An attempt was now made to use the rocket apparatus, and a rocket was fired, which went clean through the fore-topsail and to the poop of the vessel behind. Another whizzing rocket, carrying its line with it, went hurtling through or close to the crowd clustered on the top-gallant forecastle, where they cowered before creeping out on to the bowsprit. No harm was done by the erratic flight of the rockets, but the wrecked sailors naturally preferred to go ashore in the lifeboat to being dragged through the breakers in the cradle of the rocket-apparatus, and declining to use it, they again summoned the lifeboat.
The first crew of the lifeboat were worn out with their exertions, and the blows and buffetings of the freezing sea-spray. A fresh crew was therefore obtained, all but the coxswain, Jarvist Arnold, who stuck to his post. Back again to the ship the lifeboatmen hauled themselves, through such a sea that words which would truly describe it must seem exaggerated. Remember the bows of the ship lay nearly two hundred yards from the land in a veritable cauldron of waters.
Again the lifeboat returned with her living freight of rescued seamen, and again worn out as before with the struggle, a fresh crew was obtained; but again Jarvist Arnold for the third time went back to the wreck. And yet again with a fourth fresh crew the brave man returned for the fourth and last time to the vessel; and finally came safe to the shore with the remainder of the crew, twenty-nine of whom were thus rescued, but only rescued by the most determined and repeated efforts, through what the coxswain's report describes as 'a fearful sea with snowstorm and freezing hard all the time.'
When, long after midnight, the lifeboatmen staggered home, Jarvist found that his oilskin coat was frozen so hard that it stood upright and rigid on his cottage floor when he took it off his own half-frozen self. But he had a soft pillow that night; he had bravely done his duty, and had saved twenty-nine of his fellow human beings from death in the sea.
Many a stormy struggle after this rescue was gone through by Jarvist Arnold and his Kingsdown lifeboat crew on the Goodwin Sands during the years 1870-1873. Holding the honourable but arduous post of coxswain of the Kingsdown lifeboat Sabrina, he also manfully earned his living as Channel pilot, being a most trustworthy and skilful seaman. He did well that which came to his hand; he did his best and his duty. I speak after the manner of men, and as between man and man. More than that no man can do.
On the night of December 17, 1872, about 2.30 a.m., it was blowing a gale from the south-west. Out of the gale was borne landwards the boom of guns; far away on the horizon, or where the horizon ought to be, was seen the flash of their fire; and upwards into the winter midnight shot the distant rockets, appealing not in vain for help.
Almost simultaneously the coxswains at Walmer and Kingsdown were roused, William Bushell and Jarvist Arnold. At Walmer the lifeboat-bell rang out its summons, but at Kingsdown a fast runner was sent round the village, crying as he ran, 'Man the lifeboat!' 'Ship on the Goodwins!' Up sprang the men—that is, all the grown-up men in the village; and while the tempest shook their lowly cottage roofs, out they poured into the night, followed by lads, boys, wives, mothers, sweethearts and sisters.
Jarvist Arnold's wife said, 'Ladies can sometimes keep their husbands, but poor women like us must let them go;' and once more Jarvist Arnold steered his lifeboat—shall I not say to victory? for 'Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War;' and this sentence might well be emblazoned on every lifeboat in the kingdom.
At 3 a.m. on this midwinter night they launched at their respective stations, distant about two miles from each other, the lifeboats of Walmer and Kingsdown, and faced the sea and the storm. Think of the deed, and its hardships, and its heroism; of the brave hearts who 'darkling faced the billows,' and the anxious women left behind, ye who live to kill time in graceless self-indulgence, and ere it be too late, learn to sacrifice and to dare.
The two lifeboats got together before they reached the edge of the Goodwins, and held such consultation as was possible in the pitchy darkness and in the roar of the sea. It was agreed between them that there would be much difficulty in finding the vessel in distress, as her signals and blue lights had ceased and the night was very dark. They decided that the Kingsdown lifeboat should go first, and if they hit the vessel they were to burn a red light in token of success, and a white light if they could not find her; but that, in any case, Walmer was to come shortly after them and search through the breakers, whether Kingsdown succeeded or not.