near as they dare take the steamer, they worked their way through a heavy sea along the edge of the Sands, on the look-out for the vessel in distress.
At last they make her out, and, as they approach, find two Broadstairs luggers riding at anchor outside the Sands.
The Broadstairs men had heard the signal, and the wind and tide being in their favour, they soon ran down to the neighbourhood of the wreck. On making to the vessel, the Ramsgate men find her to be a fine-looking brig, almost high and dry upon the Sands.
Her masts and rigging are all right; the moon, which has broken through the clouds, shines upon her clean new copper; and, so far, she seems to have received but little damage.
A grand thing for all hands, for owners, underwriters, crew and boatmen, the men think, if they can only get her safely off when the tide rises, and bring her into harbour; a fine vessel and perhaps valuable cargo saved, and a pretty bit of salvage, which will be well earned and nobody should grudge, for the boatmen have to live, as well as to save life.
Efforts have already been made for the vessel's relief. The Dreadnought lugger had brought with her a small twenty-five feet life-boat. The Little Dreadnought, and this boat with five hands, had succeeded in getting alongside the brig.
The steamer slips the hawser of the Ramsgate boat, and anchors almost abreast of the vessel, with sixty fathom of chain out.
There is a heavy rolling sea, but much less than there has been, as the tide has fallen considerably. The life-boat makes in for the brig, carries on through the surf and breakers, and when within forty fathoms of the vessel, lowers the sail, throws the anchor overboard, and veers alongside. The captain and some of the men remain in the boat, to fend her off from the sides of the vessel, for although it is shallow water, the tide is running over the Sands like a sluice, and it requires great care to prevent the boat getting her side stove in. The rest of her crew climb on board the brig. Her captain had, until then, hoped to get his vessel off, as the tide rose, without assistance, and had refused the aid of the Broadstairs men; but now he realizes the danger that his vessel is in, and very gladly accepts the assistance that is offered.
One of his crew speaks a little English, and through him the captain employs the crew of the life-boat and the Broadstairs men, to get his ship off the Sands.