THE DEAL BOATMEN
Where'er in ambush lurk the fatal sands,
They claim the danger.
Ever since fleets anchored in the Downs, the requirements of the great
number of men on board, as well as the needs of the vessels, would have
a tendency to maintain the supply of skilled and hardy boatmen to meet
those needs. Pritchard, in his _History of Deal_, which is a mine of
interesting information, gives a sketch of events and battles in the
Downs since 1063. Tostig, Godwin, and Harold are noticed; sea fights
between the French and English in the Downs from 1215 are described;
the battles of Van Tromp and Blake in the Downs, and many other
interesting historical events, are given in his book, as well as
incidents connected with the Deal boatmen.
With the decay and silting up of Sandwich Haven the Downs became still
more a place of ships, and thus naturally was still more developed the
race of Deal boatmen, who were, and are to the present time, daily
accustomed to launch and land through the surf which runs in rough
weather on their open beach; and whose avocation was to pilot the
vessels anchoring in or leaving the Downs, and to help those in
distress on the Goodwin Sands.
[Illustration: The boom of a distant gun. From a photograph by W. H.
Franklin. James Laming, _Coxswain, Kingsdown Lifeboat_, R. Roberts,
_Coxswain, North Deal Lifeboat_, John Mackins, _Coxswain, Walmer
Lifeboat_.]
Like their descendants now, who are seen daily in crowds lounging round
the capstans, the night was most frequently their time of effort. In
the day they were resting 'longshore' fashion, unless, of course, their
keen sailor sight saw anywhere--even on the distant horizon--a chance
of a 'hovel.' Ever on the look-out in case of need, galleys, sharp as
a shark, and luggers full of men, would rush down the beach into the
sea in less time than it has taken to write this sentence.
But until the necessity for action arose a stranger, looking at the
apparently idling men, with their far-away gazings seaward, would
naturally say, 'What a lazy set of fellows!' as has actually been said
to me of the very men who I knew had been all night in the lifeboat,
and whose faces were tanned and salted with the ocean brine.
Justly or unjustly, in olden times the Deal boatmen were accused of
rapacity. But the poor fellows knew no better--Christian love and
Christian charity seem to have slept in those days, and no man cared
for the moral elevation of the wild daring fellows. True indeed, they
were accused of lending to vessels in distress a 'predatory succour'
more ruinous to them than the angry elements which assailed them. In
1705 a charge of this kind was made by Daniel Defoe, the author of
_Robinson Crusoe_, and was sternly repelled by the Mayor and
Corporation of Deal; and Mr. Pritchard mentions that only one charge of
plundering wrecks was made in the present century, in the year 1807;
and the verdict of 'Guilty' was eventually and deservedly followed by
the pardon of the Crown.
With the increase of the shipping of this country, and the naval wars
of the early part of the nineteenth century, the numbers and fame of
the Deal boatmen increased, until their skill, bravery, and humanity
were celebrated all over the world. In those times, and even recently,
the Deal boatmen, including in that title the men of Walmer and
Kingsdown, were said to number over 1000 men; and as there were no
lightships around the Goodwin Sands till the end of the eighteenth
century, there were vessels lost on them almost daily, and there were
daily salvage jobs or 'hovels' and rescues of despairing crews; and
what with the trade with the men-of-war, and the piloting and berthing
of ships, there were abundant employment and much salvage for all the
boatmen.
The dress of the boatmen in those days, _i.e._ their 'longshore
toggery'--and there are still among the older men a few, a very few
survivals--was finished off by tall hats and pumps; and in answer to my
query 'why they formerly always wore those pumps?' I was told, ''Cos
they was always a dancin' in them days'--doubtless with Jane and Bess
and black-eyed Susan.
There was smuggling, too, of spirits and tobacco, and all kinds of
devices for concealing the contraband articles. Not very many years
ago boats lay on Deal beach with hollow masts to hold tea--then an
expensive luxury, and fitted with boxes and lockers having false
bottoms, and all manner of smuggling contrivances.
It was hard to persuade those wild, daring men that there was anything
wrong in smuggling the articles they had honestly purchased with their
own money.
'There's nothing in the Bible against smuggling!' said one of them to a
clerical friend of mine, who aptly replied: 'Render therefore unto
Caesar the things that be Caesar's, and unto God the things that be
God's.'
'Is it so? you're right,' the simple-minded boatman replied; 'no more
smuggling after this day for me!' And there never was.
