“MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!” (_continued_).
A Portuguese Brig on the Sands—Futile Attempts to get her
off—Sudden Break-up—Great Danger to the Life-boat—Great
Probability of being Crushed—An Old Boatman’s Feelings—The
Life-boat herself on the Goodwin—Safe at Last—Gratitude of the
Portuguese Crew—A Blaze of Light seen from Deal—Fatal
Delay—Twenty-eight Lives Lost—A Dark December Night—The
almost-deserted Wreck of the _Providentia_—A Plucky Captain—An
Awful Episode—The Mate beaten to Death—Hardly saved—The poor
little Cabin-boy’s Rescue—Another Wreck on the Sands—Many Attempts
to rescue the Crew—Determination of the Boatmen—Victory or
Death!—The _Aid_ Steamer nearly wrecked—A novel and successful
Experiment—Anchoring on Board—The Crew Saved.
The emigrant ship mentioned in the preceding chapter was eventually got
off the Sands; but although similar efforts are often made, they are by no
means usually attended by similar results. The danger of waiting by the
ship is very considerable. Gilmore gives us a good example of this in his
account of a Portuguese brig on the Sands, of which there were, at first,
strong hopes of saving. Her masts and rigging, as at first seen by the
Ramsgate men, were all right, and her clean new copper was intact. “A
grand thing for all hands—for owners, underwriters, crew, and boatmen—the
men think, if they can only get her safely off when the tide rises, and
bring her into harbour; a fine vessel and perhaps valuable cargo saved,
and a pretty piece of salvage, which will be well earned, and nobody
should grudge, for the boatmen have to live, as well as to save life.” The
captain had at first refused to employ the services offered by the crews
of two Broadstairs luggers, but at last was glad to avail himself of their
assistance, coupled with that of the life-boat men and the steam-tug
_Aid_. The boatmen got an anchor out astern as quickly as possible, the
vessel being head on to the Sands, and used other means to assist the
steamer’s work. They hoped that the _Aid_ would be able to back close
enough to them, to get a rope on board fastened to the flukes of the
brig’s anchor, and to drag the anchor out, and drop it about one hundred
fathoms astern of the vessel. All hands would then have gone to the
windlass, keeping a strain upon the cable, and, each time the vessel
lifted, heaved with a will—the steamer, with a hundred and twenty fathoms
of nine-inch cable out, towing hard all the time. By these means they
expected to be able gradually to work the vessel off the Sands. But they
soon lost hope of doing this. The gale freshened about one o’clock in the
morning; the heavy waves rolled in over the sands, and she lifted and fell
with shocks that made the masts tremble and the decks gape open. The
life-boat remained alongside, afloat in the basin that the brig had worked
in the sands, and it took all the efforts of the men on board to prevent
her getting under the side of the vessel, and being crushed. The
Portuguese captain still refused to desert his vessel, while the boatmen,
who knew the danger, were almost ready to force the crew to leave the
ship.
Suddenly a loud sharp crack, like a crash of thunder, pealed through the
ship. One of her large timbers had snapped like a pipe-stem, and now the
Portuguese sailors were only too anxious to leave. Even then, however,
they made a rush to get their things, and soon eight sea-chests hampered
the life-boat. The captain did not like to refuse the poor fellows,
although every moment was of consequence. The surf flew over the brig, and
boiled up all around her; the life-boat, deluged with spray, had all her
lights washed out. The snapping and rending of the brig’s timbers was
heard over the fury of the storm; she was breaking up fast. The boy was
handed to the boat, the sailors following, and the brig was abandoned. But
the danger was far from over.
