In the meanwhile the poor boatmen on the beach have nothing that they can do, but watch their fine boat, which was worth five hundred pounds, being torn, and hammered to pieces in the surf, plank after plank is wrenched from her, now with a loud crash she is broken in half, the two halves part, the anchor and cable fall through her, they can see part of the fore-peak with one side torn away, floating in the breakers; soon that also is rent to pieces, and nothing but fragments of the boat float in the surf, or are strewn about the beach, and the boatmen, heavy-hearted, but thankful that they have escaped with their lives, go slowly to their homes, to rest for a few hours, and recruit their strength, and then to be ready to form part of the crew of any other boat, and at the first summons to rush out again to the encounter with the stormiest seas.
In a narrative of adventure and conflict with the seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands, it would not be well to refrain from bearing testimony to how readily, how gallantly, the men of Deal, of Broadstairs, of Walmer, and of Kingsdown, as well as of Ramsgate, man their respective life-boats, whenever the call is made for their services, and race out to the scene of action, full of hardihood, of skill, of courage—true Storm Warriors, ever ready to dare all and do all that they may rescue the drowning from a watery grave.
CHAPTER XVI. THE LOSS OF THE "LINDA," AND THE RACE TO THE RESCUE.
"A sudden crash, the mast is gone,
And with it goes all hope;
No longer can the fated crew
With the surging waters cope.
"Now they commit their souls to God,