But that which has given the Deal boatmen a niche in the temple of fame
and made them a part and parcel of our 'rough island story,' is their
heroic rescues and their triumphs over all the terrors of the Goodwin
Sands.
There was no lightship on or near the Goodwin Sands till 1795, when one
was placed on the North Sand Head. In 1809 the Gull lightship, and in
1832 the South Sand Head lightships, were added, and the placing of the
East Goodwin lightship in 1874 was one of the greatest boons conferred
on the mariners of England in our times.
It is hard even now sometimes to avoid the deadly Goodwins, but what it
must have been in the awful darkness of winter midnights which brooded
over them in the early part of this century is beyond description.
Nor was there a lifeboat stationed at Deal until the year 1865. Before
that time the Deal luggers attempted the work of rescue on the Goodwin
Sands. In those days all Deal and Walmer beach was full of those
wonderful sea-boats hauled up on the shingle, while their mizzen booms
almost ran into the houses on the opposite side of the roadway. The
skill and daring of those brave boatmen were beyond praise. Let me
give in more detail the incident alluded to in the account of the
Ganges.
Fifty-two years ago, one stormy morning, a young Deal boatman was going
to be married, and the church bells were ringing for the ceremony, when
suddenly there was seen away to the southward and eastward a little
schooner struggling to live in the breakers, or rather on the edge of
the breakers, on the Goodwins. The Mariner lugger was lying on the
beach of Deal, and there being no lifeboat in those days a rush of
eager men was made to get a place in the lugger, and amongst them,
carried away by the desire to do and to save, was the intended
bridegroom.
By the time they plunged into the awful sea on the sands the schooner
had struck, and was thumping farther into the sands, sails flying
wildly about and the foremast gone. The crew, over whom the sea was
flying, were clustered in the main rigging. It was a service of the
most awful danger, and the lugger men, well aware that it was a matter
of life and death, put the question to each other, 'What do you say, my
lads; shall we try it?' 'Yes! Yes!' and then one and all shouted,
'Yes! We'll have those people out of her!' and they ran for the
drifting, drowning little Irish schooner. They did not dare to
anchor--a lifeboat could have done so, but for them it would have been
certain death--and as they approached the vessel and swept past her
they shouted to the crew in distress, 'Jump for your lives.'
They jumped for life, as the lugger rose on the snowy crest of a
breaker, and not a man missed his mark. All being rescued, they again
fought back through the broken water, and when they reached Deal beach
they were met by hundreds of their enthusiastic fellow townsmen, who by
main force dragged the great twenty-ton lugger out of the water and far
up the steep beach. The interrupted marriage was very soon afterwards
carried out, and the deserving pair are alive and well, by God's mercy,
to this day.
The luggers are about forty feet long and thirteen feet beam, more or
less. The smaller luggers are called 'cats.' There is a forecastle or
'forepeak' in the luggers where you can comfortably sleep--that is, if
you are able to sleep in such surroundings, and if the anguish of
sea-sickness is absent. I once visited in one of these luggers, lost
at sea with two of her crew on November 11, 1891, the distant Royal
Sovereign and Varne lightships, and had a most happy three days' cruise.
There is a movable 'caboose' in the 'cats' right amidships, in which
three or four men packed close side by side can lie; but if you want to
turn you must wake up the rest of the company and turn all together--so
visitors to Deal are informed. These large boats are lugger-rigged,
carrying the foremast well forward, and sometimes, but very rarely,
like the French _chasse-marées_, a mainmast also, with a maintopsail,
as well, of course, as the mizzen behind. The mainmast is now hardly
ever used, being inconvenient for getting alongside the shipping, and
therefore there only survive the foremast and mizzen, the mainmast
being developed out of existence.
The luggers are splendid sea-boats, and it is a fine sight to see one
of them crowded with men and close-reefed cruising about the Downs
'hovelling' or 'on the look out' for a job in a great gale. While
ships are parting their anchors and flying signals of distress, the
luggers, supplying their wants or putting pilots on board, wheel and
sweep round them like sea-birds on the wing.
[Illustration: Showing a flare.]
As I write these lines, a great gale of wind from the S.S.W. is
blowing, and it was a thrilling sight this morning at 11 a.m. to watch
the Albert Victor lugger launched with twenty-three men on board, in
the tremendous sea breaking over the Downs. Coming ashore later, on a
giant roller, the wave burst into awful masses of towering foam, so
high above and around the lugger that for an instant she was out of
sight, overwhelmed, and the crowds cried, 'She's lost!' but upwards she
rose again on the crest of the following billow, and with the speed of
an arrow flew to the land on this mighty shooting sea.
