Lightships and Lighthouses

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

Showing tramway connecting with tower, 200 feet above.

On June 29 the wind moderated sufficiently to enable the men to be landed, but the climatic conditions remained adverse. The wind refused to swing round to the east; a westerly swell was the luck day after day. The engineers had to dodge the ocean as best they could, and some idea of the handicap under which they laboured may be gathered from the fact that only four landings were made during the sixty-one days of May and June. July enabled the greatest number of landings to be effected—thirteen; while during August and September the men only gained the rock on twenty-one occasions, making a total of thirty-eight landings in the course of 153 days.

During this interrupted season, however, the barrack was completed. It was a massive structure, and resembled a huge iron barrel secured endwise upon an intricate arrangement of stilts which were heavily stayed and tied together by diagonals and cross-members. In the two previous instances where a similar arrangement had been adopted the temporary dwelling had been wrought in wood, but on this occasion the engineers decided to adopt iron, as they concluded that a wooden structure would not fare well against the heavy seas. This was a fortunate decision, because, as subsequent experience proved, a wooden barrack would have received very short shrift from the Atlantic breakers; in fact, probably it would have gone down with the first sou’-wester. The iron barrack, as the workmen narrated, was pounded and battered by the waves most unmercifully; but although it suffered at times, quivering and shaking under the terrific impacts, it weathered all the onslaughts.

One interesting incident serves to illustrate the perils to which the workmen were exposed. A date had been set down when all the men were to be brought off the rock for the season, as the approach of the equinox rendered further toil extremely doubtful, and there was no intention of unduly imperilling them. The engineer’s resident representative, Mr. Alexander Brebner, went out to the rock on August 20, the day fixed for the suspension of operations, to inspect the progress that had been made and to have a last look round. At the time of his arrival the weather was beautifully calm, and held out every promise of remaining settled for several days. As the season had been so adverse, he decided, on his own responsibility, to delay the cessation of toil, so, with the thirteen men, he remained on the rock, determined to make up leeway somewhat while the weather held out.

By permission of the Lighthouse Literature Mission.

THE FLANNEN ISLANDS LIGHT STATION.

One of Scotland’s lonely beacons. It marks a group of islets 15 miles off the Hebrides. In 1900 the three keepers mysteriously disappeared, and their fate remains unsolved to this day.

But the resident paid the penalty for his disobedience. The little party retired that night with the stars shining brilliantly overhead from a cloudless sky, and with the sea like a mirror. In the middle of the night one and all were roused suddenly from their slumbers. The wind was roaring, and the breakers were hammering upon the rock, while the foam and surf rushed violently between the legs of the barracks. When the men looked out they were confronted with a terrifying spectacle. The night was black as pitch, but the sea white as a snow-covered plain, from the crests of the rollers and the surf playing on and around the rocks. A furious gale had sprung up with the characteristic suddenness of the Atlantic, and was already raging. The next morning no one dared to venture outside the iron home, while the gale, instead of abating, appeared to be increasing in fury. For five days the men were held fast, and at times their fears got the better of them. This was particularly the case when, now and again, a more than ugly wave got up, rolled over the rock, and crashed with full force against the barrack. The building shook and trembled fearfully, but its legs were driven too deeply into the rock for it to be overturned, while the cross-bracing was too intricate for the legs to be snapped off. Again and again the men were plunged into darkness, as a wall of water rushed right over the drum, notwithstanding that the roof was 77 feet above high-water.

Their fears rose almost to frenzy when a breaker, leaping the rock, drove full tilt against the floor of the barrack. In this upward rush of 55 feet the building suffered. The men’s entrance to the home was by means of a heavy hatch, or trapdoor, which was bolted securely upon the inside. This particular comber burst in the hatch as if it were no thicker than the wood of a matchbox, flooding the whole compartment.