CHAPTER XIX. THE HOVELLERS, OR SALVORS, SAVED. THE "PRINCESS ALICE" HOVELLING LUGGER.
"When they who to the sea go down,
And in the waters ply their toil,
Are lifted on the surge's crown,
And plunged where seething eddies boil,
"Then with Thy mercies ever new,
Thy servants set from peril free;
And bring them, Pilot wise and true,
Unto the port where they would be."
Hymn.
No sooner has the life-boat started in the morning, in answer to the signal from the Goodwin light-vessel, than the master of the Princess Alice gathers a crew of twelve men, and follows as fast as possible in the wake of the life-boat.
A fine south-westerly breeze is blowing and the noble lugger bowls along at a great speed, and reaches the neighbourhood of the Sands about a mile and a half behind the life-boat. The lugger brings to an anchor just outside the Sands, and her crew, finding that the weather has somewhat moderated, and that the sea has gone down with the tide, determine to send six of their men in their small boat into the wreck, to see if they can save any cargo or rigging; the men get to the wreck without much difficulty, and find her right over on her broadside, with her yard-arms buried some feet in the Sands; the top-gallant mast is gone; her rigging and all her top-hamper, a tangled mass, is floating and washing about in a deep hole which the eddy of the waves, beating against the wreck, has worked.
The men climb on to the side of the vessel, and then lower themselves down from the weather-rigging across the deck, which is lying almost upright on its side, that they may look into the hold; the hatches are off, and they find that the hold is quite empty, everything washed out; it is difficult to get into the captain's cabin, as the vessel is completely on her side, or there may be things there worth saving; they will see to it by-and-by, and now they proceed at once to save what rigging they can. The three men on the vessel get their knives and choppers to work, and commence cutting away, when suddenly it begins to get dark, a heavy squall threatens, and a storm of snow and hail comes driving along before the wind.
The men in the boat shout out, "It begins to look bad; do you not think that we had better be leaving, and get out of this?"
But the men busy in the rigging are somewhat excited over their work, and answer back, "It is only a squall, a mere spoon drift, and will soon work round;" the wind, however, rapidly increases, and sweeps by in such violent gusts, that the men on the ship's side are nearly blinded with the snow, and can no longer hold on against the wind; well! they are willing to work hard and risk much, to save what they can from the hungry Goodwin Sands, even if that which they save will give them only a few shillings a man; but if they cannot, they cannot; it is not the first time, by very many, that they have returned with nothing but danger and labour for their pains.
"Look sharp, men, look sharp; do you want to drown us all?" "Come down at once," is the cry from the boat; and the men lower themselves down over the slippery side of the vessel, into the small boat, which is leaping and tossing about in the waves which begin to surge up with some violence.
"Now, men, oars out and away with a will; I doubt we have left it quite long enough." "Aye! Aye! too long, I fear." "Well! time enough to think that when we find it so." "Which way are you going?" they ask the coxswain. "I don't suppose there is much choice, there will be less surf running at the back of the Sand, and the lugger is sure to expect us to come out there, now that the sea has got up; so round with her, and pull hard."
And away, as for their lives, the men pull, the little boat seethes through the troubled water, urged by her powerful crew; and they soon near the edge of the Sand, and are making for deep water. "Easy all, men! do you hear that?" And to their dismay, they hear the surf beating heavily, right ahead of them. "Didn't I tell you so?" "Hold your tongue—our work is to get out of this, not to grumble while in it." "Right enough then, and I am your man; but what next?"
"Pull ahead a little, and let's look at them;" and doing so, they see huge waves rolling in out of the deep water upon the shallow Sands, mounting up, curling over, and breaking, washing back, meeting other breakers foaming up against them; in fact, a sea of raging water surrounding the Sands; a sea in which their little boat would be swamped at once, and in which, indeed, no ordinary boat could float, and only a life-boat could possibly pass through.