The steamer and the luggers, exposed to the full fury of the increasing
gale, were outside, the former head to wind, steaming half-power. The
steamer endeavoured to keep in the neighbourhood of the wreck and of the
life-boat. One of the luggers had to cut her cable, without attempting to
save her anchor, and make with all speed for Ramsgate; the second sprung
her mast, which was fished with great difficulty, and she too made the
best of her way for the harbour. The crew of the steamer could see nothing
of the boat—Was she swamped or stove, and all lost? They made signals, but
to no purpose; and the _Aid_ cruised up and down the edge of the dangerous
sands as near as might be, hoping against hope. The night was pitchy dark,
and the storm remained at its worst. Through the thick darkness the bright
light of the Goodwin light-vessel shone out like a star. With a faint
hope, the crew of the steamer wrestled their way through the storm, and
spoke the light-ship. Nothing had been seen of the life-boat. They
hastened to their old cruising-ground. How they longed for the light! All
hands were still on watch, and as the faint grey light of dawning came,
they sought with straining eyeballs to penetrate the twilight, and find
some sign of their lost comrades. It was almost broad daylight before they
could find the place where the wreck was lying, and when they discovered
it, lost all hope, for the brig was found completely broken up, actually
torn to pieces. They could see great masses of splintered timber and
tangled rigging, but not a sign of life. Sadly they turned from the fatal
Goodwin, and made for the harbour.
To return to the life-boat, afloat within the circle of the bed worked by
the brig in her wild careering. She could not by any possibility leave,
though the wreck threatened to roll over her every moment, for outside
were the shallow sands, and she was grounding every few moments. “Crash!
the brig heaves, and crushes down upon her bilge; again and again,” says
the narrator, “she half lifts upon an even keel, and rolls and lurches
from side to side; each time that she falls to leeward she comes more and
more over, and nearer to the boat.
“This is the danger that may well make the stoutest heart quail. The boat
is aground—helplessly aground; her crew can see through the darkness of
the night the yards and masts of the brig swaying over their heads, now
tossing high in the air as the brig rights, and now falling nearer and
nearer to them, sweeping down over their heads, swaying and rending in the
air, the blocks, and ropes, and torn fragments of sails flying wildly in
all directions. Let but one of the swaying yards hit the boat, she must be
crushed, and all lost. The men crouch down closer and closer, clinging to
the thwarts as the brig falls to them, casting dread glances at the
approaching yards; all right once more; another pull at the cable—hard,
men, hard; over again comes the brig; stick to it, stick to it, my men;
crushed or drowned, it will be soon over if we cannot move the boat;
another pull, all together; again and again they make desperate efforts to
stir the boat, but she will not move one inch; they must wait, and, if
needs be, wait their doom.” And so through hours of fearful suspense, half
dead with cold and the ceaseless rush of surf over them, watching in the
shadowy darkness the swaying masts and flying blocks, expecting each
moment to be their last.
But at length a dawn of hope arrived; the boat lifted on the swell of the
tide that was beginning to reach her, and though she immediately grounded
again, the men knew that all was not lost. After desperate hauling on the
cable they at last were able to ride to their anchor a few yards clear of
the brig. But to get away from the sand in the face of the fierce gale and
tide was impossible, and so there was no alternative, they must beat right
across the sands, and this in the wild fearful gale, and terrible sea, and
pitch-dark night. Breaker after breaker rushed furiously towards and over
them; the men were nearly washed out of the boat; and, worse, the anchor
began to drag, and every moment they drifted nearer to the wreck again.
There might now be water enough to take them clear; at all events, they
must risk it. The foresail was hoisted and the cable cut, and she leaped
forward, but only for a few yards, when she grounded upon the sands again
with a terrible shock, and again within reach of the brig. Huge breakers
came tearing along, and, at last, after many such experiences, they were
once more clear of the wreck. Then another danger arose. A small life-boat
belonging to the Broadstairs men had been in tow all this time, and when
the Ramsgate boat grounded she came crashing along into her. The Ramsgate
men had, in the midst of the boiling sea, to fend her off with their feet,
and at last cut her adrift. The sea-chests of the Portuguese sailors—or at
least those not already washed away—were thrown overboard. Again and again
she grounded on the sand ridges washed up by the surf—ridges giant
editions of the little sand-ripples on the sea-shore so well remembered by
all visitors to our coasts, but two and three feet high, instead of as
many inches.
