THE LEDA
Swift on the shore, a hardy few
The Lifeboat man, with a gallant, gallant crew.
Some years ago I remember reading a tale, the hero of which was a youth
of nineteen. The scene was laid around the lifeboat of either Deal or
Walmer. There was supposed to be a ship in distress on the Goodwins,
and the night was dark and stormy. All the boatmen hung back, so the
story ran, from the work of rescue, and shrank from the black fury of
the gale, when the hero appeared on the scene, and roundly rating the
coxswain and crew, sprang into the lifeboat, pointed out exactly what
should be done, gave courage to all the quailing boatmen, and seizing
an oar--those heroic youths always 'seize' or 'grasp' an oar--pulled to
the Goodwin Sands 'in the teeth of a gale.' I notice these heroes
always prefer the 'teeth of a gale,' especially when pulling in a
lifeboat; nothing would apparently induce them to touch an oar if the
wind were fair or moderate.
Having rescued the crew of the distressed vessel, _solus fecit_--some
slight assistance having also been rendered by the lifeboatmen--the
lifeboat is of course overturned, and he swims ashore. Still, by some
extraordinary manoeuvre on the part of the wind 'in the teeth of the
gale,' bearing the beauteous heroine in his arms, with the usual result
and the inevitable opposition from the cruel uncle, who is actuated of
course by deadly hatred to all heroic youths of nineteen.
I only refer to this fiction to point out how absurd it is to represent
the brave men who man our lifeboats of the Goodwin Sands and Downs as
ever needing to be roused to action by passing and incompetent
strangers, who must be as ignorant of the perils to be faced as of the
work to be done. When the boatmen of Deal hang back in the
storm-blast, who else dare go?
Again, the three lifeboats of this locality always _sail_ to the
distant Goodwin Sands. To reach those sands, four to eight miles
distant, according as the wreck lies on the inner or the outer edge, in
one of our heavy lifeboats, if they were only propelled by oars, would
be impossible. As a matter of fact, the lifeboat services to the
Goodwins are invariably effected under sail. In other places, where
the wreck lies close to the land, and the lifeboats are comparatively
light, services are performed with oars, but not to the Goodwin Sands,
which have to be reached under sail, and from which the lifeboats have
to get home by sail, often against a gale off shore, eight miles to
windward--with no steam-tug to help them, but by their own unaided
skill, 'heart within and God o'erhead.'
[Illustration: 'All hands in the lifeboat!' From a photograph by W. H.
Franklin.]
The following simple statement--far below the sublime reality--will
prove, if proof be needed, that the men who live between the North and
South Forelands are not inferior to their fathers who sailed with Blake
and Nelson.
About one o'clock on Sunday, December 28, 1879, a gun from the South
Sand Head lightship, anchored about a mile south of the Goodwins, and
six miles from Deal, gave warning that a ship was on the dreadful
Sands. It was blowing a gale from the south-west, and the ships in the
Downs were riding and straining at both anchors. It was a gale to stop
your breath, or, as the sailors say, 'to blow your teeth down your
throat,' and the sea was white with 'spin drift.' As the various
congregations were streaming out of church, umbrellas were turned
inside out, hats were blown hopelessly, wildly seawards, and children
clung to their parents for shelter from the blinding spray along Deal
beach.
Just then, in answer to the boom of the distant gun, the bell rang to
'man the lifeboat,' and the Deal boatmen answered gallantly to the
summons. A rush was made for the lifebelts. The first and second
coxwains, Wilds and Roberts, were all ready, and prepared with the key
of the lifeboat house, as the rush of men was made.
The first thirteen men who succeeded in getting the belts with the two
coxwains formed the crew, and down the steep beach plunged the great
lifeboat to the rescue. There were three vessels on the Goodwins: the
fate of one is uncertain; another was a small vessel painted white,
supposed to be a Dane, and she suddenly disappeared before my eyes,
being probably lost with all hands; the third was a German barque, the
Leda, homeward bound to Hamburg, with a crew of seventeen 'all told.'