As they mount on a wave they can see the lugger, riding safely just outside the surf, only a quarter of a mile off, waiting for them; but that quarter of a mile it is impossible for them to pass, and equally impossible for the lugger to get any nearer to them.
"Well, my men, there is no help for it here; we cannot get off the Sands this way, that's certain."
The seas begin to break heavily over the boat; the men keep her head to the waves, or she would be at once rolled over, so rapidly is the swell setting in; as it is, she begins to fill with water, and they have to continue bailing her; they must let her drift back, pulling easy to keep her head straight, and each wave carries them some distance further from the edge of the Sand. As soon as they get clear of the rollers and the surf, they rest on their oars, and consult what is to be done; it all seems very hopeless, but it is no good waiting where they are; and so they determine to return again to the wreck, as to their only place of safety, and this indeed but for a very short time.
They get to the wreck, and lay under shelter of her hull, not knowing what to do; never did men seem in more terrible plight, the wreck could afford but the scantiest shelter to the crew who hopelessly clung to her the night before; then the tide was falling, but now the tide is rising; each moment the great rollers that are rushing in upon the Sands break nearer and nearer; soon they will rush over the wreck, cover her completely, and rend and tear her to fragments. What can be done? To remain where they are is certain death, to attempt to escape in their small open boat seems death, equally certain. Well, it is better to die doing than to die waiting; but never have men held consultation under more apparently hopeless circumstances; the boat the men are in is the boat the Princess Alice generally carries on her deck, between the masts; she is about eighteen feet long, and four broad, fine boat enough for her size; but she seems more than sufficiently filled by the six powerful men who are in her, and if she should be caught in the roll of one of the big waves, she will at once be capsized, or fill with water, and sink, leaving her crew but a few gasping moments of vain struggle with the boiling seas.
And the seas rage round them every moment nearer and nearer. Some of the men think that if they can drag the boat for about a mile over the crown of the part of the Sands that is still dry, and thus get out to windward of the North-west Spit, that they may find more shelter there for a time, and if they do find it somewhat smoother there, will perhaps be able to work their way through the surf; but upon a snow-squall, which for a time had darkened all around them, clearing away, they find that the breakers are throwing up as much surf there as anywhere else, and all hope of rescue in that direction is gone; and the conviction settles down upon them all, that there seems indeed no possibility of escape; but still they kept cool, and quiet, and undaunted, prepared to do their utmost, calmly and skilfully, up to the last moment, letting no chance go by; at all events, they will stop where they are no longer, as the breaking seas are closing in upon them fast.
The Goodwin Sands are about nine miles long; in the middle of them there is at low water a large lake, which is called on the chart "Trinity Bay," but which is known to the boatmen as the In-sand; the men row in the direction of this lake, and row over the sand-banks which surround it, as soon as the tide has flowed sufficiently to enable them to do so; now they find themselves in completely smooth water, and are safe; but for how long? a short hour or so, for the hungry waves are following them up fast, still higher and higher comes the tide, and a furious surf begins to rage over the banks that for a time protect the lake.
Well do the men know how short a time of rest remains to them; they hear the beat of the heavy waves thundering near, they see the gleam of the surf, the sea begins to boil up around them, the circle of safety gets each moment more narrow, their dread ruthless enemy is on them again, and the men brace themselves for a life-and-death struggle, for with such a struggle they are face to face.
"Now, my men, to it again! look out all!" and each man grasps his oar hard, fixes his eye upon the steersman, James Penny, watches his every sign, and listens to his every word; for in the struggle that is before them any mistake may be at once fatal to all.
The big waves roll in, fast following each other, and the boat meets each one head on, and rises to it; the surf flies over the men, and into the boat; "Bale away, Penny! bale away! or she will swamp!"—and fast the steersman bales; he has one hand on the tiller, and is watching the direction of every wave, and shouting to the men, on which side to ease, on which to pull a little harder, to keep the boat's head straight to the waves; for if but one wave catches the boat on the side it will roll her over at once, and all must perish; they must row sometimes harder in a lull, sometimes gently when a high roller comes, to avoid its breaking upon them, or to prevent their burying the boat's bow in its steep side.
