John Gilmore

“ The surf flies over the brig, and boils up all around her. The life-boat is deluged with spray, and her lights are washed out; the vessel still lifts and thumps and rolls with the force of the sea. Time after time the snapping and rending of her breaking timbers are heard; at each heave she wrenches and cracks and groans in all directions—she is breaking up fast. Make haste, make haste! for your lives be as quick as you can! The chests are all lowered, the boy is handed into the boat, the Portuguese sailors follow, the boatmen spring after them, and the brig is abandoned. ”

“ Jarman, the life-boat coxswain, sees the steamer making for the harbour, and hastens to the pierhead; one wave of his arm tells the whole story of success and safety.
The crew of the life-boat and of the steamer alike realize the responsibility of their work, that it is indeed one of life and death—that they must not be out of the way when wanted if they can help it; for that any delay may be fatal to some dying crew, who are perhaps straining their eyes in vain searchings for their one earthly hope, the life-boat. ”

“ But still he holds on, his hands convulsively clutching the rope as his body is being swayed and thrown violently about; he is exhausted, and breathless—he is half drowned; his face is pale as death, his jaw drops, he seems about to swoon; in another moment he will be gone; he gives a wild despairing look at the life-boat, and as the waves dash him against it, makes an effort to grasp it; 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. ”

“ The night is wild, and dark, and bitter, blinding snow, and sleet, and storm-wrack rush along on the wings of the gale.
The Sands are alive with the rolling breakers, the fierce dash and seethe of the waves upon them add to the roar of the tempest; never was a battle-field more full of raging foes than is that into the midst of which our Storm Warriors are about to rush; never was band of men more beset by foes, more helplessly, hopelessly beset, than are the crew of the Mary; how shall they be plucked from the midst of ten thousand raging waves? any one of which would swamp an ordinary boat ”

“ The life-boatmen are near enough to her to see by the fitful blaze of the tar-barrel that she is a small schooner, with a high stern, and that she is totally dismasted, and they recognise the Dutch-looking craft that they had watched during the afternoon; they catch the gleam of the pale faces of the crew, who are clinging to the gunwale.
Poor fellows! how they gaze out in the darkness; death, death, so near from the raging storm, from their sinking ship, from the terrible Sands on which the wreck of their vessel will be torn piecemeal by the strong fierce waves in so short a time. ”

“ As the life-boat lifts on the curl of a wave, the crew see the flickering flame of the signal-fire that is burning so fiercely in the tar-barrel on the wreck; they make in for the signal at once, pass through the Cud channel; snow-squalls come sweeping by, adding to the cold and darkness, and shutting out from their view all lights on the Sands; the men are eager and excited in their quick sympathy for the shipwrecked crew—eager to brave all the dangers of the lashing seas which they know must be leaping and tearing about the wreck. ”

“ For right down upon the bow of the boat, tossing on the huge seas, and borne swiftly by the tide comes the wreck of one of the ship's largest and heaviest boats; it has been entangled in the mast, which is hanging over the side of the ship, but it has now washed free, and comes driving down as if to stave in the bow of the boat, and crush to death the two poor fellows hanging on to the side:—the boat sheers a little; a cross wave catches the wreckage, and it just sweeps clear. Thank God! is the cry of every man in the boat. ”

“ Think only of the group that may possibly welcome back the little pale, exhausted cabin-boy, their hearts as warm as his, their love as deep as his—as his, which made that little canvas bag full of simple presents so dear to him that he held to it through all the many hours of the storm; that made it his first thought when the wild seas rushed over the vessel, and the crew had to take to the rigging; love that made him, when grown men thought only of their own lives, rush to his chest and seize his treasure, and all through the wild gale cling to it ”

“ It is on these ridges that the life-boat so continually grounds. As the tide rises she is swept from one to the other by the long sweeping waves; she is swung round and round in the swirl of the cross-seas and rapid tide, thumping and jerking heavily each time that she strands. All this is in the midst of darkness, of bitter cold, and of a raging wind, surf, and sea, until the hardship and peril are almost too much to be borne, and some of the men feel dying in the boat. ”

“ Suddenly the coxswain cries, "Here is a lull, round with her, sharp!" The men on the starboard side give a mighty pull; the men on the port back their hardest; one pull all together, the bowl is within reach; the coxswain grasps it with a hasty snatch! "Round! round, with her quick, quick!" and the eager men get her head straight to the seas again, before the waves have time to catch the boat broadside on and roll it over. All breathe again; they have another chance of life. ”