This ill-fated vessel while flying on the wings of the favouring
sou'-westerly gale, supposed by the too partial poet to be
A ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true loves,
Out of all the seas,
struck, while thus impelled at full speed before the wind, the inner
part of the S.E. spit of the Goodwin Sands. This is a most dangerous
spot, noted for the furious surf which breaks on it, and where the
writer has had a hard fight for his life with the sea.
The Germans, therefore, found this 'ladies' breeze' of Charles
Kingsley's splendid imagination more unfriendly to them than even 'the
black north-easter,' and their first contact with the Goodwin Sands was
a terrific crash while they were all at dinner, toasting absent friends
and each other with the kindly German _prosit_, and harmless clinking
of glasses, innocent of alcohol.
The shock against the Goodwins as the vessel slid from the crest of a
snowy roller upon the Sands, threw the cabin dinner table and
everything on it up to the cabin ceiling, and no words can describe the
wild hurry and helpless confusion on the sea-pelted motionless vessel,
as the foam and the spray beat clean over her.
Under her reefed mizzen and reefed storm foresail the lifeboat came
ramping over the four miles of tempestuous sea between the mainland and
the Goodwins, the sea getting bigger and breaking more at the top of
each wave, or 'peeling more,' as the Deal phrase goes, the farther they
went into the full fetch of the sea rolling up Channel. At last the
shallower water was reached about twenty feet in depth, where the
Goodwins commence.
Up to this point any ordinary good sea-boat of sufficient size and
power would have made as good weather of it as the lifeboat, but when
at this depth of twenty feet the great rollers from the southward began
to curl and topple and break into huge foam masses, and coming from
different directions to race with such enormous speed and power that
the pillars of foam thrown up by the collision were seen at the
distance of five miles, then no boat but a lifeboat, it should be
clearly understood, could live for five minutes, and even in a lifeboat
only the 'sons of the Vikings' dare to face it.
The wreck lay a long mile right into the very thick of this awful surf,
into which the Deal men boldly drove the lifeboat. As her great
forefoot was forced through the crest of each sea she sent showers of
spray over her mast and sails, and gleamed and glistened in the evening
sun as she struggled with the sea.
To the wrecked crew she was visible from afar, and her bright colours
and red sails told them unmistakeably she was a lifeboat. Now buried,
then borne sky-high, she appeared to them as almost an angelic being
expressly sent for their deliverance, and with joy and gratitude they
watched her conquering advance, and they knew that brave English hearts
were guiding the noble boat to their rescue.
When within about half a mile, the lifeboatmen saw the mainmast of the
vessel go over, and then down crash came the mizzenmast over the port
side, carrying with them in the ruin spars and rigging in confusion,
and all this wild mass still hung by the shrouds and other rigging
round the quarter and stem of the doomed ship, and were ever and anon
drawn against her by the sea, beating her planking with thunderous
noise and tremendous force.
The Leda's head was now lying S.W., or facing the sea, as after she
struck stem on, her nose remained fast, and the sea gradually beat her
stem round. There was running a very strong lee-tide, i.e. a tide
running in the same direction as the wind and sea, setting fiercely
across the Sands and outwards across the bows of the wreck. Owing,
therefore, to this strong cross tide and the great sea, every minute
breaking more furiously as the water was falling with the ebb-tide, the
greatest judgment was required by the coxswains to anchor in the right
spot, so as not to be swung hopelessly out of reach of the vessel by
the tide. All the bravery in the world would have failed to accomplish
the rescue, had the requisite experience been wanting. Nothing but
experience and the faculty of coming to a right decision in a moment,
amidst the appalling grandeur and real danger which surrounded them,
enabled the coxswains to anchor just in the right spot, having made the
proper allowance for the set of the tide, the sea, and the wind.
This decision had to be made in less time than I have taken to write
this sentence, and the lives of men hung thereon. All hands knew it,
so 'Now! Down foresail!' and the men rushed at the sail, and some to
the 'down-haul,' and got it in; the helm being put hard down, up, head
to sea, came the lifeboat, and overboard went the anchor, taking with
it coil after coil of the great white five-inch cable of Manilla hemp;
and to this they also bent a second cable, in order to ride by a long
scope, thus running out about 160 fathoms or 320 yards of cable. They
dropped anchor therefore nearly a fifth of a mile ahead of the wreck
and well on her starboard bow. Now bite, good anchor! and hold fast,
stout cable! for the lives of all depend on you.
