CHAPTER XXII. THE WRECK OF THE "PROVIDENTIA."
"What dangers press'd, when seas ran mountain high,
When tempests raved, and horrors veiled the sky;
When prudence fail'd, when courage grew dismayed,
When the strong fainted, and the wicked prayed;—
Then in the yawning gulf far down we drove,
And gazed upon the billowy mount above;
Till up that mountain swinging with the gale,
We view'd the horrors of the watery vale!"
Crabbe.
A dark stormy December night had been followed by a gloomy morning, a heavy gale had been blowing for some hours from the north-east, and thick drifting snow-squalls still further threw heavy shadows over the sea, and added greatly to the perils of the dangerous navigation around the Goodwin.
The men on Ramsgate pier said to each other, "It is likely weather." Likely for disaster and for the need of their services; they therefore keep a careful watch, but the snow and drifting fog-clouds shut out the Goodwin Sands and the light-vessels from their view, and so the men can only wait on, speculating upon the possibility of some unseen tragedy being worked out amid the darkness and the wrath of waters that surround the Goodwin.
It is now after breakfast-time, about nine o'clock, the weather is too bad for much ordinary work to be going on, and so a large number of boatmen assemble in the look-out houses and at the head of the pier watching the storm.
Many are the spy-glasses which are every now and then pointed seaward, scanning any break in the storm-drift; three or four men are at the end of the pier by the watch-house; one of them fancies that he can make out a dark line 'mid the grey gloom; he watches carefully, a sheet of fog lifts for a moment; "Yes, there is! I see a ship on the Goodwin!"
"Where? Where?" and another man looks at the direction of his spy-glass, and points his own the same way. No; he can see nothing; and the man himself can now see nothing; it was just a glimpse, that was all, and the cloud closed in upon the Sands and wrapt them in darkness again.
"But are you positive you saw anything?" they ask the man.
"I am just as sure of it as I am that I am standing here."
"What was she like?"
"She seemed a large ship with only two masts standing, and high up on the Sands."
"Well, if you saw her once, and are certain of it, once is as good as fifty times. Away then for the life-boat."
Hurrying up the pier to give the alarm, they shout to some boatmen who are at work helping to stow cargo on board a Dutch steamer—the Orient: "A vessel on the Goodwin; Life-boat! Life-boat!" Immediately the men throw down whatever they have in their hands, spring to the gunwale, and are out of the ship, up the steps, on the pier, and running for the life-boat in a moment; and this to the intense astonishment of the Dutch mate, who had not heard the cry of life-boat. He runs along the deck on to the poop, and shakes his fist at the men, shouting after them, "You be bad men you! You be bad men! What for you run away? You come here work no more!"
The honest-hearted fellow was, however, more than appeased, when he was told that it was to rush on board the life-boat; to go out in that wild dark storm and terrible sea to the rescue of life, that the men had so suddenly deserted their work and fled from the vessel.
One of the pier men runs to the harbour-master, and reports that a large ship has been seen ashore on the Goodwin; the harbour-master hurries to the pier-head, but the lift in the storm has settled down thicker than ever; he can see nothing; he, and all with him, listen attentively for any report of a gun from the Goodwin light-vessels, but can hear nothing; they cross-question the man who saw the wreck. The harbour-master thinks he may have been mistaken—that it was probably a ship sailing through the Gull Channel that he saw. No! the man is positive that it was a ship on the Goodwin, and nothing else; and so the harbour-master, although they can hear no signal from the light-vessels, decides upon sending the life-boat, and orders the coxswain to proceed to sea.
Rapid preparation for the start has been going on all this time; and very speedily steamer and life-boat are away in the dark storm speeding their way to the Goodwin Sands. They get to the North Sand light-ship about eleven o'clock, and find a very heavy sea running in the neighbourhood of the Sands, with frequent snow-squalls sweeping along.
The men on board the light-vessel say that both they, and the men on board the Gull light-ship, have been making signals since daylight. (The roar of the storm, and the wind not being on shore, the guns were not heard, and the weather was too thick for any signals to be seen). They report that they had seen a ship on shore on the South-East Spit of the Sands.
Away go steamer and life-boat, the crew of both alike eager to make up for lost time, and they soon discover the vessel they are in search of looming out in the mist.
They see that she is a complete wreck, and that she is settled down upon the Sands, with her bow to the seas; her mizen-mast is gone close to the deck; the seas are running quite over her as they break upon her bow; they mount up and fly over her fore-yard and race along her deck, breaking again upon her deck-house, which they smother in foam.
There are no sailors to be seen lashed to the rigging, and it is doubtful whether they can have found shelter anywhere on deck, so great is the rush of water over the ship. Indeed, the life-boat men think that it is very improbable that any of the crew can be left on board. Nevertheless, they determine to get on board the vessel, and see if they can find any poor exhausted seaman still clinging to some portion of the wreck.
