Most happily the bowl is a wooden one, and there it is floating a few yards from them; they watch it wistfully, as they, and it, are tossed up and down by the quick waves; back the boat down upon the bowl they cannot, for it is on their broadside, and drifting away on the tide faster than they are floating: it would seem, that it must be an easy matter to pick up a bowl that is floating only a few yards from the boat; but not so now, for every moment, racing swiftly after each other, the waves come rushing on. It is strange as they watch the bowl to feel that their lives depend upon their recovering it, and yet how likely they are to perish in the attempt, and thus the men casting anxious glances at the bowl keep steadily to their work; they allow no word of fear or discouragement to be spoken; they must have mind, nerve, and muscle in full play; if a word of hopelessness is let fall, "Don't speak like that—don't speak like that, stick to your oar!" they must be words of encouragement, or no words at all, and in grim silence, except for the few words of direction shouted out by the coxswain, the men wait their fate. Suddenly the coxswain cries, "Here is a lull, round with her, sharp!" The men on the starboard side give a mighty pull; the men on the port back their hardest; one pull all together, the bowl is within reach; the coxswain grasps it with a hasty snatch! "Round! round, with her quick, quick!" and the eager men get her head straight to the seas again, before the waves have time to catch the boat broadside on and roll it over. All breathe again; they have another chance of life. Thank God! thank God!
They now pass away from the Sands and get into the Gull stream, but the wind has chopped round and continues to blow a fierce gale; the sea is running very high and broken; and in that rough sea they are still in extreme danger on account of the smallness of their boat, and so many men being in her, and they have to proceed with the greatest care and caution.
As they get into the Gull stream they see vessel after vessel running with close-reefed topsails before the gale; the boatmen hail them but they get no answer: one little sloop affords them slight hope, for she is evidently altering her course, but after a moment's apparent hesitation, away she goes again before the gale, and abandons them to their fate. The captain of the little vessel related afterwards, how in the height of the storm he saw some poor fellows in a small boat, and had a great wish to try and save them, but the sea was running so high that he felt it was impossible to heave his vessel to, and so had to leave them, and that they must have been driven on the Sands and lost. This sloop was about a quarter of a mile from the boat, and the men do not again get as near to any other ship, and as vessel after vessel passes, and the night begins to grow dark, the position of the men becomes more and more hopeless—and they all feel that if no vessel picks them up, they must soon be blown in again upon the Sands, and there perish.
All of the men, except one, are married; the man in the bow has a wife and five children, and it is his thoughts of them that keep him nerved to his work, for although weak, exhausted, and almost fainting, he still sticks to his oar and feebly paddles on; the only single man in the boat is his brother-in-law; and his mind keeps running as much upon what his sister will do, as a widow with five children, as it does upon the thoughts of his own probable fate; and so although the men will not permit themselves to lament or bemoan their almost certain fate, for fear of weakening their own nerves or discouraging each other, each has his solemn conviction of what must soon happen, and is in his own breast thinking of death, and bidding "Good-bye," to the loved ones who are resting those few miles away.
The Downs had been full of ships at the commencement of the storm, but as the wind increased in violence and blew right through, the anchorage was no longer safe, and vessel after vessel slipped her cable and ran before the gale; until at last only one vessel, a large American ship, remains at anchor. The boatmen make her out when they are about half a mile from her, and find, to their great joy, that she is almost directly in the path in which they are drifting; to get alongside her is their last hope, for although the tide is now carrying them against the wind and from the Sands, the tide will very soon turn, and then with the tide, and before the wind, they will be swept with terrible speed right in upon the Sands, and must there at once perish, and it will be impossible for them to row against the tide, as all their efforts will still be required to keep the boat bow on to the seas.
Whenever, after the passing of a few of the largest of the waves, there comes a comparative lull, or smooth, and they dare press the boat, they pull a few strokes and shoot ahead, and thus manage to get exactly in the path of the American ship.
As they drop slowly towards her they shout time after time, but cannot make themselves heard; and it is getting too dusk for them to be seen at any distance; the seas are running alongside the ship almost gunwale high, and it is impossible to get nearer to her than within fifty yards. Hail after hail the men give, still they get no answer; they can see a man on the poop, but he evidently neither sees nor hears them, and their last chance seems slipping away, for they are fast drifting past the vessel. "Get on the thwart, Dick, and shout with all your might!" the coxswain says to the man pulling stroke-oar; "I'll hold you," hauling in his oar, and catching it under the seat; the man springs upon the thwart, and balancing himself for a second, hails with all his force.
"The man is moving, he hears us; hurrah!" is the glad cry in the boat. They can see that he is looking about in astonishment, wondering from where the voice from the sea came. They all shout together; he sees them, waves his arm, and hurries along the poop; other men come hastening up, called by him, and look with astonishment at the little boat so full of men, being tossed about in that wild sea. The boat drifts by the ship, they venture a pull or two and get her under the stern of the vessel, shooting her a little across the seas; they then pull a little harder to try and keep her position, risking a little more to keep near the ship—indeed the vessel somewhat protects them from the rush of the seas.
The coxswain sees a man on the vessel throw something overboard—it is a coil of rope with a life-buoy attached; they make it out as it floats near, and manage to get it on board. The pilot is the man who first saw the boat, and has got the life-buoy and thrown it over to them. The captain of the vessel is now on deck; he orders the men to send down a rope from each quarter of the vessel, and to try and keep the boat directly astern of the centre of the ship, for if the boat sheers to one side or the other, and any of the big waves which are racing by the ship catch her on her broadside, she must go over at once.
So they shout to the men in the boat, "Hold on—we will send you another rope," and soon another life-buoy with a rope attached, comes floating by; they get it on board, and seeing directly the object for which it is sent, haul the ropes over each bow, and strive to keep the boat in position; but still they are in great danger; their safety hitherto has been in floating with the waves, yielding to them as they rolled on; but now as she is moored to the ship, the little boat has to breast the waves, and at times is tossed high with her bow in the air, and again plunged down, smothered with spray, and in danger every moment of being overturned; indeed it is only by the skilful manœuvring of the captain that the boat is kept safe at all. He has stationed six men on each quarter of the ship; they hold the ropes to which the boat is fastened; and as the big waves press the boat, the men slacken the rope, and let the boat go with the seas, pulling her up again between the waves, hauling on one rope, and slacking the other if the boat sheers too much on one side. The difficulty now is how to get the men out of the boat, for they dare not haul her up closer to the vessel, as she will not ride with a shorter scope of rope. They send another rope down to the boat, with a bowline knot made in it for the men to sit in, and then shout to the men, "We will haul you on board, one at a time."