“Man the Life-boat!” (continued).
A “Dirty” Night on the Sands—Wreck of the Samaritano—The Vessel boarded by Margate and Whitstable Men—A Gale in its Fury—The Vessel breaking up—Nineteen Men in the Fore-rigging—Two Margate Life-boats Wrecked—Fate of a Lugger—The Scene at Ramsgate—“Man the Life-boat!”—The good Steamer Aid—The Life-boat Towed out—A Terrible Trip—A Grand Struggle with the Elements—The Flag of Distress made out—How to reach it—The Life-boat cast off—On through the Breakers—The Wreck reached at last—Difficulties of Rescuing the Men—The poor little Cabin Boy—The Life-boat Crowded—A Moment of great Peril—The Steamer reached at last—Back to Ramsgate—The Reward of Merit—Loss of a Passenger Steamer—The Three Lost Corpses—The Emigrant Ship on the Sands—A Splendid Night’s Work.
The waves are tearing over the fatal Goodwin Sands, but the life-boats of Ramsgate, Margate, Deal, and Kingsdown are ready for their work. At Ramsgate, in particular, the life-boat is ready at her moorings in the harbour, while a powerful steam-tug—the Aid, whose interesting history would form many a chapter—is lying with steam partially up, prepared to tow out the boat as near the Goodwin Sands as may be with [pg 217]safety. The “storm warriors,” as the Rev. Mr. Gilmore calls them with so much appropriateness, in his fascinating and powerfully-written work,[75] “are on the watch, hour after hour, through the stormy night walking the pier, and giving keen glances to where the Goodwin Sands are white with the churning, seething waves that leap high, and plunge and foam amid the treacherous shoals and banks. Look! a flash is seen; listen, in a few seconds, yes, there is the throb and boom of a distant gun, a rocket cleaves the darkness; and now the cry—‘Man the life-boat! Man the life-boat! Seaward ho! Seaward ho!’ Storm warriors to the rescue!”
One Sunday night in the month of February, a few years ago, the weather was what sailors call “dirty,” and accompanied by sudden gusts of wind and snow-squalls. Before the light broke on Monday morning, the Margate lugger, Eclipse, put out to sea to cruise round the shoals and sands in the neighbourhood of Margate, on the look-out for the victims of any disasters that might have occurred during the night, and the crew soon discovered that a vessel was ashore on the Margate sands. She proved to be the Spanish brig Samaritano, bound from Antwerp to Santander, and laden with a valuable [pg 218]cargo; she had a crew of eleven men under the command of the captain, Modesto Crispo. Hoping to save the vessel, the lugger, as she was running for the brig, spoke a Whitstable fishing-smack, and borrowed two of her men and her boat. They boarded the brig as the tide went down, and hoped to be able to get her off the sands at the next high water. For this purpose, six Margate boatmen and the two Whitstable men were left on board.
With the rising tide the gale came on again with renewed fury, and it soon became a question not of saving the vessel, but of saving their own lives. The sea dashed furiously over the wreck, lifting her, and then letting her fall with terrific violence on the sands. Her timbers quivered and shook, and a hole was quickly knocked in her side. She filled with water, and settled on one side. “The waves began now to break with great force over the deck; the lugger’s boat was speedily knocked to pieces and swept overboard; the hatches were forced up; and some of the cargo which floated on the deck was at once washed away. The brig began to roll and labour fearfully, as wave after wave broke against her, with a force that shook her from stem to stern, and threatened to throw her bodily upon her broadside; the men, fearing this, cut the weather rigging of the mainmast, and the mast soon broke off short with a great crash, and went over the side.” All hands now had to take to the fore-rigging; nineteen souls with nothing between them and death but the few shrouds of a shaking mast! The waves threw up columns of foam, and the spray froze upon them as it fell. The Margate and Whitstable men were caught in a trap, for neither lugger nor smack would have lived five minutes in the sea that surrounded the vessel. Would the life-boat come?
