“HOVELLING” _v._ WRECKING.
The Contrast—The “Hovellers” defended—Their Services—The Case of
the _Albion_—Anchors and Cables wanted by a disabled Vessel—Lugger
wrecked on the Beach—Dangers of the Hoveller’s Life—Nearly swamped
by the heavy Seas—Loss of a baling Bowl, and what it means—Saved
on an American Ship—The Lost Found—A brilliant example of
Life-saving at Bideford—The Small Rewards of the Hoveller’s
Life—The case of _La Marguerite_—Nearly wrecked in Port—Hovellers
_v._ Wreckers—“Let’s all start fair!”—Praying for Wrecks.
The wrecker was a land-ghoul, a monster in human form, who preyed on human
life and property. The “hovellers,” a distinctive term on many parts of
the coasts of this sea-girt isle, is applied to the hardy men who, in all
weathers and at all risks, go to the assistance of ships in distress, and
occasionally benefit by a wreck, but they are not wreckers. The Rev. Mr.
Gilmore, who has so well described the dangers, perils, and triumphs of
the life-boat service, very properly includes among the storm warriors the
honest men who perform these practical deeds of naval daring. Visitors to
Ramsgate and other seaside resorts of the southern coast will remember the
luggers in which holiday excursions are made; many of these same boats
are, in winter more especially, engaged in very serious work. “The more
threatening and heavy the weather,” says our authority, “the greater the
probability of disaster occurring or having occurred, then the more ready
are the crew to work their way out to the Goodwin Sands, and to cruise
round them on the look-out for vessels in distress; they dare not take the
lugger into the broken water—there a life-boat alone can live: but still,
she is a grand sea-boat, one that will stagger on, with a ship’s heavy
anchor and chain on board, through weather bad enough for anything—a boat
that is well suited for the hard and dangerous service which employs her
during the winter months.” The hovelling lugger has generally a crew of
ten men, and these receive no regular pay. Any salvage or reward the
vessel earns is commonly divided into fourteen shares; the boat takes
three and a half for the owners, half a share goes for the provisions, and
each man of the crew receives one share. Mr. Gilmore says that “complaints
are sometimes made of the amounts charged by these men for services
rendered; but the cases of a good hovel are few and far between; and often
the luggers put out to sea night after night throughout a stormy winter,
hanging about the sands, in wind and rain, and snow and mists, the men
half-frozen with the cold and half-smothered with the flying surf and
spray, and often week after week they thus suffer and endure, and do not
make a penny-piece each man; then at last, perhaps, comes a chance: a big
ship is on the tail of a sandbank; they render assistance and get her off;
they have saved thousands of pounds worth of property; and the captain,
and the owners, and the underwriters all look aghast, and cry out with
indignation when they ask perhaps a sum that will give them ten or fifteen
pounds a man.”
Not uncommonly the lugger speaks a vessel, and finds that an anchor or
anchors, cables, &c., have been lost, and must be replaced. They must make
in all haste for shore, and obtain what is needed, and put out again to
the distressed vessel. What all this may mean on occasions to the owners
and men of the hovelling vessels is shown in the following example—the
case of the _Albion_ lugger.
The _Albion_ meets a vessel driving before the gale, having lost both her
anchors and cables; receives orders to supply her from shore; and the
hardy crew, putting the vessel round, beat through the heavy seas, and
make for Deal. “They have to force the boat against wind and tide, and
much skill is required to prevent her being filled by the rising seas
which sweep around her; now she rushes upon the beach, the surf breaks
over her and half fills her with water; with a tremendous thump and shake
she strikes the shore with her iron keel.
“As the wave which bore the lugger in upon the beach recedes, a man
springs overboard from the bow with a rope in his hand; many catch hold of
the rope, and haul their hardest to keep the boat straight, head on to the
beach; there is a stem strap—a chain running through a hole in the front
part of the keel; a boatman watches his opportunity, and, as a wave sweeps
back, rushes down and passes a rope through the loop of the strap; the
other end of this rope is fastened to a powerful capstan, which is placed
high up on the beach. ‘Man the capstan! Heave with a will!’ and the strong
men strain at the capstan bars until the capstan creaks again. There is no
starting the lugger: she is so full of water from the surf breaking on the
beach that she is too heavy for the men at one capstan to move her; ropes
are led down from two other capstans, and rove through a snatch-block
fastened to a boat on the beach; all put out their strength, round they
tramp, with a ‘Ho! heave ho!’ and slowly the lugger travels up the beach,
and is safe from the roll of the breakers. The men get the water out of
her, haul her higher up on to a swivel platform, turn her round head to
the sea, and the leading hands hurry away to inquire about an anchor and
cable. The agent supplies them with such as seem suitable for the size of
the vessel, and which will perhaps weigh together about seven tons.” Then
follows the labour of getting them on board, but in a short time all are
ready for sea.
