STORIES OF THE LIFEBOAT
Noble Deeds of Brave Men
THE bluff and hearty men, heroes every one, who live all around the coasts, ready to launch their lifeboats to go to the aid of shipwrecked mariners, have a bright page in the history of the sea. They are the saviours of those who go down to the sea in ships, and on every errand of mercy they literally take their lives in their hands, place themselves on the knees of the gods ready for sacrifice.
Sometimes the gods accept the sacrifice.
It happened so in the case of the Fethard lifeboat which, on February 20, 1914, pushed off to the assistance of the Norwegian schooner Mexico, wrecked on the rocky island of South Keeragh. The Mexico, losing her bearings when off the south coast of Ireland, was driven into Bannow Bay, missed stays when her crew tried to put her about, was caught by the fierce S.S.W. gale and the strong tide, and driven close to the South Keeragh Island.
On the mainland it was quickly observed that the Mexico was in a dangerous position, and about 3 P.M. the lifeboat Helen Blake shoved off to her assistance. The gallant lifeboatmen pulled their hardest, hoping to reach the spot in time to help the Mexico before the howling wind and the strong tide had finished the work begun; but, though they tugged as they had never tugged before, they were too late. The Mexico was picked up like an india-rubber ball and flung against the rock island. There was a grating sound as the hull crashed into the rocks; the ripping of her bottom seemed like a clap of thunder; and then the heavily laden ship, carrying tons of mahogany logs, bumped and bumped again upon the rocks, which held her fast.
The men in the lifeboat, now fifty yards away, held their breath for a moment as they saw the disaster; then on they went again, carried this time not of their own free will, but by the relentless elemental forces. A heavy breaker caught the boat, broke over her in a mighty volume of water, and filled her up to the thwarts.
“Let go the anchor!” was the cry; and instantly the anchor was flung overboard. But, before it could bring her up, three or four following seas, as though eager to ensure destruction, caught the boat, and with her freight of heroes, hurled her with a mighty crash against the rocks. She smashed to pieces as though she had been built of china.
Fourteen men she had carried; and in an instant fourteen men were struggling for dear life in the midst of a boiling sea. Pygmies fighting against the giant forces of Nature, children beating puny hands upon the leering face of death, striving to force the black angel back; such were these men who, seeking to save others, were in danger of losing themselves. And in the titanic struggle nine men were lost.
Five of them won. Buffeted against the rocks, clutching and loosing, they fought for handhold and foothold, and at last, scrambling over the slippery points, they managed to fight to safety.
Then, weary and half dead themselves, they thought of what they had come out to do. The Mexico was still bumping dangerously upon the rocks, men clinging to rigging, or to anything near at hand, lest the waves wash them away, or the lurching of the ship pitch them overboard—to death. And those heroes, who had felt the wings of the Angel of Death brush against them as he passed by, began the task of saving the men on the Mexico.
How they did it they never realised; but they knew they worked hard, and one by one, by means of ropes, they brought eight men off the wrecked ship on to the island. It is but a bald statement of the fact that, but with untellable heroism, indomitable determination, and sublime indifference to death and danger behind it.
With no boats, no food or water except what the Mexico men had managed to bring with them, and that all-insufficient, the thirteen men found themselves stranded on a barren island, with a raging tempest about them and no help in sight.
They passed the first night in shivering despair, huddling together to warm each other. Morning came, and brought no signs of succour, though during the night other lifeboatmen had sought to sally forth to their help, but had been beaten back by the anger of the gale.
The Wexford boat, James Stevens, and the Kilmore boat, The Sisters, had swept through the darkness towards them, their men fighting gallantly and the boats wrestling bravely with the waves and wind; but all to no avail. They had to put back, her mission unfulfilled.
Meanwhile, a message had been sent to the Chief Inspector of Lifeboats in London, Commander Thomas Holmes, R.N., who was dispatched immediately to take charge of the operations.
Presently the stranded men saw through the haze of the storm a black dot, tossing about on the bosom of the sea. It was the lifeboat Fanny Harriet, from Dunmore East, whose gallant crew were making an attempt to reach them. She fought bravely against the tumult, but was driven back again and again, until her crew, realising that it was hopeless to stay out any longer, reluctantly put back to harbour. Then once again, and yet again, the Kilmore boat plunged into the sea, followed by the Wexford boat, James Stevens. Yet all they could do was useless, and they were forced to return to shore. Father Neptune was winning.
