THE WRECK OF THE "PROVIDENTIA."
"What dangers press'd, when seas ran mountain high,
When tempests raved, and horrors veiled the sky;
When prudence fail'd, when courage grew dismayed,
When the strong fainted, and the wicked prayed;--
Then in the yawning gulf far down we drove,
And gazed upon the billowy mount above;
Till up that mountain swinging with the gale,
We view'd the horrors of the watery vale!"
_Crabbe._
A dark stormy December night had been followed by a gloomy morning, a
heavy gale had been blowing for some hours from the north-east, and
thick drifting snow-squalls still further threw heavy shadows over the
sea, and added greatly to the perils of the dangerous navigation around
the Goodwin.
The men on Ramsgate pier said to each other, "It is _likely weather_."
Likely for disaster and for the need of their services; they therefore
keep a careful watch, but the snow and drifting fog-clouds shut out the
Goodwin Sands and the light-vessels from their view, and so the men can
only wait on, speculating upon the possibility of some unseen tragedy
being worked out amid the darkness and the wrath of waters that surround
the Goodwin.
It is now after breakfast-time, about nine o'clock, the weather is too
bad for much ordinary work to be going on, and so a large number of
boatmen assemble in the look-out houses and at the head of the pier
watching the storm.
Many are the spy-glasses which are every now and then pointed seaward,
scanning any break in the storm-drift; three or four men are at the end
of the pier by the watch-house; one of them fancies that he can make out
a dark line 'mid the grey gloom; he watches carefully, a sheet of fog
lifts for a moment; "Yes, there is! I see a ship on the Goodwin!"
"Where? Where?" and another man looks at the direction of his spy-glass,
and points his own the same way. No; he can see nothing; and the man
himself can now see nothing; it was just a glimpse, that was all, and
the cloud closed in upon the Sands and wrapt them in darkness again.
"But are you positive you saw anything?" they ask the man.
"I am just as sure of it as I am that I am standing here."
"What was she like?"
"She seemed a large ship with only two masts standing, and high up on
the Sands."
"Well, if you saw her once, and are certain of it, once is as good as
fifty times. Away then for the life-boat."
Hurrying up the pier to give the alarm, they shout to some boatmen who
are at work helping to stow cargo on board a Dutch steamer--the
_Orient_: "A vessel on the Goodwin; Life-boat! Life-boat!" Immediately
the men throw down whatever they have in their hands, spring to the
gunwale, and are out of the ship, up the steps, on the pier, and running
for the life-boat in a moment; and this to the intense astonishment of
the Dutch mate, who had not heard the cry of life-boat. He runs along
the deck on to the poop, and shakes his fist at the men, shouting after
them, "You be bad men you! You be bad men! What for you run away? You
come here work no more!"
The honest-hearted fellow was, however, more than appeased, when he was
told that it was to rush on board the life-boat; to go out in that wild
dark storm and terrible sea to the rescue of life, that the men had so
suddenly deserted their work and fled from the vessel.
One of the pier men runs to the harbour-master, and reports that a large
ship has been seen ashore on the Goodwin; the harbour-master hurries to
the pier-head, but the lift in the storm has settled down thicker than
ever; he can see nothing; he, and all with him, listen attentively for
any report of a gun from the Goodwin light-vessels, but can hear
nothing; they cross-question the man who saw the wreck. The
harbour-master thinks he may have been mistaken--that it was probably a
ship sailing through the Gull Channel that he saw. No! the man is
positive that it was a ship on the Goodwin, and nothing else; and so
the harbour-master, although they can hear no signal from the
light-vessels, decides upon sending the life-boat, and orders the
coxswain to proceed to sea.
Rapid preparation for the start has been going on all this time; and
very speedily steamer and life-boat are away in the dark storm speeding
their way to the Goodwin Sands. They get to the North Sand light-ship
about eleven o'clock, and find a very heavy sea running in the
neighbourhood of the Sands, with frequent snow-squalls sweeping along.
The men on board the light-vessel say that both they, and the men on
board the Gull light-ship, have been making signals since daylight. (The
roar of the storm, and the wind not being on shore, the guns were not
heard, and the weather was too thick for any signals to be seen). They
report that they had seen a ship on shore on the South-East Spit of the
Sands.
Away go steamer and life-boat, the crew of both alike eager to make up
for lost time, and they soon discover the vessel they are in search of
looming out in the mist.
They see that she is a complete wreck, and that she is settled down upon
the Sands, with her bow to the seas; her mizen-mast is gone close to the
deck; the seas are running quite over her as they break upon her bow;
they mount up and fly over her fore-yard and race along her deck,
breaking again upon her deck-house, which they smother in foam.
There are no sailors to be seen lashed to the rigging, and it is
doubtful whether they can have found shelter anywhere on deck, so great
is the rush of water over the ship. Indeed, the life-boat men think that
it is very improbable that any of the crew can be left on board.
Nevertheless, they determine to get on board the vessel, and see if they
can find any poor exhausted seaman still clinging to some portion of the
wreck.
