After about an hour and a half of as hard work as two men ever endured in a good cause, during which time I was kept constantly baling, we got close under the lee of the wrecked vessel, which had now drifted to within two miles of the shore. There were eight poor half-frozen wretches on board, one of whom was a woman, clinging to some spars which were securely lashed on the mainhold hatch. When we shouted and signalled them to throw us a rope, none of them moved. The cold and wet, and staying so long in the same position, had so stiffened them that they were unable to render us any assistance in getting on board. We then tried to approach the lee-quarter of the wreck; but just as we got under the mainchains, by which my companions meant to climb on board, a tremendous sea broke over the weather-quarter, and washing down over the lee gunwale, half filled our boat, and almost upset it.
‘We’re gone this time!’ I exclaimed.
‘Then we’ll all go together,’ cried Sam in a tone as if he rather enjoyed the idea than otherwise.
‘Out oars and pull back again,’ said Herbert calmly, without taking any notice of my frightened exclamation, for the wave had washed us some distance from the schooner.
On again approaching the wreck, we found the upper part of the fore-topmast floating about thirty feet from her side, with the fore-topmast backstay still fastened to it. After some trouble, Sam managed to cut the spar adrift and make the rope secure to our boat, the other end still being fast to the schooner. Herbert, telling me to keep the boat as clear of water as possible with the baling bucket, went forward. Taking hold of the rope, he jumped overboard, quickly drew himself hand over hand to the schooner’s side, and climbed on board by the forechains. Sam soon followed him, though he was nearly washed away by a sea which broke over the schooner. Herbert, however, who was clinging to the foreshrouds, quickly grasped his wrist, and saved him.
After a short consultation, Sam went aloft with a rope, and lying out on the lee foreyard arm, passed the end of the rope through the brace-block. He then came down on deck again, and making a bowline on a bight (a knot with two large loops) with it, gave it to Herbert, who made it and the other end of the rope fast to a belaying pin. Sam then came back to the boat to help me to receive the unfortunates. Herbert proceeded with great difficulty to the main hatch, and waiting till a huge wave had washed over the schooner, took the woman in his strong arms and brought her to where he had made fast the tackle. He then signalled us to haul the boat as near to the wreck as we dared. Then he put the woman’s head and shoulders through one loop, and her limbs through the other, and waiting his opportunity, swung her on to the boat, where we unslung her, so to speak, and passed the knot back to Herbert. The crew followed in the same manner. As Herbert was carrying the last of them down to swing him over to the boat, the schooner shipped a tremendous sea, which sent Herbert and his burden flying into the lee scuppers. After remaining in suspense for half a minute without either of them appearing above the bulwarks, Sam jumped at once overboard, dragged himself by the rope to the wreck, and climbed on board. Stooping, he disengaged the tightly clasped arms of the sailor from Herbert’s neck; he then helped his friend, who was half insensible, to rise, and propped him against the bulwarks with his arms round the backstay. Sam was then about to stoop again to help the sailor, when he recoiled with an exclamation of horror. The poor fellow’s head, as he had fallen with Herbert’s huge weight on the top of him, had struck against the main-bits, and was shattered: he was stone-dead!
With great difficulty Sam managed to put his friend into the bowline and sling him over to the boat, he himself following by the rope by which we were made fast to the schooner. Herbert, who looked very pale and ill, sank back exhausted in the stern-sheets. A thin stream of blood was trickling from his temple; and he also suffered from pain in his right side.
It was late in the afternoon ere we cast off our rope and prepared for our homeward journey. We had scarcely got fifty yards from the schooners side, when a heavy sea struck her; she shook from stem to stern, then heeled over to port till we thought she would capsize; but she righted herself again, as if struggling to keep afloat, then slowly began to sink by the bow. A second wave struck her, more on the quarter; plunging her bow into the trough of the sea, she raised her stern in the air, and, diving like some sea monster, disappeared. We afterwards learned from the captain that her cargo—loose limestone blocks of about a hundredweight each—had shifted. The list this gave to the schooner had caused the mainmast, which was already slightly sprung, to go over the side, taking the fore-topmast with it. The shifting of the cargo had also started one of the planks, which accounted for the schooner springing a leak and going down.
The wind, which had chopped round to the southward, had blown us to within half a mile of the shore. Hoisting our close-reefed lug, we steered for the small haven, which we reached in safety in a quarter of an hour, after having narrowly escaped being upset by the ugly ‘topping’ of a wave at the entrance between the two points of rock. We were received with shouts of joy from the villagers and some coastguardsmen, who, having perceived that the vessel was drifting in shore, had prepared the rocket apparatus in case of emergency.
Poor Herbert had to be lifted out of the boat and carried to our cottage on a stretcher. A surgeon was in immediate attendance, and we awaited with no little anxiety the result of his examination. Three ribs were found to be fractured; but the wound in his temple proved very slight. Suffice it to say that our friend was able to return to his studies in a few weeks.