When Commander Holmes arrived on the scene at 3 P.M. on the Sunday he found the Fanny Harriet lying in harbour at Fethard, her men eating their heads off as they thought of their enforced idleness. Something about the commander brought back to these heroes the determination to succeed; and the boat was launched again, and fought her way towards the island. Once again, however, they were frustrated. The ground swell prevented them from getting anywhere near the island, and the stranded men wrung their hands as they saw her turn about. Hungry, thirsty, they looked forward to nothing but death. Already one of their number, a man from the Mexico, had succumbed to the exposure, and they saw in his fate the picture of their own, unless help came soon. They covered him up with some canvas and clods of earth.
“She fought bravely against the tumult, but was driven back again and again”
To the imperilled men the night of Saturday, the 21st, had been a terrible one. The gale that swept them was the worst known on the south coast of Ireland for many years, and the lifeboatmen, who had passed through many terrors of the sea, knew that they stood little chance of being taken off. For the thirteen men there were but two small tins of preserved meat and a few limpets. On the schooner were provisions in plenty, but it was impossible to get into her to fetch them off; and, with food so near, they were face to face with hunger. Water, there was none; their drink consisted of a little brandy and half a pint of wine, which the Mexico’s captain had managed to bring with him when leaving the vessel. The biting wind blew down upon them, cutting them to the bone; the spray flung up by the breaking waves drenched them, and they had no shelter from the pouring rain. Yet the Fethard men bore up bravely, encouraging the Norwegians and giving them hope, for they knew that no efforts would be spared to get them off.
As, one by one, they saw the lifeboats try to reach them, only to be beaten back, not all the cheering words of the Irishmen served to keep up the spirits of the foreigners; and in their own hearts the Fethard men realised the hopelessness of it all. They might stay there until death came; for succour, it seemed, could never come.
But in Fethard Commander Holmes was not idle. When the Fanny Harriet came back on the Sunday evening, he telephoned to Wexford, informing the lifeboatmen that, on the Monday morning, another attempt would be made, and asking them to proceed to the scene on the chance that the weather would have moderated sufficiently to allow of something being done. Of course, the Wexford men said “Yes,” and, all being arranged, at six o’clock in the morning Holmes entered the Fanny Harriet. She carried a Dunmore East crew, and a Fethard man to pilot them, for the whole locality was strewn with hidden rocks and boulders. Fortunately, the gale had subsided somewhat, and the lifeboat was able to approach the vicinity of the wreck. Her men could see the stranded wretches, who waved at them frantically, urging them onwards.
But the ground swell breaking outside the remains of the Mexico was still so heavy that it was necessary for the lifeboat to cruise round the island before a spot could be found whence it was possible to approach the shore. At last the boat was anchored in a fairly good position some hundred yards off the rocks; and the lifeboatmen immediately attempted to effect communication with the castaways. Rocket after rocket was fired, and eventually they succeeded in getting a stick-rocket ashore with a cod-line attached. By this means a strong line was hauled in by the men, and a small skiff which had been brought by the lifeboat was attached to the line, and veered successfully to within ten yards of the island. It seemed that rescue was really at hand, and the shivering, exhausted men brightened up. They would be saved!
Then their hopes were dashed to the ground. A heavy sea caught the skiff, a great wave broke upon her, filled her, and drove her with a crash against the rocks, which smashed her to pieces. But one ray of hope came to those men. A lifebuoy which was in the skiff was washed near to the shore, and a man plunged in, grasped it, and brought it ashore, and felt that all was not lost.
Commander Holmes hailed them, and sought to get them to trust themselves to the lifebuoy, which the rescuers would drag through the seas with its living burden. It was asking much, and all knew it. It meant casting oneself upon the mercy of a tumultuous sea, meant giving oneself up to the danger of being flung upon rocks and boulders, to be dashed to death. The stranded men looked at each other; no one spoke. Then one man, the desire of life surging through him, took up the buoy, to which the rope had been fastened, placed himself in it, and hurled himself into the water, to be pulled into the lifeboat—safe! Another man, seeing this, followed his example; but the others, worn out by their experiences, preferred to wait for some surer way to safety than that, and elected to stay on the island.
While this was going on, the Wexford boat arrived on the scene, having been towed out by her tug. It was now a quarter past eight in the morning, and she anchored close to the Fanny Stevens, but in a rather better position; and, to the rapture of the men on the island, she had brought with her a strong punt, which was more suitable for the work in hand than the skiff brought from Fethard.
Two men of the Wexford boat, heroes both of them, volunteered to work the punt. They were William Duggan and James Wickham. They got into her, veered her down, with a rope attached to her bows, from the James Stevens, and, after a fearful experience, seized the opportunity that a “smooth” offered, and got her close enough to the rocks to snatch two of the men. Then, with a heave-ho! they dragged them into the punt, which was at once hauled back to the lifeboat.