Just at the same moment as the lugger came ashore the bold coxswain of
the North Deal lifeboat launched with a gallant crew to the rescue of a
despairing vessel, the details of which service are found below.
There is no harbour at Deal, and all boats are heaved up the steep
shingly beach, fifty or sixty yards from the water's edge, by a capstan
and capstan bars, which, when a lugger is hove up, are manned by twenty
or thirty men. When hauled up thus to their position the boats are
held fast on the inclined plane on which they rest by a stern chain
rove through a hole in the keel called the 'ruffles.' This chain is
fastened by a 'trigger,' and when next the lugger is to be launched
great flat blocks of wood called 'skids,' which are always well
greased, are laid down in front of her stem, her crew climb on board,
the mizzen is set, and the trigger is let go. By her own impetus the
lugger rushes down the steep slope on the slippery skids into the sea.
Even when a heavy sea is beating right on shore, the force acquired by
the rush is sufficient to drive her safely into deep water. Lest too
heavy a surf or any unforeseen accident should prevent this, a cable
called a 'haul-off warp' is made fast to an anchor moored out far, by
which the lugger men, if need arise, haul their boat out beyond the
shallow water. The arrangements above described are exactly those
adopted by the lifeboats, which are also lugger-rigged, and being
almost identical in their rig are singularly familiar to Deal men. The
introduction of steam has diminished greatly the number of the luggers,
as fewer vessels than formerly wait in the Downs, and there is less
demand for the services of the boatmen.
There was formerly another class of Deal boats, the forty-feet
smuggling boats of sixty or seventy years ago. The length, flat floor,
and sharpness of those open boats, together with the enormous press of
sail they carried, enabled them often to escape the revenue vessels by
sheer speed, and to land their casks of brandy or to float them up
Sandwich River in the darkness, and then run back empty to France for
more. In the 'good old times' those piratical-looking craft would pick
up a long thirty-feet baulk of timber at sea--timber vessels from the
Baltic or coming across the Atlantic often lose some of their
deck-load--and when engaged in towing it ashore would be pounced upon
by the revenue officers, who would only find, to their own
discomfiture, amidst the hearty 'guffaws' of the boatmen, that the
latter were merely trying to earn 'salvage' by towing the timber ashore.
A little closer search would have revealed that the innocent-looking
baulk of timber was hollow from end to end, and was full of lace,
tobacco, cases of schnapps, 'square face,' brandy, and silks. There is
little or no smuggling now, and the little that there is, is almost
forced on the men by foreign vessels.
Perhaps four boatmen have been out all night looking for a job in their
galley punt. At morning dawn they find a captain who employs them to
get his ship a good berth, or to take him to the Ness. Perhaps the
captain says--and this is an actual case--in imperfect English, 'I have
no money to pay you, but I have forty pounds of tobacco, vill you take
dat? Or vill you have it in ze part payment?' The boatmen consult;
hungry children and sometimes reproachful wives wait at home for money
to purchase the morning meal. 'Shall we chance it?' say they. _They_
take the tobacco, and the first coastguardsman ashore takes _them_,
tobacco and all, before the magistrates, and I sometimes have been sent
for to the 'lock-up,' to find three or four misguided fellows in the
grasp of the law of their country, which poverty and opportunity and
temptation have led them to violate.
At present a large number of galley punts lie on Deal beach. These
boats carry one lugsail on a mast shipped well amidships. These boats
vary in size from twenty-one feet to thirty feet in length, and seven
feet beam, and as the Mission boat which I have steered for thirteen
years, as Missions to Seamen Chaplain for the Downs, is a small galley
punt, I take a peculiar interest in their rig and behaviour.
The galley punts are powerful seaboats; when close reefed can stand a
great deal of heavy weather, and are the marvel of the vessels in
distress which they succour.
All the Deal boats, the lifeboats of course excepted, are clinker built
and of yellow colour, the natural elm being only varnished. And it is
fine to see on a stormy day the splendid way in which they are handled,
visible one moment on the crest and the next hidden in the trough of a
wave, or launched or beached on the open shingle in some towering sea.
I have been breathless with anxiety as I have watched the launch of
these boats into a heavy sea with a long dreadful recoil, but the
landing is still more dangerous.