As soon as the news of the wreck reached Margate, the smaller of the two life-boats was manned and launched. By an oversight in the hurry of preparation, the valves of the air-tight boxes had been left open, and she was fast filling. Although she succeeded in getting within a quarter of a mile of the brig, she had to be speedily turned towards shore, or she would have been wrecked herself. After battling for four hours with the sea and gale, she was run ashore in Westgate Bay. There the coastguardmen did their best for them. Meantime, when it was learned in Margate that the first boat was disabled, the larger one was launched. Away they started, the brave crew doing all they could to battle with the gale, but all in vain; their tiller gave way, and they had to give up the attempt. They were driven ashore about one mile from the town. Next, two luggers attempted to get out to the wreck. The fate of the first was soon settled: a fearful squall of wind struck her before she had got many hundred yards clear of the pier, and swept her foremast clean out of her. The second lugger was a little more fortunate; she beat out to the Sands, but only to find the surf so heavy, that it was impossible to cross them, or to get near the wreck. “The Margate people became full of despair; and many a bitter tear was shed for sympathy and for personal loss as they watched the wreck, and thought of the poor fellows perishing slowly before their eyes, apparently without any possibility of being saved.” And now let us change the scene to Ramsgate.
About nine o’clock the news came to Ramsgate that there was a brig ashore on the Woolpack Sands, off Margate, but it was naturally concluded that the life-boats of the [pg 219]latter place would go to the rescue, and no one supposed that the services of the Ramsgate boat would be required. “But shortly after twelve, a coastguard-man from Margate hastened breathless to the pier and to the harbour-master’s office, saying, in answer to eager inquiries, as he hurried on, that the two Margate life-boats had been wrecked. The order was, of course, at once given, ‘Man the life-boat!’ and the boatmen rushed for it. First come, first in; not a moment’s hesitation, not a thought of further clothing: they will go in as they are, rather than not go at all. The news rapidly spreads; each boatman as he heard it, hastily snatched up his bag of waterproof overalls and south-wester cap, and rushed down to the boat; and for some time, boatman after boatman was to be seen racing down the pier, hoping to find a place still vacant; if the race had been to save their lives, rather than to risk them, it would hardly have been more hotly contested.
“Some of those who had won the race and were in the boat were ill-prepared with clothing for the hardships they would have to endure, for if they had not their waterproofs at hand, they did not delay to get them, fearing that the crew might be made up before they got to the boat. But these men were supplied by the generosity of their disappointed friends, who had come down better prepared, but too late for the enterprise; the famous cork jackets were thrown into the boat and at once put on by the men.
“The powerful steam-tug, well-named the Aid, that belongs to the harbour, and has her steam up night and day ready for any emergency that may arise, speedily got her steam to full power, and with her brave and skilful master, Daniel Reading, in command, took the boat in tow, and together they made their way out of the harbour. James Hogben, who with Reading has been in many a wild scene of danger, was coxswain, and steered and commanded the life-boat.
“It was nearly low water at the time, but the force of the gale was such as to send a good deal of spray dashing over the pier; the snow fell in blinding squalls, and drifted and eddied in every protected nook and corner. It was hard work for the excited crowd of people who had assembled to see the life-boat start, to battle their way through the drifts and against the wind, snow, and foam, to the head of the pier; but there at last they gathered, and many a one felt his heart fail as the steamer and boat cleared the protection of the pier, and encountered the first rush of the wind and sea outside. ‘She seemed to go out under water,’ said one old fellow; ‘I would not have gone out in her for the universe.’ And those who did not know the heroism and determination that such scenes call forth in the breasts of the boatmen, could not help wondering much at the eagerness which had been displayed to get a place in the boat—and this although the hardy fellows knew that the two Margate life-boats had been wrecked in the attempt to get the short distance which separated the wreck from Margate, while they would have to battle their way through the gale for ten or twelve miles before they could get even in sight of the vessel.” And so the steamer with its engines working full power plunged heavily along, the life-boat towed astern with fifty fathoms (300 feet) of five-inch hawser out, an enormously strong rope about the thickness of a man’s wrist. The water flowed into and over the boat, and still, like any other good life-boat, she floated, and rose in its buoyancy, almost defying the great waves, while her crew were knee-deep in water.