“ But, thank God! there will be a rescue! You know that already brave hearts have determined to attempt it; that strong ready hands are already at work in cool, quick, preparation; that, almost before you could urge your way against the tempest down to the head of the pier, the steamer and life-boat will have fought their way out against the storm and darkness upon their errand of mercy.
"God have mercy upon the poor fellows at sea; upon the shipwrecked in their dismal peril; upon the brave Storm Warriors speeding out in danger and hardship!" ”

“ Suddenly, as they crouch under the deck-house in their hopeless misery, they see the life-boat swing round on the tide, and come up to her cable just astern of the ship; never were men more agreeably surprised; it is as a reprieve from death; and they feel their blood course again through their veins, their strength returns, and they start up ready for action; the life-boat men give them a cheer, which they answer with glad cries of welcome. ”

“ Jarman, the coxswain, seizes a life-buoy and jumps upon a thwart ready to throw it to the man when he rises; a blast of wind catches Jarman, nearly tumbles him overboard, and throws him down into the bottom of the boat, wrenching the life-buoy from his hand; the drowning sailor is again lost to sight in the trough of the sea; he is swimming and struggling hard, but the boat, although without sails, is being driven faster than he can swim; the men see his wild desperate efforts, as he plunges and springs forward with outspread arms as if to grasp at the boat ”

“ The use of a life-boat is, that it will float and live, where other boats would of necessity be swamped, upset, and founder; they are made for, and generally only used on, occasions of extreme danger and peril, for terrible storms and wild seas.
The water flows into the boat, and over it, and it still floats: some huge wave will break over it, and for a moment bury it, but it rises in its buoyancy and shakes itself free; beaten down on its broadside by the waves and wind, it struggles hard, and soon rises again on an upright keel, and defies them to do their worst ”

“ Are you practically interested in life-boat work, then you have a message to them in their hour of [Pg 301] agony; you would have a message to many a loving wife and innocent child if they could now realize the danger of those they love, upon whom they depend. And your whisper is of rescue and of hope. Look where a fitful light gleams in the darkness; now rides high on the crest of a huge wave, now falls buried in the trough of the sea, shines out again, is hidden in a cloud of spray, but pressing on and on, getting nearer each moment to the shipwrecked. ”

“ Now in the pitch darkness of the night, with bowed head, and faltering steps, battling against the storm, the old man leads a white horse along the edge of the cliff, to the top of the horse's tail a lantern is tied, and the light sways with the movement of the horse, and in its movements seems not unlike the mast-head light of a vessel rocked by the motion of the sea. ”

“ To get farther to sea in one's thoughts, and to picture a noble ship with close-reefed topsails running before the gale, or beating away from the dread neighbourhood of dangerous sands or coast, while the pilot, anxious and watchful, and the crew, eager and alert, peer through the darkness to catch the welcome guidance of some bright warning light, or are on the watch to detect the fainter light of some ship that is steering her course perilously near ”

“ Now the men who are anxiously on the watch make out something looming in the mist; and speedily the steamer and life-boat are seen, their flags are flying, glad sign of successful effort, of rescue effected; and great is the joy of all the lookers-on; steamer and life-boat speed between the massive granite heads of the two piers, and the crowd that looks down upon them as they come pitching and rolling along, greet them with cheer after cheer. ”

“ It is winter time, and the weather stormy; day after day brings into the harbour fresh evidences of the deadly contest that rages out at sea—vessels towed in disabled, with bulwarks washed away, masts over the side, bows stove in, or leaky, having been in collision, touched the ground or been struck by a sea; who at such times can withhold their interest or sympathy? the veriest landsmen grow excited, and make daily pilgrimages to the pier, to see how the vessels under repairs are getting on, or what new disasters have occurred. ”

“ The cork jackets keep them afloat as before, but the waves run over them, and they are almost smothered in clouds of foam, until they are thoroughly worn out by the rush and beat of the seas which break over their heads. Up and down, tumbling here and there in the turmoil of the seas, pale and gasping for breath, almost too faint to make any struggle to regain the boat, becoming rapidly unconscious; this time the wild dance mid the raging seas becomes truly too much like a dance of death. ”

“ The light gleams from a life-boat in which a small band of men are battling,—battling on in the teeth of the fierce storm. No terrors stay them, no failures quell their courage and their zeal; are not fellow-men held captive and threatened with death by fierce and cruel seas? and shall they, the Storm Warriors, not be ready at every peril, and at every hardship, and against all difficulties to make in to their rescue. In such scenes we see the men actually at their work in their efforts to save life and property ”