If you wait long enough when launching, you can get a smooth, or a
comparatively smooth, sea. I have sometimes waited ten minutes--and
then the command is given 'Let her go,' and the boat is hurled into the
racing curl of some green sea.
Sometimes the sea is too heavy for landing, and the galley punts lie
off skimming about for hours. Sometimes if the weather looks
threatening it is best to come at once, and then, supposing a heavy
easterly sea, you must clap on a press of sail to drive the boat. You
get ready a bow painter and a stern rope, and the boat, like a bolt set
free, flies to the land. Very probably she takes a 'shooter,' that is,
gets her nose down and her stern and rudder high into the air, and, all
hands sitting aft, she is carried along amidst the hiss and burst of
the very crest of the galloping billow. Fortunate are they if this
wave holds the boat till she is thrown high up the beach, broadside on,
for at the last minute the helm must be put up or down, to get the boat
to lie along the shore, but only at the very last minute--otherwise
danger for the crew! I have known a boat landing, to capsize and catch
the men underneath, and I have been myself tolerably near the same
danger.
Three or four men man these galley punts, and the hardships and perils
they encounter in the earning of their livelihood are great. The men
are sometimes, even in winter time, three days away in these open
boats, sleeping on the bare boards or ballast bags and wrapped in a
sail.
They cruise to the west to put one of their number on board some
homeward-bound vessel as 'North Sea pilot,' or they cruise to the north
and up the Thames as far as Gravesend, a distance of eighty miles, to
get hold of some outward-bound vessel with a pilot on board, which
pilot is willing to pay the boatmen a sovereign for putting him ashore
from the Downs, and they are towed behind the vessel, probably a fast
steamer, for eighty miles to Deal and the Downs. I have done this--and
it is a curious experience--in summer, but to be towed in the teeth of
a north-easterly snowstorm from Gravesend to the Downs is quite another
thing; but it is the common experience of the Deal boatmen. And every
day in winter they hover off Deal in their splendid galley punts,
rightly called 'knock-toes,' for the poor fellows' hands and feet are
often semi-frozen, to take a pilot out of some outward-bound steamer
going at the rate of ten or fifteen knots an hour. It means at the
outside about 5_s_. per man; perhaps they have earned nothing for a
week, and hungry but dauntless they are determined to get hold of that
steamer, if men can do it. On the steamer comes full speed right end
on at them. The Deal men shoot at her under press of canvas, haul down
sail, and lay their boat in the same direction as the flying steamship,
which often never slackens her speed the least bit. As all this _must_
be done in an instant, or pale death stares them in the face, it is
done with wonderful speed and skill. While a man with a boat-hook, to
which a long 'towing-line' is attached, stands in the bow of the galley
punt and hooks it into anything he can catch, perhaps the bight of a
rope hung over the steamer's side, the steersman has for his own and
his comrades' lives to steer his best and to keep his boat clear of the
steamer's sides, and of her deadly propeller revolving astern, while
the bowman pays out his towing-line, and others see it is all clear,
and another takes a turn of it round a thwart.
[Illustration: Hooking the steamer.]
The steamer is 'hooked,' and, fast as she flies ahead, the galley punt
falls astern, this time, thank God, clear of the 'fan,' into the
boiling wake of the steamer, and at last she feels the tremendous
jerk--such a jerk as would tear an oak tree from its roots--of the
tightening tow-rope.
Then the boat, with her stem high in the air, for so boats tow best,
and all hands aft, and smothered in flying spray, is swept away with
the steamer as far perhaps as Dover, where the pilot wants to land.
Then the steam is eased off and the vessel stopped, but hardly ever for
the Deal men.
This 'hooking' of steamers going at full speed is most dangerous, and
often causes loss of life and poor men's property--their boats and
boats' gear--their all. Sometimes a kindly disposed captain eases his
speed down. I have heard the boatmen talking together, as their keen
eyes discerned a steamer far off, and could even then pronounce as to
the 'line' and individuality of the steamer: 'That's a blue-funnelled
China boat--she's bound through the Canal: he's a gentleman, he is; he
always eases down to ten knots for us Deal men.'
Even at ten-knot speed the danger is very great, and it is marvellous
more accidents do not occur, in spite of the coolness and skill of the
boatmen. Accidents do occur too frequently. The last fatal accident
happened to a daring young fellow who had run his boat about six feet
too close to a fast steamer; six feet short of where he put her would
have meant safety, but as it was, the steamer cut her in two and he was
drowned with his comrade, one man out of three alone being saved. Just
half an hour before he had waved 'good-bye!' to his young wife as he
ran to the beach.