“The gale has rapidly increased in force, and a frightful surf is running
on the beach; the roar of the breakers on the shingle, the howling of the
storm, the gleam of white foam shining out of the mist and gloom, all
picture the wildness of the storm; but the undaunted boatmen do not
hesitate. All is ready; the signal given; the boat rushes down the steep
ways, and is launched into the sea. A breaking wave rolls in swiftly, it
meets the bow of the lugger in its rush, fills her; for a moment the big
boat runs under water, and then is lifted and twisted like a toy in the
grasp of the sea, and is thrown, in the heave of the wave, broadside on to
the beach; a cry of horror from all on shore, and a rush down to aid the
crew, who are all—there are fifteen of them—struggling in the surf: now
the men are washed up by the wave, and feel the ground and stagger
forward; now they are caught again by a breaker and rolled over; it is for
each of them a terrible battle with the fierce seas; here one gets on his
feet and stumbles forward, he is caught by the men on shore and dragged up
the beach; there a man is lying struggling on the shingle, trying in vain
to rise, exhausted and confused, two men seize his collar, and pull him
forward a yard or two, then get him to his feet, and he escapes the next
wave, which would have washed him out to sea again. Now all the men seem
to be saved; names are shouted—do all answer? No; there is one missing!
All rush to the water’s edge and gaze into the darkness, eagerly watching
each shadow mid the surf. ‘There he is! No! Yes it is! there—lifting on
the surf! there, rolling-over!’ ‘Quick! quick! form a line!’ And the brave
boatmen grasp each other’s hands with iron strength, and form a chain, the
lowest of the four or five men at the sea end of the chain being in the
water. The waves battle with them, but sturdily they persevere. At last
the body is within reach of the seaward man; he grasps it; the men are
dragged up the beach, and the poor insensible man is carried ashore. Alive
or dead? They cannot say; and with a great fear in their hearts they carry
him hurriedly up the beach, and soon, to the great joy of all, he gives
signs of life, and gradually recovers.
“In the meanwhile, the poor boatmen on the beach have nothing that they
can do but watch their fine boat, which was worth five hundred pounds,
being torn and hammered to pieces in the surf. Plank after plank is
wrenched from her. Now, with a loud crash, she is broken in half; the two
halves part; the anchor and cable fall through her. They can see part of
the forepeak, with one side torn away, floating in the breakers; soon that
also is rent to pieces, and nothing but fragments of the boat float in the
surf or are strewn about the beach; and the boatmen, heavy-hearted, but
thankful that they have escaped with their lives, go slowly to their homes
to rest for a few hours and recruit their strength, and then be ready to
form part of the crew of any other boat, and at the first summons to rush
out again to the encounter with the stormiest seas.” And that what the men
of Deal are _par excellence_—hardy, brave, and skilful—the men of our
coasts are very generally.
[Illustration: LOSS OF THE “ALBION” LUGGER.]
Sometimes the hovellers are distinctly associated with the life-boat men
in their efforts to save life. Gilmore cites a case where a lugger’s boat
had succeeded in taking a number of men off a wreck, when they themselves
were caught in a squall, and were only too glad to make for the life-boat,
to which the larger part were transferred. Then came a chapter of
difficulties, for neither steamer nor lugger could be discovered through
the fog, which obscured everything within a few yards of them. When they
at length reached the _Champion_ lugger, the shipwrecked crew refused to
leave the life-boat. They had been as nearly as possible wrecked a second
time in the lugger’s boat. What a story had these poor men to relate!
Their vessel, the _Effort_, had been beaten about for days in the North
Sea previous to grounding on the fatal Goodwins. They hoisted lamps, and
were preparing to set a tar-barrel on fire, when their ship, which was
very light, rolled from side to side, almost yard-arms under, and then
suddenly capsized altogether. “At once,” said one of the narrators, “and
with difficulty, we made for the weather rigging, and were glad to find
that not any of the crew were lost as she fell over. We lashed ourselves
to the rigging. We knew, to our great joy, that the tide was falling; had
it been rising, we must have very soon been overrun by it, the vessel
broken up, and every man of us lost. We were in danger enough as it was,
for the brig, soon after she capsized, was caught by the tide, and worked
round, with her deck towards the seas; and as the heavy seas broke over
and came rushing up the deck, they fell on us with terrible weight, and
beat us and crushed us against the ship’s rail, so that we were forced to
unlash ourselves from the rigging; and what to do we did not know, till
one of us said, ‘Our only chance is to lash the end of the ropes round our
waists, and let go the rigging as the waves come.’ And so we did; and
terrible work it was. As the waves came we slackened the ropes and went
away a little with them; and as they passed, half smothered as we were,
hauled ourselves back to the rigging and held on a bit; and then, when the
next wave came, we let go, and were all adrift in the wash again; our
hands were almost torn to pieces with the strain on the ropes and grasping
at the side of the vessel.... You see, too, how our clothes were nearly
dragged off us: it was indeed an awful time!” One man grew terribly
excited as they told the dismal story. His limbs and features worked, and
as the waves dashed over the life-boat he fancied himself being washed off
the wreck, and his reason quite gave way for the time. He shouted out,
“Let me drown myself! Let me drown myself! I can stand it no longer!” and
was with the greatest difficulty held back by three men, who would not
relinquish their hold till they got safe into harbour.
