Now come the difficulties of clearing the wreck. The anchor holds, and there is no thought of getting her up in such a gale and sea. The hatchet is passed forward; there is a moment’s delay, a delay by which indeed all their lives are saved. Already one strand out of [pg 223]the three of which the strong rope is composed is severed, when a fearful gust of wind sweeps by, the boat heels over almost on her side—a crash is heard, and the mast and sail are blown clean out of the boat! she is carried straight for the wreck; the cable is slack, they haul it in as fast as they can, but on they are carried swiftly, as it would seem to certain destruction. “Let them hit the wreck full, and the next wave must throw the boat bodily upon it, and all her crew will be swept at once into the sea; let them but touch the wreck, and the risk is fearful; on they are carried, the stem of the boat just grazes the bow of the vessel, they must be capsized by the bowsprit and entangled in the wreckage; some of the crew are ready for a spring into the bowsprit to prolong their lives a few minutes, the others are all steadily, eagerly, quietly, hauling in upon the cable might and main, as the only chance of safety to the boat and crew; one moment more and all are gone, one more haul upon the cable, a fathom or so comes in by the run, and at that moment mercifully taughtens and holds, all may yet be safe! another yard or two and the boat would have been dashed to pieces.” This danger over, they have to think of the mast and sail dragging over the side of the boat; it is with great difficulty that they get them on board, and rig them up once more. At last they sail away from the Sands, the breakers and the wreck.
And now for the steamer, which at length they reach, passing on the way the lugger Eclipse and the Whitstable smack, to the crews of which they were able to impart the good tidings. When they reached the steamer the sea was raging, and the gale blowing as much as ever, and it was no easy task to get the poor shipwrecked fellows on board, as they were too exhausted to spring up her sides as the opportunity occurred; and one poor fellow was literally hauled on board with a rope. The return voyage was little less dangerous than the voyage out, but at last the Ramsgate pier-head light shone out with its bright welcome, and cheers broke out from the anxious crowd, as it was known that nineteen men had been saved from a terrible and certain death. The Spanish sailors were well cared for, and their captain, in speaking of the rescue, was almost overcome by his feelings of gratitude and wonder, for he had made up his mind for death. He had a picture made of the rescue to take home with him to show the Spanish authorities. It is gratifying to know that so much bravery did not go unrewarded. The English Board of Control presented each of the men with £2 and a medal, while the Spanish Government gratefully acknowledged the heroic exertions put forth, by granting each a medal and £3. And all the above is but one example of the work of our “Storm Warriors,” whose glorious mission is to save.
One stormy night some years ago the Aid and the life-boat started from Ramsgate in answer to rockets fired from one of the Goodwin light-vessels. They knew well what it meant, but on reaching the edge of the Sands could not, after cruising about some distance, find any traces of a vessel in distress. They waited till daylight, and then were just able to distinguish the lower mast of a steamer standing out of the water. They made towards it, but found no trace of life, no signs of any floating wreck to which a human being could cling. They were forced to the conclusion that almost immediately upon striking, the vessel must have broken up and sunk in the quicksand. Poor crew! poor passengers, maybe! a sharp, sudden death! Would that the vessel could have held together a little longer!
They had not proceeded much farther ahead in the hopes of assisting another vessel ashore not far from Kingsgate, when the captain of the Aid saw a large life-buoy floating by. “Ease her!” he cries, and the way of the steamer slackens; “God knows but what that life-buoy may be of some use to us.” The helmsman steers for it; a sailor makes a hasty dart at it with a boat-hook, misses it, and starts back appalled from a vision of staring eyes, and pale and agonised faces, matted hair, and arms outstretched for help. The life-boat crew steer for the buoy; the bowman grasps at it, but cannot lift it; his cry of horror startles the whole crew. Some of them hasten to help him. To that buoy three dead bodies were found lashed with ropes round their waists. Slowly and reverently, one by one, the crew lifted them on board, and laid them out under the sail. Those three pale corpses were all that were ever found of the crew and passengers—to what number is not known precisely to-day—of the steamer Violet, which had left Ostend late the previous evening. At two o’clock she struck the Sands; a little after three there was no one left on board to answer the signals of a steamboat that had come to their rescue, and show their position; a little later and the Violet was lying a worthless wreck below the breakers and quicksands.
