THE WRECK BROUGHT IN.
"God keep those cheery mariners!
And temper all the gales,
That sweep against the rocky coast
To their storm-shattered sails."
_P. Benjamin._
As they tow the wreck near to the harbour they shorten the steamers
hawser to give the brig less scope for sheering; and as there is not
room for both the lugger and the life-boat to hang astern and help the
brig steer, the life-boat casts off and makes in to the harbour.
In spite of the rough cold night, the interest in life-boat work is too
great for all sympathisers to be driven away from the pier-head; and
there is a crowd there ready to watch the boat's return, and to welcome
the men with a cheer.
The steamer approaches cautiously, the brig's head is straight, and she
seems well under command; a couple of minutes more and all will be safe,
when suddenly the rush of tide catches the wreck on the bow; she
overpowers the lugger which is towing astern; round her head flies; she
lurches heavily forward, and strikes the east pier-head just outside the
bend; crash goes her jibboom; in vain the steamer tows its hardest, she
is in the grasp of a strong tide and leaping sea, and again she pitches
and plunges heavily against the pier: with a terrible wrench her
bowsprit breaks off short; again, and again, she strikes as she drifts
round the pier; her figurehead is crushed, her stem broken and twisted,
her forefoot torn off, and sweeping round she grounds on the Sands
almost alongside the pier, on the outer side, grinding and rubbing her
sides against the massive granite walls at each heave and work of the
sea.
The change of scene on the pier is very sudden, and very great; at one
moment the people were cheering the crews of the life-boat and steamer
upon the apparently successful ending of their labours; the next, and
the work of the brave fellows seems almost more than undone; and there
is quick dread peril, and deadly strife, and a wild outcry of fear, and
a very wildness of excitement, in the place of apparent safety and
congratulation. The people on the pier can look down upon the men on
board the brig, can see them clinging to the wreck as the seas break
over them, can hear the brig grinding and thumping against the pier as
if she would at once break up.
Some of the lookers-on run for the life-buoys, which are hanging upon
the parapet of the pier and on the pier-house, and throw them down to
the men on board the brig, others get ropes, and throwing one end down,
shout to the men to make themselves fast, that they will haul them up.
The poor Frenchmen are almost paralysed by the scene and by
excitement--they cannot make it out; the harbour-master, Captain Braine,
has enough to do; he sees the danger of the men on board the brig, but
he sees more than this, he sees the danger of the crowd at the
pier-head, for the brig's mainmast is swaying backwards and forwards,
coming right over the pier as the vessel rolls, and threatens to break
and come down upon the people as the brig strikes the pier; and if it
does, it will certainly kill some, perhaps many.
The women are shrieking, men shouting, some running about here and
there, all anxious to do something, and yet not able to render any
assistance.
The French sailors are making themselves fast to the end of the ropes
that have been thrown on board, but the harbour-master sees the great
danger the men will be in, of being crushed between the wreck and the
pier, if they make the attempt to be hauled up, the vessel is rolling so
quickly, and the seas are so heavy, he therefore shouts to them not to
try it, and the boatmen hold them back.
But still the French sailors struggle to get hold of the ropes, crying
out, "Much danger, much danger! What shall we do? what shall we do?" The
outcry of the people on the pier naturally adding greatly to their
excitement.
During this time, which has occupied but very few minutes, the steamer
still keeps hold of the hawser. She has been swung against the inside of
the pier by the strain of the wreck upon her cable, and by the eddy of
the tide, while the wreck has been beating against the outside; now she
steams out again with all speed, gets her head round, brings a gradual
strain upon the hawser, and makes every effort to tow the brig away from
the pier and off the Sands; after a few seconds of hard tugging the brig
begins to move, and they get her into deep water again.
But during this time the crew of the Margate lugger have been in equal,
if not greater, danger than the men on board the brig.