Then out again in the same way the two heroes went. But this time they were not fortunate enough to escape damage. A wave caught them, and, as though the punt had been a toy yacht, flung her upon the rocks, which she hit with a crash; and, when the retiring waves dragged her back, the two men found that she had a hole in her side. Resourceful, calm, they grabbed up a loaf of bread and some packing, and with this stopped up the hole that had threatened to send the boat to the bottom; and then struck out once more for the rocks. That time two more men were saved; and so the work went on, Duggan and Wickham getting to shore no less than five times, taking off two men at each attempt, until the whole party of weary and almost frozen men were brought to the lifeboat. Death had been in attendance all along; but they braved it. They stuck stubbornly to their self-appointed task, and they succeeded.
It took but little time for the tug to take the lifeboats in tow, and in due course the survivors of the tragic wreck were landed. The end had come to one of the most heroic episodes in the history of the lifeboat. Nay, not the end, for there was still the work of caring for those whom the death of the gallant men had left behind; and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution did all in its power to assist, while Their Majesties of Norway contributed to the fund opened, as also did the Storthing. And, later, the men who had worked so heroically, and had done so well, had their efforts recognised, though to them the greatest satisfaction was in knowing that they had wrought well, and had snatched precious lives from the greedy maw of the sea.
A STILL more recent instance of heroic endeavour on the part of the lifeboatmen was on the occasion of the wreck of the hospital ship Rohilla. She had been taken over by the Government for use as a hospital ship, and on Friday, October 30, 1914, when on her way to Dunkirk, she ran into a terrific E.S.E. gale. She had 229 people on board, including a medical staff and five nurses, bent on doing their best for the maimed heroes who had fought for country and honour on the battlefields of Belgium and France.
The official report of the Royal Lifeboat Institution, on which this story is founded, is a vivid and graphic description of a tremendous calamity.
It was soon after four o’clock in the morning that the Rohilla encountered the storm, and, though her captain and crew did their very utmost, she ran on to a dangerous reef of rocks and lay at the mercy of a furious sea. Captain Neilson, who commanded, tried to get all the men to go forward, but those on the poop and aft could not cross the after part, over which giant seas were breaking. Pounded by mountainous waves, the Rohilla quickly broke in halves, and many of those on the after part of the ship were washed away at once, and perished. As soon as she struck, signals of distress were made, and Coxswain Thomas Langlands was promptly called. The sea was far too heavy to do anything until daybreak, when the No. 2 Lifeboat, John Fielden, was hauled on skids under the Spa Ladder—a gangway from the East Pier at Whitby to the cliff—and along the rocky scaur to the scene of the wreck. This necessitated getting the boat over a sea-wall eight feet in height—a most formidable task.
In transporting the boat she was stove in in two places. She was, nevertheless, launched, and succeeded in reaching the wreck, which lay surrounded by a mass of rocks. Twelve men and five women were saved and brought ashore. The boat was then again launched, and, after a fearful struggle with terrific seas, got to the vessel and saved eighteen more, the heavy waves which swept through the ship or broke over her deck filling the lifeboat time after time. Unfortunately, the boat soon became unfit for further service, owing to repeated bumping on the rocks. Captain John Mil-burn, a member of the local committee, then sent for the Upgang lifeboat, which was, with great difficulty, transported to the vicinity of the wreck.
By means of ropes the boat was lowered down the almost precipitous cliffs, and preparations were made for her launch, but nothing could be done in the tremendous seas running. In the meantime the Teesmouth motor lifeboat and the lifeboat stationed at Scarborough had been called by telephone to the assistance of those still on the wreck.
Meanwhile, the Whitby coastguards were firing rockets in rapid succession, in the hope of getting lines to the ship; but only one was secured—and this was of no use to the shivering people who were on the bridge, which at any moment might give way.
The Scarborough lifeboat, Queensbury, in tow of the steam trawler Morning Star, started as soon as possible. It was quite dark when they arrived, and in the gale it was hopeless to establish communication with the wreck. Both craft, however, remained at hand through the night, and the endurance of the lifeboatmen was severely tested during their long vigil. At daybreak, finding that it was still impossible to get near the wreck, they returned to Scarborough.
In view of the tremendous seas making up the river at Teesmouth, it was decided not to dispatch the boat until daybreak next morning. This decision was conveyed to Whitby by telephone, and at 5 A.M. next morning the crew left Redcar for Teesmouth, accompanied by the Tees Commissioners’ tug. In crossing the bar the lifeboat encountered tremendous seas, and, as a result of falling into the trough of a mountainous wave, she sprang such a serious leak that she became disabled, and it became necessary for the tug to take the crew on board and tow the lifeboat back to Middlesbrough.
