Storm Warriors; or, Life-Boat Work on the Goodwin Sands

by John Gilmore

The muffled roaring sound that is heard, is that of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliff. From the windows can be seen, gleaming out in the darkness, the bright lights of the Goodwin light-ships, which guard those fatal sands—sands so fatal, that when the graves give up their dead, few churchyards will render such an account as theirs, not only as to the number of the dead, but also that the Sands are a battle-field which entombs the brave and strong, who go down quick to their grave, quick from the full tide of life and strength, from the eager stern deadly contest in which, to the last, all their strong energies were fully engaged.

Men who, a few hours before, were reckless and merry, anticipating no danger and ready to laugh at the thought of death; who, if homeward bound, were full of joy as they seemed almost to stand upon the threshold of their homes; or by whom, if outward bound, the kisses of their wives, which seemed still to linger on their cheeks, and the soft clasping arms of their little ones, which seemed still to hang about their necks, were only to be forgotten in the few hours of terrible life struggle with the storm, and then again to be keenly remembered in the last gasping moment, ere the Goodwin Sands should find them a grave almost within the shadow of their homes.

There is a sudden report; surely the firing of a gun, a wreck, a vessel on the Sands—watch, yes, there! A rocket streams up from one of the light-vessels, and the gun and the rocket five minutes after, form the signal that calls to the life-boat for assistance. The breakers on the Sands could be clearly seen from the shore during the day, as they rose and fell like fitful volumes of white eddying smoke, breaking up the clear line of the horizon, and tracing the Sands in broken broad leaping outlines of foam.

Yes! and now, amid those terrible breakers, somewhere out in the darkness, within five or six miles, near that bright light, there are twenty, thirty, fifty, you know not how many, of your fellow-creatures, struggling for their lives.

Ah! listen to the storm blast, with what dread force it rushes by, what a dirge it seems to moan; and well it may, for if the gale lasts only a few hours, and there is no rescue, the morning may be bright and fair and calm, and the sea as smooth as a lake, but nothing of either ship or crew shall any more be seen.

But, thank God! there will be a rescue! You know that already brave hearts have determined to attempt it; that strong ready hands are already at work in cool, quick, preparation; that, almost before you could urge your way against the tempest down to the head of the pier, the steamer and life-boat will have fought their way out against the storm and darkness upon their errand of mercy.

"God have mercy upon the poor fellows at sea; upon the shipwrecked in their dismal peril; upon the brave Storm Warriors speeding out in danger and hardship!" this is the prayer that indeed often finds utterance, when the sleeper is awakened in the dark hours of the night by the howling of the wind or the boom of the signal gun. And at Ramsgate the prayer may be uttered fervently indeed by those, who, when they hear the signal of distress, know that the endangered vessel is experiencing all the dread dangers of the Goodwin Sands, for the vessels wrecked upon them have indeed, if the weather is bad, but a poor prospect of ever sailing the broad seas again.

The Goodwin is a quick-sand, and it is this, as well as the tremendous sea that beats upon it in heavy weather, that makes it so terribly fatal to vessels that get stranded on it.

At low tide a portion of the sand is dry, and hard, and firm, and can be walked on for a distance of about four or five miles; but as the water again flows over any part of it, that part becomes, as the sailors say, "all alive," soft and quick, and ready to suck in anything that lodges upon it. Suppose a vessel to run on with a falling tide, where the sand shelves, or is steep, the water leaves the bow and the sand there gets hard; the water still flows under the stern, and the sand there remains soft a longer time; down the stern sinks lower and lower; the vessel soon breaks her back, or works herself deeper and deeper by the stern; as the water rises she fills and works and still sinks deeper in the sand every roll she gives, until at high tide she is, perhaps, completely buried, or only her topmasts are seen above water.