CHAPTER XIII_Heroes of the Goodwin Sands

THE RAMSGATE LIFEBOAT

Not once or twice in our rough island story

The path of duty was the way to glory.

A book bearing the title of _Heroes of the Goodwin Sands_, would hardly

be complete without a chapter devoted to the celebrated Ramsgate

lifeboat and her brave coxswain and crew. To them, by virtue of Mr.

Gilmore's well-known book, the title of _Storm Warriors_ almost of

right belongs, but I am well aware they will not deny their daring and

generous rivals of Deal a share in that stirring appellation, and I

know that their friends, the Deal boatmen, on their part gladly admit

that the Ramsgate lifeboatmen are also among the 'Heroes of the Goodwin

Sands.'

The first lifeboat placed in Ramsgate was called the Northumberland.

The next was called the Bradford, in memory of the interesting fact

that the money required to build and equip her, about L600, was

subscribed in an hour on the Bradford Exchange, and within the hour the

news was flashed to London. Since then the rescues effected by the

Ramsgate lifeboat have become household words wherever the English

tongue is spoken.

Nor less celebrated than the lifeboat is her mighty and invaluable ally

the steam-tug Aid, so often captained in the storm-blast by Alfred

Page, her brave and experienced master. This powerful tug boat has

steam up night and day, ready to rush the lifeboat out into the teeth

of any gale, when it would be otherwise impossible for the lifeboat to

get out of the harbour. The names of Coxswain Jarman, and more

recently of Coxswain Charles Fish, the hero of the Indian Chief rescue,

will long thrill the hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen who read

that wondrous story of the sea. It may be fairly said that no storms

that blow in these latitudes can keep the Ramsgate tug and lifeboat

back, when summoned to the rescue.

I had the privilege of standing on Ramsgate pier-head on November 11,

1891, when amidst the cheers of the crowd, who indeed could hardly keep

their feet, the tug and lifeboat slowly struggled out against the great

gale which blew that day. The lifeboat is towed a long way astern of

the tug-boat, to the full scope of a sixty fathom, five inch, white

Manilla hawser, and on the day I speak of, as the lifeboat felt the

giant strain of the tug-boat and was driven into the seas outside the

harbour, every wave broke into wild spray mast high over the lifeboat

and into the faces of her crew.

The crew are obtained from a body of 150 enrolled volunteers. The

first ten of these who get into the lifeboat when the rocket signal

goes up from the pier-head form on that occasion the crew of the

lifeboat. In addition to these the two coxswains, by virtue of their

office, raise the total number to twelve. The celebrated coxswain,

Charles Fish, was also harbour boatman at Ramsgate, and slept in a

watch-house at the end of the pier in a hammock. He was always first

aroused by the watch to learn that rockets were going up from some

distant lightship signifying 'a ship on the Goodwins.' With him rested

the decision to send up the answering rocket from the pier-head, upon

seeing which the police and coastguard called the lifeboat crew. Then

would come the rush for a place.

The coxswain had to decide what signals were to be regarded as false

alarms, and there are many such; sometimes, it is said in Ramsgate, the

flash of the Calais lighthouse is taken for a ship burning flares and

in distress on the Goodwins, and draws the signal guns from the

lightships. Sometimes a hayrick on fire is mistaken for a vessel's

appealing signal; sometimes the signals, of enormous and unnecessary

size, which the French trawlers burn to each other at night around the

Goodwins, set both the lightships and lifeboats all astray; and the

coxswains of the lifeboats, both at Ramsgate and Deal, have to be on

their guard against these delusive agencies. As the coxswains in both

of these places are men of exceptional shrewdness and ability, mistakes

are few and far between. The coxswain of a lifeboat ought to have the

eye of a hawk and the heart of a lion, and, I will add, the tenderness

and pity of a woman.

Never was the possession of these qualities more finely exhibited than

by coxswain Charles Fish and the crew of the Ramsgate lifeboat in the

rescue of the survivors of the Indian Chief from the Long Sand on

January 5 and 6, 1881. The following account has been taken by

permission from the _Lifeboat Journal_ for February, 1881, including

the extracts from the _Daily Telegraph_ and the admirable engraving.

The accompanying graphic accounts of the wreck of the Indian Chief, and

of the noble rescue of a portion of her crew by the Bradford

self-righting lifeboat, stationed at Ramsgate, appeared in the _Daily

Telegraph_ on January 11 and 18, as related by the mate of the vessel

and the coxswain of the lifeboat. The lifeboats of the National

Lifeboat Institution stationed at Aldborough (Suffolk), Clacton and

Harwich (Essex), also proceeded to the scene of danger, but

unfortunately were unable to reach the wreck. Happily the Bradford

lifeboat persevered, amidst difficulties, hardships, and dangers hardly

ever surpassed in the lifeboat service; but her reward was indeed great

in saving eleven of our fellow-creatures, who must have succumbed, as

their mates had a few hours previously, to their terrible exposure in

bitterly cold weather for nearly thirty hours.

[Illustration: The lifeboat Bradford at the wreck of the Indian Chief.]

Indeed, Captain Braine, the zealous Ramsgate harbour-master, states in

an official letter of January 8, in reference to this noble service,

that--

'Of all the meritorious services performed by the Ramsgate tug and

lifeboat, I consider this one of the best. The decision the coxswain

and crew arrived at to remain till daylight, which was in effect to

continue for fourteen hours cruising about with the sea continually

breaking over them in a heavy gale and tremendous sea, proves, I

consider, their gallantry and determination to do their duty. The

coxswain and crew of the lifeboat speak in the highest terms of her

good qualities; they state that when sailing across the Long Sand,

after leaving the wreck, the seas were tremendous, and the boat behaved

most admirably. Some of the shipwrecked crew have since stated that

they were fearful, on seeing the frightful-looking seas they were

passing through, that they were in more danger in the lifeboat than

when lashed to the mast of their sunken ship, as they thought it

impossible for any boat to live through such a sea.'

The following are the newspaper accounts of a lifeboat service that

will always be memorable in the annals of the services of the lifeboats

of the National Lifeboat Institution; and many and many such services

reflect honour alike on the humanity of the age in which we live, and

on the organisation and liberality which have prompted and called them

into existence.

'On the afternoon of Thursday, January 6, I made one of a great crowd

assembled on the Ramsgate east pier to witness the arrival of the

survivors of the crew of a large ship which had gone ashore on the Long

Sand early on the preceding Wednesday morning. A heavy gale had been

blowing for two days from the north and east; it had moderated somewhat

at noon, but still stormed fiercely over the surging waters, though a

brilliant blue sky arched overhead and a sun shone that made the sea a

dazzling surface of broken silver all away in the south and west.

Plunging bows under as she came along, the steamer towed the lifeboat

through a haze of spray; but amid this veil of foam, the flags of the

two vessels denoting that shipwrecked men were in the boat streamed

like well-understood words from the mastheads. The people crowded

thickly about the landing-steps when the lifeboat entered the harbour.