There is a very heavy sea running, and they have a short consultation as
to the best method of getting alongside the vessel; they determine to go
in upon the lee quarter, and make preparation for so doing. Now they
make in for the wreck; they sail in swiftly; plunge in through the
broken water; their anchor is all ready; they watch their distance. Over
with it; lower the foresail; and they are about to run the life-boat
right alongside the vessel, when the man in the bow shouts, "Up with
your helm; up with it hard; sheer off, sheer off!" Up the helm is;
swiftly the boat answers, and bears away from the vessel.
The mizen-mast, which had been broken off short, has fallen over the
quarter of the vessel, and become entangled in the Sands, and with the
ship's side, and is standing out at right angles to the wreck, right in
the way the life-boat was steering. If it had been night-time the boat
would have been steered in right upon the wreck of the mast and yards,
when in every probability she would have been stove and rolled over by
the seas; the men would then have been washed out of her, and it would
have been impossible for them to have got back to her again, against the
rush of sea and tide and entangled as she would have been in the
wreckage of the mast, she could not have floated down to them; as it is,
this very catastrophe nearly happens, for the men hardly see the danger
in time; it is a moment of great peril, for the boat is being tossed
about violently in the broken water, and becomes somewhat entangled in
the wreckage; the men lay hold of the cable, and haul upon it with all
their strength, and do what they can to check the way of the boat, and
help her head round; now they get a good cant out, they throw out some
coils of the cable in one cast, they sheer out well, and get clear of
the wreck of the mizen-mast; the seas catch the boat and drive it astern
of the vessel, the cable runs out its full length and brings the boat up
with a strong jerk. The men, on looking at the wreck, are glad to find
that there are some of her crew still alive; they can see three men and
a boy crouching down, under the shelter of the deck-house, but they must
be but a small proportion of the original crew of the ship, for she is a
large vessel, and must have had a crew of certainly not fewer than
fifteen or sixteen men. "Thank God," say the life-boat men, "that they
are not all gone, and that we are here in time to try and save some."
The shipwrecked men have been crouching there for some hours, and have
been getting more and more wretched, cold, wet, exhausted, and hopeless;
every now and then they heard the loud boom of a gun from one of the
light-vessels, but no life-boat came, and the wreck might at any moment
break up; they at first felt confident that a life-boat would certainly
soon come to their rescue, and had prepared for her coming by getting a
life-buoy with a long line fastened to it, ready to throw overboard.
But the hours passed by, the seas broke over the vessel with increasing
violence, the storm grew more and more wild, they could not understand
why the life-boat did not come, but she did not, and they began to
despair of being saved.
Suddenly, as they crouch under the deck-house in their hopeless misery,
they see the life-boat swing round on the tide, and come up to her cable
just astern of the ship; never were men more agreeably surprised; it is
as a reprieve from death; and they feel their blood course again through
their veins, their strength returns, and they start up ready for action;
the life-boat men give them a cheer, which they answer with glad cries
of welcome.
The men on board the wreck throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat
men; there is a tremendous tumble of sea, the life-boat is flying about
in all directions, and it is not for some time, and not until after much
trouble, that they succeed in getting the life-buoy on board the boat.
All hands lay hold of the rope, and do their utmost to haul the
life-boat nearer to the wreck; but the heavy gale, the rush of the sea,
and the strong tide, are all directly against her, her cable is
straining to the utmost, and they cannot get her to move in the least;
they struggle on, and on, but it is all in vain.
"Pull, men, pull! now all together, as the seas pass; now, try and get
a foot or two ahead." Not an inch, strain and pull as they will.
"Look out! look out! let go; take care of yourselves!"
Too late; a tremendous sea comes rushing over the vessel, right over the
life-boat, beats her back with a wrench and jerk that tears one of the
timber heads, to which the rope is fastened, right out of her, knocks
down by its great weight five or six of the men, who are holding on to
the rope, hurts two or three of them somewhat severely, and buries the
boat in its very flood of water; for a moment she is swamped, and beaten
right away from the wreck; she lifts again, in a few seconds rises to
her water-line; she frees herself of water, the men spring to their
feet.
"Are all there? Are any washed out of her?" "All right! all right!"
"Thank God! Now at it again, my men."
Happily the anchor still holds, and the boat's cable brings the boat up.
But what is to be done to save the poor crew? They feel that it is quite
impossible for them to haul the boat any nearer to the ship.