“One old boatman,” says Gilmore, “afterwards thus described his
feelings:—‘Well, sir, perhaps my friends were right when they said I
hadn’t ought to have gone out—that I was too old for that sort of work’
(he was then about sixty years of age), ‘but, you see, when there is life
to be saved, it makes one feel young again; and I’ve always felt I had a
call to save life when I could, and I wasn’t going to hang back then. And
I stood it better than some of them, after all. I did my work on board the
brig, and when she was so near falling over us, and when the _Dreadnought_
life-boat seemed knocking our bottom out, I got on as well as any of them;
but when we got to beating and grubbing over the sands, swinging round and
round, and grounding every few yards with a jerk that bruised us sadly,
and almost tore our arms out from the sockets; no sooner washed off one
ridge, and beginning to hope that the boat was clear, than she thumped
upon another harder than ever, and all the time the wash of the surf
nearly carrying us out of the boat—it was truly almost too much for any
man to stand. There was a young fellow holding on next to me; I saw his
head begin to drop, and that he was getting faint, and going to give over;
and when the boat filled with water, and the waves went over his head, he
scarcely cared to struggle free. I tried to cheer him a bit, and keep his
spirits up. He just clung to the thwart like a drowning man. Poor fellow!
he never did a day’s work after that night, and died in a few months.’ And
then the old man described how he took his life-belt off, that he might
have it over all the quicker; how the captain cheered them up by crying
out, ‘We’ll see Ramsgate yet again, my men, if we steer clear of old
wrecks;’ and how he was going off into a kind of stupor when the clouds
broke a little, and one bright star shone out, a star of life and hope to
him. For seven whole days after the poor old man reached shore he lost his
speech, and lay like a log on his bed, while all the men were considerably
shaken. ‘I cannot describe it,’ said he, ‘and you cannot, neither can any
one else; but when you say you’ve beat and thumped over those sands,
almost yard by yard, in a fearful storm on a winter’s night, and live to
tell the tale, why it seems to me about the next thing to saying that
you’ve been dead, and brought to life again.’”
But suddenly the swinging and beating of the boat ceased: she was in a
heavy sea, but in deep water, and she answered her helm. The crew soon got
more sail on her, and she made good way before the gale. Even the
Portuguese sailors lifted their heads. They had been clinging together and
to the boat, crouching down under the lee of the foresail, utterly
despairing of life; now their joy knew no bounds. They were noticed
earnestly consulting together. They had lost their kits, and only
possessed the clothes they stood in and a few pounds in money (about £17)
between them, but the latter they determined to present to the crew. “I,
for one, won’t touch any of it,” said the coxswain of the boat. “Nor I!”
“Nor I!” all added; “put your money up.” And so to the harbour, where
their consul took care of them. When the steamer arrived later on, what
was not the surprise and delight of the captain and all hands to find the
life-boat at her old moorings, and their comrades in so many dangers all
safe in port!
