THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "EFFORT"--THE DANGERS OF HOVELLING.
"All where the eye delights, yet dreads to roam,
The breaking billows cast the flying foam
Upon the billows rising; all the deep
Is restless change; the waves so swelled and steep,
Breaking and sinking; and the sunken swells,
Not one, one moment, in its station dwells."
_Crabbe._
The famous old life-boat _Northumberland_ had done her work, and had
done it nobly and well. Staunch, and true, she had breasted the hardest
gales, stemmed the fiercest seas, and had been the means of rescuing
hundreds of perishing men, women, and children from that which, without
her, and the brave hearts and strong hands that sailed her, must have
been swift, certain, and terrible death; but at last her time had
come--weather beaten, wrenched, and worn, with her thousand battles with
the gales, she was condemned as being no longer to be intrusted with the
precious lives that she contained, as she went forth to contend with the
wild seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands.
The _Bradford_, a very powerful and excellent boat presented to the
Life-boat Institution by the good people of Bradford, and by the
Institution appointed to Ramsgate, had not yet been sent down, and a
smaller boat called the _Little Friend_ was occupying her place for the
time.
But it was a clear fine morning, with the waves fretting and fuming
somewhat, but dancing and gleaming brightly in the sunshine; it had been
squally during the night, and at times had blown very hard, but the
morning promised better, and the life-boat was rocking gently at her
moorings, no one thinking it likely that her services would be required
for some time.
But the boatmen must be doing something, if only drawing their bow at a
venture, and now the _Champion_ is getting ready for sea; she is one of
the Ramsgate hovelling-luggers, a noble boat of twenty-two tons, fit for
any weather. In summer time she is fitted as a pleasure-boat, and, as
such, takes many a holiday cruise; but now she is in winter gear, and
ready for rougher scenes and harder work.
The more threatening and heavy the weather, the greater the probability
of disaster occurring, or having occurred, then the more ready are her
crew to work their way out to the Goodwin Sands, and to cruise round
them on the look-out for vessels in distress; they dare not take the
lugger into the broken water--there a life-boat alone can live; but
still she is a grand sea-boat, one that will stagger on with a ship's
heavy anchor and chain on board, through weather bad enough for
anything--a boat that is well suited for the hard and dangerous service
which employs her during the winter months.
Her crew consists of ten men; the men get no regular pay, but any
salvage or reward for services they may obtain is divided into fourteen
shares: the boat takes three and a half shares for her owners, one half
share goes to the provision account, as the crew when on board are
supplied by the owners with provisions, and one share is given to each
of the men--this is the ordinary arrangement. Complaints are sometimes
made of the amounts charged by these men for services rendered; but the
cases of a good hovel are few and far between; and often the luggers put
out to sea, night after night, throughout a stormy winter, hanging about
the Sands, in wind and rain, and snow and mists, the men half frozen
with the cold, and half smothered with the flying surf and spray, and
often week after week they thus suffer and endure, and do not make a
penny-piece each man; working their hardest, without any other result,
than that of getting more and more into debt at home, and almost tempted
to become disheartened with it all, hardly able to hope against hope;
then at last, perhaps, comes a chance--a big ship is on the tail of a
sand bank; they render assistance and get her off; if she had remained
there another tide she would probably have been knocked to pieces: they
have saved thousands of pounds' worth of property; and the captain, and
the owners, and the underwriters, all look aghast, and cry out with
indignation, when they ask perhaps a sum that will give them ten or
fifteen pounds a man--do something to pay the scores that have been
growing month after month, something to requite them for the weary
watching, and labour, and suffering, that they have had so many weeks in
vain.
No! let those who grumble at the demands made on such occasions, feel
fully assured that they know many easier, more pleasant, and more
profitable ways of making money, than by hovering around the Goodwin
Sands throughout the nights of a stormy winter, on the look-out for
vessels in distress. The following tale will illustrate, in its simple
narration of actual facts, some of the dangers to which the men are
exposed when on such service.