The coxswain sees a tremendous wave rolling on; a few smaller ones come first; up the boat flies, down again, again mounts high, and again falls down; "Steady all, look out, half a stroke hard starboard side, easy port, now easy all—easy all;" the men stop pulling, and lay their oars flat on the water to steady the boat; the great wave rolls on, the boat's bow is tossed high, nearly on end, the men lean back as far as possible, but can scarcely keep their seats, or prevent being thrown bodily forward upon the coxswain; the boat falls with a heavy plunge; there is a moment's lull. "Now a stroke, or two, my men;" and they gently press the boat forward and make a little way; "Easy all, head her to it, here she comes," and up again they mount upon the crest of a wave, and are again nearly turned end-over-end, but, happily, fall on an even keel as the wave passes, and at once prepare themselves to meet the next sea, and thus meeting wave after wave, overcoming danger after danger, they go drifting slowly with the tide. The men do not dare at any time to pull hard for fear of rowing the boat under, they make therefore but little way ahead, not more than half a mile, or so, an hour, but they are carried slowly by the tide down Trinity Bay in the direction of the Downs.
The boat has been nearly full of water all this time, from the surf and spray that have broken into her, but she happily has a belt of cork round her, underneath the thwarts, or she must have long since been swamped, but this, with the constant baling of the coxswain, has kept her afloat.
The men have been able to remain in the bay until the tide has risen greatly, and it is now high water over the Sands, and the water being deeper, the seas do not break nearly as heavily as before; they are mounting seas, not running seas. The mounting sea swells up and comes pushing along, like a hill of water, steep on both sides; its crest is caught by the wind and is driven away in clouds of spray and foam, but a boat meeting it has time to rise, and float over it; but a running sea is much more dangerous; its base is caught and retarded by the Sands; it comes along, its sides steep as a wall, its crest curling more and more over until it breaks, and the upper portion of the wave falls with a mighty crash, with perhaps tons of water in its volume; it would be impossible for any boat but a life-boat to contend for a moment with such a rushing breaking sea as this, and the little boat the six men are in, with its heavy freight, would be swamped, beaten under water and rolled over by the first such sea she met; but if the men can only steer clear of these breakers, and keep the boat's head so as to meet the mounting seas bow on, and manage to bale her constantly so as to keep her a little free from water, they may live through it all yet; with this hope they labour on steadily, bravely, and hour after hour they thus contend with the storm; the boat is now coming to the worst of the water—to the steep edge of the Sand—and the men feel that, for a time, the danger must increase, and all brace themselves up again, prepared for any further effort, or care, that may be required.
The steersman, who has been steering and baling the boat for about four hours, suddenly lets the bowl with which he is baling fly from his hand; he gives a cry of horror, the men cannot help repeating it, for is not this likely to be a death-stroke to them all? The men at once realize the dread increase of danger this misfortune creates.
To keep the boat afloat without baling is impossible; the surf breaks into her continually; the men cannot bale with their southwesters, for they must keep rowing; they require both hands, and to exert all their strength to free their oars from the seas, and to keep the blades from being blown up into the air, as the force of the gale catches them; while the steersman must of necessity keep one hand on the tiller; and all must continue labouring without one moment's cessation to keep the boat's head straight to the seas.