For by far the larger proportion if not indeed nearly the whole of these
life-savers work _con amore_, and a mishap or positive disaster is often
to them an agonising disappointment. One stormy New Year’s Eve some years
ago “a ship was seen off Deal beach in almost a blaze of light, burning
tar-barrels and firing rockets, to tell of her distress; an intervening
fog seemed to prevent the look-out on board the light-vessel seeing her,
and some boatmen on Deal beach, who could not possibly get their boats off
the sands in the face of the strong gale blowing straight on shore, put
their halfpence together to pay for a telegraph message—the messages were
dearer then than they are now—and sent their swiftest runner to telegraph
to Ramsgate; and, after all, there was some unfortunate mistake, and fatal
delay, and a telegram at last sent for further particulars, which was
answered with a demand for urgent speed, and away then flew steamer and
life-boat, and they neared the wreck, and rounded to, to send the
life-boat in, when some of the boatmen thought they heard an agonising
shriek, and others thought it was only the wail of the storm; but they
looked, and the great green seas swept over the wreck, turned her right
over, and she was seen no more, and twenty-eight lives went to their
account. A piteous New Year’s tale it was that was told next morning. A
boat’s crew got away from the ship soon after she struck, and, battling
through the broken seas, made way before the wind to Dover, and they told
the story that the lost vessel had picked up a shipwrecked crew, who were
thus a second time wrecked, and at the second time lost; and that more of
the crew would have come away in the boat, and in other boats, but it was
a great risk; and there was a Deal pilot on board, who pointed out the
danger, and said that the Ramsgate life-boat was sure to be out to their
rescue, they might be sure of her; and so they stayed and lighted
tar-barrel after tar-barrel, and fired rocket after rocket; and when the
sea washed their signal-fires out and swept the decks, they took to the
rigging, and waited for the life-boat; and as they waited, the poor Deal
pilot could watch the light on the beach, by the house where slept his
wife and eight children, who were to call him husband—father—no more.” The
life-boat men hardly like to speak of such a cruel disaster—blameless
though they be in the matter. In this particular case a Board of Trade
inquiry acquitted them and all else concerned of any blame whatever.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF LIFE-BOAT MEN.]
A dark December night, and a large ship reported ashore on the Goodwins.
The harbour-master hurries to Ramsgate pier-head; he and all with him can
see nothing; they cross-question the man who asserts that he observed
during a lift in the fog a vessel on the sands. Although there is no
signal from the light-vessels, the harbour-master decides to send out
steamer and life-boat. The crews of both soon discover the vessel looming
through the mist, a complete wreck, her bow to the sea, her mizen-mast
down to the deck, and the wild seas running over her. There are no sailors
to be seen lashed in her rigging. Have all on board perished?
Thank God! not so. After infinite difficulty, and after nearly getting
entangled with some of the wreckage, the life-boat crew get near the
vessel, and find that three men and a boy are crouching under the shelter
of the deck-house; they must be a small proportion of the original crew,
for she is a large ship, and must have had some fifteen or sixteen hands
aboard. The men have been crouching there for hours, and their confidence
in the advent of the life-boat had been so strong that they had prepared
for her coming by preparing a life-buoy, with a long line fastened to it,
ready to throw overboard.
As the long hours passed, fervent hope had been dashed by wild despair.
Suddenly the life-boat appears, coming up to her cable just astern of the
vessel; it is to them as a reprieve from death, and they wake to life and
action. They throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat men, and after
much trouble the latter get it on board. All hands lay hold on the rope,
and do their utmost to haul the life-boat nearer to the wreck, but the
heavy gale, terrific sea, and strong tide, render it impossible. A
tremendous sea comes rushing over the vessel, and for the moment swamps
the boat, knocking down five or six of the men, hurting some of them
severely, but she lifts again, and no one is lost. But what of the poor
crew? The life-boat men feel that it is impossible to haul their boat
nearer the ship.
“To their great surprise, they see the captain spring up from the lee of
the deck-house, hurriedly take off his oilskin coat, throw it into the
water, and then, jumping on the gunwale, grasp the hawser that holds the
boat, and slide down into the boiling sea. A huge wave breaks over him and
washes him away from the rope; he now tries to swim to the boat, but the
life-boat is not directly astern—the sheer she has to her cable that is
fastened to the anchor, which was thrown over some distance to the side of
the vessel, prevents her dropping right astern; and although the captain
has but to swim a few yards out of the direction of the sweep of sea and
tide, it is impossible for him to manage it. He is perfectly overwhelmed
by the boil of sea, tossed wildly up and down, wave after wave beating
over him: it is all that he can do to keep his head above water, and
cannot guide his course in the least; the boatmen try all they can to make
the boat sheer towards him, so as to reach him or throw him a rope, but it
is impossible: they cannot get sufficiently near, and in a few seconds
they see him swept rapidly by in the swift tide. Jarman, the coxswain of
the boat, seizes a life-buoy, and throws it with all his force towards
him; the wind catches it, and helps the throw; it falls near him; he makes
a spring forward and reaches it; the men gladly see that he has got it;
they see him put his two hands upon one side, as if to get upon it; as he
leans forward it falls over his head like a hoop; he gets his arms through
it, and shouting to the boatmen, ‘All right!’ he waves his hand as if to
beckon them to follow him, and goes floating down in the strong tide and
among the raging, leaping seas, in a strange wild dance, that threatens
indeed to be a dance of death.” With terror and dismay they watch him in
his fearful struggle, till he is lost to their view, quite out of sight
among the waves; they could not follow him, however much they might have
wished it, for it might be hours before they could get back to the ship,
and the two men and boy still aboard.