On the morning in question a haze floated over the Goodwin Sands,
preventing anything being made out from the shore; wherever the haze
lifted a little, the men on the look-out on the pier closely watched the
break in it with their glasses; for the channels on either side of the
Sands are so narrow and the tides so strong, that it is an easy matter
for a ship-master to lose his bearings in thick weather, and to run his
ship on the Sands.
A squall passes over the Sands, driving the mists before it, and the men
on the pier make out that a vessel is ashore on the Goodwin; she is
completely on her broadside, and the boatmen, looking through powerful
glasses, can see that men are walking about on the side of the wreck.
The harbour-master is immediately informed; he knows that the _Champion_
lugger is out there, but the surf may be too great for her to be able to
render assistance, and he gives directions that the life-boat shall be
at once manned. The steamer soon takes the life-boat in tow, and they
proceed through a comparatively smooth sea to the vessel. Upon arriving
there, they find that the _Champion_ lugger has succeeded in sending in
her small boat, and in taking the men off the wreck.
But as the boat makes off to the lugger's she loses an oar, and the tide
is running with such strength that the boat's crew cannot stem it, and
are driven back in the direction of the Sands; the life-boat men see the
danger the boat will get into if she is carried into the broken water,
and at once give chase.
The men on board the lugger's boat are, not unnaturally, anxious to have
the honour of saving the crew without the assistance of the life-boat,
and they persevere in their efforts to reach the lugger; suddenly the
wind flies round to the north-east, and a heavy squall sweeps along
accompanied with snow and sleet; it becomes very thick and dark, the
lugger's men think the squall will soon pass, and although their boat is
only sixteen feet long, and has eleven men on board, they still work
away striving to get back to the lugger. But the wind increases in
force, and the sea begins to make rapidly, the little boat gets into
shallow water and thumps heavily on the edge of the sand; then the
boatmen and the shipwrecked crew realize the danger they are in. The
wrecked sailors begin to shout to the life-boat men to come to their
help, and the boat's crew see that they cannot get away from the Sands
by themselves; in fact, that without the aid of the life-boat they must
all then and there perish, and they are glad to make for the life-boat
with all speed. The sailors and some of the boat's crew get on board the
life-boat, two or three hands remain in the small boat, which is taken
in tow by the life-boat, and they start in search of the steamer; but
the weather becomes more and more thick, and they can see nothing of
her; in fact, can only see a few yards before them. Now to their dismay
they find that they have come away without a compass, and the wind has
shifted so frequently and rapidly, that they cannot guess at its
direction, and therefore cannot tell which way to steer; they are on the
top of the Sands, and in very shallow water, and the boat often touches
the ground with a great jerk as she sails along. Now, and again, she
grounds bow on and is swung round and round by the tide. The tide as it
is low water runs through so many channels and swatch ways that its
direction does not at all help the men to tell the course they are
steering; and so, as a mere matter of guess-work, and that they may keep
the boat's head in one direction, they put her on the wind, and after
being beaten about a good deal by the broken seas, succeed in getting
into deep water; but not until they have been entangled for four hours
among the Sands.
After sailing for about half an hour, they discover the Gull light
looming red out of the thick mist. They then soon make out the
_Champion_, and put her crew on board her. The lugger's men want the
shipwrecked crew to accompany them, but they are too content with the
life-boat, and refuse to move; the steamer comes up and takes the
life-boat in tow. Again the wrecked sailors cannot be persuaded to leave
the life-boat for her, and as soon as the boat is in tow, and they are
well under weigh, the wrecked sailors begin to tell their tale.