The hoveller’s life is necessarily full of danger, for his services are
usually only required in the very worst weather; and if he can save
anything from a wreck, it will generally be done under circumstances of
great difficulty. Gilmore cites an example where some of these men were
endeavouring to save the rigging of a wrecked vessel, when a squall came
on, with driving snow and hail. The men in the rigging were somewhat
interested in their work, and were at first inclined to risk the weather,
but the gale increased so rapidly that it became evident that they must
leave in their boat at once. Away for their lives the men pull, the little
boat seethes through the troubled waters, and they soon near the edge of
the sand, and are making for deep water, when they suddenly hear the noise
of the surf beating on the shallows immediately ahead of them. They pull
ahead a little, and can see the huge waves rolling in out of the deep
water, mounting up, curling over, and breaking, meeting other breakers,
foaming up against them—in fact, a sea of raging waters surrounding the
sands in which their little boat would be swamped at once. As they mount
on a wave they can see the lugger riding safely just outside the surf,
only a quarter of a mile off, but that quarter of a mile it is impossible
for them to pass, and equally impossible for the lugger to get any nearer
to them. The seas break over them constantly, and for a while they return
to the dangerous shelter of the wreck.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING COAST OF RAMSGATE AND THE GOODWIN SANDS.]
“The Goodwin Sands are about nine miles long; in the middle of them there
is, at low water, a large lake, which is called on the chart ‘Trinity
Bay,’ but which is known to the boatmen as the ‘In-Sand.’ The men row in
the direction of the lake, and row over the sandbanks which surround it,
as soon as the tide has flowed sufficiently to enable them to do so. Now
they find themselves in completely smooth water, and are safe; but for how
long? a short hour or so, for the hungry waves are following them up fast.
Still higher and higher comes the tide, and a furious surf begins to rage
over the banks that for a time protect the lake.” Well do the men know how
short must be their period of rest.
Soon the heavy rollers come in and threaten to swamp them; the boat is
nearly full of water. At this juncture the steersman, who has been
steering and baling the boat for about four hours, suddenly lets the bowl
with which he is baling fly from his hand; he gives a cry of horror, and
the men cannot help repeating it, for may not this apparently small
accident be fatal to them? To keep the boat afloat without baling is
impossible; the surf breaks into her continually, and that bowl is
indispensable to their safety, for the men cannot use their sou’westers
for the purpose when both hands are so busily employed in freeing their
oars from the seas and keeping the blades from being blown up into the air
by the force of the gale. Most happily, the bowl is a wooden one, and it
floats a few yards from them. The men watch it anxiously as they are
tossed up and down by the quick waves. Back the boat down upon the bowl
they cannot, and it is drifting away faster than they are floating. It
would seem a simple matter to pick up a bowl floating within a distance so
small, but the waves long render it impossible. Suddenly the coxswain
cries, “Here is a lull; round with her sharp!” The men on the starboard
side give a mighty pull, and the others back their hardest; then a pull
altogether; the bowl is within reach; the coxswain grasps it with a hasty
snatch. “Round! round with her quick!” and the boat is got head straight
to the seas again before the waves can catch her broadside and roll her
over. All breathe again: they have another chance of life.
They get clear of the Sands, but a fierce gale is still raging. “As they
get into the Gull stream, they see vessel after vessel running with
close-reefed topsails before the gale; the boatmen hail them, but they get
no answer. One little sloop affords them slight hope, for she is evidently
altering her course, but after a moment’s apparent hesitation, away she
goes again before the gale, and abandons them to their fate. The captain
of the little vessel related afterwards how, in the height of the storm,
he saw some poor fellows in a small boat, and had a great wish to try and
save them, but the sea was running so high that he felt it was impossible
to heave his vessel to, and so had to leave them, and that they must have
been driven on the Sands and lost. This sloop was about a quarter of a
mile from the boat, and the men do not again get as near to any other
ship; and as vessel after vessel passes, and the night begins to grow
dark, the position of the men becomes more and more hopeless, and they all
feel that if no vessel picks them up they must soon be blown in again upon
the sands, and there perish.” The men work on, but solemnly, very
solemnly.
But one vessel, a large American ship, remains at anchor in the Downs;
vessel after vessel had slipped their cables and run before the gale. It
is their last hope. “As they drop slowly towards her, they shout time
after time, but cannot make themselves heard, and it is getting too dusk
for them to be seen at any distance; the seas are running alongside the
ship almost gunwale high, and it is impossible to get nearer to her than
within fifty yards. Hail after hail the men give; still they get no
answer. They can see a man on the poop, but he evidently neither sees nor
hears them, and their last chance seems slipping away, for they are fast
drifting past the vessel. ‘Get on the thwart, Dick, and shout with all
your might!’ the coxswain says to the man pulling stroke oar. ‘I’ll hold
you!’ hauling in his oar and catching it under the seat. The man springs
upon the thwart, and balancing himself for a second, hails with all his
force.”