And had they thought of so doing the next episode would have obliged them
to desist. A tremendous crash startles them all; the mainmast has fallen
over the port side of the vessel. The men on board give a loud cry; the
chief mate springs wildly to the starboard quarter, and, making the end of
the mainbrace hanging there fast round his waist, drops into the sea. He
is a powerful swimmer; but what can he do in a tide and sea so tremendous
that twelve strong men cannot haul the boat one foot against them? And so
a fearful tragedy is worked out before their very eyes. Now he is buried
in a sea; now he is thrown high in the air on the crest of a wave, but he
never nears the boat, nor can it near him. He strikes out wildly, as if to
make a last effort, and cries aloud in his agony and despair. They try
again and again to throw the lead-line over the rope which holds the poor
fellow, but the boat is pitching and tossing so much that their efforts
are all in vain. “‘Now he rises on a wave; now try; heave with a will,
well clear of his head. Ah! missed again; look out; hold on all!’ A wave
rushes over them, boat and all; another half minute, and they make another
attempt. No! all in vain, each time it falls short. The struggle cannot
last long; strong and young as the man is, his strength cannot possibly
endure long in such a conflict; his cries grow more feeble, and soon
cease; they see him try and get back to the ship, climbing up the rope,
but his strength fails, and he falls back; his arms and legs are still
tossed wildly about, but it is by the action of the waves; his head drops
and sinks; yes! it is all over!—all over with him!” Think of the second
mate and cabin-boy on the wreck, watching in helpless horror the death
they could not avert, and which may be theirs in a few moments!
The deck-house under which they have been crouching is beginning to break
up, and the remaining man, throwing himself on the rope by which the
life-boat is made fast to the ship, attempts to reach the boat. The
breakers rush over him as he painfully struggles on, and he is again and
again buried in the waves. At last he reaches the high bow of the
life-boat, which is leaping and falling and jerking, tearing the hawser up
and down in the seas, as if trying to throw him from his hold. His hands
convulsively clutch the rope; pale, and with jaw dropping, he seems about
to swoon, and in another moment he will be gone. “The man in the bow of
the boat has been watching his every movement, has shuddered with dismay
as he saw the seas wash over him, expecting him to be carried away in the
strong tide. No; he still grasps the rope, and at last is within reach! In
one spring, and with a cry to his mates, ‘Hold me! hold me!’ the boatman
throws himself upon the raised fore-deck of the life-boat, and, with his
body half-stretched over the stern, he grasps the collar of the sailor.
The drowning man throws his arm around the boatman’s neck, and clings to
him convulsively, by his weight dragging the man’s head down and burying
it in the water; but the brave fellow clings as hard to the half-dead
sailor as the sailor does to him; the seas wash bodily over them and over
the bow of the boat; up and down the boat plunges them both, but he still
holds on; three or four of the boatmen have hold of his legs, and are
doing their utmost to pull him back into the boat, but they cannot do so;
and so the struggle goes on: it is only as the boat rises on a wave and
throws her bow up in the air that the men can breathe.” And now a new
horror, for right down upon them comes the wreck of one of the ship’s
largest boats, which has just got free of the wreckage. Thank God! it just
passes clear of them. The boatmen cannot get the men in over the high bow
of the boat, and the two poor fellows are drowning fast, and so they drag
them along the side of the boat, still clinging together, to the waist of
the boat, where the gunwale is very low, and with more assistance succeed
in getting them aboard.