Happily the efforts of the life-boat and steamer’s men are almost invariably crowned with success, where such is anything like possible. A grand success was scored some years ago when the passengers and crew of a large emigrant ship, and the crew of another vessel, one hundred and twenty in all, were rescued and brought into Ramsgate as the result of one long night’s work. The first ship, the Fusilier, was found hard and fast on the Sands, in a perfect boil of waters, and the life-boat alone dare approach her, the Aid being obliged to lay off at some distance. The terrified passengers looked down upon the life-boat from the high ship’s deck, which quivered with every thump on the sands, wondering how many she could possibly save, and despairingly crowding round the two life-boat’s men who had sprung to the man-ropes when the boat had been lifted by a sea close to the wreck. The lights from the ship’s lamps and the faint moonlight revealed a trembling, pale, and horror-stricken crowd, nine-tenths of whom had known nothing before of the terrors of the sea, and who still despaired of ever seeing land again. But every one of them, and the list included more than sixty women and children, were saved. The women and children were taken off first, helped down by sailors slung in bowlines over the vessel’s side, to the plunging, restless boat, the dangers being greatly enhanced by the helplessness and frantic terror of the poor creatures. Yet not even a baby was lost, although many were thrown from the vessel to the outstretched arms of the life-boat men. About thirty persons were conveyed at a time to the steamer, where the difficulties of transference were nearly as great as from the wreck, but at last all were safe on board. Then, as the heavily-freighted steamer turned her head for Ramsgate, the emigrants mentioned how, during the previous night, they had seen a large ship drifting fast for the Sands, and how in the darkness they had lost sight of her. A sharp look-out was therefore kept, and as they proceeded down Prince’s Channel, and neared the lightship, their search was rewarded. They noted the remnants of a wreck well over on the north-east side of the Girdler Sands, and immediately put back for the lifeboat, which had been left alongside the emigrant ship, where the captain remained in the [pg 225]faint hope of saving her eventually. Both put back to the second wreck, the hull of which was almost torn to pieces, the timbers started, rent, and twisted—a mere skeleton of a ship. To the foremast—hardly held in position by a remnant of shattered deck—clung sixteen of an exhausted crew, including a pilot and a boy of eleven. But a rope was successfully thrown round the fore-rigging, and slowly, one by one, the poor fellows dropped from the mast to the boat. Then “oars out,” lest a hole should be knocked through the boat’s bottom by some part of the wreckage, and every rower strained his utmost to get clear of her. This done, and the sail hoisted, the steamer was soon reached, and a grand night’s work consummated. One can imagine the keen interest of the emigrants watching from the steamer the rescue of men from dangers similar to, but even greater than, those through which they had themselves just passed, and the enthusiasm ashore, at an almost unparalleled example of successful life-boat work.
CHAPTER XVII.
“Man the Life-boat!” (continued).
A Portuguese Brig on the Sands—Futile Attempts to get her off—Sudden Break-up—Great Danger to the Life-boat—Great Probability of being Crushed—An Old Boatman’s Feelings—The Life-boat herself on the Goodwin—Safe at Last—Gratitude of the Portuguese Crew—A Blaze of Light seen from Deal—Fatal Delay—Twenty-eight Lives Lost—A Dark December Night—The almost-deserted Wreck of the Providentia—A Plucky Captain—An Awful Episode—The Mate beaten to Death—Hardly saved—The poor little Cabin-boy’s Rescue—Another Wreck on the Sands—Many Attempts to rescue the Crew—Determination of the Boatmen—Victory or Death!—The Aid Steamer nearly wrecked—A novel and successful Experiment—Anchoring on Board—The Crew Saved.
The emigrant ship mentioned in the preceding chapter was eventually got off the Sands; but although similar efforts are often made, they are by no means usually attended by similar results. The danger of waiting by the ship is very considerable. Gilmore gives us a good example of this in his account of a Portuguese brig on the Sands, of which there were, at first, strong hopes of saving. Her masts and rigging, as at first seen by the Ramsgate men, were all right, and her clean new copper was intact. “A grand thing for all hands—for owners, underwriters, crew, and boatmen—the men think, if they can only get her safely off when the tide rises, and bring her into harbour; a fine vessel and perhaps valuable cargo saved, and a pretty piece of salvage, which will be well earned, and nobody should grudge, for the boatmen have to live, as well as to save life.” The captain had at first refused to employ the services offered by the crews of two Broadstairs luggers, but at last was glad to avail himself of their assistance, coupled with that of the life-boat men and the steam-tug Aid. The boatmen got an anchor out astern as quickly as possible, the vessel being head on to the Sands, and used other means to assist the steamer’s work. They hoped that the Aid would be able to back close enough to them, to get a rope on board fastened to the flukes of the brig’s anchor, and to drag the anchor out, and drop it about one hundred fathoms astern of the vessel. All hands would then have gone to the windlass, keeping a strain upon [pg 226]the cable, and, each time the vessel lifted, heaved with a will—the steamer, with a hundred and twenty fathoms of nine-inch cable out, towing hard all the time. By these means they expected to be able gradually to work the vessel off the Sands. But they soon lost hope of doing this. The gale freshened about one o’clock in the morning; the heavy waves rolled in over the sands, and she lifted and fell with shocks that made the masts tremble and the decks gape open. The life-boat remained alongside, afloat in the basin that the brig had worked in the sands, and it took all the efforts of the men on board to prevent her getting under the side of the vessel, and being crushed. The Portuguese captain still refused to desert his vessel, while the boatmen, who knew the danger, were almost ready to force the crew to leave the ship.