As soon as the men on board the lugger saw the brig sweep and crash
against the pier, they cast off their tow rope, but before they could
hoist any sail, the way they had on the boat, and the rush of the tide,
carried the lugger almost between the vessel, as she swung round, and
the pier; the men, however, escaped that danger, and indeed death, but
the boat was swept to the back of the pier, and in the eddy of the tide
was carried into the broken water; there she rolls in the trough of the
sea; wave after wave catches and sweeps her up towards the pier as if to
crush her against it; but each time the rebound of the water from the
pier acts as a fender, and saves her from destruction; but she is an
open boat, and if one big wave leaps on board it will fill her, and she
must sink at once; and the seas around her are very wild, the surf from
their crests breaks into her continually; the people on the pier see her
extreme peril; some run to the life-boat men who are preparing to moor
the boat, and shout to them to hasten out--that the brig is breaking up,
and that the lugger will be swamped; before, however, the life-boat can
get out, the brig is towed clear of the pier, and the lugger having
gradually drifted to the end of the pier, the men are able to get up a
corner of the fore-sail; it cants the lugger's head round; the men get
the fore-sail well up; it fills, she draws away from the pier, and away
from the broken water, and is clear.
The steamer has the brig in tow, but now the wreck has no boats to help
her steer, and she therefore yaws about with tremendous lurches.
The boatmen have all this time been working their utmost; their danger
and the scene of excitement around them having no other effect upon
them, than to make them the more cool and determined to do everything
they can to save the vessel and themselves.
They rig up a stay-sail upon the tottering mainmast, and as soon as the
steamer gets a little way on the brig, they try and steer by it, raising
and lowering the sail as the brig sheers one way or the other, and doing
their utmost to keep her head straight.
A very heavy sea strikes her on the bow, and she lurches right across
the tide; at that moment the steamer's hawser tightens and strains, and
the whole weight of the brig as she lies broadside to the seas dragging
upon the rope, it breaks in a weak place, where it has got chafed
against the pier.
The brig falls into the trough of the sea; the waves begin to make a
clean breach over her; water-logged and helpless as she is, with her
deck down almost to the level of the sea; the men on board can now do
but little, for time after time, as the seas sweep her decks, they have
enough to do to hold on; still the boatmen on board work when they can,
for they see that their lives depend upon getting the vessel in tow of
the steamer before she can strike the Dyke Bank, which is just under her
lee.
They make all haste to haul in the broken end of the cable; they already
have a good part of the cable on board, which they hauled in when they
were about making for the harbour.
They tell the French captain to get all his men to work, and have the
ship's hawser ready, but the brig rapidly drifts before the heavy gale
and with the tide towards the Dyke Bank, over which the seas are running
with fearful violence, the poor shattered wreck must indeed be very soon
broken up altogether if she once strikes amid that terrible rage of
waters, and there, too, the waves will sweep over her with a violence
sufficient to sweep the men from her decks; they must expect the
tottering mast to go at the first shock; there would be no refuge in the
rigging, and the deck would be virtually under water; it is doubtful
indeed if she strikes whether the men will be able to hold on, even
while the life-boat, which is close at hand, can reach them.
The life-boatmen had made out to the rescue of the lugger, but when they
saw that she was out of danger, and that the brig was under tow of the
steamer, they put back, but directly the harbour-master sees that the
brig is again adrift, he hastens to order the life-boat out once more to
the rescue. Many of the excited people on the pier throng round the
harbour-master, and entreat him to order the life-boatmen to take all
the boatmen and the crew off the wreck at once.
But the harbour-master knows the boatmen too well to think that they
will be content to leave the wreck, whatever the danger may be, while
there remains a single chance of saving her; he therefore tells the
life-boatmen to keep as near to the wreck as possible.