There is a very heavy sea running, and they have a short consultation as to the best method of getting alongside the vessel; they determine to go in upon the lee quarter, and make preparation for so doing. Now they make in for the wreck; they sail in swiftly; plunge in through the broken water; their anchor is all ready; they watch their distance. Over with it; lower the foresail; and they are about to run the life-boat right alongside the vessel, when the man in the bow shouts, "Up with your helm; up with it hard; sheer off, sheer off!" Up the helm is; swiftly the boat answers, and bears away from the vessel.
The mizen-mast, which had been broken off short, has fallen over the quarter of the vessel, and become entangled in the Sands, and with the ship's side, and is standing out at right angles to the wreck, right in the way the life-boat was steering. If it had been night-time the boat would have been steered in right upon the wreck of the mast and yards, when in every probability she would have been stove and rolled over by the seas; the men would then have been washed out of her, and it would have been impossible for them to have got back to her again, against the rush of sea and tide and entangled as she would have been in the wreckage of the mast, she could not have floated down to them; as it is, this very catastrophe nearly happens, for the men hardly see the danger in time; it is a moment of great peril, for the boat is being tossed about violently in the broken water, and becomes somewhat entangled in the wreckage; the men lay hold of the cable, and haul upon it with all their strength, and do what they can to check the way of the boat, and help her head round; now they get a good cant out, they throw out some coils of the cable in one cast, they sheer out well, and get clear of the wreck of the mizen-mast; the seas catch the boat and drive it astern of the vessel, the cable runs out its full length and brings the boat up with a strong jerk. The men, on looking at the wreck, are glad to find that there are some of her crew still alive; they can see three men and a boy crouching down, under the shelter of the deck-house, but they must be but a small proportion of the original crew of the ship, for she is a large vessel, and must have had a crew of certainly not fewer than fifteen or sixteen men. "Thank God," say the life-boat men, "that they are not all gone, and that we are here in time to try and save some."
The shipwrecked men have been crouching there for some hours, and have been getting more and more wretched, cold, wet, exhausted, and hopeless; every now and then they heard the loud boom of a gun from one of the light-vessels, but no life-boat came, and the wreck might at any moment break up; they at first felt confident that a life-boat would certainly soon come to their rescue, and had prepared for her coming by getting a life-buoy with a long line fastened to it, ready to throw overboard.
But the hours passed by, the seas broke over the vessel with increasing violence, the storm grew more and more wild, they could not understand why the life-boat did not come, but she did not, and they began to despair of being saved.
Suddenly, as they crouch under the deck-house in their hopeless misery, they see the life-boat swing round on the tide, and come up to her cable just astern of the ship; never were men more agreeably surprised; it is as a reprieve from death; and they feel their blood course again through their veins, their strength returns, and they start up ready for action; the life-boat men give them a cheer, which they answer with glad cries of welcome.
The men on board the wreck throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat men; there is a tremendous tumble of sea, the life-boat is flying about in all directions, and it is not for some time, and not until after much trouble, that they succeed in getting the life-buoy on board the boat.
All hands lay hold of the rope, and do their utmost to haul the life-boat nearer to the wreck; but the heavy gale, the rush of the sea, and the strong tide, are all directly against her, her cable is straining to the utmost, and they cannot get her to move in the least; they struggle on, and on, but it is all in vain.
"Pull, men, pull! now all together, as the seas pass; now, try and get a foot or two ahead." Not an inch, strain and pull as they will.
"Look out! look out! let go; take care of yourselves!"
Too late; a tremendous sea comes rushing over the vessel, right over the life-boat, beats her back with a wrench and jerk that tears one of the timber heads, to which the rope is fastened, right out of her, knocks down by its great weight five or six of the men, who are holding on to the rope, hurts two or three of them somewhat severely, and buries the boat in its very flood of water; for a moment she is swamped, and beaten right away from the wreck; she lifts again, in a few seconds rises to her water-line; she frees herself of water, the men spring to their feet.
"Are all there? Are any washed out of her?" "All right! all right!" "Thank God! Now at it again, my men."
Happily the anchor still holds, and the boat's cable brings the boat up. But what is to be done to save the poor crew? They feel that it is quite impossible for them to haul the boat any nearer to the ship.