Another boat has her side torn out by a blow from one of the
propeller's fans, and goes down carrying the men deep with her; one is
saved after having almost crossed the border, and I shall long remember
my interview with that man just after he was brought ashore, appalled
with the sense of the nearness of the spirit land, and just as if he
had had a revelation--his gratitude, his convulsive sobs, his
penitence. Another man has his leg or his arm caught by the tow-rope
as it is paid out to the flying steamer; in one man's case the keen axe
is just used in time to cut the line as it smokes over the gunwale
before the coil tears his leg off; in another's case the awful pull of
the rope fractured the arm lengthways and not by a cross fracture, and
the bone never united after the most painful operations.
Owners and captains and officers of steamships, for God's sake, ease
down your speed when your poor sailor brethren, the gallant Deal
boatmen who man the lifeboats, are struggling to hook your mighty
steamships! Ease down a bit, gentlemen, and let the men earn something
for the wives and children at home without having to pay for their
efforts with their precious lives!
The very same men who work the galley punts I have just described are
the 'hovellers' in the great luggers when the tempest drives the
smaller boats ashore, and they also are the same men who, in times of
greater and extremer need, answer so nobly to the summons of the
lifeboat bell.
Pritchard's most interesting chapter, in which the best authorities are
quoted at length, is convincing that the word 'hoveller' is derived
from _hobelier_ (_hobbe_, [Greek] _hippos_, Gaelic _coppal_) and
signifies 'a coast watchman,' or 'look-out man,' who, by horse
(_hobbe_) or afoot, ran from beacon to beacon with the alarm of the
enemies' approach, when, 'with a loose rein and bloody spur rode inland
many a post.' Certainly nothing better describes the Deal boatmen's
occupation for long hours of day and night than the expression so well
known in Deal, 'on the look-out,' and which thus appears to be
equivalent to 'hovelling.'
In 1864 the first lifeboat of the locality was placed in Walmer by the
Royal National Lifeboat Institution. In 1865 another lifeboat was
placed in North Deal, a cotton ship with all hands having been lost on
the southern part of the Goodwins in a gale from the N.N.E., which
unfortunately the Walmer lifeboat, being too far to leeward, was unable
to fetch in that wind with a lee tide.
This splendid lifeboat was called the Van Cook, after its donor, and
was very soon afterwards summoned to the rescue for the first time.
It was blowing 'great guns and marline-spikes' from the S.S.W. with
tremendous sea on Feb. 7, 1865, when there was seen in the rifts of the
storm a full-rigged ship on the Goodwin Sands. The lifeboat bell was
rung, a crew was obtained, and the men in their new and untried
lifeboat made her first, but not their first, daring attempt at rescue.
A few moments before the Deal lifeboat, there launched from the south
part of Deal one of the powerful luggers which lay there, owned by Mr.
Spears, who himself was aboard; and the lugger was on this occasion
steered by John Bailey. The Walmer lifeboat also bravely launched, and
the three made for the wrecked vessel.
The lugger, being first, began the attempt, and in spite of the risk
(for one really heavy sea breaking into her would have sent her to the
bottom) went into the breakers. But the lugger, rightly named
England's Glory--and the names of the luggers are admirably chosen, for
example, The Guiding Star, Friend of All Nations, Briton's Pride, and
Seaman's Hope--seeing a powerful friend behind her in the shape of the
lifeboat, stood on into the surf of the Goodwins to aid in saving life,
and also for a 'hovel,' in the hope of saving the vessel.
It was dangerous in the extreme for the lugger, but, as the men said,
'They was that daring in them days, and they seed so much money
a-staring them in the face, in a manner o' speaking, on board that
there wessel, that they was set on it.'
And when Deal boatmen are 'set on it,' they can do much.
When the lugger fetched to windward of the vessel she wore down on her
before the wind. She did not dare to anchor; had she done so, she
would have been filled and gone down in five minutes, so hauling down
her foresail to slacken her speed, she shot past the vessel as close as
she dared, and as she flew by, six of the crew jumped at the rigging of
the wreck, and actually caught it and got on board. The Walmer
lifeboat sailed at the vessel and tried to luff up to her, hauling down
her foresail, but the lifeboat had not 'way' enough, and missed the
vessel altogether, being driven helplessly to leeward, whence it was
impossible to return.