Whispers flew from mouth to mouth. Some said the rescued men were

Frenchmen, others that they were Danes, but all were agreed that there

was a dead body among them. One by one the survivors came along the

pier, the most dismal procession it was ever my lot to behold--eleven

live but scarcely living men, most of them clad in oilskins, and

walking with bowed backs, drooping heads and nerveless arms. There was

blood on the faces of some, circled with a white encrustation of salt,

and this same salt filled the hollows of their eyes and streaked their

hair with lines which looked like snow. The first man, who was the

chief mate, walked leaning heavily on the arm of the kindly-hearted

harbour-master, Captain Braine. The second man, whose collar-bone was

broken, moved as one might suppose a galvanised corpse would. A third

man's wan face wore a forced smile, which only seemed to light up the

piteous, underlying expression of the features. They were all

saturated with brine; they were soaked with sea-water to the very

marrow of the bones. Shivering, and with a stupefied rolling of the

eyes, their teeth clenched, their chilled fingers pressed into the

palms of their hands, they passed out of sight. As the last man came I

held my breath; he was alive when taken from the wreck, but had died in

the boat. Four men bore him on their shoulders, and a flag flung over

the face mercifully concealed what was most shocking of the dreadful

sight; but they had removed his boots and socks to chafe his feet

before he died, and had slipped a pair of mittens over the toes, which

left the ankles naked. This was the body of Howard Primrose Fraser,

the second mate of the lost ship, and her drowned captain's brother. I

had often met men newly-rescued from shipwreck, but never remember

having beheld more mental anguish and physical suffering than was

expressed in the countenances and movements of these eleven sailors.

Their story as told to me is a striking and memorable illustration of

endurance and hardship on the one hand, and of the finest heroical

humanity on the other, in every sense worthy to be known to the British

public. I got the whole narrative direct from the chief mate, Mr.

William Meldrum Lloyd, and it shall be related here as nearly as

possible in his own words.

No. 1.--_The Mate's Account_.

'Our ship was the Indian Chief, of 1238 tons register; our skipper's

name was Fraser, and we were bound with a general cargo to Yokohama.

There were twenty-nine souls on board, counting the North-country

pilot. We were four days out from Middlesbrough, but it had been thick

weather ever since the afternoon of the Sunday on which we sailed. All

had gone well with us, however, so far, and on Wednesday morning, at

half-past two, we made the Knock Light. You must know, sir, that

hereabouts the water is just a network of shoals; for to the southward

lies the Knock, and close over against it stretches the Long Sand, and

beyond, down to the westward, is the Sunk Sand. Shortly after the

Knock Light had hove in sight, the wind shifted to the eastward and

brought a squall of rain. We were under all plain sail at the time,

with the exception of the royals, which were furled, and the main sail

that hung in the buntlines. The Long Sand was to leeward, and finding

that we were drifting that way the order was given to put the ship

about. It was very dark, the wind breezing up sharper and sharper, and

cold as death. The helm was put down, but the main braces fouled, and

before they could be cleared the vessel had missed stays and was in

irons. We then went to work to wear the ship, but there was much

confusion, the vessel heeling over, and all of us knew that the Sands

were close aboard. The ship paid off, but at a critical moment the

spanker-boom sheet fouled the wheel; still, we managed to get the

vessel round, but scarcely were the braces belayed and the ship on the

starboard tack, when she struck the ground broadside on. She was a

soft-wood built ship, and she trembled, sir, as though she would go to

pieces at once like a pack of cards. Sheets and halliards were let go,

but no man durst venture aloft. Every moment threatened to bring the

spars crushing about us, and the thundering and beating of the canvas

made the masts buckle and jump like fishing-rods. We then kindled a

great flare and sent up rockets, and our signals were answered by the

Sunk Lightship and the Knock. We could see one another's faces in the

light of the big blaze, and sung out cheerily to keep our hearts up;

and, indeed, sir, although we all knew that our ship was hard and fast

and likely to leave her bones on that sand, we none of us reckoned upon

dying. The sky had cleared, the easterly wind made the stars sharp and

bright, and it was comforting to watch the lightships' rockets rushing

up and bursting into smoke and sparks over our heads, for they made us

see that our position was known, and they were as good as an assurance

that help would come along soon and that we need not lose heart. But

all this while the wind was gradually sweeping up into a gale--and oh,

the cold, good Lord! the bitter cold of that wind!

'It seemed as long as a month before the morning broke, and just before

the grey grew broad in the sky, one of the men yelled out something,

and then came sprawling and splashing aft to tell us that he had caught

sight of the sail of a lifeboat[1] dodging among the heavy seas. We

rushed to the side to look, half-blinded by the flying spray and the

wind, and clutching at whatever offered to our hands, and when at last

we caught sight of the lifeboat we cheered, and the leaping of my heart

made me feel sick and deathlike. As the dawn brightened we could see

more plainly, and it was frightful to notice how the men looked at her,

meeting the stinging spray borne upon the wind without a wink of the

eye, that they might not lose sight of the boat for an instant; the

salt whitening their faces all the while like a layer of flour as they

watched. She was a good distance away, and she stood on and off, on

and off, never coming closer, and evidently shirking the huge seas

which were now boiling around us. At last she hauled her sheet aft,

put her helm over, and went away. One of our crew groaned, but no

other man uttered a sound, and we returned to the shelter of the

deckhouses.

'Though the gale was not at its height when the sun rose, it was not

far from it. We plucked up spirits again when the sun shot out of the

raging sea, but as we lay broadside on to the waves, the sheets of

flying water soon made the sloping decks a dangerous place for a man to

stand on, and the crew and officers kept the shelter of the

deck-cabins, though the captain and his brother and I were constantly

going out to see if any help was coming. But now the flood was making,

and this was a fresh and fearful danger, as we all knew, for at sunrise

the water had been too low to knock the ship out of her sandy bed, but

as the tide rose it lifted the vessel, bumping and straining her

frightfully. The pilot advised the skipper to let go the starboard

anchor, hoping that the set of the tide would slue the ship's stern

round, and make her lie head on to the seas; so the anchor was dropped,

but it did not alter the position of the ship. To know, sir, what the

cracking and straining of that vessel was like, as bit by bit she

slowly went to pieces, you must have been aboard of her. When she

broke her back a sort of panic seized many of us, and the captain

roared out to the men to get the boats over, and see if any use could

be made of them. Three boats were launched, but the second boat, with

two hands in her, went adrift, and was instantly engulphed, and the

poor fellows in her vanished just as you might blow out a light. The

other boats filled as soon as they touched the water. There was no

help for us in that way, and again we withdrew to the cabins.

A little before five o'clock in the afternoon a huge sea swept over the

vessel, clearing the decks fore and aft, and leaving little but the

uprights of the deck-houses standing. It was a dreadful sea, but we

knew worse was behind it, and that we must climb the rigging if we

wanted to prolong our lives. The hold was already full of water, and

portions of the deck had been blown out, so that everywhere great

yawning gulfs met the eye, with the black water washing almost flush.