“The man is moving; he hears us, hurrah!” is the glad cry in the boat; and
they can soon see several astonished faces peering over them. The boat
drifts by the ship; they give a pull or two, to get her under the stern of
the vessel; a coil of rope with a life-buoy is thrown to them, and they
manage to get it on board. The captain is now on deck; he orders other
ropes to be sent down, and soon another life-buoy, with cord attached,
comes floating by. Still the boat is in great danger; their safety
hitherto has been in floating with the waves, yielding to them as they
rolled on, but now the little boat has to breast the waves, and is tossed
high in the air, and again plunged far down, running great risk of being
overturned. “The difficulty now is how to get the men out of the boat, for
they dare not haul her up closer to the vessel, as she will not ride with
a shorter scope of rope. They send another rope down to the boat, with a
bowline knot made in it, for the men to sit in, and then shout to the men,
‘We will haul you on board one at a time!’” A moment’s question as to the
order in which the men shall go is quickly decided, for each feels that at
any moment the boat may sink or upset. They leave in the order in which
they sit, and one after another they plunge into the waves, and are hauled
on board, dripping, but saved! Very soon the boat fills and turns over,
and hangs by the ropes till morning.
The captain will hardly credit their story at first. “Impossible!
impossible!” says he. “No boat could live in such a sea, and over the
Sands. Impossible!” But he becomes convinced at last, and all on board
show every attention and kindness. A little brandy and some dry clothes at
once, a beefsteak supper and a glass of grog later on, followed by warm
beds made up on the captain’s cabin floor, and their adventures in an open
boat were but the memory of a horrid dream. The coxswain, however, fell
very ill soon after, and was nigh death’s door; he did not recover his
strength for a twelvemonth, so greatly had the anxiety of that night’s
work told upon him.
Meantime, the lugger, after cruising backwards and forwards, the crew
keeping an anxious and fruitless look-out for their comrades in the boat,
is obliged to put in for Dover, from whence they telegraph the sad news
that six of their men are to all appearance lost. Next morning they make
one more effort to find some traces of their lost companions, and then
steer, sad and disheartened, for Ramsgate. There the arrival of the lugger
is most anxiously awaited. Alas! it is as they feared, and many a
household is plunged in grief. While this is going on, the boatmen leave
the American ship and row steadily for Ramsgate, near which they fall in
with another lugger, on which they are taken. The lugger’s flag is
hoisted, in token that they are the bearers of good news, and great is the
curiosity of the men about the harbour. A crowd hurries down the pier to
watch her arrival, and as soon as the men missing from the _Princess
Alice_ are recognised, the cheers and excitement are wild in the extreme.
Men rush off to bear the good news. “One poor woman, in the midst of her
agony and mourning for her husband, and surrounded by her weeping friends,
is surprised by her door being burst violently open, and at seeing a
boatman, almost dropping with breathlessness, gasping and gesticulating
and nodding, but trying in vain to speak; and it is some seconds before he
can stammer out, ‘All right! all right! Your husband is safe—coming now!’”
[Illustration: THE LUGGER REACHING RAMSGATE HARBOUR.]
The danger incurred by the hovellers is well illustrated by the following
example, recorded by our leading journal(76) some years since. Nine of
these men endeavoured to save a sloop, the _Wool-packet_, of Dartmouth,
stranded on Bideford Bar, and the crew must have lost their lives but for
the noble service performed, under great risks, by Captain Thomas Jones,
master of the steam-tug _Ely_, of Cardiff. A shipowner of Bideford, who
was an eye-witness of the brave deed, stated that the crew of the vessel
had abandoned her, and the two boats’ crews, consisting of nine men,
afterwards boarded the wreck, with the view of trying to get her off the
bar; but when the tide rose the sea broke heavily over the vessel, and the
men hoisted a flag of distress. The steam-tug _Ely_ now hastened to the
rescue, against a strong tide and wind. Before, however, she could get
near the wreck, the nine men were driven to seek refuge in the rigging.
The sea was breaking fearfully in all directions and the vessel rolling
from side to side, but Captain Jones and his crew bravely proceeded
through the broken water, at the risk of their lives and vessel, and
succeeded, at the first attempt, in saving three of the men. This was all
that they could then accomplish, for the sea was now breaking so furiously
over the wreck that the steamer was driven away; and the same want of
success attended a second and third attempt to approach the wreck. The
captain then backed astern, and, with consummate skill and boldness,
actually placed the steamer alongside the vessel’s rigging, with her bow
over the deck of the wreck, thus saving the six men in the rigging; and
within the short space of two minutes the wreck had actually disappeared,
and was not seen afterwards. But for this bold and successful service,
nine widows (for the nine rescued men were all married) and forty
fatherless children would to-day be lamenting the loss of husbands and
fathers. The National Life-boat Institution presented a medal, &c., to the
captain, and £1 each to the eight men forming the crew.
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE “WOOL-PACKET” ON BIDEFORD BAR.]