If the cable parted, and the lifeboat struck the ship with full force,
coming astern or broadside on, not a man would have survived to tell
the tale, or if she once got astern of the wreck she could not have
worked to windward--against the wind and tide--to drop down as before.
No friendly steam-tug was at hand to help them to windward, in case of
the failure of this their first attempt, and both the lifeboatmen and
the crew of the wrecked vessel knew the stake at issue, and that this
was the last chance. But the crew of the lifeboat said one to another,
'We're bound to save them,' and with all the coolness of the race,
though strung to the highest pitch of excitement, veered down towards
the wreck till abreast of where her mainmast had been.
Clinging to the bulwarks and forerigging in a forlorn little cluster
were the Germans, waving to the lifeboat as she was gradually veered
down alongside, but still at a considerable distance from the wreck and
the dangerous tossing tangle of wreckage still hanging to her.
To effect communication with a wreck, the lifeboat is provided with a
piece of cane as thick as a man's little finger and about a foot long,
to which a lump of lead is firmly fastened. To the end of the cane a
long light line is attached, and the line is kept neatly coiled in a
bucket.
With this loaded cane in his right hand, a man stood on the gunwale of
the lifeboat; round his waist his comrades had passed a line, to
prevent him from being washed overboard his left hand grasped the
halyards, for the masts of the lifeboat are always left standing
alongside a wreck, and at the right moment with all his might he threw
the cane. Hissing through the air, it carried with it right on board
the wreck its own light line, which at great risk a German sailor
seized. Hauling it in, he found the lifeboat had bent on to it a
weightier rope, and thus communication was effected between the
lifeboat and the wreck.
But though the lifeboat rode plunging alongside, she rode alongside at
a distance of twenty yards from the wreck, and had to be steered and
sheered, though at anchor, just as if she was in motion. At the helm,
therefore, stood the two coxswains, while round the foremast and close
to the fore air-box grouped the lifeboatmen. Wave after wave advanced,
breaking over them in clouds, taking their breath away and drenching
them.
The coxswains were watching for a smooth to sheer the lifeboat's head
closer to the wreck, and the wearied sailors on the wreck were
anxiously watching their efforts, when, as will happen at irregular
intervals, which are beyond calculation, a great sea advanced, and was
seen towering afar. 'Hold on, men, for your lives!' sang out the
coxswains, and on came the hollow green sea, so far above their heads
that it seemed as they gazed into its terrible transparency that the
very sky had become green, and it broke into the lifeboat, hoisting her
up to the vessel's foreyard, and then plunging her bodily down and down.
In this mighty hoist the port bilge-piece of the lifeboat as she
descended struck the top rail of the vessel's bulwarks, and the
collision stove in her fore air-box. That she was not turned clean
over by the shock, throwing out of her, and then falling on, her crew,
was only by God's mercy. All attempts to help the seamen on the wreck
in distress were suspended and buried in the wave. The lifeboatmen
held on with both arms round the thwarts in deadly wrestle and
breathless for dear life. Looking forwards as the boat emerged, the
coxswains, standing aft on their raised platform, could only see
boiling foam. Looking aft as the noble lifeboat emptied herself, the
crew saw the two coxswains waist deep in froth, and the head of the
Norman post aft was invisible and under water. We were all 'knocked
silly by that sea,' said the men, and they found that two of their
number had been swept aft and forced under the thwarts or seats of the
lifeboat.
And now they turned to again--no one being missing--alone in that wild
cauldron of waters, with undaunted courage, to the work of rescue. Two
lines leading from the ship to the lifeboat were rigged up, the ends of
those lines being held by one of the lifeboatmen, George Philpot, who
had to tighten and slack them as the lifeboat rose, or when a sea came.