Some of the men made for the fore-rigging, but the captain shouted to

all hands to take to the mizzenmast, as that one, in his opinion, was

the securest. A number of the men who were scrambling forward returned

on hearing the captain sing out, but the rest held on and gained the

foretop. Seventeen of us got over the mizzentop, and with our knives

fell to hacking away at such running gear as we could come at to serve

as lashings. None of us touched the mainmast, for we all knew, now the

ship had broken her back, that that spar was doomed, and the reason why

the captain had called to the men to come aft was because he was afraid

that when the mainmast went it would drag the foremast, that rocked in

its step with every move, with it. I was next the captain in the

mizzentop, and near him was his brother, a stout-built, handsome young

fellow, twenty-two years old, as fine a specimen of the English sailor

as ever I was shipmate with. He was calling about him cheerfully,

bidding us not be down-hearted, and telling us to look sharply around

for the lifeboats. He helped several of the benumbed men to lash

themselves, saying encouraging things to them as he made them fast. As

the sun sank the wind grew more freezing, and I saw the strength of

some of the men lashed over me leaving them fast. The captain shook

hands with me, and, on the chance of my being saved, gave me some

messages to take home, too sacred to be written down, sir. He likewise

handed me his watch and chain, and I put them in my pocket. The canvas

streamed in ribbons from the yards, and the noise was like a continuous

roll of thunder overhead. It was dreadful to look down and watch the

decks ripping up, and notice how every sea that rolled over the wreck

left less of her than it found.

'The moon went quickly away--it was a young moon with little power--but

the white water and the starlight kept the night from being black, and

the frame of the vessel stood out like a sketch done in ink every time

the dark seas ran clear of her and left her visible upon the foam.

There was no talking, no calling to one another, the men hung in the

topmast rigging like corpses, and I noticed the second mate to windward

of his brother in the top, sheltering him, as best he could, poor

fellow, with his body from the wind that went through our skins like

showers of arrows. On a sudden I took it into my head to fancy that

the mizzenmast wasn't so secure as the foremast. It came into my mind

like a fright, and I called to the captain that I meant to make for the

foretop. I don't know whether he heard me or whether he made any

answer. Maybe it was a sort of craze of mine for the moment, but I was

wild with eagerness to leave that mast as soon as ever I began to fear

for it. I cast my lashings adrift and gave a look at the deck, and saw

that I must not go that way if I did not want to be drowned. So I

swung myself into the crosstrees, and swung myself on to the stay, so

reaching the maintop, and then I scrambled on to the main topmast

crosstrees, and went hand over hand down the topmast stay into the

foretop. Had I reflected before I left the mizzentop, I should not

have believed that I had the strength to work my way for'rards like

that; my hands felt as if they were skinned and my finger-joints

appeared to have no use in them. There were nine or ten men in the

foretop, all lashed and huddled together. The mast rocked sharply, and

the throbbing of it to the blowing of the great tatters of canvas was a

horrible sensation. From time to time they sent up rockets from the

Sunk lightship--once every hour, I think--but we had long since ceased

to notice those signals. There was not a man but thought his time was

come, and, though death seemed terrible when I looked down upon the

boiling waters below, yet the anguish of the cold almost killed the

craving for life.

'It was now about three o'clock on Thursday morning; the air was full

of the strange, dim light of the foam and the stars, and I could very

plainly see the black swarm of men in the top and rigging of the

mizzenmast. I was looking that way, when a great sea fell upon the

hull of the ship with a fearful crash; a moment after, the mainmast

went. It fell quickly, and as it fell it bore down the mizzenmast.

There was a horrible noise of splintering wood and some piercing cries,

and then another great sea swept over the after-deck, and we who were

in the foretop looked and saw the stumps of the two masts sticking up

from the bottom of the hold, the mizzenmast slanting over the bulwarks

into the water, and the men lashed to it drowning. There never was a

more shocking sight, and the wonder is that some of us who saw it did

not go raving mad. The foremast still stood, complete to the royal

mast and all the yards across, but every instant I expected to find

myself hurling through the air. By this time the ship was completely

gutted, the upper part of her a mere frame of ribs, and the gale still

blew furiously; indeed, I gave up hope when the mizzenmast fell and I

saw my shipmates drowning on it.

'It was half an hour after this that a man, who was jammed close

against me, pointed out into the darkness and cried in a wild hoarse

voice, "Isn't that a steamer's light?" I looked, but what with grief

and suffering and cold, I was nearly blinded, and could see nothing.

But presently another man called out that he could see a light, and

this was echoed by yet another; so I told them to keep their eyes upon

it and watch if it moved. They said by and by that it was stationary;

and though we could not guess that it meant anything good for us, yet

this light heaving in sight and our talking of it gave us some comfort.

When the dawn broke we saw the smoke of a steamer, and agreed that it

was her light we had seen; but I made nothing of that smoke, and was

looking heartbrokenly at the mizzenmast and the cluster of drowned men

washing about it, when a loud cry made me turn my head, and then I saw

a lifeboat under a reefed foresail heading direct for us. It was a

sight, sir, to make one crazy with joy, and it put the strength of ten

men into every one of us. A man named Gillmore--I think it was

Gillmore--stood up and waved a long strip of canvas. But I believe

they had seen there were living men aboard us before that signal was

made.

'The boat had to cross the broken water to fetch us, and in my agony of

mind I cried out, "She'll never face it! She'll leave us when she sees

that water!" for the sea was frightful all to windward of the Sand and

over it, a tremendous play of broken waters, raging one with another,

and making the whole surface resemble a boiling cauldron. Yet they

never swerved a hair's-breadth. Oh, sir, she was a noble boat! We

could see her crew--twelve of them--sitting at the thwarts, all looking

our way, motionless as carved figures, and there was not a stir among

them as, in an instant, the boat leapt from the crest of a towering sea

right into the monstrous broken tumble.

'The peril of these men, who were risking their lives for ours, made us

forget our own situation. Over and over again the boat was buried, but

as regularly did she emerge with her crew fixedly looking our way, and

their oilskins and the light-coloured side of the boat sparkling in the

sunshine, while the coxswain, leaning forward from the helm, watched

our ship with a face of iron.

'By this time we knew that this boat was here to save us, and that she

_would_ save us, and, with wildly beating hearts, we unlashed

ourselves, and dropped over the top into the rigging. We were all

sailors, you see, sir, and knew what the lifeboatmen wanted, and what

was to be done. Swift as thought we had bent a number of ropes' ends

together, and securing a piece of wood to this line, threw it

overboard, and let it drift to the boat. It was seized, a hawser made

fast, and we dragged the great rope on board. By means of this hawser

the lifeboatmen hauled their craft under our quarter, clear of the

raffle. But there was no such rush made for her as might be thought.

No! I owe it to my shipmates to say this. Two of them shinned out

upon the mizzenmast to the body of the second mate, that was lashed

eight or nine feet away over the side, and got him into the boat before

they entered it themselves. I heard the coxswain of the boat--Charles

Fish by name, the fittest man in the world for that berth and this

work--cry out, "Take that poor fellow in there!" and he pointed to the

body of the captain, who was lashed in the top with his arms over the

mast, and his head erect and his eyes wide open. But one of our crew

called out, "He's been dead four hours, sir," and then the rest of us

scrambled into the boat, looking away from the dreadful group of

drowned men that lay in a cluster round the prostrate mast.

'The second mate was still alive, but a maniac; it was heartbreaking to

hear his broken, feeble cries for his brother, but he lay quiet after a

bit, and died in half an hour, though we chafed his feet and poured rum

into his mouth, and did what men in our miserable plight could for a

fellow-sufferer. Nor were we out of danger yet, for the broken water

was enough to turn a man's hair grey to look at. It was a fearful sea

for us men to find ourselves in the midst of, after having looked at it

from a great height, and I felt at the beginning almost as though I

should have been safer on the wreck than in that boat. Never could I

have believed that so small a vessel could meet such a sea and live.