The greatness of the risk to the hoveller, and the comparative smallness
of his reward, are illustrated in the case of _La Marguerite_, a small
French brig, rescued from the Goodwin Sands and brought safely into
Ramsgate Harbour. She was owned by her captain, and represented to him the
labours of a hardworking life. She was bound from Christiania to Dieppe,
with a cargo of deals, and was considerably hampered on deck, the timber
being piled up almost to her gunwale. She lost her course in the night,
and grounded on the Sands. “Where are they? Where can they be? What
horrible mistake have they made?” writes Mr. Gilmore in his forcible
manner. “They think they must have run somewhere on the mainland on the
Kent coast; one man proposes to swim ashore with a rope, but the seas come
sweeping over them with a degree of violence that quite does away with any
thought of making such an attempt. They hurry to the long-boat, to try and
get it out, but it and the only other boat which is in the brig are
speedily swept overboard by the seas. The vessel is on the edge of the
Sands, and feels all the force of the waves as they roll in and leap and
break upon the bark. With every inrush of the seas she lifts high, and
pitches, crushing her bow down upon the Sands, each time with a thump that
makes her timbers groan, and almost sends the men flying from the deck.”
For some twenty minutes she keeps thrashing on the Sands, when they glide
off into deep water, and after much delay get their anchor overboard. The
gale continues, and, after much entreaty—for the captain is a poor man—the
crew succeed in inducing him to cut the foremast away, and the brig rides
more easily when this is accomplished. They wait for daylight. They are
then seen from Margate, and two fine luggers have a race to see which can
get first to the vessel. The life-boat also puts off. One of the luggers
gets alongside in fine shape, and the men at once recommend the captain to
cut away the remaining mast, but he will not be persuaded. They raise the
anchor, and passing a hawser on board, attempt to tow the brig from the
Sands, but make little progress. To their satisfaction, they see the
Ramsgate steam-boat and life-boat making their way round the North
Foreland.
“The coastguard officer at Margate, when he saw that the Margate life-boat
could not reach the brig, and knowing that if any sea got up where the
vessel was that the luggers could be of no use, telegraphed to Ramsgate
that the vessel was on the Knock Sands. The steamer and life-boat get
under weigh at once, and proceed as fast as possible to the rescue. There
is a nasty sea running off Ramsgate, but it is not until they get to the
North Foreland that they feel the full force of the gale. Here the sea is
tremendous, and as the steamer pitches to it the waves that break upon her
bows fly right over her funnel—indeed, she buries herself so much in the
seas that they have to ease her speed considerably to prevent her being
completely overrun with them.” The boatmen at last get on board the brig;
a glance shows that no time must be lost, and as rapidly as possible the
steamer is enabled to take the water-logged vessel in tow. The French crew
are utterly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and are quite ready to
leave their vessel in English hands. Away the brig goes, plunging and
rolling, with the seas washing over her decks, which are scarcely out of
the water, while the two boats are tossing astern, all being towed by the
gallant little steamer. They have nearly reached the harbour.
In spite of the rough cold night, the interest in life-boat work is too
great for all sympathisers to be driven away from the pier-head; and there
is a crowd there ready to watch the boats return and to welcome the men
with a cheer. The steamer approaches cautiously, and the brig seems well
under command. A couple of minutes more and all will be safe, when
suddenly the rush of tide catches the wreck on the bow; she overpowers the
lugger, which is towing astern; round her head flies; she lurches heavily
forward, and strikes the east pier-head. Crash goes her jib-boom first,
and the steamer, towing with all its might, cannot prevent her again and
again crushing against the pier. Her bowsprit and figure-head are broken
and torn off, her stern smashed in. Ropes and buoys are thrown from the
pier. “The poor Frenchmen are almost paralysed by the scene and by
excitement—they cannot make it out; the harbour-master, Captain Braine,
has enough to do: he sees the danger of the men on board the brig, but he
sees more than this—he sees the danger of the crowd at the pier-head, for
the brig’s mainmast is swaying backwards and forwards, coming right over
the pier as the vessel rolls, and threatens to break and come down upon
the people as the brig strikes the pier; and if it does it will certainly
kill some, perhaps many.” Women shriek and men shout, and it looks as
though the _Marguerite_ would be wrecked in sight of all. Meantime the
crew of the hovelling lugger are in equal, if not greater, danger.
“As soon as the men on board the lugger saw the brig sweep and crash
against the pier, they cast off their tow-rope, but before they could
hoist any sail, the way they had on the boat and the rush of the tide
carried the lugger almost between the vessel, as she swung round, and the
pier. The men, however, escaped that danger, and indeed death, but the
boat was swept to the back of the pier, and in the eddy of the tide was
carried into the broken waters; then she rolls in the trough of the sea;
wave after wave catches and sweeps her up towards the pier, as if to crush
her against it, but each time the rebound of the water from the pier acts
as a fender and saves her from destruction; but she is an open boat, and
if one big wave leaps on board it will fill her, and she must sink at
once; and the seas around her are very wild, the surf from their crests
breaks into her continually. The people on the pier see her extreme peril;
some run to the life-boat men, who are preparing to moor the boat, and
shout to them to hasten out—that the brig is breaking up, and that the
lugger will be swamped; before, however, the life-boat can get out the
brig is towed clear of the pier, and, the lugger having drifted to the end
of the pier, the men are able to get up a corner of the foresail; it cants
the lugger’s head round; the men get the foresail well up: it fills; she
draws away from the pier and away from the broken water, and is clear.”