Most happily the bowl is a wooden one, and there it is floating a few yards from them; they watch it wistfully, as they, and it, are tossed up and down by the quick waves; back the boat down upon the bowl they cannot, for it is on their broadside, and drifting away on the tide faster than they are floating: it would seem, that it must be an easy matter to pick up a bowl that is floating only a few yards from the boat; but not so now, for every moment, racing swiftly after each other, the waves come rushing on. It is strange as they watch the bowl to feel that their lives depend upon their recovering it, and yet how likely they are to perish in the attempt, and thus the men casting anxious glances at the bowl keep steadily to their work; they allow no word of fear or discouragement to be spoken; they must have mind, nerve, and muscle in full play; if a word of hopelessness is let fall, "Don't speak like that—don't speak like that, stick to your oar!" they must be words of encouragement, or no words at all, and in grim silence, except for the few words of direction shouted out by the coxswain, the men wait their fate. Suddenly the coxswain cries, "Here is a lull, round with her, sharp!" The men on the starboard side give a mighty pull; the men on the port back their hardest; one pull all together, the bowl is within reach; the coxswain grasps it with a hasty snatch! "Round! round, with her quick, quick!" and the eager men get her head straight to the seas again, before the waves have time to catch the boat broadside on and roll it over. All breathe again; they have another chance of life. Thank God! thank God!
They now pass away from the Sands and get into the Gull stream, but the wind has chopped round and continues to blow a fierce gale; the sea is running very high and broken; and in that rough sea they are still in extreme danger on account of the smallness of their boat, and so many men being in her, and they have to proceed with the greatest care and caution.
As they get into the Gull stream they see vessel after vessel running with close-reefed topsails before the gale; the boatmen hail them but they get no answer: one little sloop affords them slight hope, for she is evidently altering her course, but after a moment's apparent hesitation, away she goes again before the gale, and abandons them to their fate. The captain of the little vessel related afterwards, how in the height of the storm he saw some poor fellows in a small boat, and had a great wish to try and save them, but the sea was running so high that he felt it was impossible to heave his vessel to, and so had to leave them, and that they must have been driven on the Sands and lost. This sloop was about a quarter of a mile from the boat, and the men do not again get as near to any other ship, and as vessel after vessel passes, and the night begins to grow dark, the position of the men becomes more and more hopeless—and they all feel that if no vessel picks them up, they must soon be blown in again upon the Sands, and there perish.
All of the men, except one, are married; the man in the bow has a wife and five children, and it is his thoughts of them that keep him nerved to his work, for although weak, exhausted, and almost fainting, he still sticks to his oar and feebly paddles on; the only single man in the boat is his brother-in-law; and his mind keeps running as much upon what his sister will do, as a widow with five children, as it does upon the thoughts of his own probable fate; and so although the men will not permit themselves to lament or bemoan their almost certain fate, for fear of weakening their own nerves or discouraging each other, each has his solemn conviction of what must soon happen, and is in his own breast thinking of death, and bidding "Good-bye," to the loved ones who are resting those few miles away.
The Downs had been full of ships at the commencement of the storm, but as the wind increased in violence and blew right through, the anchorage was no longer safe, and vessel after vessel slipped her cable and ran before the gale; until at last only one vessel, a large American ship, remains at anchor. The boatmen make her out when they are about half a mile from her, and find, to their great joy, that she is almost directly in the path in which they are drifting; to get alongside her is their last hope, for although the tide is now carrying them against the wind and from the Sands, the tide will very soon turn, and then with the tide, and before the wind, they will be swept with terrible speed right in upon the Sands, and must there at once perish, and it will be impossible for them to row against the tide, as all their efforts will still be required to keep the boat bow on to the seas.
Whenever, after the passing of a few of the largest of the waves, there comes a comparative lull, or smooth, and they dare press the boat, they pull a few strokes and shoot ahead, and thus manage to get exactly in the path of the American ship.
As they drop slowly towards her they shout time after time, but cannot make themselves heard; and it is getting too dusk for them to be seen at any distance; the seas are running alongside the ship almost gunwale high, and it is impossible to get nearer to her than within fifty yards. Hail after hail the men give, still they get no answer; they can see a man on the poop, but he evidently neither sees nor hears them, and their last chance seems slipping away, for they are fast drifting past the vessel. "Get on the thwart, Dick, and shout with all your might!" the coxswain says to the man pulling stroke-oar; "I'll hold you," hauling in his oar, and catching it under the seat; the man springs upon the thwart, and balancing himself for a second, hails with all his force.