In increasing storm and sea, more furious as the tide rose, on came the
Deal lifeboat, the Van Cook, Wilds and Roberts (the latter now coxswain
in place of Wilds) steering. They anchored, and veering out their
cable drifted down to the wreck; then six of the lifeboatmen also
sprang to the rigging of the heeling wreck, and the lifeboat sheered
off for safety.
The wreck was lying head to the north and with a list to starboard.
Heavy rollers struck her and broke, flying in blinding clouds of spray
high as her foreyard, coming down in thunder on her deck, so that it
seemed impossible that men could work on that wave-beaten plane. She
was also lifted by each wave and hammered over the sand into shallower
water, so that the drenched and buffeted lifeboatmen had to lift anchor
and follow the drifting vessel in the lifeboat, and again drop anchor
and veer down as before. All this time three powerful steam-tugs were
waiting in deep water to help the vessel, but they dared not come into
the surf where the lifeboat lay.
To stop the drift of the wrecked Iron Crown was her only chance of
safety, and it would have probably ruined all had they dropped anchors
from the vessel's bows, as she would have drifted over them and forced
them into her bottom. The Deal men, therefore, with seamanlike skill
and resource, swung a kedge anchor clear of the vessel high up _from
her foreyard_, and as the vessel drifted the kedge bit, and the bows of
the vessel little by little came up to the sea, when her other anchors
were let go, and in a few minutes held fast; then with a mighty cheer
from the Deal men--lifeboatmen and lugger's crew all together--the Iron
Crown half an hour afterwards was floated by the rising tide on the
very top of the fateful sands; her hawser was brought to the waiting
tug-boats, and she was towed--ship, cargo, and crew all saved--into the
shelter of the Downs.
The names of this the first crew of the Deal lifeboat are given
below[1], and their gallant deed was the forerunner of a long and
splendid series of rescues, no less than 358 lives having been saved,
including such cases as the Iron Crown, by the North Deal lifeboat and
her gallant crew, and counting 93 lives saved by the Walmer lifeboat
Centurion, and 101 lives saved by the Kingsdown lifeboat Sabina, a
total of 552 lives have been saved on the Goodwin Sands.
The next venture of the Deal lifeboat was not so fortunate. It was
made to the schooner Peerless, wrecked in Trinity Bay, in the very
heart of the Goodwins. The men were lashed in the rigging, and the sea
was flying over them, or rather at them; but all managed to get into
the lifeboat except one poor lad who was on his first voyage. He died
while lashed on the foreyard, and was brought down thence by Ashenden,
who bravely mounted the rigging and carried down the dead lad with the
sea-foam on his lips. Among the rescuers of the Peerless crew were
Ashenden, named above, Stephen Wilds (for many years my own comrade in
the Mission Boat), brave old Robert Wilds, Horrick, Richard Roberts,
and ten others.
I have told of the first rescue effected by the Deal lifeboat--let me
describe one of the last noble deeds of mercy done on November 11,
1891, during an awful gale then blowing. In the morning of the day two
luggers launched to help vessels in distress, but such was the fury of
the gale, and so mountainous was the sea, that the luggers were
themselves overpowered, and had to anchor in such shelter as they could
get.
At 2 p.m., tiles flying in the streets, and houses being unroofed, it
was most difficult to keep one's feet; crowds of Deal boatmen in
sou'-westers and oilskins were ready round the lifeboat, and in the
gaps of the driving rain and in the smoking drifts of the howling
squalls which tore over the sea, they saw that a small vessel which had
anchored inside the Brake Sand about two miles off the mainland had
parted her anchors, and, being helpless and without sails, was drifting
towards and outwards to the Brake.
[Illustration: A forlorn hope]
Then the Deal lifeboat was off to the rescue, and with eighteen men in
her, three being extra and special hands on this dangerous occasion,
launched into a terrible sea, grand but furious beyond description.
Hurled down Deal beach by her weight, the lifeboat was buried in a wild
smother, and the next minute was left dry on the beach by the ghastly
recoil. The coming breaker floated her, and she swung to her haul-off
warp.
Then they set her close-reefed storm foresail and took her mizzen off.