But now the brig, the rudder of which had been wrenched out of her on the
Sands, has no boat to help her steer, and lurches about in all directions.
A heavy sea strikes her bow; the steamer’s hawser tightens, strains, and
breaks! Excited people on the pier crowd round the harbour-master, and beg
him to order the life-boat men to take the crew and the boatmen off the
wreck at once. That official knows, however, the boatmen too well: _they_
will not leave her while a stitch holds together.
The captain of the steamer knows their peril, and backs his vessel down to
the wreck, now not over a hundred yards from the Dyke Sand. She is rolling
heavily, and the seas sweep over her; her crew can hardly keep the deck.
The steamer gets close to the brig, and soon another cable is out. Each
time the brig sheers heavily to one side or the other she is brought up
with a jerk that makes the steamer tremble from stem to stern, but that
plucky little boat is not to be beaten. Five brave fellows come off from
the pier in a small boat, bringing a line with them: with this they haul a
second hawser to the wreck; a crowd of people on the pier pull their
hardest, and succeed in moving the wreck. This cable breaks shortly
afterwards, but the steamer has by this time again got hold of the vessel,
and tows her safely into the harbour, a miserable wreck, with masts and
rudder gone, her bow and stern crushed, but with everybody safe on board.
The _Marguerite_ was ultimately repaired and sent to sea again, though she
could never be the vessel she once was. And the Margate and Ramsgate men
got a few pounds each for work that required each one to be a hero, and a
very practical and seamanlike hero too. The old wreckers made ten times
the money, with an infinitesimal proportion of the trouble.
Yes, times _have_ changed for the better. Individuals may, of course, be
found capable of any amount of brutality for the sake of gain, but the
shipwrecked mariner of to-day is morally certain that his life and
remaining property are safe when he reaches the shore of any part of the
United Kingdom, and that for every ruffian there will be twenty kindly and
hospitable people ready to pity and to aid him. The same could not be said
of the early part of this very century. It seems almost incredible, too
horrible, to be possible, that in 1811 the remnant of a poor crew of a
frigate wrecked on the Scotch coast were, after buffeting the breakers and
struggling ashore for dear life, absolutely murdered on the beach for the
sake of their wretched clothes, or, at all events, stripped and left to
die. When morning dawned the beach was found strewn with naked corpses.
The inhabitants of many fishing villages and seaside hamlets were open to
similar imputations late in the last, and indeed early in the present,
century. Whole communities have in bygone times—let us trust gone for
ever—turned out at the tidings of a vessel in danger; solely with a view
to plunder. A tolerably well-known yarn, in which, probably, implicit
confidence should not be placed, tells us of a wreck which occurred near
the village of St. Anthony, Cornwall, one Sunday morning. This being the
case, and the parishioners assembling at the church, the clerk announced
that “Measter would gee them a holladay,” for purposes on which that
excellent clergyman well knew they were intent. This is only one part of
the story, for it is stated that as the members of the congregation were
hurrying pell-mell from the church, they were stopped by the stentorian
voice of the parson, who cried out, “Here! here! let’s all start fair!”
The fact is that the contents or material of a wreck scattered around a
coast were, and, no doubt, are still in many places, looked upon as
legitimate prey by fishermen and others who would scorn anything in the
form of treachery, in luring the good ship ashore, or in brutal treatment
to the survivors of her crew. “Within the past five-and-twenty years,”
said a leader-writer a short time since, “it is said that a candidate for
Parliamentary honours, while canvassing in a district near the coast,
found that his opinion on the subject of wrecking was made a crucial
point. Wrecking, indeed—so far as the appropriation of shipwrecked
property is implied in the word—seems to have held very much the same
position in popular ethics as smuggling has done. ‘Such was the feeling of
the wreckers,’ writes one who was at one time Commissioner of the
Liverpool Police, ‘that if a man saw a bale of goods or a barrel floating
in the water, he would run almost any risk of his life to touch that
article, as a sort of warrant for calling it his own. It is considered
such fair game, that if he could touch it he called out to those about
him, “That is mine!” and it would be marked as his, and the others would
consider he had a claim to it, and would render him assistance.’” We are
told that the natives of Sleswig-Holstein considered wrecking so
legitimate that prayers were offered up in their churches at one time that
“their coasts might be blessed.” Pastor and flock looked upon wrecks as
much of blessings as they did a good fishing season. The parson, however,
it was explained, did not really pray for wrecks. Certainly not! What he
meant was that if there _must_ be wrecks, those wrecks might happen on
their coasts!
