At last the cane and lead were thrown from the lifeboat by a stalwart boatman standing in the bows. A heavier line was then drawn on board by the light cane line, and the boatmen came down from the rigging, and, having made themselves fast to pins and staunchions, sheltered behind the bulwark and the wheel-house, seeing the approach of rescue.
Enough of the slack of the weightier line was kept on board the wreck—the end being there made fast—to permit the middle of the rope being fastened round a man and of his being dragged away from the wreck through the sea into the lifeboat. A clove-hitch was put by George Marsh over the shoulders of the first man, who watched his chance for 'a smooth,' jumped into the waves, and, after a long struggle—for the line fouled—was hauled safe into the lifeboat. Marsh on the wreck saw after this that the line was clear, and that no kink or knot stopped its running freely.
Reading these lines in our quiet homes, and in a comfortable arm-chair by the fireside, it is hard to realise the position of those eight boatmen. They were drenched and buried in each wallowing sea, which strove to tear them from the pin to which each man was belayed by the line round his waist; and their ears were stunned with the bellow of each bursting wave. But, on the other hand, their eyes beheld the grand and cheering spectacle of their brethren in the lifeboat struggling manfully with death for their sakes, and they heard their undaunted shouts.
If for a moment they cast off or lengthened their lifelines, they were washed all over the slippery deck; and brave George Marsh, who was specially active, was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, having been dashed against a corner of the wheel-house.
The wheel-house up to this time had afforded some shelter to the men who ventured on the deck of the wreck, lashed as just explained, of course, to some pin or bollard; and even they had now and then to rush up the rigging when a weighter [Transcriber's note: weightier?] wave was seen coming. But just at this time a great mass of water advanced and wallowed clean over the wreck, carrying the wheelhouse away with it, and bursting, where it struck the masts and booms, into a cloud: it was too solid to burst much, but it just 'wallowed' over the wreck.
Successive seas are, of course, unlike in height, volume, and demeanour. One comes on board and falls with a solid, heavy lop—there may be twenty tons of blue water in it—the next rushes along with wild speed and fury.
Roberts in the lifeboat now saw a great roller of the latter description advancing; ready to ease his cable, he cried, 'Look out! Look out! Hold on, my lads!'
But before Wilds, the coxswain, who was not a young man, could turn round and grasp a thwart, the sea was on him, and drove him with great force against the samson-post, breaking over and covering the lifeboat fore and aft in fury. This sea would have washed every man off the wreck if they had not had ropes round their waists, and fastened themselves to something; and it most certainly stupefied them and half-drowned them, fastened as they were.
The blow which Wilds in the lifeboat received would have killed him but that he was wearing his thick cork life-belt. His health was so much affected that he never came afloat again, and he never recovered the strain, the shock, and the exposure of this day. He was a brave man, and a stout, honest Englishman.
Faithful below he did his duty,
And now he's gone aloft.