Yet she rose like a duck to the great roaring waves which followed her,

draining every drop of water from her bottom as she was hove up, and

falling with terrible suddenness into a hollow, only to bound like a

living thing to the summit of the next gigantic crest.

'When I looked at the lifeboat's crew and thought of our situation a

short while since, and our safety now, and how to rescue us these

great-hearted men had imperilled their own lives, I was unmanned; I

could not thank them, I could not trust myself to speak. They told us

they had left Ramsgate Harbour early on the preceding afternoon, and

had fetched the Knock at dusk, and not seeing our wreck had lain to in

that raging sea, suffering almost as severely as ourselves, all through

the piercing tempestuous night. What do you think of such a service,

sir? How can such devoted heroism be written of, so that every man who

can read shall know how great and beautiful it is? Our own sufferings

came to us as a part of our calling as seamen. But theirs was bravely

courted and endured for the sake of their fellow-creatures. Believe

me, sir, it was a splendid piece of service; nothing grander in its way

was ever done before, even by Englishmen. I am a plain seaman, and can

say no more about it all than this. But when I think of what must have

come to us eleven men before another hour had passed, if the lifeboat

crew had not run down to us, I feel like a little child, sir, and my

heart grows too full for my eyes.'

Two days had elapsed (continues the writer in the _Daily Telegraph_)

since the rescue of the survivors of the crew of the Indian Chief, and

I was gazing with much interest at the victorious lifeboat as she lay

motionless upon the water of the harbour. It was a very calm day, the

sea stretching from the pier-sides as smooth as a piece of green silk,

and growing vague in the wintry haze of the horizon, while the white

cliffs were brilliant with the silver sunshine. It filled the mind

with strange and moving thoughts to look at that sleeping lifeboat,

with her image as sharp as a coloured photograph shining in the clear

water under her, and then reflect upon the furious conflict she had

been concerned in only two nights before, the freight of half-drowned

men that had loaded her, the dead body on her thwart, the bitter cold

of the howling gale, the deadly peril that had attended every heave of

the huge black seas. Within a few hundred yards of her lay the tug,

the sturdy steamer that had towed her to the Long Sand, that had held

her astern all night, and brought her back safe on the following

afternoon. The tug had suffered much from the frightful tossing she

had received, and her injuries had not yet been dealt with; she had

lost her sponsons, her starboard side-house was gone, the port side of

her bridge had been started and the iron railing warped, her decks

still seemed dank from the remorseless washing, her funnel was brown

with rust, and the tough craft looked a hundred years old. Remembering

what these vessels had gone through, how they had but two days since

topped a long series of merciful and dangerous errands by as brilliant

an act of heroism and humanity as any on record, it was difficult to

behold them without a quickened pulse. I recalled the coming ashore of

their crews, the lifeboatmen with their great cork-jackets around them,

the steamer's men in streaming oilskins, the faces of many of them

livid with the cold, their eyes dim with the bitter vigil they had kept

and the furious blowing of the spray; and I remembered the bright smile

that here and there lighted up the weary faces, as first one and then

another caught sight of a wife or a sister in the crowd waiting to

greet and accompany the brave hearts to the warmth of their humble

homes. I felt that while these crews' sufferings and the courage and

resolution they had shown remained unwritten, only half of the very

stirring and manful story had been recorded. The narrative, as related

to me by the coxswain of the lifeboat, is a necessary pendant to the

tale told by the mate of the wrecked ship; and as he and his

colleagues, both of the lifeboat and the steam-tug, want no better

introduction than their own deeds to the sympathy and attention of the

public, let Charles Edward Fish begin his yarn without further preface.

No. 2.--_The Coxswain's Account_.

'News had been brought to Ramsgate, as you know, sir, that a large ship

was ashore on the Long Sand, and Captain Braine, the harbour-master,

immediately ordered the tug and lifeboat to proceed to her assistance.

It was blowing a heavy gale of wind, though it came much harder some

hours afterwards; and the moment we were clear of the piers we felt the

sea. Our boat is considered a very fine one. I know there is no

better on the coasts, and there are only two in Great Britain bigger.

She was presented to the Lifeboat Institution by Bradford, and is

called after that town. But it is ridiculous to talk of bigness when

it means only forty-two feet long, and when a sea is raging round you

heavy enough to swamp a line-of-battle ship. I had my eye on the

tug--named the Vulcan, sir--when she met the first of the seas, and she

was thrown up like a ball, and you could see her starboard paddle

revolving in the air high enough out for a coach to pass under; and

when she struck the hollow she dished a sea over her bows that left

only the stern of her showing. We were towing head to wind, and the

water was flying over the boat in clouds. Every man of us was soaked

to the skin, in spite of our overalls, by the time we had brought the

Ramsgate Sands abeam; but there were a good many miles to be gone over

before we should fetch the Knock lightship, and so you see, sir, it was

much too early for us to take notice that things were not over and

above comfortable.

'We got out the sail-cover--a piece of tarpaulin--to make a shelter of,

and rigged it up against the mast, seizing it to the burtons; but it

hadn't been up two minutes when a heavy sea hit and washed it right aft

in rags; so there was nothing to do but to hold on to the thwarts and

shake ourselves when the water came over. I never remember a colder

wind. I don't say this because I happened to be out in it. Old Tom

Cooper, one of the best boatmen in all England, sir, who made one of

our crew, agreed with me that it was more like a flaying machine than a

natural gale of wind. The feel of it in the face was like being gnawed

by a dog. I only wonder it didn't freeze the tears it fetched out of

our eyes. We were heading N.E., and the wind was blowing from N.E.

The North Foreland had been a bit of shelter, like; but when we had

gone clear of that, and the ocean lay ahead of us, the seas were

furious--they seemed miles long, sir, like an Atlantic sea, and it was

enough to make a man hold his breath to watch how the tug wallowed and

tumbled into them. I sung out to Dick Goldsmith, "Dick," I says,

"she's slowed, do you see, she'll never be able to meet it," for she

had slackened her engines down into a mere crawl, and I really did

think they meant to give up. I could see Alf Page--the master of her,

sir--on the bridge, coming and going like the moon when the clouds

sweep over it, as the seas smothered him up one moment, and left him

shining in the sun the next. But there was to be no giving up with the

tug's crew any more than with the lifeboat's; she held on, and we

followed.

'Somewhere abreast of the Elbow buoy a smack that was running ported

her helm to speak us. Her skipper had just time to yell out, "A vessel

on the Long Sand!" and we to wave our hands, when she was astern and

out of sight in a haze of spray. Presently a collier named the Fanny,

with her foretopgallant-yard gone, passed us. She was cracking on to

bring the news of the wreck to Ramsgate, and was making a heavy sputter

under her topsails and foresail. They raised a cheer, for they knew

our errand, and then, like the smack, in a minute she was astern and

gone. By this time the cold and the wet and the fearful plunging were

beginning to tell, and one of the men called for a nip of rum. The

quantity we generally take is half a gallon, and it is always my rule

to be sparing with that drink for the sake of the shipwrecked men we

may have to bring home, and who are pretty sure to be in greater need

of the stuff than us. I never drink myself, sir, and that's one

reason, I think, why I manage to meet the cold and wet middling well,

and rather better than some men who look stronger than me. However, I

told Charlie Verrion to measure the rum out and serve it round, and it

would have made you laugh, I do believe, sir, to have seen the care the

men took of the big bottle--Charlie cocking his finger into the

cork-hole, and Davy Berry clapping his hand over the pewter measure,

whenever a sea came, to prevent the salt water from spoiling the

liquor. Bad as our plight was, the tug's crew were no better off;

their wheel is forrard, and so you may suppose the fellow that steered

had his share of the seas; the others stood by to relieve him; and for

the matter of water, she was just like a rock, the waves striking her

bows and flying pretty nigh as high as the top of her funnel, and

blowing the whole length of her aft with a fall like the tumble of

half-a-dozen cartloads of bricks. I like to speak of what they went

through, for the way they were knocked about was something fearful, to

be sure.