The question of “salvage” is of a nature too technical for these columns.
In some minor matters it would seem that the authorities do not offer
proper encouragement to fishermen and others to be decently honest or
humane. At the period of the wreck of the _Schiller_, on the Scilly
Islands, a correspondent of our leading journal(77) tells us “that many
floating bodies of drowned passengers and seamen were picked up by the
fishing boats which abound in that part of Cornwall. Upon some of them
money or valuables were found, and these were given up to the Customs when
the body was sent ashore. In such cases the valuables were retained for
the friends of the drowned persons, and a uniform reward of five shillings
was paid to the finders. Now, for the sake of taking ashore such a body as
I have described, the fishermen—seven or eight in number—would have lost
their night’s fishing, for it would not have been safe, even if the crew
were willing, to have done otherwise. The smallness of the reward given in
return for the services rendered would therefore operate as a strong
inducement to the more selfish among them to prefer their fishing to the
dictates of humanity. My informants even told a story of a fishing boat
which picked up a floating body, and, having collected all the papers and
valuables from it, restored the body itself to the deep, and went on its
way. The papers and valuables were given up in due course, and no charge
of dishonesty was preferred against the crew; but the want of humanity
caused (and not unnaturally) a strong feeling of indignation against the
perpetrators of this act. The fishermen, however, argued that if they
brought the bodies into port (as they were instructed to do), they would
get, at most, a sum of sevenpence per man for their night’s work; and if
they brought merely the property to the proper authorities, they were
abused for their inhumanity; and that, therefore, their only alternative
was to pass the bodies by, and attend to their own work. Should the view
that I have here stated be found to be a general one, I think that it will
be allowed that it is an argument for either paying more highly for the
finding of bodies at sea, or allowing the finders the same salvage upon
the property found upon the bodies that they would have received had the
property been picked up in a chest.”
Pleasant it is to turn from what we may well believe is only an occasional
example of want of feeling to such a case as the following—one out of
thousands that might be cited. It is slightly abridged from a little
publication(78) which should be in the hands of all readers of “The Sea”
interested in benevolent efforts for the seaman’s welfare.
[Illustration: RONAYNE’S BRAVERY.]
Some twelve miles westward from Tramore—a favourite watering-place and
summer resort for the citizens of Waterford, and nearly half a mile from
the coast—a farm is situated which has been long occupied by John Ronayne,
a hardy and typical Irish farmer. The farm-house has few of the
necessaries and none of the luxuries of civilised life, it is a true type
of the poor class of farm-houses in many parts of Ireland, consisting of
but two rooms—one the sleeping apartment, where Ronayne’s family of twelve
children have been born, and the other the living-room, where it is to be
suspected sundry four-footed friends occasionally find their way, and bask
or grunt before the fire. Rather less than half a mile from the farm is
the rugged shore, approached by a rough “boreen,” or narrow lane, emerging
on the cliff near the course of a stream, which is a roaring foaming
torrent in winter and spring-time. On winter days and nights, brown and
turbulent, this stream rushes foaming into the ocean over crags and rocks
and pebbly shore; but before it joins its fresh water with the salt sea
foam, it plunges into a crevice, narrow and deep and deadly. Every
coastman along the rock-bound shore knows this deep, treacherous hole, and
warns the traveller to beware of it—for, once in it, there is no return.
But this source of peril is little enough to that which is beyond.
A hundred yards or so from the cove into which this impetuous torrent
pours frown two massive ridges of rock, offering to any venturesome ships
attempting to run between their threatening sides destruction on either
hand, while only some dozen yards of foaming breakers separate the one
from the other. Skilful must be the steersman, and bold the skipper, who
would dare the narrow channel, even though the only one by which they
might hope to beach their sinking ship. And yet, on one fearful night in
January, 1875, a large vessel, the _Gwenissa_, bound from Falmouth to
Glasgow, and new but a few weeks before, successfully accomplished the
dangerous passage. Not that any skill was shown, for none on the doomed
ship knew of their proximity to rocks or shore, but, driving blindly on
before the full fury of the gale, by chance were brought safely through.
But in another instant the ship struck the rocky shore, and in a moment
was shattered to pieces, timbers and tackle, cargo and living freight,
being thrown, scattered and helpless, into the angry surf. Escaping, as by
a miracle, the rocky dangers of Charybdis, the good ship _Gwenissa_ had
been hurled upon Scylla, and her doom sealed.
The family at Killeton Farm little suspected, as they went to their humble
beds, the tragedy which was being enacted on the shore; and even when some
of the boys thought they heard cries of distress, little wonder—when the
wind was blowing in great fitful gusts, sweeping round the homely cottage,
shaking windows and doors, and moaning down the chimneys—that, after
listening a while and hearing nothing further, they thought no more of the
cries, and went to bed. Ronayne had, however, not been long in bed when a
loud knocking awoke him, and he jumped up, and on opening the door was
accosted by three men in sailor’s garb.