"The man is moving, he hears us; hurrah!" is the glad cry in the boat. They can see that he is looking about in astonishment, wondering from where the voice from the sea came. They all shout together; he sees them, waves his arm, and hurries along the poop; other men come hastening up, called by him, and look with astonishment at the little boat so full of men, being tossed about in that wild sea. The boat drifts by the ship, they venture a pull or two and get her under the stern of the vessel, shooting her a little across the seas; they then pull a little harder to try and keep her position, risking a little more to keep near the ship—indeed the vessel somewhat protects them from the rush of the seas.
The coxswain sees a man on the vessel throw something overboard—it is a coil of rope with a life-buoy attached; they make it out as it floats near, and manage to get it on board. The pilot is the man who first saw the boat, and has got the life-buoy and thrown it over to them. The captain of the vessel is now on deck; he orders the men to send down a rope from each quarter of the vessel, and to try and keep the boat directly astern of the centre of the ship, for if the boat sheers to one side or the other, and any of the big waves which are racing by the ship catch her on her broadside, she must go over at once.
So they shout to the men in the boat, "Hold on—we will send you another rope," and soon another life-buoy with a rope attached, comes floating by; they get it on board, and seeing directly the object for which it is sent, haul the ropes over each bow, and strive to keep the boat in position; but still they are in great danger; their safety hitherto has been in floating with the waves, yielding to them as they rolled on; but now as she is moored to the ship, the little boat has to breast the waves, and at times is tossed high with her bow in the air, and again plunged down, smothered with spray, and in danger every moment of being overturned; indeed it is only by the skilful manœuvring of the captain that the boat is kept safe at all. He has stationed six men on each quarter of the ship; they hold the ropes to which the boat is fastened; and as the big waves press the boat, the men slacken the rope, and let the boat go with the seas, pulling her up again between the waves, hauling on one rope, and slacking the other if the boat sheers too much on one side. The difficulty now is how to get the men out of the boat, for they dare not haul her up closer to the vessel, as she will not ride with a shorter scope of rope. They send another rope down to the boat, with a bowline knot made in it for the men to sit in, and then shout to the men, "We will haul you on board, one at a time."
There is a moment's question as to the order in which the men shall go, for each feels that at any moment the boat may sink under them; it is quickly decided that the men shall leave the boat in the order in which they sit, and one after another, they plunge into the waves, and are hauled on board through the seas.
All safe at last! and very soon the boat fills and turns over, and hangs there held by the ropes till the morning. As soon as the men have shaken the water a little from their clothes, and have wiped their eyes and faces somewhat clear, the captain says, "I suppose you have come from the barque that was riding near at the beginning of the gale, and which I missed after a squall, and which must have foundered." (It was supposed that two or three ships went down with all hands that night). "No, sir; we have come from no barque, we were blown away from a wreck some hours ago, near the North Sands Head, and have drifted right over the Goodwin."
"Impossible! impossible! no boat could live in such a sea, and over the Sands, impossible!"—"It is true, sir; we are Ramsgate boatmen and belong to a lugger; we went in from her on to the Sands to a wreck, and could not get back to her again." And the captain declares that their escape has been wonderful indeed. The feelings of the men at finding themselves safe are perfectly overwhelming; the reaction after those long hours of almost hopeless and constant struggle; it is too much for them, especially added, as it is, to the condition of physical exhaustion to which they are reduced. Some of them can scarcely speak; one of them, realizing the almost miracle by which they have been saved, leans against the boom, repeating in a broken voice, "What, I saved! I saved—I saved! one of the worst! one of the worst!" Another can only think of the words he had so often repeated to one of his mates, who had seemed almost dying during the night. "Come, cheer up! come, cheer up! stick to your oar, keep up your heart, man," and he continues for some time repeating these words in a strange dreamy way.
The coxswain, upon whom the chief anxiety and greatest stress of mind had fallen, for he had hour, after hour, to sit watching every sea as it rolled to them and meet it with the tiller, felt more than the others the effect of the night's work; he soon after fell very ill, was nigh to death's door, and did not recover his strength for a twelvemonth. The captain, officers, and crew of the American ship are full of sympathy and kindness.