[Illustration: ON THE COAST AT DEAL.]
And now for the poor boy, still clinging to the gunwale, and crying out in
piteous tones. Each moment, as the waves dash over the vessel, the boatmen
expect to see him washed overboard like a cork. What can be done? No one
can mount the rope in the face of the seas and tide which had really
helped the poor fellow now safely on the boat. There seems no hope of
taking him off by any means whatever, but the coxswain determines to haul
the boat up to the ship sharply, and attempt it. Scarcely are the orders
given, when some of the men give a cry, “‘What’s that? look out!’ Yes, he
is overboard, washed over by that big sea. ‘Where is he? where is he?
There he is! No; only his cap! there he lifts on that sea—he is coming
straight for the boat!’ From the change and eddy of the tide, the rush of
the sea past the boat is not nearly so rapid as it was, and the poor boy
comes floating slowly from the ship; once or twice he has been rolled
under by the waves, now he is on the surface again, and near the boat.
‘Here he comes! look! on that wave! Lost! No, he floats again! Slacken
hawsers! Now he is within reach! Carefully, quick! Now you have got him!
He is making no effort, and floating with his head under water!’ A boatman
manages to hook his jacket with a long boat-hook, and pulls him towards
the boat; gently the men lift him in, sorrowfully, and tears are in the
eyes of more than one as they look upon the small face. ‘Poor little chap!
Too late! too late! he’s gone!’” Their efforts are now all needed to get
clear of the wreck, cut the cable, and raise the sail, all which being
done successfully, they go off smartly before the wind, and have time to
look to the poor boy again. Kind hands chafe his hands and rub his back
and limbs, and put a little rum to his lips, and after about half an hour
they have the joy of seeing him show signs of life, and their efforts are
redoubled. Some of the men take the dryest of their jackets and wrap him
up tenderly, lying him under the mizen-sail. He eventually recovers.
But, strangest part of all this eventful story, the captain, who had been
two hours in the seething waters, is picked up alive, although, it may
well be believed, in a terrible state of exhaustion. At first he seems to
be dying, but at length, after the men have done their best in chafing and
rubbing, he gets a little better, and is able to tell them that his
vessel, the _Providentia_, was a full-rigged ship from Finland, and that
he himself is a Russian Fin, which accounts for his miraculous
preservation in the water, as the Fins are the hardiest of sailors. Eleven
of his men had left the ship in their best boat, and were, it was
eventually found, blown over to Boulogne.
The waves are rolling along in all their fury, and beat down upon the
sands with tremendous force, and among them, and settled down somewhat, is
a large barque. The life-boat men look at the awful rage of sea, and say
to each other, “We have indeed our work cut out for us.” There are no
signs of life on board the wreck, but the flag of distress is still
flying, and the steamer tows the boat nearer to her. Then the crew is
discovered crouching in the shelter of the deck-house, while the huge
waves make a complete breach over the vessel, threatening to wash away
both house and crew. The steamer takes the boat to windward and lets her
go. The boat’s sail is hoisted, and she makes for the wreck. A minute more
and they are in the broken water, the seas falling in tangled volumes over
the boat, and she is tossed in all directions by the wild broken waves.
She fills again and again, and the men have to cling with all their
strength to the thwarts; but still the wind drives the boat on, and they
get within about sixty yards of the wreck, when the anchor is thrown out
and the cable paid out swiftly. The men shout out, to encourage the poor
trembling wretches on board, and, just as they expect to make a first
successful rescue of a part of them, are nearly swamped by a fearful wave,
which carries them a hundred yards away. They prepare for another attempt,
hoist the sail, and try to sheer her to the vessel, but all their efforts
are in vain. Wave after wave breaks over them, and the boat is tossed in
all directions by the broken seas. Sometimes the coxswain feels as if he
would be thrown bodily forward on the men, as the waves almost lift the
boat end on end. They must give it up for this time; the very oars are
blown from the row-locks and out of the men’s hands. Again and again they
are baulked in their efforts to reach the ill-starred vessel. Yet again
and again they cheer, to keep up the spirits of its half-drowned and
frozen crew.