On Saturday morning the Upgang crew made a further attempt to rescue the survivors who were huddled together on one small portion of the wreck. For over an hour the crew struggled manfully to reach the wreck; but the sea and the strong current running between the “Nab” and the wreck was too strong for them, and eventually the men became totally exhausted, and had to give up their hopeless task.
When the unfortunate men on the wreck, who had held on so bravely throughout the night, saw the hope of being rescued diminishing, some of them jumped overboard and attempted to swim ashore, and a number of the onlookers, with heroic disregard for their own safety, rushed into the boiling surf and succeeded in dragging many to the shore.
The Whitby No. 1 Lifeboat, in tow of a steam trawler, also got within half a mile of the wreck, but the sea was too heavy for them to approach any nearer, and the boat reluctantly returned to harbour.
It now became apparent that only a motor lifeboat would be able to render effective help, and the Tynemouth motor lifeboat was summoned by telegram. On Saturday afternoon the gallant crew, under the command of Coxswain Robert Smith, and accompanied by Captain H. E. Burton, R.E., hon. superintendent of the motor lifeboat, started on their perilous journey. To reach Whitby they were obliged to travel a distance of forty-four miles through the night and storm, unaided by any coast lights, which were all extinguished on account of the war. Thanks, however, to Captain Burton’s intimate knowledge of the Yorkshire coast, their gallant exertions met with the success which they deserved, and at 1 A.M. on Sunday morning, November 1, the boat was skilfully brought into Whitby Harbour.
Four hours later, this boat, with Lieutenant Basil Hall, R.N., Inspector of Lifeboats for the Southern District, on board, and the Whitby second coxswain as pilot, left harbour for the wreck, a supply of oil being taken to subdue the waves.
The rescue of those who had survived the terrible ordeal for fifty hours is well described by the representative of the Yorkshire Post, who witnessed the scene, and from whose report we give the following extracts:
“The light was just rising over the sea at half-past six o’clock when the boat crept out of the harbour again, and breasted the breakers like a seabird as she headed straight out into calmer water. The lifeboat, looking fearfully small and frail, throbbed her way towards the wreck. Nearer and nearer she got; and then, when within 200 yards of the Rohilla, she turned seawards.”
She was burning flares, and from the shore a searchlight was playing upon the group of huddling people who had spent so many hours in darkness and the stress of storm.
“Presently, when she had passed a few fathoms beyond and away from the wreck, she stopped dead, and discharged over the boiling sea gallons and gallons of oil. It seemed that the ocean must laugh at these puny drops, yet the effect was remarkable; within a few seconds the oil spread over the surface of the water, and the waves appeared suddenly to be flattened down as by a miracle. In the meantime the lifeboat turned about, raced at full speed past the stern of the wreck, and then turned directly towards the shore. The most dangerous moment came when she was inside the surf and broadside on to the waves; but, guided with splendid skill and courage, she moved forward steadily, and a cheer of relief went out from the shore when she reached the lee of the wreck, immediately beneath the crowded bridge.
“But there was not a moment to be lost, for already the effects of the oil were beginning to pass off, and the waves were noticeably higher. Quicker than thought a rope was let down to the lifeboat, and immediately figures could be discerned scrambling down into the boat. In less than a quarter of an hour more than forty men had been rescued. While the rest were preparing to leave the wreck, two enormous waves swept over the wreck and enveloped the lifeboat. Each time the tough little craft disappeared for a moment, reappeared, tottered, and righted herself gamely. Indeed, not a man was lost, not a splinter broken. Closer still she hugged the vessel’s side, till every man aboard—fifty of them in all—had been hauled into the rescuing boat.
“The last man to leave his lost ship was the captain, and as he slipped into the lifeboat the crew of the latter gave a rousing cheer that was echoed again and again by the people ashore.”
Even now the lifeboat had not finished its work; there was danger ahead. Great heads reared at her; a tremendous sea swamped down upon her, and she nearly capsized; but, shaking herself free, she laboured away, making fair progress. Then another huge wave rose at her, threatened her with destruction, was met boldly. Struck broadside on, the lifeboat was almost on her beam-ends. Watchers on the shore held their breath. Would she withstand the shock? She did, and swept gallantly forward, and at last reached the harbour mouth.
What cheers went up then! Men on shore cheered the gallant rescuers, who cheered back, while the rescued men in the boat joined their voices with the others. Then the boat came to the quay, and men ran down the steps to help the saved ashore, where they were soon taken to shelter, after having passed through a terrible experience.