[Illustration: Leaving Ramsgate Harbour in tow.]

'By half-past four o'clock in the afternoon it was drawing on dusk, and

about that hour we sighted the revolving light of the Kentish Knock

lightship, and a little after five we were pretty close to her. She is

a big red-hulled boat, with the words 'Kentish Knock' written in long

white letters on her sides, and, dark as it was, we could see her flung

up, and rushing down fit to roll her over and over; and the way she

pitched and went out of sight, and then ran up on the black heights of

water, gave me a better notion of the fearfulness of that sea than I

had got by watching the tug or noticing our own lively dancing. The

tug hailed her first, and two men looking over her side answered; but

what they said didn't reach us in the lifeboat. Then the steamer towed

us abreast, but the tide caught our warp and gave us a sheer that

brought us much too close alongside of her. When the sea took her she

seemed to hang right over us, and the sight of that great dark hull,

looking as if, when it fell, it must come right atop of us, made us

want to sheer off, I can tell you. I sung out, "Have you seen the

ship?" And one of the men bawled back, "Yes." "How does she bear?"

"Nor'-west by north." "Have you seen anything go to her?" The answer

I caught was, "A boat." Some of our men said the answer was, "A

lifeboat," but most of us only heard, "A boat."

'The tug was now towing ahead, and we went past the lightship, but ten

minutes after Tom Friend sings out, "They're burning a light aboard

her!" and looking astern I saw they had fired a red signal light that

was blazing over the bulwark in a long shower of sparks. The tug put

her helm down to return, and we were brought broadside to the sea.

Then we felt the power of those waves, sir. It looked a wonder that we

were not rolled over and drowned, every man of us. We held on with our

teeth clenched, and twice the boat was filled, and the water up to our

throats. "Look out for it, men!" was always the cry. But every upward

send emptied the noble little craft, like pulling out a plug in a

wash-basin, and in a few minutes we were again alongside the

light-vessel. This time there were six or seven men looking over the

side. "What do you want?" we shouted. "Did you see the Sunk

lightship's rocket?" they all yelled out together. "Yes. Did you say

you saw a boat?" "No," they answered, showing we had mistaken their

first reply. On which I shouted to the tug, "Pull us round to the Long

Sand Head buoy!" and then we were under weigh again, meeting the

tremendous seas. There was only a little bit of moon, westering fast,

and what there was of it showed but now and again, as the heavy clouds

opened and let the light of it down. Indeed, it was very dark, though

there was some kind of glimmer in the foam which enabled us to mark the

tug ahead. "Bitter cold work, Charlie," says old Tom Cooper to me:

"but," says he, "it's colder for the poor wretches aboard the wreck, if

they're alive to feel it." The thought of them made our own sufferings

small, and we kept looking and looking into the darkness around, but

there was nothing to be spied, only now and again and long whiles apart

the flash of a rocket in the sky from the Sunk lightship. Meanwhile,

from time to time, we burnt a hand-signal--a light, sir, that's fired

something after the manner of a gun. You fit it into a wooden tube,

and give a sort of hammer at the end a smart blow, and the flame rushes

out, and a bright light it makes, sir. Ours were green lights, and

whenever I set one flaring I couldn't help taking notice of the

appearance of the men. It was a queer sight, I assure you, to see them

all as green as leaves, with their cork jackets swelling out their

bodies so as scarcely to seem like human beings, and the black water as

high as our mast-head, or howling a long way below us, on either side.

They burned hand-signals on the tug, too, but nothing came of them.

There was no sign of the wreck, and staring over the edge of the boat,

with the spray and the darkness, was like trying to see through the

bottom of a well.

'So we began to talk the matter over, and Tom Cooper says, "We had

better stop here and wait for daylight." "I'm for stopping," says

Steve Goldsmith; and Bob Penny says, "We're here to fetch the wreck,

and fetch it we will, if we wait a week." "Right," says I; and all

hands being agreed--without any fuss, sir, though I dare say most of

our hearts were at home, and our wishes alongside our hearths, and the

warm fires in them--we all of us put our hands to our mouths and made

one great cry of "Vulcan ahoy!" The tug dropped astern. "What do you

want?" sings out the skipper, when he gets within speaking distance.

"There's nothing to be seen of the vessel, so we had better lie-to for

the night," I answered. "Very good," he says, and then the steamer,

without another word from her crew, and the water tumbling over her

bows like cliffs, resumed her station ahead, her paddles revolving just

fast enough to keep her from dropping astern.

'As coxswain of the lifeboat, sir, I take no credit for resolving to

lie-to all night. But I am bound to say a word for the two crews, who

made up their minds without a murmur, without a second's hesitation, to

face the bitter cold and fierce seas of that long winter darkness, that

they might be on the spot to help their fellow-creatures when the dawn

broke and showed them where they were. I know there are scores of

sailors round our coasts who would have done likewise. Only read, sir,

what was done in the North, Newcastle way, during the gales last

October. But surely, sir, no matter who may be the men who do what

they think their duty, whether they belong to the North or the South,

they deserve the encouragement of praise. A man likes to feel, when he

has done his best, that his fellow-men think well of his work. If I

had not been one of that crew I should wish to say more; but no false

pride shall make me say less, sir, and I thank God for the resolution

He put into us, and for the strength He gave us to keep that resolution.

'All that we had to do now was to make ourselves as comfortable as we

could. Our tow-rope veered us out a long way, too far astern of the

tug for her to help us as a breakwater, and the manner in which we were

flung towards the sky with half our keel out of water and then dropped

into a hollow--like falling from the top of a house, sir,--while the

heads of the seas blew into and tumbled over us all the time, made us

all reckon that, so far from getting any rest, most of our time would

be spent in preventing ourselves from being washed overboard. We

turned to and got the foresail aft, and made a kind of roof of it.

This was no easy job, for the wind was so furious that wrestling even

with that bit of a sail was like fighting with a steam-engine. When it

was up ten of us snugged ourselves away under it, and two men stood on

the after-grating thwart keeping a look-out, with the life-lines around

them. As you know, sir, we carry a binnacle, and the lamp in it was

alight and gave out just enough haze for us to see each other in. We

all lay in a lump together for warmth, and a fine show we made, I dare

say; for a cork jacket, even when a man stands upright, isn't

calculated to improve his figure, and as we all of us had cork jackets

on and oil-skins, and many of us sea boots, you may guess what a raffle

of legs and arms we showed, and what a rum heap of odds and ends we

looked, as we sprawled in the bottom of the boat upon one another.

