SAVED AT LAST. THE FATAL GOODWIN SANDS.
"There are to whom that ship was dear
For love and kindred's sake,
When these the voice of rumour hear,
Their inmost heart shall quake,
Shall doubt, and fear, and wish, and grieve,
Believe, and long to unbelieve,
But never cease to ache;
Still doom'd, in sad suspense, to bear
The hope that keeps alive despair."
_J. Montgomery._
Do we not often find in the winter evening that our warm rooms seem more
cosy, and the flames to lap more brightly and closely round the
half-consumed log, as a blast of wind moans in the chimney, and perhaps
the cry of some poor street hawker tells its plain tale of toiling
misery as it goes shiveringly along the streets? Do we not find our
sensations of personal comfort increased, and our sympathy for the
sufferer quickened, as the wintry gale and slashing rain beat against
our well-shuttered windows, and suggest the hardships we should have to
endure if we were less cared for and less protected?
But if we may learn the deeper to realize our blessings, and the more to
enlarge our sympathies, as we contrast our respective positions with
such as are endured by many of the poor toilers on shore, truly still
more may we do so as we consider the trials and hardships endured by
many of the toilers at sea. Jamb down the window harder to prevent those
few drops of rain bubbling in, draw the curtain closer and check that
one breath of draught; and now think of those of your fellow-men who are
breasting the storm in its wildest rage, out in the full perils and
dense darkness of the night, where cruel winds and mad seas attack them
in all their dread force; but neither daunt their courage, check their
efforts, nor frustrate their skill; their errand is to save, and all
personal considerations are lost in the grandness and hope of their
enterprise.
Thinking of these things, we shall not fail again and again to render
our ready and full-hearted sympathy, not only for the shipwrecked,
crying aloud in their quick peril and deep agony for rescue, but also
for the poor brave-hearted boatmen of our coasts, who never hesitate to
do all and to dare all when the prospect before them is that of saving
life.
Let us recall again some of the features in the lives of those whom we
may well call the "Storm Warriors" of seafaring life, who not only find
their bread upon the waters, but upon the most troubled waters of the
most storm-lashed seas; who, the darker the night, the sterner the
tempest, the more blinding the snowdrift, are the more full of
expectation that their services will be required, and are therefore the
more determined to urge their way out into the storm, to be ready to
render aid at the first call for assistance, and perhaps to pluck a
harvest of saved lives off the very edge of the scythe of death.
Yes, my readers, I would once again carry you in thought far away from
quiet home scenes and peaceful associations, from the pleasant nooks and
sunny corners of memories which you delight to recall, upon which you
love to let your thoughts half consciously ponder; but I ask you to take
the joy of your home peace--the gladness of your blessings--with you,
that you may be quickened in every chord of sympathy as you let me draw
your thoughts away into the dread darkness, which is only broken by
spectral sheens of light shed by flying foam, there to picture the
rolling sea-mountains hurling along their avalanches of white spray; to
listen to the dread discords of a howling tempest; to hover in fancy mid
a scene of fierce turmoil and strife, where the elements in their rage
seem to have cast off all bonds to their fury, and to have determined to
sweep from their path every vestige of man and his works; and now to let
your eyes centre upon a shattered wreck, to which are clinging a few
storm-beaten sailors trembling upon the very verge of a grave.
Are you practically interested in life-boat work, then you have a
message to them in their hour of agony; you would have a message to
many a loving wife and innocent child if they could now realize the
danger of those they love, upon whom they depend. And your whisper is of
rescue and of hope. Look where a fitful light gleams in the darkness;
now rides high on the crest of a huge wave, now falls buried in the
trough of the sea, shines out again, is hidden in a cloud of spray, but
pressing on and on, getting nearer each moment to the shipwrecked.
The light gleams from a life-boat in which a small band of men are
battling,--battling on in the teeth of the fierce storm. No terrors stay
them, no failures quell their courage and their zeal; are not fellow-men
held captive and threatened with death by fierce and cruel seas? and
shall they, the Storm Warriors, not be ready at every peril, and at
every hardship, and against all difficulties to make in to their rescue.
In such scenes we see the men actually at their work in their efforts to
save life and property; but the life-boat work does not merely consist
in doing the work at the moment of its necessity, but also in the
unwearying watch and readiness for when that time of emergency shall
come. Many a Ramsgate boatman leaves his poor, but warm and comfortable
home, his humble and loving home circle, to pace Ramsgate pier for
hours, and this, night after night, for many winter months, and for the
mere chance of being among the first to make a rush for the life-boat
when the signal is given to man her,--a chance that may not come a dozen
times in the season, and which, when it does come, may afford indeed a
grand opportunity for daring all and doing all for the saving of life,
but not for doing much in the way of refilling the half-empty cupboards
at home, or rubbing off the debts that have been gradually growing
during the winter season.