The ship’s hull has now been under water for some time, and is breaking up
fast. On board the _Aid_ the mortar apparatus is got ready, in the hope of
getting near enough to the vessel to fire a line into her rigging.
“Cautiously the steamer approaches; the tide has been for some time rising
fast; the steamer does not draw much water; they are almost within firing
distance; the waves come rushing along and nearly overrun the steamer; at
last a breaker, larger than the rest, catches her, lifts her high upon its
crest, and letting her fall down into its trough as down the side of a
well, she strikes the sands heavily; the engines are instantly reversed;
she lifts with the next wave, and being a very quick and handy boat, at
once moves astern before she can thump again, and they are saved from
shipwreck; and thus the fifth effort to save the shipwrecked crew fails.”
No time is lost; at once the steamer heads for the life-boat, and makes
ready to again tow her into position for a fresh attempt. The masts of the
wreck are quivering, and it is evident that she is breaking up fast.
The life-boat men consult together as to the plan of their next effort. At
last one of the men proposes a mode, most assuredly novel, and which must,
indeed, either prove rescue to the shipwrecked or death to all. “I’ll tell
you what, my men, if we are going to save those poor fellows, there is
only one way of doing it: it must be a case of save all or lose all, that
is just it! We must go in upon the vessel straight, hit her between the
masts, and throw our anchor over right upon her decks.” This is, almost
naturally, derided by some as a hair-brained trick. Let us see the result.
“Once more the boat heads for the wreck—this time to do or to die; each
man knows it, each man feels it. They are crossing the stern of the
vessel. ‘Look at that breaker! Look at that breaker! Hold on! hold on! It
will be all over with us if it catches us; we shall be thrown high into
the masts of the vessel, and shaken out into the sea in a moment! Hold on
all, hold on! Now it comes! No, thank God! it breaks ahead of us, and we
have escaped. Now, men, be ready, be ready!’ Thus shouts the coxswain.
Every man is at his station; some with the ropes in hand ready to lower
the sails, others by the anchor, prepared to throw it overboard at the
right moment; round, past the stern of the vessel, the boat flies, round
in the blast of the gale and the swell of the sea; down helm; round she
comes; down foresail; the ship’s lee gunwale is under water; the boat
shoots forward straight for the wreck, and hits the lee rail with a shock
that almost throws all the men from their posts, and then, still forward,
she literally leaps on board the wreck. Over! over with the anchor. It
falls on the vessel’s deck. All the crew of the vessel are in the mizen
shrouds, but they cannot get to the boat: a fearful rush of sea is chasing
over the vessel, and between them and it. Again and again the boat thumps
on the wreck as on a rock, with a shock that almost shakes the men from
their hold.” The waves carry her off, but the anchor holds, and they
manage to haul on board another line. Again and again the boat washes
away, but comes up to the vessel again; and, one by one, ten poor Danes
are got on board. One sailor jumps from the rigging; the boat sinks in the
trough of the sea, and he falls between her and the wreck; a second, and
he would be crushed; two boatmen seize him, and are themselves seized by
their companions, or they would go overboard.
[Illustration: RESCUE OF THE DANISH VESSEL.]
The long battle was over; was it not one worth fighting? So thought the
King of Denmark, who sent two hundred rix-dollars to be divided among the
men, who were also rewarded by the Board of Trade. The boatmen are poor
men, and such presents come in very acceptably; but their greatest
satisfaction must ever come from the memory of their own brave deeds.
[Illustration: SURVIVORS RESCUED FROM THE RIGGING OF A WRECK.]