To their great surprise, they see the captain spring up from the lee of
the deck-house, hurriedly take off his oilskin coat, throw it into the
water, and then jumping on the gunwale, grasp the hawser that holds the
boat, and slide down it into the boiling sea. A huge wave breaks over
him, and washes him away from the rope; he now tries to swim to the
boat, but the life-boat is not directly astern, the sheer she has to her
cable that is fastened to the anchor which was thrown over some
distance to the side of vessel, prevents her dropping right astern; and
although the captain has but to swim a few yards out of the direction of
the sweep of sea and tide, it is impossible for him to manage it. He is
perfectly overwhelmed by the boil of sea, tossed wildly up and down,
wave after wave beating over him, it is all that he can do to keep his
head above water, and cannot guide his course in the least; the boatmen
try all they can to make the boat sheer towards him, so as to reach him,
or to throw him a rope, but it is impossible, they cannot get
sufficiently near; and in a few seconds they see him swept rapidly by in
the swift tide; Jarman, the coxswain of the boat, seizes a life-buoy,
and throws it with all his force towards him; the wind catches it and
helps the throw; it falls near him; he makes a spring forward and
reaches it; the men gladly see that he has got it; they see him put his
two hands upon one side as if to get upon it; as he leans forward it
falls over his head like a hoop; he gets his arms through it, and
shouting to the boatmen "All right," he waves his hand as if to beckon
to them to follow him, and goes floating down in the strong tide and
among the raging leaping seas in a strange wild dance, that threatens
indeed to be a dance of death.
It is with deep feelings of dismay and sorrow that the boatmen see him
thus drifting away, sea after sea breaking over him; they think it
impossible that he can live long; they watch him as far as they can see
him; he rises now and again on a sea, and waves his hand to them, but
soon disappears from their view, and they seem to have wished him for
ever good-bye, for if they go after him at once they will not be able to
get back to the ship again, perhaps for hours; and there are two men and
a boy still on board whom they must not desert; they must do what they
can for these poor fellows first, and then they will hasten away in
search of the poor captain, although they have but little hope of then
finding him alive, even if they find him at all.
At once they are reminded of the dread peril the men on board the ship
are in; for a tremendous crash like a peal of thunder startles them all;
and looking round they see the tall mainmast of the ship fall swiftly
over on the port side of the vessel.
The men on board give a loud cry--the terrible crash and rend and shock
of the falling mast appals them to the uttermost; it is as if the wreck
was breaking to pieces in one vast wrench beneath their feet. The chief
mate springs wildly to the starboard quarter, and seizes the end of the
mainbrace, which is hanging there; he makes it fast round his waist; and
with a rapid spring, and with arms outstretched towards the boat, he
jumps into the sea; he is a fine powerful young man, and a very good
swimmer; but what can he do in a tide and sea so tremendous that twelve
strong men cannot haul the boat one foot against them? and so a fearful
tragedy is worked out before the boatmen's eyes; they make every effort
to sheer the boat towards the man, but in vain; the tide sweeps him at
once away on the lee-bow of the boat; he struggles fearfully hard for
his life; the sea takes him and throws him away to the full extent of
the rope, which tightens round his waist; the strain of the rope draws
him back a little; he falls in the trough of the sea; he is just in the
thick of the surf, in the break of the waves, and they curl over him and
beat him down beneath their weight, and then again the next rushing wave
catches him and flings him out, till he is brought up with a jerk as the
rope tightens, that seems almost to tear him in pieces; now he is thrown
high in the air on the crest of a wave, now he is buried in a sea,
rolled over and over; sheering here and there, as the tangled waves
catch him, first on one side, then on the other, but never nearer the
life-boat; every now and then he strikes out wildly as if to make a last
effort, and cries aloud in his agony and despair. It is indeed a most
piteous sight, and it moves the boatmen to the very heart; the poor
drowning fellow so near and they unable to render him the least help.
They cannot remain doing nothing, although they feel fully assured that
all they attempt must be in vain; they haul with all their power on the
cable to try and get nearer to the ship when they might sheer down upon
the poor fellow; but the sea is raging over them as much as ever, and
they cannot get the boat to move at all; the waves rush over the boat in
rapid succession, and as they do so the men have to crouch down and
cling with all their force to the thwarts, and struggle hard to prevent
being washed out of her. As each sea passes, up they spring and again
try to haul in the cable; the poor drowning sailor is ahead of the boat,
on the starboard bow; if the line which he has round his waist were only
a few fathoms longer he might be saved; it would be madness for any of
the boatmen to jump overboard to get at him, they would be instantly
swept astern of the boat, without a hope of saving him, and at great and
useless risk of their own lives; they try and throw the lead-line over
the rope which holds the poor fellow; hoping that if they can succeed in
doing so, that he may manage to get hold of it, and loosing himself from
the rope which fastens him to the ship, be hauled on board the boat; but
the boat is pitching and tossing so much that it is hard work attempting
to throw the line, but again and again they make the effort. "Now he
rises on a wave: now try; heave with a will, well clear of his head. Ah!
missed again; look out, hold on all;" a wave rushes over them, boat and
all; another half-minute and they make another attempt; no! all in vain,
each time it falls short; the struggle cannot last long; strong and
young as the man is, his strength cannot possibly endure long in such a
conflict; his cries grow more feeble and soon cease; they see him try
and get back to the ship, climbing up the rope, but his strength fails,
and he falls back; his arms and legs are still tossed wildly about, but
it is by the action of the waves; his head drops and sinks; yes! it is
all over!--all over! with him; and it is with intense sorrow that the
boatmen realize that all hope of saving him is at an end--that he is
dead.