Heroes of the Goodwin Sands

by Thomas Stanley Treanor

The position of the lifeboat was very dangerous. The sea was raging right across her, and it was only the sacred flame of duty and of pity in the hearts of the daring crew of the lifeboat that kept them to their task. The swell of the sea was running landwards, and the 'send' of each great rolling wave, just on the point of breaking, would shoot the lifeboat forwards till her stem and iron forefoot would strike the transom and stern of the wreck with tremendous force. The strain and spring of the cable would then draw back the lifeboat two or three boats' lengths, and then another breaker, its white wrath visible in the pitchy darkness, would again drive the lifeboat forwards and upwards as with a giant's hand, and then crash! down and right on to the stern and even right up on the deck of the half-submerged vessel. Sometimes even half the length of the lifeboat was driven over the transom and on the sloping deck of the wreck, off which she grated back into the sea to leewards.

What pen can describe the turmoil, the danger, and the appalling grandeur of the scene, now black as Erebus, and again illumined by a blaze of lightning? And what pen can do justice to the stubborn courage that persevered in the work of rescue in spite of the difficulties which at each step sprang up?

It was now found that the crew in distress were French. In their paralysed and perished condition they could not make out what our men wanted them to do, and they did not make fast the lines thrown them. Nor had they any lines to throw, as their tackle and running gear were washed away, nor could they understand the hails of the lifeboatmen. Hence the task of saving them rested with the Deal men alone.

The Frenchmen, when they saw the lifeboat rising up and plunging literally upon their decks with terrific force, held back and hesitated, clinging to the weather rail, where their position was most perilous. A really solid sea would have swept all away, and every two or three minutes a furious breaker flew over them. Something had to be done to get them, and to get them the men in the lifeboat were determined.

Now the fore air-box of the lifeboat has a round roof like a tortoise's back, and there is a very imperfect hand-hold on it.

Indeed, to venture out on this air-box in ordinary weather is by no means prudent, but on this night, when it was literally raked by weighty seas sufficient in strength to tear a limpet from its grip, the peril of doing so was extreme, but still, out on that fore air-box, determined to do or die, crept Richard Roberts, at that time the second coxswain of the lifeboat, leading the forlorn hope of rescue, and not counting his life dear to him. Up as the lifeboat rose, and down with her into the depths, still Roberts held on with the tenacity of a sailor's grasp.

As the lifeboat surged forwards on the next sea, held behind by his comrades' strong arms, out on the very stem he groped his way, and then he shouted, and behind him all hands shouted, 'Come, Johnny! Now's your time!' There's a widespread belief among our sailor friends that the expression 'Johnny' is a passport to a Frenchman's heart. At any rate, seeing Roberts on the very stem and hearing the shouts, the nearly exhausted Frenchmen came picking their dangerous way and clinging to the weather rail one by one till they grasped or rather madly clutched at Roberts' outstretched arms. 'Hold on, mates!' he cried, 'there's a sea coming! Don't let them drag me overboard!' And then the Frenchmen grasped Roberts' arms and chest so fiercely that his clothes were torn and he himself marked black and blue. Then rang out as each poor sailor was grasped by Roberts, 'Hurrah! I've got him! Pass him along, lads!'—and the poor fellows were rescued and welcomed by English hearts and English hands. 'We never knowed if there was any more, but at any rate we saved five,' said the lifeboatmen.

Having rescued this crew, all eyes were now turned to the vessel that had for some hours been burning her signals of distress.

It was by this time four o'clock on this winter morning, and the crew of the lifeboat were, to use their own words, 'nearly done.' They also noticed that the lifeboat was much lower than usual in the water, but neither danger, nor hardships, nor fatigue can daunt the spirits of the brave, and their courage rose above the terror of the storm, and they forgot the crippled condition of the lifeboat—both of her bows being completely stove in by the force of her blows against the deck and the transom of the French brig—and they responded gallantly to the coxswain's orders of 'Up anchor and set the foresail!' and they made for the flare of the fresh wreck for which they had been originally heading.

The signals of distress were from a Swedish barque, the Hedvig Sophia. She had parted her anchors in the Downs, and had come ashore in three fathoms of water, which was now angry surf; her masts were gone, but as the rigging was not cut adrift, they were still lying to leeward in wild confusion. She had heeled over to starboard, and her weather rail being well out of the water, afforded some shelter to the crew; but her sloping decks were washed and beaten by the waves that broke over her and it was all but impossible to walk on them.