Sometimes it would be Johnny Goldsmith--for we had three

Goldsmiths--Steve and Dick and Johnny--growling underneath that

somebody was lying on his leg; and then maybe Harry Meader would bawl

out that there was a man sitting on his head; and once Tom Friend swore

his arm was broke: but my opinion is, sir, that it was too cold to feel

inconveniences of this kind, and I believe that some among us would not

have known if their arms and legs really had been broke, until they

tried to use 'em, for the cold seemed to take away all feeling out of

the blood.

'As the seas flew over the boat the water filled the sail that was

stretched overhead and bellied it down upon us, and that gave us less

room, so that some had to lie flat on their faces; but when this

bellying got too bad we'd all get up and make one heave with our backs

under the sail, and chuck the water out of it in that way. "Charlie

Fish," says Tom Cooper to me, in a grave voice, "what would some of

them young gen'lmen as comes to Ramsgate in the summer, and says they'd

like to go out in the lifeboat, think of this?" This made me laugh,

and then young Tom Cooper votes for another nipper of rum all round;

and as it was drawing on for one o'clock in the morning, and some of

the men were groaning with cold, and pressing themselves against the

thwarts with the pain of it, I made no objection, and the liquor went

round. I always take a cake of Fry's chocolate with me when I go out

in the lifeboat, as I find it very supporting, and I had a mind to have

a mouthful now; but when I opened the locker I found it full of water,

my chocolate nothing but paste, and the biscuit a mass of pulp. This

was rather hard, as there was nothing else to eat, and there was no

getting near the tug in that sea unless we wanted to be smashed into

staves. However, we hadn't come out to enjoy ourselves; nothing was

said, and so we lay in a heap, hugging one another for warmth, until

the morning broke.

'The first man to look to leeward was old Tom's son--young Tom

Cooper--and in a moment he bawled out, "There she is!" pointing like a

madman. The morning had only just broke, and the light was grey and

dim, and down in the west it still seemed to be night; the air was full

of spray, and scarcely were we a-top of a sea than we were rushing like

an arrow into the hollow again, so that young Tom must have had eyes

like a hawk to have seen her. Yet the moment he sung out and pointed,

all hands cried out, "There she is!" But what was it, sir? Only a

mast about three miles off--just one single mast sticking up out of the

white water, as thin and faint as a spider's line. Yet that was the

ship we had been waiting all night to see. There she was, and my heart

thumped in my ears the moment my eye fell on that mast. But Lord, sir,

the fearful sea that was raging between her and us! for where we were

was deepish water, and the waves regular; but all about the wreck was

the Sand, and the water on it was running in fury all sorts of ways,

rushing up in tall columns of foam as high as a ship's mainyard, and

thundering so loudly that, though we were to windward, we could hear it

above the gale and the boiling of the seas around us. It might have

shook even a man who wanted to die to look at it, if he didn't know

what the Bradford can go through.

'I ran my eye over the men's faces. "Let slip the tow rope," bawled

Dick Goldsmith. "Up foresail," I shouted, and two minutes after we had

sighted that mast we were dead before the wind, our storm foresail taut

as a drum-skin, our boat's stem heading full for the broken seas and

the lonely stranded vessel in the midst of them. It was well that

there was something in front of us to keep our eyes that way, and that

none of us thought of looking astern, or the sight of the high and

frightful seas which raged after us might have played old Harry with

weak nerves. Some of them came with such force that they leapt right

over the boat, and the air was dark with water flying a dozen yards

high over us in broad solid sheets, which fell with a roar like the

explosion of a gun ten or a dozen fathoms ahead. But we took no notice

of these seas, even when we were in the thick of the broken waters, and

all the hands holding on to the thwarts for dear life. Every thought

was upon the mast that was growing bigger and clearer, and sometimes

when a sea hove us high we could just see the hull, with the water as

white as milk flying over it. The mast was what they call 'bright,'

that is, scraped and varnished, and we knew that if there was anything

living aboard that doomed ship we should find it on that mast; and we

strained our eyes with all our might, but could see nothing that looked

like a man. But on a sudden I caught sight of a length of canvas

streaming out of the top, and all of us seeing it we raised a shout,

and a few minutes after we saw the men. They were all dressed in

yellow oilskins, and the mast being of that colour was the reason why

we did not see them sooner. They looked a whole mob of people, and one

of us roared out, "All hands are there, men!" and I answered, "Aye, the

whole ship's company, and we'll have them all!" for though, as we

afterwards knew, there were only eleven of them, yet, as I have said,

they looked a great number huddled together in that top, and I made

sure the whole ship's company were there.

'By this time we were pretty close to the ship, and a fearful wreck she

looked, with her mainmast and mizzenmast gone, and her bulwarks washed

away, and great lumps of timber and planking ripping out of her and

going overboard with every pour of the seas. We let go our anchor

fifteen fathoms to windward of her, and as we did so we saw the poor

fellows unlashing themselves and dropping one by one over the top into

the lee rigging. As we veered out cable and drove down under her

stern, I shouted to the men on the wreck to bend a piece of wood on to

a line and throw it overboard for us to lay hold of. They did this,

but they had to get aft first, and I feared for the poor half-perished

creatures again and again as I saw them scrambling along the lee rail,

stopping and holding on as the mountainous seas swept over the hull,

and then creeping a bit further aft in the pause. There was a horrible

muddle of spars and torn canvas and rigging under her lee, but we could

not guess what a fearful sight was there until our hawser having been

made fast to the wreck, we had hauled the lifeboat close under her

quarter. There looked to be a whole score of dead bodies knocking

about among the spars. It stunned me for a moment, for I had thought

all hands were in the foretop, and never dreamt of so many lives having

been lost. Seventeen were drowned, and there they were, most of them,

and the body of the captain lashed to the head of the mizzenmast, so as

to look as if he were leaning over it, his head stiff upright and his

eyes watching us, and the stir of the seas made him appear to be

struggling to get to us. I thought he was alive, and cried to the men

to hand him in, but someone said he was killed when the mizzenmast

fell, and had been dead four or five hours. This was a dreadful shock;

I never remember the like of it. I can't hardly get those fixed eyes

out of my sight, sir, and I lie awake for hours of a night, and so does

Tom Cooper, and others of us, seeing those bodies torn by the spars and

bleeding, floating in the water alongside the miserable ship.

'Well, sir, the rest of this lamentable story has been told by the mate

of the vessel, and I don't know that I could add anything to it. We

saved the eleven men, and I have since heard that all of them are doing

well. If I may speak, as coxswain of the lifeboat, I would like to say

that all hands concerned in this rescue, them in the tug as well as the

crew of the boat, did what might be expected of English sailors--for

such they are, whether you call some of them boatmen or not; and I know

in my heart, and say it without fear, that from the hour of leaving

Ramsgate Harbour to the moment when we sighted the wreck's mast, there

was only one thought in all of us, and that was that the Almighty would

give us the strength and direct us how to save the lives of the poor

fellows to whose assistance we had been sent.'

Ten years more fly by, in which there is a splendid record of services

and rescues to the credit of Coxswain Fish, the Ramsgate lifeboatmen,

and the brave steam-tugs, Vulcan and Aid, and we come to the night of

Jan. 5 and 6, 1891, which is exactly, my readers will see, ten years to

the day after the rescue of the survivors of the Indian Chief, a rescue

certainly unsurpassed for its dramatic intensity and its heroism even

by the Deal lifeboat.

