Commander Holmes hailed them, and sought to get them to trust themselves to the lifebuoy, which the rescuers would drag through the seas with its living burden. It was asking much, and all knew it. It meant casting oneself upon the mercy of a tumultuous sea, meant giving oneself up to the danger of being flung upon rocks and boulders, to be dashed to death. The stranded men looked at each other; no one spoke. Then one man, the desire of life surging through him, took up the buoy, to which the rope had been fastened, placed himself in it, and hurled himself into the water, to be pulled into the lifeboat—safe! Another man, seeing this, followed his example; but the others, worn out by their experiences, preferred to wait for some surer way to safety than that, and elected to stay on the island.
While this was going on, the Wexford boat arrived on the scene, having been towed out by her tug. It was now a quarter past eight in the morning, and she anchored close to the Fanny Stevens, but in a rather better position; and, to the rapture of the men on the island, she had brought with her a strong punt, which was more suitable for the work in hand than the skiff brought from Fethard.
Two men of the Wexford boat, heroes both of them, volunteered to work the punt. They were William Duggan and James Wickham. They got into her, veered her down, with a rope attached to her bows, from the James Stevens, and, after a fearful experience, seized the opportunity that a “smooth” offered, and got her close enough to the rocks to snatch two of the men. Then, with a heave-ho! they dragged them into the punt, which was at once hauled back to the lifeboat.
Then out again in the same way the two heroes went. But this time they were not fortunate enough to escape damage. A wave caught them, and, as though the punt had been a toy yacht, flung her upon the rocks, which she hit with a crash; and, when the retiring waves dragged her back, the two men found that she had a hole in her side. Resourceful, calm, they grabbed up a loaf of bread and some packing, and with this stopped up the hole that had threatened to send the boat to the bottom; and then struck out once more for the rocks. That time two more men were saved; and so the work went on, Duggan and Wickham getting to shore no less than five times, taking off two men at each attempt, until the whole party of weary and almost frozen men were brought to the lifeboat. Death had been in attendance all along; but they braved it. They stuck stubbornly to their self-appointed task, and they succeeded.
It took but little time for the tug to take the lifeboats in tow, and in due course the survivors of the tragic wreck were landed. The end had come to one of the most heroic episodes in the history of the lifeboat. Nay, not the end, for there was still the work of caring for those whom the death of the gallant men had left behind; and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution did all in its power to assist, while Their Majesties of Norway contributed to the fund opened, as also did the Storthing. And, later, the men who had worked so heroically, and had done so well, had their efforts recognised, though to them the greatest satisfaction was in knowing that they had wrought well, and had snatched precious lives from the greedy maw of the sea.
A still more recent instance of heroic endeavour on the part of the lifeboatmen was on the occasion of the wreck of the hospital ship Rohilla. She had been taken over by the Government for use as a hospital ship, and on Friday, October 30, 1914, when on her way to Dunkirk, she ran into a terrific E.S.E. gale. She had 229 people on board, including a medical staff and five nurses, bent on doing their best for the maimed heroes who had fought for country and honour on the battlefields of Belgium and France.
The official report of the Royal Lifeboat Institution, on which this story is founded, is a vivid and graphic description of a tremendous calamity.
It was soon after four o’clock in the morning that the Rohilla encountered the storm, and, though her captain and crew did their very utmost, she ran on to a dangerous reef of rocks and lay at the mercy of a furious sea. Captain Neilson, who commanded, tried to get all the men to go forward, but those on the poop and aft could not cross the after part, over which giant seas were breaking. Pounded by mountainous waves, the Rohilla quickly broke in halves, and many of those on the after part of the ship were washed away at once, and perished. As soon as she struck, signals of distress were made, and Coxswain Thomas Langlands was promptly called. The sea was far too heavy to do anything until daybreak, when the No. 2 Lifeboat, John Fielden, was hauled on skids under the Spa Ladder—a gangway from the East Pier at Whitby to the cliff—and along the rocky scaur to the scene of the wreck. This necessitated getting the boat over a sea-wall eight feet in height—a most formidable task.
In transporting the boat she was stove in in two places. She was, nevertheless, launched, and succeeded in reaching the wreck, which lay surrounded by a mass of rocks. Twelve men and five women were saved and brought ashore. The boat was then again launched, and, after a fearful struggle with terrific seas, got to the vessel and saved eighteen more, the heavy waves which swept through the ship or broke over her deck filling the lifeboat time after time. Unfortunately, the boat soon became unfit for further service, owing to repeated bumping on the rocks. Captain John Mil-burn, a member of the local committee, then sent for the Upgang lifeboat, which was, with great difficulty, transported to the vicinity of the wreck.