And in this, the last tale, I propose telling of the doing of the Storm
Warriors, the Life Savers, who watch and struggle mid the fierce seas of
the Goodwin Sands, I have deeds to relate done by our brave
boatmen--acts of daring and determination--for which I claim a place
amid the records of the bravest, grandest deeds of heroism of the age; a
tale to tell which, unless I fail utterly in the telling--and this God
forbid--I reverently pray, and pray it for the sake of noble deeds done,
and for the sake of the good life-boat cause--a tale which must excite
sympathy for those in suffering and in peril from the dangers of the
sea; and sympathy and high esteem for the daring and unselfish workers
of brave works;--a tale, the echoes of which may well stir, as a trumpet
peal, stout hearts to perseverance and brave deeds, to do and dare all
in God's name, and for the right, whatever storms of opposition may
impede their onward course, and stand between them and their high and
holy aim.
The early days of the new year were bleak and cold; strong northerly and
easterly winds swept over land and sea; people on shore spoke of the
weather as being seasonable, but shuddered over the word.
At Ramsgate, on the 5th of January, it was a fresh breeze from the
east-south-east, and the anxious boatmen were as usual keeping a good
look-out. About half-past eight in the morning, the booming of signal
guns was heard; the signals came from both the Goodwin and the Gull
light-ships.
The boatmen, who had been watching all night in momentary expectation of
such a signal, speedily manned the life-boat.
The steamer, the _Aid_, was soon ready, with her brave crew full of
courage and hardihood, and full of zeal as ever to second every effort
made by the life-boat men in saving life. The steamer is steered for the
North Sands Head light-vessel. As they were making their way across the
Gull stream, they saw what proved to be a shipwrecked crew in their own
boat; they took them on board the steamer, and found that they were the
crew, eight in number, of the schooner _Mizpah_, of Brixham. The
schooner had stranded on the Goodwin in a thick fog the night
previously; the weather was still thick, and the men could give no
account of the position of their vessel, and thought that it was
hopeless to try and find her, and that it would be useless to try and
get her off if they did find her, and so the steamer took the boat in
tow and returned to Ramsgate.
It proved afterwards that the vessel floated off the Sands at high
water. A Broadstairs hovelling-lugger, while cruising about, fell in
with her, and succeeded in bringing her into Ramsgate. The vessel and
cargo were worth £6000 or £7000; the Broadstairs men obtained £350 as
salvage. The life-boatmen were glad to take a few hours' rest after
their night's watch and morning's work, they therefore found their way
homewards, leaving, however, plenty of ready and able boatmen to watch
on the pier, eager to make up another crew should a call for their
services be made. The cold became hour by hour more intense, and the
fresh breeze steadily grew; as the tide made, the sea broke over the
pier in heavy clouds of spray, thundered down upon it, and poured over
it in foaming cascades into the harbour.
The evening grew on, the gale became terrific; heavy snow-storms went
sweeping by, showers of freezing sleet rushed on before the wind, and
the night was as dreary and dismal, as dark and cold, as night could
well be.
At about half-past ten the storm was in its full fury, and the sea a
very howling wilderness of raging waters.
At that moment the boom of a signal gun made itself heard, in spite of
the roar of the wind and sea, and rockets were soon seen streaming up
from the Gull light-ship.
"The life-boat was manned with despatch," would be the short report the
coxswain would afterwards make to the harbour-master. This means, that
directly the signal was given, all was astir at the pier-head, the
harbour-men on watch hurried themselves to lose no moment in getting the
life-boat ready for sea; that the crew of the steamer also made all
zealous speed; that the boatmen, in spite of the piercing cold and
terrific gale, rush along the pier, hurry down the harbour steps, spring
into the boat, and at once set to work in preparing her for sea, as
readily as schoolboys bound down the school stairs and out on to the
common for the joy of a summer holiday.
It takes the steamer and life-boat about one hour and a half to urge
their way through the terrible storm into the neighbourhood of the Gull
light-ship; the crews speak her about one in the morning, and are told
that the men on board saw, some time since, a large light burning
south-east by south, but they had lost sight of it for about twenty
minutes.
The steamer at once tows the boat in the direction described; a careful
look-out is kept; the snow-storms come down more darkly than ever, and
the men find it bitterly cold, as they are continually overrun by the
foam and spray, and by the broken crests of the waves, which are very
wild and running mountains high; still on and on the brave fellows
battle their way, but they can discover no signs of any signal-light.