At 3 a.m. on the night of Jan. 5, 1891, Coxswain Fish was asleep in his

hammock in the watch-house at the end of Ramsgate pier. There was a

gale blowing from the E.N.E., and in the long frost of that awful

winter there was no more terrible night than this. The thermometer

stood at 15° below freezing-point; there was a great sea and strong

wind.

At 3 a.m. Fish was called by the watch on Ramsgate pier, and he saw a

flare on the Goodwins through the rifts in the snow squall. At 2.15

Richard Roberts, the coxswain of the Deal lifeboat, was also roused

from sleep and launched his lifeboat, manned by the gallant Deal men.

But though the Deal men launched at 3.15 a.m., they had not the same

favourable chance of reaching the wreck, beating eight miles dead to

windward, as compared with the Ramsgate lifeboat, towed into the eye of

the wind by its powerful steam-tug Aid.

We may on this occasion, therefore, leave out the consideration of the

Deal lifeboat, splendid as its effort was, inasmuch as it only arrived

at the scene of the wreck just as the Ramsgate lifeboat had saved the

crew. Some of the hardy Deal lifeboatmen were almost benumbed and

rendered helpless by the cold, and they only saw the tragedy of the

captain's death and the rescue of the remainder of the crew from the

wreck by the Ramsgate men.

At 3 a.m. then the Ramsgate rocket went up in answer to the signals

from the Gull lightship; on that bitter night the lifeboat was manned

in eight minutes. The lifebelts and oilskins were handed into the

lifeboat; shivering, the brave hearts got their clothes on, and in less

time than this page has been written, the tow rope had been passed into

the lifeboat from the Aid, and that tug was out of the harbour,

dragging the lifeboat, head to sea, 110 yards astern of her.

It was black midnight, and no man in the boat could see his neighbour;

the pier was like a great iceberg and sheeted with ice; the sea was

flying over the oilclad figures in the lifeboat and freezing almost as

it fell, rattling against the sails or on the deck, or fiercely hurled

into the faces of the men; indeed, every oilskin jacket was frozen

stiff before they had been towed a quarter of a mile against the

furious sea, which drenched them 'like spray,' as the coxswain

expressed it, 'from the parish fire engines.' The brave fellows were

more than drenched--they were all but frozen, but no one dreamed of

turning back, for though the lightship's rockets had stopped they could

see the piteous flares from the distant wreck now and then, as the snow

squalls broke, beckoning them on.

The vessel on the Goodwins was the three-masted schooner or barquentine

The Crocodile, laden with stone from Guernsey to London, and when about

a mile or so north of the Goodwins 'reaching' on the port tack, 'missed

stays' in the heavy sea, and before they had time to 'wear' ship, she

struck the northern face of the Goodwins, against which a tremendous

sea was driven by the black north-easter that was blowing from the

Pole. She struck the Goodwins bows on with her head to the south-east,

and she heeled over to starboard, the sea which rolled from the E.N.E.

beating nearly on her port broadside.

The wrecked crew knew their position, and that their only chance was

the advent of some lifeboat, and they burned flares, which consisted on

this occasion of their own clothes, which they tore off and soaked in

oil. They were soon beaten off the deck as the tide rose, and in the

darkness had to take to the rigging, the captain, who was an elderly

man, and his crew all together climbing in the mizzen weather rigging.

The weather rigging was of course more upright than the lee rigging,

which leaned over to the right or starboard hand as the vessel lay.

As the tug bored to windward and rapidly neared the vessel they could

see the flares being carried up the rigging by the sorely beset crew,

and knew the extremity of the case; then the next snow squall wrapped

them in like a winding-sheet, and all was shut out. But still, on

plunged the Aid at great speed, for the new tug-boat Aid is a much

faster and more powerful boat than either of the old tugs, the Aid and

the Vulcan. Towing the lifeboat well to windward of the wreck, at last

the moment arrived, and though not a word was spoken and not a signal

made, the end of the tow-rope was let go by the lifeboat and sail was

made on her for the wrecked vessel, or rather for the flares.

But even then down came an extra furious snow squall, and the lifeboat

had to anchor, lest she should miss the vessel altogether.

This took time. Again in the fury of the storm the word was given 'Up

anchor!' and 'Run down closer to the wreck!' and again the anchor was

dropped to the best of the judgment of the coxswain. Fish and Cooper

were first and second coxswains ten years before, and exactly ten years

before to the day and hour the same brave men were in a similar

desperate struggle at the wreck of the Indian Chief. In the tremendous

sea the anchor was for the second time dropped well to windward of the

wreck. The hull was under water, and over it the hungry sea broke in

pyramids or solid sheets of flying, freezing spray. As they veered out

their cable and came towards the wreck bows foremost, for they anchored

the lifeboat this time by the stern, they could dimly see the cowering,

clinging figures in the rigging. They had to pay out their powerful

cable most cautiously, for great rollers bursting at the top, and the

size of a house, every now and then came racing at them, open-mouthed.

I don't believe a man on board remembered it was exactly to the hour

ten years since they rescued the crew of the Indian Chief; but their

hearts, beating as warmly as ever in the cause of suffering humanity,

were concentrated on the present need. They veered down under the

stern of the wreck, and passing the cable a little aft in the lifeboat,

steered her up under the starboard-quarter of the wreck. They had just

got out their grapnel, and were about to throw it into the lee rigging

of the wreck, in hopes it would grip and hold--for unless it held of

itself no one of the frozen crew could come down to make it fast. Left

foot in front, well out on the gunwale, left hand grasping the fore

halyards to steady him--strong brave right hand swung back to hurl the

grapnel on the next chance, stood a gallant Ramsgate man, when with a

roar like the growl of a wild beast, a monstrous sea broke over vessel

and lifeboat, not merely filling her up, and over her thwarts, but

snapping her strong new Manilla hawser.

Those who know the quality of the splendid cables supplied by the Royal

National Lifeboat Institution will understand the great force that must

have been exerted to snap this mighty hawser. But so it happened, and

away to leeward into the darkness, smothered, baffled, and almost

drowned, but by no means beaten, were swept on to and into the

shallower and more furious surf of the north-west jaw of the Goodwins,

the Ramsgate lifeboatmen.

Contrast the freezing midnight scene of storm and surf, eight miles

from the nearest land, with the quiet sleep of millions.

Here was a January midnight, black as a wolf's throat--thermometer 15°

below freezing, a mountainous surf on the Goodwins, and only twelve

brave men to face it all; but those twelve men were the heroes of a

hundred fights, and were determined to save the men on the wreck or die

for it.

Therefore, though swept to leeward, they got sail on the lifeboat and

got her on the starboard tack, ten men sheeting home the fore sheet.

'Bad job this!' they said, for words were few that night, and they made

through the surf for the tug, which was on the look-out for them, and

steered for the blue light they burned. Nothing can be more ghastly

than the effect of this blue light on the faces of the men or on the

wild hurly-burly of boiling snow white foam one moment seen raging

round the lifeboat, and the next obliterated in darkness, the more

pitchy by reason of the extinguished flare.

