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

by John Gilmore

And lovely eyes are wet."

G. D. Prentice.

"Now, my men, make ready!" the coxswain cries; "we've got our work before us."

The night is wild, and dark, and bitter, blinding snow, and sleet, and storm-wrack rush along on the wings of the gale.

The Sands are alive with the rolling breakers, the fierce dash and seethe of the waves upon them add to the roar of the tempest; never was a battle-field more full of raging foes than is that into the midst of which our Storm Warriors are about to rush; never was band of men more beset by foes, more helplessly, hopelessly beset, than are the crew of the Mary; how shall they be plucked from the midst of ten thousand raging waves? any one of which would swamp an ordinary boat; it can only by any possibility be done by such a boat as the life-boat, and only by such men as the life-boatmen.

And now the men settle to their work.

The mainsail and mizen are already close reefed, they are got ready for instant hoisting. The steamer lashes through the seas towing the boat farther to windward, the hawser is let go, the men hoist the sails as fast as they can in the leaping rolling boat; she feels the force of the blast, lays over on her side, down with the helm, she rights, her head comes round, and in through the boiling seas she makes for the wreck.

Each boatman has his life-belt on, and as the seas break more fiercely over the boat, the men twist the life-lines round their arms, so that if some huge wave, rushing over the boat, should wrench them from their hold, and wash them out of the boat, or that the boat should upset in the curl of a breaker, that they may have the better chance of getting back to her.

Each time that the boat lifts on the top of a wave they can make out the signal-fire on board the wreck, as the boat falls in the trough of a sea they speed swirling along, through a very gauntlet of hungry waves which leap upon her, as wolves would leap upon a strong horse; but she throws them off, as the horse might the wolves in the impetus of his speed and power.

"Ready in the bow?"