Spread-eagled on this rough ladder or cat's cradle, holding on for
their lives, the German crew had to come, and Philpot, who held the
lines in the lifeboat--no easy task--was lashed to the lifeboat's mast,
to leave his hands free and prevent his being swept overboard himself.
A space of about thirty feet separated the wreck and the lifeboat, as
the latter's head had to get a hard sheer off from the ship, to
counterbalance the tide and sea sucking and driving her towards the
wreck, and over this dangerous chasm the German sailors came.
Still the giant seas swept into the lifeboat, and again and again the
lifeboat freed herself from the water, and floated buoyant, in spite of
the damage done to her airbox, so great was her reserve of floating
power. This her crew knew, and preserved unbounded confidence in the
noble structure under their feet, especially as they heard the clicks
of her valves at work and freeing her of water.
In the intervals between the raging seas, twelve of the crew had now
been got into the lifeboat, when one man seeing her sheer closer than
usual towards the vessel, jumped from the top rail towards the
lifeboat. Instead of catching her at the propitious moment when she
was balanced on the summit of a wave, he sprang when she was rapidly
descending; this added ten feet to the height of his jump, and he fell
groaning into the lifeboat.
Having put the rescued men on the starboard side of the lifeboat, to
make room for the descent of the others, great seas again came fiercely
and furiously. As the tide was falling fast, the water became
shallower, and all around was heard only the hoarse roar of the storm,
and there was seen only the advancing lines of billows, tossing their
snowy manes as they came on with speed.
Again and again the lifeboat was submerged, and the man lashed to the
mast had to ease off the lines he held till the seas had passed.
'It was as if the heavens was falling atop of us; but we had no fear
then, we were all a-takin' of it as easy as if we was ashore, but it
was afterwards we thought of it.'
But not so the rescued crew who were in the lifeboat; some of them
wanted to get back to the ship, which was fast breaking up, but one of
their number had, strange to say, been rescued before--twice before,
some say--by the same lifeboat on the very same Goodwin Sands, and he
encouraged his comrades and said, 'She's all right! she's done it
before! Good boat! good boat!' And then the rest of the crew came
down, or rather along the two lines, held fast and eased off as before,
till, last man down, or rather along the lines, came the captain.
'Come along, captain! Come along. There's a booser coming!' and
Roberts aft, second coxswain, strained at the helm to sheer the
lifeboat off, before the sea came.
It came towering. 'Quick! Captain! Come!' Had the captain rapidly
come along the lines, he would have been safe in the lifeboat, but he
hesitated just for an instant, and then the sea came--a moving mountain
of broken water, one of the most appalling objects in Nature--breaking
over the foreyard of the wreck, sweeping everything before it on the
deck, and covering lifeboat and men. Everything was blotted out by the
green water, as they once again wrestled in their strong grasp of the
thwarts, while the roar and smother of drowning rang in their ears.
But there is One who holds the winds in His fist and the sea in the
hollow of His hand, and once again by His mercy not a man was missing,
and again rose the lifeboat, and gasping and half-blinded, they saw
that the ropes along which the captain was coming were twisted one
across the other, and that, though he had escaped the full force of the
great wave, the captain of the Leda was hanging by one hand, and on the
point of dropping into the wild turmoil beneath, exhausted. Another
second would have been too late, when, quick as lightning, the
lifeboatman, G. Philpot, still being lashed to the mast, by a dexterous
jerk, chucked one of the ropes under the leg of the clinging and
exhausted man, and then, once again, they cried, 'Come along! Now's
your time!' And on he came; but as the ropes again slacked as the
lifeboat rose, fell into the sea, though still grasping the lines,
while strong and generous hands dragged him safe into the lifeboat--the
last man. All saved! And now for home!
They did not dare to haul up to their anchor, had that been possible,
lest before they got sail on the lifeboat to drag her away from the
wreck she should be carried back against the wreck, or under her bows,
when all would have perished. So the coxswains wisely decided to set
the foresail, and then when all was ready, the men all working
splendidly together, 'Out axe, lads! and cut the cable!' Away to the
right or starboard faintly loomed the land, five long miles distant.
