The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2

by Frederick Whymper

A dark December night, and a large ship reported ashore on the Goodwins. The harbour-master hurries to Ramsgate pier-head; he and all with him can see nothing; they cross-question the man who asserts that he observed during a lift in the fog a vessel on the sands. Although there is no signal from the light-vessels, the harbour-master decides to send out steamer and life-boat. The crews of both soon discover the vessel looming through the mist, a complete wreck, her bow to the sea, her mizen-mast down to the deck, and the wild seas running over her. There are no sailors to be seen lashed in her rigging. Have all on board perished?

Thank God! not so. After infinite difficulty, and after nearly getting entangled with some of the wreckage, the life-boat crew get near the vessel, and find that three men and a boy are crouching under the shelter of the deck-house; they must be a small proportion of the original crew, for she is a large ship, and must have had some fifteen or sixteen hands aboard. The men have been crouching there for hours, and their confidence in the advent of the life-boat had been so strong that they had prepared for her coming by preparing a life-buoy, with a long line fastened to it, ready to throw overboard.

As the long hours passed, fervent hope had been dashed by wild despair. Suddenly the life-boat appears, coming up to her cable just astern of the vessel; it is to them as a reprieve from death, and they wake to life and action. They throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat men, and after much trouble the latter get it on board. All hands lay hold on the rope, and do their utmost to haul the life-boat nearer to the wreck, but the heavy gale, terrific sea, and strong tide, render it impossible. A tremendous sea comes rushing over the vessel, and for the moment swamps the boat, knocking down five or six of the men, hurting some of them severely, but she lifts again, and no one is lost. But what of the poor crew? The life-boat men feel that it is impossible to haul their boat nearer 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 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 the 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 throw him a rope, but it is impossible: they cannot get sufficiently near, and in a few seconds they see him swept [pg 231]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 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.” With terror and dismay they watch him in his fearful struggle, till he is lost to their view, quite out of sight among the waves; they could not follow him, however much they might have wished it, for it might be hours before they could get back to the ship, and the two men and boy still aboard.

And had they thought of so doing the next episode would have obliged them to desist. A tremendous crash startles them all; the mainmast has fallen over the port side of the vessel. The men on board give a loud cry; the chief mate springs wildly to the starboard quarter, and, making the end of the mainbrace hanging there fast round his waist, drops into the sea. He is a powerful 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 their very eyes. Now he is buried in a sea; now he is thrown high in the air on the crest of a wave, but he never nears the boat, nor can it near him. He strikes out wildly, as if to make a last effort, and cries aloud in his agony and despair. They try again and again to throw the lead-line over the rope which holds the poor fellow, but the boat is pitching and tossing so much that their efforts are all in vain. “ ‘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!” Think of the second mate and cabin-boy on the wreck, watching in helpless horror the death they could not avert, and which may be theirs in a few moments!

The deck-house under which they have been crouching is beginning to break up, and the remaining man, throwing himself on the rope by which the life-boat is made fast to the ship, attempts to reach the boat. The breakers rush over him as he painfully struggles on, and he is again and again buried in the waves. At last he reaches the high bow of the life-boat, which is leaping and falling and jerking, tearing the hawser up and down in the seas, as if trying to throw him from his hold. His hands convulsively clutch the rope; pale, and with jaw dropping, he seems about to swoon, and in another moment he will be gone. “The man in the bow of the boat has been watching his every movement, has shuddered with dismay as he saw the seas wash over [pg 232]him, expecting him to be carried away in the strong tide. No; he still grasps the rope, and at last is within reach! In one spring, and with a cry to his mates, ‘Hold me! hold me!’ the boatman throws himself upon the raised fore-deck of the life-boat, and, with his body half-stretched over the stern, he grasps the collar of the sailor. The drowning man throws his arm around the boatman’s neck, and clings to him convulsively, by his weight dragging the man’s head down and burying it in the water; but the brave fellow clings as hard to the half-dead sailor as the sailor does to him; the seas wash bodily over them and over the bow of the boat; up and down the boat plunges them both, but he still holds on; three or four of the boatmen have hold of his legs, and are doing their utmost to pull him back into the boat, but they cannot do so; and so the struggle goes on: it is only as the boat rises on a wave and throws her bow up in the air that the men can breathe.” And now a new horror, for right down upon them comes the wreck of one of the ship’s largest boats, which has just got free of the wreckage. Thank God! it just passes clear of them. The boatmen cannot get the men in over the high bow of the boat, and the two poor fellows are drowning fast, and so they drag them along the side of the boat, still clinging together, to the waist of the boat, where the gunwale is very low, and with more assistance succeed in getting them aboard.

ON THE COAST AT DEAL.

And now for the poor boy, still clinging to the gunwale, and crying out in piteous [pg 233]tones. Each moment, as the waves dash over the vessel, the boatmen expect to see him washed overboard like a cork. What can be done? No one can mount the rope in the face of the seas and tide which had really helped the poor fellow now safely on the boat. There seems no hope of taking him off by any means whatever, but the coxswain determines to haul the boat up to the ship sharply, and attempt it. Scarcely are the orders given, when some of the men give a cry, “ ‘What’s that? look out!’ Yes, he is overboard, washed over by that big sea. ‘Where is he? where is he? There he is! No; only his cap! there he lifts on that sea—he is coming straight for the boat!’ From the change and eddy of the tide, the rush of the sea past the boat is not nearly so rapid as it was, and the poor boy comes floating slowly from the ship; once or twice he has been rolled under by the waves, now he is on the surface again, and near the boat. ‘Here he comes! look! on that wave! Lost! No, he floats again! Slacken hawsers! Now he is within reach! Carefully, quick! Now you have got him! He is making no effort, and floating with his head under water!’ A boatman manages to hook his jacket with a long boat-hook, and pulls him towards the boat; gently the men lift him in, sorrowfully, and tears are in the eyes of more than one as they look upon the small face. ‘Poor little chap! Too late! too late! he’s gone!’ ” Their efforts are now all needed to get clear of the wreck, cut the cable, and raise the sail, all which being done successfully, they go off smartly before the wind, and have time to look to the poor boy again. Kind hands chafe his hands and rub his back and limbs, and put a little rum to his lips, and after about half an hour they have the joy of seeing him show signs of life, and their efforts are redoubled. Some of the men take the dryest of their jackets and wrap him up tenderly, lying him under the mizen-sail. He eventually recovers.

But, strangest part of all this eventful story, the captain, who had been two hours in the seething waters, is picked up alive, although, it may well be believed, in a terrible state of exhaustion. At first he seems to be dying, but at length, after the men have done their best in chafing and rubbing, he gets a little better, and is able to tell them that his vessel, the Providentia, was a full-rigged ship from Finland, and that he himself is a Russian Fin, which accounts for his miraculous preservation in the water, as the Fins are the hardiest of sailors. Eleven of his men had left the ship in their best boat, and were, it was eventually found, blown over to Boulogne.