The captain takes the men into his cabin, and gives them each a little brandy, then offers them dry clothes, and orders beds to be made up for them in the cabin: the clothes and the bed the men think too kind, but the beef-steak supper and the glass of grog all round, as soon as they have eaten a little, is not to be refused; and the hardy fellows are soon sound asleep on the cabin-floor, with all their perils for a time forgotten. In the morning the gale has greatly abated; the men have a hearty breakfast provided by the hospitable captain: their boat is by his orders hauled up, baled out, and as everything has been washed out of her, the captain lends them oars, and they start for Ramsgate, giving their most hearty thanks for the great skill with which they were got on board the ship and saved, and for the kindness they have received on board.
When the crew of the Champion lugger had put the men she had saved from the wreck on board the life-boat, they found that they could not well get back to Ramsgate in the then state of the wind and tide, and they were forced to run for Dover.
The men on board the Princess Alice remained in the greatest state of anxiety as to the fate of their comrades who went into the wreck in their little boat, and waited on, and on, in the position in which the boat must come to them, if she clears the Sands; hour after hour she cruises backwards and forwards, her crew keeping most anxious watch, and then runs down the back of the Sands, thinking it possible the boat might get out somewhere there; the gale increases; the night comes on; the high tide has swept over the whole of the Sands with its wild seas long before this, and they can only conclude, which they do most positively and sorrowfully, that their companions in many a hard struggle—their friends since childhood—have been lost, overwhelmed in the rage of the sea on the Goodwin. They therefore give up the search, and now regard their own safety, and they also find that they cannot reach Ramsgate, but must make away for Dover.
Arriving there, they at once telegraph the sad news to Ramsgate, that they have lost six hands; news that creates the greatest excitement in the town. The next morning the Princess Alice starts at daylight for another cruise round the Sands, hardly with the hope of finding their lost comrades, but possibly fragments of the boat may be found; but they search in vain, and feeling their fears to be altogether confirmed, they steer for Ramsgate. There the arrival of the lugger is most anxiously awaited, and the report of the men increases the excitement, and sorrow, and sympathy, which had been created by the telegraph sent the night before, and now that the names of the missing men are known, there is sad, sad, grief among their supposed widows, and orphans, and their friends.
In the meanwhile the boatmen, having left the American ship, row steadily toward Ramsgate. They see a lugger making for the harbour; this proves to be the Champion. The lugger takes the men on board, and the boat in tow, her crew rejoicing over their friends whom they had supposed to be drowned. They hoist the lugger's flag in token that they are bearers of good news, and speed towards Ramsgate. The lugger's approach with her flag flying excites the curiosity of the men on the harbour, and a crowd hurries down the pier to watch her arrival. And, as soon as the men missing from the Princess Alice are recognised, the cheers and excitement are wild in the extreme, and men speed off at their hardest to bear the good news. One poor woman in the midst of her agony and mourning for her husband, and surrounded by her weeping friends, is surprised by her door being burst violently open, and at seeing a boatman almost dropping with breathlessness, gasping, and gesticulating, and nodding, but trying in vain to speak; and it is some seconds before he can stammer out "All right! all right! your husband is safe, coming now!"
A little subscription was got up by the men and their friends, in order to give to the captain of the American ship and the pilot a small testimonial of the appreciation of their skill and hospitality. The men took the borrowed oars back and presented their thankofferings, in the shape of a silver cigar case each, to the captain and pilot.
And as the men told the story of the despair and grief that had existed among the wives and children at home—of the tears of sorrow that were turned into tears of gladness—of the rejoicings that took place upon their return, the brave and feeling American captain shared the emotion of the men as they told their tale, and was much overcome as he thanked them for their present, saying,—he should value it as long as he lived, and ever be deeply grateful that he had in any way been the instrument of saving such honest and brave fellows, and of restoring them to their wives and families.