Between them and it raged a mile of breakers throwing up their spiky
foaming crests, while their regular lines of advance were every now and
then crossed by a galloping breaking billow coming mysteriously and yet
furiously from another direction altogether, the result being a
collision of waters and pillars and spouts of foam shot up into the
air. Through this broken water they had to go--there was no other way
home, and 'there are no back doors at sea.' So down came the keen axe,
and the last strand of the cable was cut.
Then they hoisted just a corner of the foresail, to cast her head
towards the land and away from the wreck--more they dared not hoist,
lest they should capsize in such broken water, the wind still blowing
very hard. As her head paid off, a big sea was seen coming high above
the others. 'Haul down the foresail, quick!' was the cry; but it was
too late, and the monstrous sea struck the bows and burst into the
sail, filling and overpowering the lifeboat and the helm and the
steersmen--for both Wilds and Roberts were straining at the yoke
lines--and hurled the lifeboat like a feather right round before the
wind, and she shot onwards with and amidst this sea, almost into the
deadly jangle of broken masts and great yards and tops, which with all
their rigging and shrouds and hamper were tossing wildly in the boiling
surf astern of the wreck.
But the noble deed was not to end in disaster. Beaten and hustled as
the Deal lifeboatmen were with this great sea, there was time enough
for those skilled and daring men to set the foresail again, to drag her
clear before they got into the wreckage. 'Sheet home the foresail, and
sit steady, my lads,' said Roberts, 'and we'll soon be through!' and
they made for the dangerous broken water, which was now not more than
twelve feet deep. The coxswains kept encouraging the men, 'Cheer up,
my lads!' And then, 'Look out, all hands! A sea coming!' And then,
'Five minutes more and we'll be through.' And so with her goodly
freight of thirty-two souls, battered but not beaten, reeling to and
fro, and staggering and plunging on through the surf, each moment
approaching safety and deep water--on pressed the lifeboat.
Now gleams of hope broke out as the lifeboat lived and prospered in the
battle, and at last the rescued Germans saved 'from the jaws of death,'
and yet hardly believing they were saved, sang out, though feeble and
exhausted, 'Hurrah! Cheer, O.' And inside the breakers the Kingsdown
lifeboat, on their way to help, responded with an answering cheer.
Then we may be well sure that from our own silent, stubborn Deal men,
many a deep-felt prayer of gratitude, unuttered it may be by the lips,
was sent up from the heart to Him, the 'Eternal Father strong to save,'
while the Germans now broke openly out into 'Danke Gott! Danke Gott!'
and soon afterwards were landed--grateful beyond expression for their
marvellous deliverance--on Deal beach[1].
With conspicuous exceptions, few notice and fewer still remember those
gallant deeds done by those heroes of our coast.
Few realize that those poor men have at home an aged mother perhaps
dependent on them, or children, or 'a nearer one yet and a dearer,' and
that when they 'darkling face the billow' the possibility of disaster
to themselves assumes a more harrowing shape, when they think of loved
ones left helpless and destitute behind them. Riches cannot remove the
pang of bereavement, but alas! for 'the _comfortless_ troubles of the
needy, and because of the deep sighing of the poor.' And yet the brave
fellows never hang back and never falter. There ought to be, there is
amongst them, a trust in the living God.
They apparently think little of their own splendid deeds, and seldom
speak of them, especially to strangers; yet they are part, and not the
least glorious part, of our 'rough island story.' The recital of them
makes our hearts thrill, and revives in us the memories of our youth
and our early worship of heroic daring in a righteous cause. God speed
the lifeboat and her crew!
[1] The names of the crew who on this occasion manned the lifeboat were
Robert Wilds (coxswain 1st), R. Roberts (coxswain 2nd), Thos. Cribben,
Thos. Parsons, G. Pain, Chas. Hall, Thomas Roberts, Will Baker, John
Holbourn, Ed. Pain, George Philpot, R. Williams, W. Adams, H. Foster,
Robt. Redsull. Of these men, poor Tom Cribben never recovered
[Transcriber's note: from] the exposure and the strain.