Heroes of the Goodwin Sands

by Thomas Stanley Treanor

To effect communication with a wreck, the lifeboat is provided with a piece of cane as thick as a man's little finger and about a foot long, to which a lump of lead is firmly fastened. To the end of the cane a long light line is attached, and the line is kept neatly coiled in a bucket.

With this loaded cane in his right hand, a man stood on the gunwale of the lifeboat; round his waist his comrades had passed a line, to prevent him from being washed overboard his left hand grasped the halyards, for the masts of the lifeboat are always left standing alongside a wreck, and at the right moment with all his might he threw the cane. Hissing through the air, it carried with it right on board the wreck its own light line, which at great risk a German sailor seized. Hauling it in, he found the lifeboat had bent on to it a weightier rope, and thus communication was effected between the lifeboat and the wreck.

But though the lifeboat rode plunging alongside, she rode alongside at a distance of twenty yards from the wreck, and had to be steered and sheered, though at anchor, just as if she was in motion. At the helm, therefore, stood the two coxswains, while round the foremast and close to the fore air-box grouped the lifeboatmen. Wave after wave advanced, breaking over them in clouds, taking their breath away and drenching them.

The coxswains were watching for a smooth to sheer the lifeboat's head closer to the wreck, and the wearied sailors on the wreck were anxiously watching their efforts, when, as will happen at irregular intervals, which are beyond calculation, a great sea advanced, and was seen towering afar. 'Hold on, men, for your lives!' sang out the coxswains, and on came the hollow green sea, so far above their heads that it seemed as they gazed into its terrible transparency that the very sky had become green, and it broke into the lifeboat, hoisting her up to the vessel's foreyard, and then plunging her bodily down and down.

In this mighty hoist the port bilge-piece of the lifeboat as she descended struck the top rail of the vessel's bulwarks, and the collision stove in her fore air-box. That she was not turned clean over by the shock, throwing out of her, and then falling on, her crew, was only by God's mercy. All attempts to help the seamen on the wreck in distress were suspended and buried in the wave. The lifeboatmen held on with both arms round the thwarts in deadly wrestle and breathless for dear life. Looking forwards as the boat emerged, the coxswains, standing aft on their raised platform, could only see boiling foam. Looking aft as the noble lifeboat emptied herself, the crew saw the two coxswains waist deep in froth, and the head of the Norman post aft was invisible and under water. We were all 'knocked silly by that sea,' said the men, and they found that two of their number had been swept aft and forced under the thwarts or seats of the lifeboat.

And now they turned to again—no one being missing—alone in that wild cauldron of waters, with undaunted courage, to the work of rescue. Two lines leading from the ship to the lifeboat were rigged up, the ends of those lines being held by one of the lifeboatmen, George Philpot, who had to tighten and slack them as the lifeboat rose, or when a sea came. Spread-eagled on this rough ladder or cat's cradle, holding on for their lives, the German crew had to come, and Philpot, who held the lines in the lifeboat—no easy task—was lashed to the lifeboat's mast, to leave his hands free and prevent his being swept overboard himself. A space of about thirty feet separated the wreck and the lifeboat, as the latter's head had to get a hard sheer off from the ship, to counterbalance the tide and sea sucking and driving her towards the wreck, and over this dangerous chasm the German sailors came.

Still the giant seas swept into the lifeboat, and again and again the lifeboat freed herself from the water, and floated buoyant, in spite of the damage done to her airbox, so great was her reserve of floating power. This her crew knew, and preserved unbounded confidence in the noble structure under their feet, especially as they heard the clicks of her valves at work and freeing her of water.

In the intervals between the raging seas, twelve of the crew had now been got into the lifeboat, when one man seeing her sheer closer than usual towards the vessel, jumped from the top rail towards the lifeboat. Instead of catching her at the propitious moment when she was balanced on the summit of a wave, he sprang when she was rapidly descending; this added ten feet to the height of his jump, and he fell groaning into the lifeboat.

Having put the rescued men on the starboard side of the lifeboat, to make room for the descent of the others, great seas again came fiercely and furiously. As the tide was falling fast, the water became shallower, and all around was heard only the hoarse roar of the storm, and there was seen only the advancing lines of billows, tossing their snowy manes as they came on with speed.

Again and again the lifeboat was submerged, and the man lashed to the mast had to ease off the lines he held till the seas had passed.