"The name of our wrecked vessel is the _Effort_; it is now several days
since we sailed from the Forth, bound for Rotterdam, and ever since we
have had a a terrible time of it, nothing but gale after gale, the wind
flying about in all directions, until you can guess we were pretty well
tired of all this beating about in the North Sea; what with the wind
driving us first in one direction and then in another--what with
contrary tides and thick weather--we soon lost our reckoning, and must
have been caught in the lee drift of the tide, and thus got carried on
to the Goodwin Sands. We grounded heavily, at once felt the danger we
were in, and hoisted lamps as signals of distress, but we knew that
these could not be made out at any distance in such thick weather, and
hurried to get a tar-barrel on deck to set fire to it, and make a good
blaze; but our vessel was very light--she rolled from side to side
almost yard arms under, and suddenly capsized altogether. At once, and
with difficulty, we made for the weather-rigging, and were glad to find
that not any of the crew were lost as she fell over. We lashed ourselves
to the rigging. We knew to our great joy that the tide was falling; had
it been rising we must have very soon been overrun by it, the vessel
broken up, and every man of us lost. We were in danger enough as it was,
for the brig soon after she capsized was caught by the tide, and worked
round with her deck towards the seas; and as the heavy seas broke over
her and came rushing up the deck, they fell on us with terrible weight,
and beat us and crushed us against the ship's rail, so that we were
forced to unlash ourselves from the rigging, and what to do we did not
know, till one of us said, 'Our only chance is to lash the end of the
ropes round our waists, and let go the rigging as the waves come,' and
so we did; and terrible work it was. As the waves came we slackened the
ropes and went away a little with them, and as they passed, half
smothered as we were, hauled ourselves back to the rigging and held on a
bit; and then, when the next wave came, we let go, and were all adrift
in the wash again; our hands were almost torn to pieces with the strain
on the ropes, and grasping at the side of the vessel." And they shewed
where their hands were torn, with the nails almost drawn from the finger
ends. "You see, too, how our clothes were nearly dragged off us; it was
indeed an awful time. We encouraged each other as well as we could, but
soon became too exhausted to speak much, and just went struggling on.
The topmast heads were right down in the Sands, and every moment we
expected the masts would break off short, and then the vessel would have
rolled over, and it would have been death to us at once--but while there
was life there was hope, and so we held on, just hoping against hope,
and so we would not despair, but seemed to gather a little bit of
courage, again and again struggling to prolong, for a few minutes, the
life of which we saw so little chance of at last saving; but the tide
was still falling, and if we could only live through all the wash of the
sea, until it had gone down a bit, there was just one more chance for
us.
"Well, we stood it for about two hours, I should think, the seas
breaking over us continually, when we began to feel that they were
getting less heavy, and ran less and less up the deck, and over the
vessel. And at last, although half dead with breathlessness and fatigue,
from the exertion and the constant rush of the waves over us, we were
able to drag ourselves up on to the broadside of the vessel, and then we
threw ourselves down full length, to try and recover our strength a
little."
It was with no slight degree of interest and sympathy that the life-boat
men listened to the tale of the poor fellows; three of whom were married
men, and they described how the thoughts of the loved ones at home,
while it added to their agony, yet nerved them time after time to fresh
efforts to struggle free from the seas that overran them.
One man grew very excited as they told the dismal story. His limbs and
features worked, the horrors of the past night came upon him in all
their force, and as the waves dashed over the life-boat, he fancied
himself again being washed off the side of the wreck, and springing up
he shouted, "Let me drown myself, let me drown myself, I can stand it no
longer!" and tried to throw himself into the sea. Three men seized him,
held him down and tried to pacify him, but still he struggled,
shouting,--"I cannot stand it! I cannot stand it! let me go! let me
go!" He soon became somewhat quieter, from exhaustion, but the men did
not feel it safe to let go their hold upon him, until they got into the
harbour.
It was now about half-past four in the afternoon, and the life-boat work
for the day was done, the shipwrecked crew staggered to the Sailors'
Home; wondering much to find themselves still alive, after the dread
perils, and terrible struggles, and exhaustion, of the previous night.