The captain of the steamer, directly he sees the hawser break, realizes
the deadly peril the wreck and those on board it are in; without a
moment's delay, he orders his crew to haul in the broken end of the
hawser, and as speedily as possible to back the steamer down to the
wreck, which is now within one hundred yards of the Dyke Sand. She is
rolling heavily broadside to the seas, which are making a clean sweep
over her; the men on board are scarcely able to keep the deck for the
wash of water, a few minutes more--two or three--and she will be right
in upon the breakers; round the pier-head dashes the life-boat, leaping
the seas as she is carried swiftly before the gale, she makes for the
wreck, and is ready to plunge into the surf to the rescue of the crew
directly the unfortunate vessel touches the Sands. But the steamer may
yet be in time to save her: now she is close to her, and they throw the
end of a rope on board the wreck; the boatmen on board fasten a cable to
it, the steamer's crew haul it in with all possible speed, the steamer
moves slowly a-head, the cable gets taught, the steamer tugs and
strains, but it is with the greatest difficulty she can get the brig's
head straight; now it comes slowly round, but as the wreck faces the
tide, she sheers right and left; they see that the wreckage of her
bowsprit and jibboom are right across her bow entangled in her
cut-water; it is this that causes her to sheer so much, and to hang so
heavily that the steamer cannot make any way with her, or keep her head
straight for one moment.
The English boatmen stand ready to hoist the stay-sail, as soon as the
steamer can move her ahead, and keep her at all to the wind.
The poor French sailors give way to much excitement in the wildness and
peril of the scene; clasping their hands and shouting; and there is
little wonder that their fears should be so aroused. "Hold! hold, good
rope, for if you break, nothing can save the ship; in a short time she
must be torn utterly to pieces by the waves now breaking so wildly,
almost directly under her lee!"
Each time the brig sheers heavily to one side or the other, she is
brought up with a jerk that makes the steamer tremble from stem to
stern, and tries the strength of the cable to the utmost.
The life-boat continues to cruise round the brig, keeping as near as
possible, but taking care to avoid her, as she sheers swiftly from side
to side.
Suddenly the wreckage clears itself from across the vessel's bow, and to
the joy of all, the vessel ceases to sheer so violently, and rests for a
minute straight in her course.
The boatmen on board at once hoist the stay-sail; it steadies her, and
she forges ahead, and they battle their way through the waves, round the
west pier-head, and a little out of the rush of the worst of the seas;
here, five brave fellows come off in a small boat, and bring a line to
her from the pier; with this they haul the second hawser from the vessel
to the pier; they get another hawser from the pier to the wreck, and as
the tide is setting her in a direction away from the pier, they can hold
her fast by these hawsers; the steamer now moves round the wreck, and
gets a rope from her stern, but in the meantime they have made the
life-boat's cable fast to the stern of the wreck, and passed it on to
the pier; the crowd of people on the pier lay hold of it, and begin to
pull their hardest, and succeed in moving the wreck fast astern; with
such energy do they pull that the small cable breaks in their hands, but
the steamer has by this time again got hold of the vessel, and tows her
safely into the harbour, and the long hours of peril and of struggling
against the storm are at an end.
A miserable figure the poor wreck looks, when she is hauled up on the
slip-way for repairs. Her masts are out of her, her bow crushed, her
stern twisted and broken, the oakum is streaming out of her seams, her
timbers are started, her rudder is gone, she looks truly the very wreck
she is. Indeed, it was nothing but the fact of her being timber laden
that prevented her going down immediately after striking the first time
upon the Margate Sands, or has kept her afloat during any one of the
many terrible struggles with the seas, that she has had since to endure.
The brig was ultimately repaired, and sent to sea; but to whatever
extent the general average upon the insured cargo contributed to the
bill, the balance required must have made a sad hole in the poor
brave-hearted captain's savings.
The Margate and Ramsgate men got some few pounds each for salvage: the
ship and cargo were not very valuable, and there were many to share the
small amount awarded, so there was not much for each one. But the men
were thankful, on account of the captain, as well as on their own
account, to have saved the vessel through so much peril, and as a
result, to have anything at all to share.