Heroes of the Goodwin Sands

by Thomas Stanley Treanor

The sea raised by an easterly gale on Deal beach is tremendous, and not even the first-class luggers, or their smaller sisters, the 'cats,' could be launched. Had there been a harbour from which the Deal luggers could at once make the open sea, they would have been able to live and skim like the stormy petrel over the crest of the billows; but it is quite a different thing when a lugger has to be launched from a beach right in the teeth of a mountainous sea, and incurs the certainty of being driven back broadside on to the steep shingle, and of her crew being washed out of her, and drowned by some giant sea. Hence that evening no ordinary Deal boat or even lugger could launch. On the morning of the same day the captain of the Royal Arch had been compelled by some necessary business to come ashore. To have come ashore in his own ship's boat in such a wind and sea would have involved certain disaster and even loss of life, and therefore he came ashore in a Deal galley punt, which successfully performed the feat of beaching in a heavy surf.

In the evening, against an increasing gale, and much heavier sea, the galley punt dared not launch to bring the captain back. None even of the luggers would encounter the risk of launching in so heavy a sea dead on the beach. He therefore tried the lifeboats, upon the plea and grounds that his ship was dragging her anchors and in peril. She was lying abreast of Walmer Castle, and was indeed gradually dragging in towards the surf-beaten shore, which, if she struck, not a soul on board probably would have been saved.

The anxious captain first tried the Walmer lifeboat, but she was too far to leeward, and would not have been able to fetch the vessel. But eventually, as his vessel was now burning signals of distress, he ran to the North Deal lifeboat, and the coxswain, Robert Wilds, seeing all other boats were helpless, decided to ring the lifeboat bell and pit the celebrated Van Cook against the stormy sea in deadly fight.

The Deal boatmen had long foreseen the launch of the lifeboat, and they were massed in crowds round the lifeboat-house, competitors for the honour of forming the crew. The danger of the distressed vessel was known in the town, and crowds had assembled on the beach, amongst them the Mayor of Deal, to watch the lifeboat launch.

The long run of the great waves came right up to where the lifeboat lay, so that when she was let go she had no steep slope to rush down so as to hurl her by her own impetus into the sea. She depended, therefore, for her launching against this great sea, on her haul-off warp, which was moored one hundred fathoms out to sea, and by which her fifteen men hoped to pull her out to deep water. But this dark night she simply stuck fast after running down a little way, and got into the 'draw back' under the seas bursting in fury.

Her situation was most perilous, and the danger of the men being swept out of her was great. But through it all the lifeboatmen, with stubborn pluck, held on to the haul-off warp and strained for their lives, and at last a great sea came and washed them afloat within its recoil, and covered the lifeboat and her crew. The spectators groaned with horror as the lifeboat disappeared, but the men were straining gallantly at the haul-off warp, and the lifeboat emerged. When she was seen above the surges just only for an instant, 'All Deal sent forth a rapturous cry,' and the brave men, though they could not see the people on the land, yet heard their mighty cheer, and, strung in their hearts to dare and to conquer, sped on their glorious task.

When just out to deep water, the coxswain sang out, 'Hang on, every man!' and a great sea came out of the night right at the lifeboat. Tom Adams was out on the fore air-box, lifting the haul-off warp out of the cheek, a perilous spot, when the sea was seen; he had just time to get back and clasp both arms round the foremast as the sea broke, overwhelming lifeboat and the crew and the captain of the Royal Arch, who was aft, in a white smother of foam. But the lifeboat freed herself of the sea, and like a living creature stood up to face the gale.

Close-reefed mizzen and reefed storm foresail was her canvas; watchful men stood by halyards and sheets, hitched, not belayed, and watched each gust and sea as only Deal men who watch for their lives can watch, and even they are sometimes caught.

At last the vessel in distress loomed through the night, and from many an anxious heart on board went up, 'Thank God! here comes the lifeboat!' Not too soon was she! For the hungry breakers were roaring under their lee. Blue lights and other signals of distress had already been made on board the vessel for some time; a rocket too had been fired, with a rather unsatisfactory result.

One of the mates, who I was informed hailed from County Cork, decided to fire a rocket, a thing he had never, it seems, done before in his life, and failing the usual rocket-stand, he bethought him of the novel and ingenious expedient of letting it off through the iron tube which formed the chimney of the galley or cooking-house on deck, thus hoping to make sure of successfully directing its flight upwards. In the confusion and darkness he did in his execution not perhaps do justice to himself, or to the fertility of resource which had devised so excellent a plan. The sea was rolling to the depth of two feet over the deck, and washing right through the galley house, and it was only by great efforts he succeeded in the darkness in fastening the rocket in the tube which formed the chimney.