To their great surprise, they see the captain spring up from the lee of the deck-house, hurriedly take off his oilskin coat, throw it into the water, and then jumping on the gunwale, grasp the hawser that holds the boat, and slide down it into the boiling sea. A huge wave breaks over him, and washes him away from the rope; he now tries to swim to the boat, but the life-boat is not directly astern, the sheer she has to her cable that is fastened to the anchor which was thrown over some distance to the side of vessel, prevents her dropping right astern; and although the captain has but to swim a few yards out of the direction of the sweep of sea and tide, it is impossible for him to manage it. He is perfectly overwhelmed by the boil of sea, tossed wildly up and down, wave after wave beating over him, it is all that he can do to keep his head above water, and cannot guide his course in the least; the boatmen try all they can to make the boat sheer towards him, so as to reach him, or to throw him a rope, but it is impossible, they cannot get sufficiently near; and in a few seconds they see him swept rapidly by in the swift tide; Jarman, the coxswain of the boat, seizes a life-buoy, and throws it with all his force towards him; the wind catches it and helps the throw; it falls near him; he makes a spring forward and reaches it; the men gladly see that he has got it; they see him put his two hands upon one side as if to get upon it; as he leans forward it falls over his head like a hoop; he gets his arms through it, and shouting to the boatmen "All right," he waves his hand as if to beckon to them to follow him, and goes floating down in the strong tide and among the raging leaping seas in a strange wild dance, that threatens indeed to be a dance of death.
It is with deep feelings of dismay and sorrow that the boatmen see him thus drifting away, sea after sea breaking over him; they think it impossible that he can live long; they watch him as far as they can see him; he rises now and again on a sea, and waves his hand to them, but soon disappears from their view, and they seem to have wished him for ever good-bye, for if they go after him at once they will not be able to get back to the ship again, perhaps for hours; and there are two men and a boy still on board whom they must not desert; they must do what they can for these poor fellows first, and then they will hasten away in search of the poor captain, although they have but little hope of then finding him alive, even if they find him at all.
At once they are reminded of the dread peril the men on board the ship are in; for a tremendous crash like a peal of thunder startles them all; and looking round they see the tall mainmast of the ship fall swiftly over on the port side of the vessel.
The men on board give a loud cry—the terrible crash and rend and shock of the falling mast appals them to the uttermost; it is as if the wreck was breaking to pieces in one vast wrench beneath their feet. The chief mate springs wildly to the starboard quarter, and seizes the end of the mainbrace, which is hanging there; he makes it fast round his waist; and with a rapid spring, and with arms outstretched towards the boat, he jumps into the sea; he is a fine powerful young man, and a very good swimmer; but what can he do in a tide and sea so tremendous that twelve strong men cannot haul the boat one foot against them? and so a fearful tragedy is worked out before the boatmen's eyes; they make every effort to sheer the boat towards the man, but in vain; the tide sweeps him at once away on the lee-bow of the boat; he struggles fearfully hard for his life; the sea takes him and throws him away to the full extent of the rope, which tightens round his waist; the strain of the rope draws him back a little; he falls in the trough of the sea; he is just in the thick of the surf, in the break of the waves, and they curl over him and beat him down beneath their weight, and then again the next rushing wave catches him and flings him out, till he is brought up with a jerk as the rope tightens, that seems almost to tear him in pieces; now he is thrown high in the air on the crest of a wave, now he is buried in a sea, rolled over and over; sheering here and there, as the tangled waves catch him, first on one side, then on the other, but never nearer the life-boat; every now and then he strikes out wildly as if to make a last effort, and cries aloud in his agony and despair. It is indeed a most piteous sight, and it moves the boatmen to the very heart; the poor drowning fellow so near and they unable to render him the least help.
They cannot remain doing nothing, although they feel fully assured that all they attempt must be in vain; they haul with all their power on the cable to try and get nearer to the ship when they might sheer down upon the poor fellow; but the sea is raging over them as much as ever, and they cannot get the boat to move at all; the waves rush over the boat in rapid succession, and as they do so the men have to crouch down and cling with all their force to the thwarts, and struggle hard to prevent being washed out of her. As each sea passes, up they spring and again try to haul in the cable; the poor drowning sailor is ahead of the boat, on the starboard bow; if the line which he has round his waist were only a few fathoms longer he might be saved; it would be madness for any of the boatmen to jump overboard to get at him, they would be instantly swept astern of the boat, without a hope of saving him, and at great and useless risk of their own lives; they try and throw the lead-line over the rope which holds the poor fellow; hoping that if they can succeed in doing so, that he may manage to get hold of it, and loosing himself from the rope which fastens him to the ship, be hauled on board the boat; but the boat is pitching and tossing so much that it is hard work attempting to throw the line, but again and again they make the effort. "Now he rises on a wave: now try; heave with a will, well clear of his head. Ah! missed again; look out, hold on all;" a wave rushes over them, boat and all; another half-minute and they make another attempt; no! all in vain, each time it falls short; the struggle cannot last long; strong and young as the man is, his strength cannot possibly endure long in such a conflict; his cries grow more feeble and soon cease; they see him try and get back to the ship, climbing up the rope, but his strength fails, and he falls back; his arms and legs are still tossed wildly about, but it is by the action of the waves; his head drops and sinks; yes! it is all over!—all over! with him; and it is with intense sorrow that the boatmen realize that all hope of saving him is at an end—that he is dead.