The first surprise over, the instincts of hospitality asserted themselves,
and he heaped up the turf fire, and, as they warmed themselves, learned
that they alone of the crew of the _Gwenissa_, nine in number, were
certainly saved. But there was a possibility that one or two might yet
survive; and though the wintry blast roared loud without, Ronayne lingered
not a moment. Hurrying on his clothes, and taking a large sod of flaming
turf by way of lantern, he rushed down the “boreen,” and soon reached the
cove. Cautiously he made his way, and approached the edge of the stream,
whence he now heard the shouts of several men. He followed up the cries of
distress, and soon came upon a man in a most dangerous position.
Ronayne blew the turf until it glowed brightly, and, holding it down, saw
a man waist-deep in the water, but so jammed between the crags that it was
impossible for him to move, far less climb the overhanging rocks. He was
bruised, stunned, and nearly insensible. Ronayne saw at a glance that the
only way to help him was himself to go down, extricate his bruised legs
from the rocks and wreck that held him like a vice, and then assist him to
climb from his perilous position. This, by means of much pulling and
hauling, he at length accomplished, and ultimately had the satisfaction of
leading the poor fellow to a place of safety, where, for a time, he left
him, sorely bruised, faint, and well-nigh frozen, for the others, who had
never ceased calling for assistance from the moment of his arrival. They
were four in number, and, as far as could be judged through the increasing
darkness, lay in the very gorge down which rushed the swollen stream; and
so it proved, for one was hanging to a spar which had become fixed in the
rocks, while another was grasping a projecting crag, by which he contrived
to keep afloat. The others, more fortunate, had been thrown on a ledge,
which left them in comparative safety, though they were waist-deep in
water. But though secure upon this ledge, they were quite as helpless as
their companions, for the beetling face of the rocks defied their utmost
efforts to scale them unaided. Here Ronayne’s knowledge stood him in good
stead, and after much active assistance in the shape of climbing,
swimming, pulling, and scrambling, he succeeded in rescuing one after the
other, each assisting afterwards to make the task easier. Five men stood
beside him, cold and hurt, but saved by his perseverance and bravery from
a watery grave.
“But,” says the narrator—and here especially he should tell his own
tale—“not without great labour had this been effected, for one of the men
had his leg broken, and all were more or less bruised, and perishing of
cold and exposure. Three men were at his house and five here; but where
was the other? for nine men were on board the luckless vessel, and here
were but eight. Leaving the rescued men in the lane, Ronayne ran again to
the cove, and the dim spark expiring in the turf showed him where he had
left it. He scraped off the ash, and, the wind fanning it, again it burned
up brightly—too brightly, for now it burned down to his frozen fingers;
but he only grasped it the tighter, for did it not light him on his errand
of mercy? and if another life might be saved at the expense of a few
burns, would it not be great gain? So on sped he along the shore,
searching into every cranny and cleft and crevice lighted by the turf,
and, burning and shouting between his labours, at length was rewarded by a
faint cry as of a man in distress—more a moan than a cry, and at a
distance. Rapidly but carefully he had scanned the beach, and partially
searched every gully and cleft, and now and again receiving to his cries a
faint response, but always from far away. No doubt the man was out on the
rocks, to which he had been carried by a receding wave after the ship
struck, and Ronayne knew that some further help must be procured before he
could be reached. So he hastened back to the five men he had left in the
lane. They then all proceeded to the farm-house—a melancholy
_cortége_—carrying as best they could the helpless between them. He then
started off, wet and weary as he was, to the coastguard station at
Bonmahon, where he gave information of the wreck, and demanded assistance
for the poor fellow out on the rocks.” The coastguard men lost no time in
turning out with the rocket apparatus; but just as they were fixing it in
position, Ronayne, who had been hunting about, came upon the very last and
ninth man of the crew, lying, half in the water and half out, upon the
beach among a quantity of wreck. His supposition had been correct in
regard to his position on the rocks, but while assistance was being
procured he had been washed ashore, with shattered limbs—bruised,
helpless, unconscious, but _alive_! The poor fellow, who remained
unconscious, was carried to the farm, where some old whisky-jars were
filled with hot water and placed to his feet. The little whisky in the
house was divided among the benumbed men, and more solid provision set
before them.
And now Ronayne’s house contained over twenty inmates, most of them
standing round the turf fire wringing the water from their clothes and
warming their frozen limbs; the few beds, too, had their occupants. For
Ronayne the work had but barely commenced. Saddling his young mare, he
started to lay information of the wreck before Lloyd’s Deputy Receiver at
Tramore, some _twelve miles_ distant, for eight shillings were to be
earned, and for this trifling reward he was prepared to ride some
twenty-four miles on a cold winter night.
On his road he passed the doctor’s house, and sent him to attend the
injured men, arriving at Tramore a few minutes before the telegram from
the coastguard station. Two of the sailors were afterwards removed to the
hospital, and recovered, and they and the remainder cared for by the
Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society’s agents. Ronayne was indemnified for any
expense he had incurred by the same Society, and the Life-boat Institution
shortly after rewarded him.