The blue light was seen by the Aid, and she moved to leeward to pick up

the lifeboat after she emerged from the breakers. Again the tug-boat

passed her hawser on board the lifeboat, and once more towed her to

windward to the same position as before; and once again, burning to

save the despairing sailors, the lifeboatmen dropped anchor and veered

out their last remaining cable, well-knowing this was the last chance,

as they had only the one remaining cable. Tight as a fiddle string was

the good hawser, and the howling north-easter hummed its weird tune

along its vibrating length, as coil after coil was paid out in the

lulls, and the lifeboat came closer and closer, and at last slued right

under the starboard quarter of the wreck.

By hand-lights, blue and green, they saw, high up in the air, the

unfortunate crew lashed in the weather-rigging, i. e. on the port or

left side of the wreck, the side opposite to that under shelter of

which they lay. The shelter was a poor one, for great seas broke over

the wreck and into the lifeboat on the other side.

The men were lashed half-way up the weather rigging of the mizzenmast,

and the lifeboatmen shouted to them to come over and drop into the

lifeboat. To do this, they, half-frozen as they were, had to unlash

themselves from the weather-rigging and, in the awful cold and

darkness, climb up to the mast-head, where the lee-rigging or shrouds

met more closely the weather-rigging. Every giant sea shook the wreck;

every billow swayed her masts backwards and forwards so that they

'buckled' like fishing-rods, and the marvel is any man of the benumbed

crew succeeded in getting across from the weather side to the

lee-rigging aloft.

It must be borne in mind that the deck was under water and 'raked' by

every sea, and that the only possible way of reaching the lifeboat was

by going up the rigging from the place where the wrecked crew were

lashed, and coming down--if only they could reach across--the other

side, which was next the lifeboat, and thence jumping or being hauled

into her.

The topsails were in ribbons, and as the wrecked sailors clambered

aloft the great whips of torn canvas lashed and terrified and wounded

them. By great effort they got across the black gulf between the two

riggings--all but the captain.

There high in air--visible as the blue lights flared up from the

lifeboat, struggling hard for life, hung the captain.

One leg straddled across the chasm--one hand clutched the

weather-rigging he wanted to leave, and one hand reached out

blindly--hopefully to catch the lee shrouds--'You'll do it, captain!

Come on, captain! For God's sake, captain, come on!' And every face

in the blue glare was riveted on the struggling man but,--oh! what

anguish to the staring lifeboatmen eager to save him!--he fell, his

life-belt being torn off in his fall, full forty feet on to the

wave-washed mizzen boom.

'Out boat-hooks, brave hearts, and catch him.' But a great billow

broke over the wreck and lifeboatmen, and never was he seen again.

This time death won.

Let us trust he was ready to meet his God. 'If it be not now, yet it

will come--the readiness is all.'

Some jumping, and some dragged by the lines, the rest of the

shipwrecked men got into the lifeboat, so dazed, so benumbed that they

neither realised the loss of the captain nor their own miraculous

preservation.

Just at this moment, under press of canvas, the foam flying from her

blue bows, at full speed came the Deal lifeboat, too late to avert the

disaster they had witnessed.

They had left Deal at 3.15, but not having the aid of steam, were

half-frozen and much later on the scene of action than the Ramsgate tug

and lifeboat, to whom the honour of this grand rescue belongs.

They reached Ramsgate Harbour at 7.30 a.m. and at 9 o'clock, without

having gone ashore to breakfast, almost worn out, but borne up by

dauntless spirit within, in response to a telegram from Broadstairs,

the same steam-tug, lifeboat, coxswain and crew, again steamed out of

Ramsgate Harbour. A collier, the Glide, had gone to the bottom after

collision with another vessel, named the Glance--such strange

coincidences there are in real life--and the crew of the Glide had

taken to their own small ship's boat, while the crew of the Glance had

been saved by the Broadstairs lifeboat.

The crew of the Glide in their little boat were in great peril in the

mountainous seas which run off the North Foreland in easterly gales,

and it was feared they were lost.

Once more into the teeth of the icy gale, without rest and with only

snatches of food taken in the lifeboat, after the long exposure of the

preceding night and its terrible scenes, the Ramsgate men were towed

behind their tug-boat to the rescue. They found the boat of the Glide

riding in a furious sea to a sea-anchor, the very best thing they could

have done. A sea-anchor may be rigged up by tying sails and oars

together, with, if possible, a weight attached just to keep them under

water, and then pitching the lot overboard.

To this half-floating, half-submerged mass, the boat's painter was made

fast, and as it dragged through the water much more slowly than the

boat, the latter checked in its drift came head to sea, and yielding to

the send of each wave rode over crests and combers which would

otherwise have swamped her.

Hardly hoping for deliverance, they saw the steam-tug and lifeboat

making for them and ranging to windward of them to give them a lee, and

they were all dragged at last safely into the Bradford. Soon they were

towed in between Ramsgate piers, and this time the flying of the

British red ensign denoted, 'All saved.' Shouts of rejoicing hailed

the double exploit of the hardy lifeboatmen, and their fellow townsmen

of Ramsgate proudly felt they had done 'by no means a bad piece of work

before breakfast that morning.'

'Storm Warriors' of unconquered Kent, rivals in a hundred deeds of

mercy with your brethren the Deal boatmen, and with them sharing the

title of 'Heroes of the Goodwin Sands,' God guard you in your perils

and bring you safe home at last!

At many other points around the British Isles the same noble spirit is

displayed of splendid daring in a sacred cause. Would that all the

stalwart fishermen and boatmen of this dear England, as their

prototypes of the Sea of Galilee, would serve and follow Him who

Himself 'came to seek and to save that which was lost,' that so passing

through the waves of this troublesome world, finally they may come

through Him to the land of everlasting life!

[1] This clearly is an error, for no lifeboat could possibly have been

near the wreck at this early hour. The ship struck at half-past two

o'clock on the morning of January 5, and at daybreak the rescue

mentioned was attempted, clearly, by a smack, for no lifeboat heard of

the wreck until eleven o'clock of the same day. Probably it was that

smack which afterwards conveyed the news of the wreck to Harwich at 11

a.m. Another fishing smack proceeded at once to Ramsgate, and arrived

there at noon, having received the information of the wreck from the

Kentish Knock lightship.

* * * * * *

THE BOY'S LIBRARY OF ADVENTURE & HEROISM

[Transcriber's note: This list contains only the titles and authors of

the books in this catalog. No attempt was made to transcribe the

assorted newspaper reviews.]

Allan Adair; or Here and There in Many Lands, by Dr. Gordon Staples,

R.N.

A Hero in Wolf-skin. A Story of Pagan and Christian, by Tom Bevan.

The Adventures of Val Daintry in the Graeco-Turkish War, by V. L. Going.

Stories for Boys.

by Talbot Baines Reed.

The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch.

The Cock House and Fellsgarth. A Public School Story.

The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. A Public School Story.

A Dog with a Bad Name.

The Master of the Shell.

My Friend Smith. A Story of School and City Life.

Reginald Cruden. A Tale of City Life.

Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Roger Ingleton, Minor.

Sir Ludar: A story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess.

Parkhurst Boys, and other Stories of School Life.

New Illustrated Stories.

_By Various Authors._

The Reign of Love, by H. M. Ward.

Life's Little Stage, by Agnes Giberne.

In Quest of Hatasu, by Irene Strickland.

Those Dreadful Girls, by Esther E. Enock.