Soon after an ominous crack, loud and clear, was heard in her foremast,
and such was the force of the gale that Roberts--the same brave man
who, having been second coxswain and in the lifeboat in the rescue of
the Iron Crown above described in 1865, on this perilous day in 1891
again headed his brave comrades as coxswain, with his old friend and
brother in arms, so to speak, E. Hanger, as second coxswain--hauled
down the foresail and set the small mizzen close-reefed on the
foremast, and even then the great lifeboat was nearly blown out of the
water.
With unbounded confidence in their splendid lifeboat, under this sail,
and indeed they can only work their weighty lifeboat under sail, they
literally flew before the blast into the terrific surf on the Brake
Sand, six men being required to steer her!
By this time the little vessel named The Thistle had struck the Sand,
but not heavily enough to break her in pieces, and hurled forwards by a
great roller, she grated and struck, and then was hurled forwards
again, seas breaking over her and her hapless crew. So thick was the
air with the sea spray carried along in smoking spindrifts that the
Deal men lost sight of the wreck while they raced into the surf of the
Brake.
In that surf--which I beheld from the end of Ramsgate Pier, being
called there by imperative business, and thus deprived of the privilege
of being with the men--the lifeboat was apparently swallowed up. She
was filled over and over again, and sometimes there was not a man of
the crew visible to the coxswain, who stood aft steering in wind which
amounted to a hurricane, and, according to Greenwich Observatory,
representing a velocity of eighty miles an hour.
At this moment I was witness of the fine sight of the Ramsgate tug and
lifeboat steaming out of Ramsgate Harbour, brave coxswain Fish steering
the lifeboat, which plunged into the mad seas behind the tug, while
blinding clouds of spray flew over the crew. Those splendid 'storm
warriors' also rescued the crew of the Touch Not, wrecked that day on
the Ramsgate Sands; but just while they were steaming out of Ramsgate,
away on the horizon as far as I could bear to look against the fury of
the wind and rain, struggling alone and unaided in the surf of the
Brake Sand, I beheld the Deal lifeboat engaged in the rescue of The
Thistle.
There indeed before my eyes was a veritable wrestle with death for
their own lives and those of the wrecked vessel's crew. The latter had
beaten over the Brake Sand, and was anchored close outside it, the
British ensign hoisted 'Union down,' and sinking. Sinking lower and
lower, and only kept afloat by her cargo of nuts, her decks level with
the sea which poured over them. In the agony of despair her crew of
five had taken to their own small boat, being afraid, from signs known
to seamen and from the peculiar wallowing of their vessel, that she was
about to make her final plunge to the bottom.
But now the great blue lifeboat rode like a messenger from heaven
alongside them, and their brave preservers dragged them over her sides
into safety from the very mouth of destruction.
Amidst words of gratitude and with praise on their lips to a merciful
God, the utterly exhausted crew saw the Deal men set sail and fight
their way again through the storm landwards.
Looking back for an instant, all hands saw the appalling sight of the
vessel they had left turn on her side and sink to the bottom of the sea.
With colours flying, with proud and thankful hearts they reach
Broadstairs, whence I received the coxswain's telegram--'Crew all
saved; sprung foremast. R. Roberts.'
This gallant rescue was effected under the leadership of R. Roberts and
E. Hanger, the very same men who were foremost in the saving of the
Iron Crown. Their names should not be passed over in silence, nor
those of the brave fellows who back up with their skill, their
strength, and their lives the efforts of their coxswains.
In very truth the Deal boatmen (Deal, Walmer, and Kingsdown all
included) as a class of men are unique. As pilots, boatmen, and
fishermen they, with the Ramsgate men, stand alone, in their perils
around and on the great quicksand which guards their coast, and they
must always be of deep interest to the rest of their fellow-countrymen
by reason of their hardships, their skill, and their daring, and above
all by reason of their generous courage, consistent with their ancient
fame. Faults they have--let others tell of them--but it seems to me
that these brave Kentish boatmen are worthy descendants of their Saxon
forefathers who rallied to the banners of Earl Godwin and died at
Senlac in stubborn ring round Godwin's kingly son.
To them, the lifeboatmen and coxswains of Deal, Walmer, and Kingsdown,
friends and comrades, I dedicate these true histories of splendid
rescues wrought by them, the 'Heroes of the Goodwin Sands.'
[1] Crew of the Deal lifeboat on her first launch to the rescue of the
Iron Crown:--R. Wilds, R. Roberts, E. Hanger, G. Pain, J. Beney, G.
Porter, E. Foster, C. Larkins, G. Browne, J. May, A. Redsull, R.
Sneller, T. Goymer, R. Erridge.