The crew hold a consultation as to what is best to be done; there
appears no possibility of any of the crew of the vessel which gave the
signals of distress being still alive; she must have broken up at once,
in so tremendous a sea, and it would be impossible for any poor fellow
to float clinging to any piece of wreckage in the midst of such a
terrific turmoil of water. Still some other vessel may be in danger; the
night is wild and dark enough for disaster after disaster to occur; and
so the men determine to wait and watch for any signal of distress, and
not seeing one, to remain in the neighbourhood of the Sands at all
events until daylight, that they may feel sure before they leave the
Sands that they are not turning their backs upon any whom they might
leave to perish in the storm for want of their aid.
And so, my readers, while most of you, if not all, were quietly in your
beds (the wakeful ones of you perchance listening wistfully to the
storm, and perhaps having your hearts moved to great pity and deep
prayer for the poor fellows at sea), these brave boatmen, from choice,
and not for the hope of money reward, but for the far dearer hope of
saving life, waited on and on, by those gloomy storm-beaten Sands, a
prey to all the fierceness of the gale, the raging seas, and deadly
cold.
Time after time the mad rushing waves break over the boat, burying her
in clouds of spray and foam, or, coming in heavier volume still, bury
her and the men for a moment or two completely under water. It is to the
crew something more than intense discomfort; their sufferings become
very great, yet they will not give in; they do all that they can to
encourage each other, and still let the boat lay to.
Willing as every man is to endure to the utmost, they soon find that it
is getting beyond their strength; they feel as if frozen through and
through, and are rapidly getting numbed and exhausted with the continual
wash and beating over them of the heavy seas. There is no help for it,
and unwillingly they make a signal for the steamer, and are towed back
to Ramsgate, arriving between four and five in the morning.
The name of the vessel that was lost during that terrible night was
never known; the greedy Sands soon swallowed up every vestige of the
ship; her name may perhaps be found among the missing ships at Lloyds'.
Hope, doubtless, long lingered, may still linger, in many mournful
homes; still the story be told to wondering children, how their father
or their brother sailed on such a day from a foreign port, and has not
since been heard of; but no clue has ever yet been found as to which of
the many missing vessels it was that came to such sudden destruction in
that dread night on the Goodwin Sands.
Shall we linger another moment or two in thought over the poor fellows
thus lost in the fierce seas. We fancy that the bronzing of a tropical
sun was still ruddy upon their cheeks; a few weeks since they were ready
to rest 'neath the shadow of the sails, and lie about the deck at night;
and then speeding north they were met in the chops of the Channel by the
rough welcome of a strong adverse wind, against which they sought, day
and night, to beat their way, while the sails and cordage grew hard and
stiff with frozen rain and spray.
Favoured at last with a slant of wind, the vessel finds her way up
Channel; the crew already feel the hardship and dangers of their voyage
at an end, as they begin to count the hours until they shall be in dock;
night falls as they pass the South Foreland. The wind goes moaningly
back to the old direction; hour after hour it increases, a gale sweeps
along in dread force, the blinding snow bewilders the pilot, who can
now see no guiding light, and soon in the darkness of the night, the
force of the wind, and the swirl of the tide, the vessel is driven
through the raging surf on to the Sands.
The crew make a rush for the boats; useless; they would not live a
moment in such a boil of sea. The waves fly over the vessel, now lift
her, and then let her crash with the force of all her weight down upon
the Sands; now they beat with tremendous force against her, and shake
her each moment to her keel; the captain burns a blue light, the spray
washes it out, the men hasten to get a tar-barrel on deck, knock in the
top, fill it with combustibles, and light it; it flares up, and for a
time resists the rush of spray with which the air is full; the
light-vessel sees the signal, fires a gun and a rocket; the life-boat
starts upon her mission, but the waves close in upon the doomed ship in
fierce hungry strife, lifting and crashing her down time after time; the
decks are soon swept of everything that the force of water can tear from
them, the tar-barrel is washed out; the men can no longer remain on the
deck, but have to take refuge in the rigging, where they lash themselves
to the shrouds, and they wait on in darkness and despair; a tremendous
wave comes boiling along, it lifts the vessel, and almost rolls her
over; the strong masts snap like reeds; the ship fills and sinks in the
hole she has worked by her rolling and beating in the quicksand. Another
half-hour, perhaps, and the life-boat is there; too late! only the
tangled spars and cordage and broken pieces of wreck float near--tokens
of the death and destruction that have been wrought: and a fine ship has
been thus utterly and speedily destroyed--and all living things on board
being swiftly engulfed, have found their graves in the strife of that
deadly sea.