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Updated: May 24, 2025
The little party had some difficulty in boarding the derelict, for she was lying broadside-on to the wind, with her masts pointing to windward; and though there was no very great amount of sea running, there was still sufficient to make boarding from to windward an awkward if not an absolutely dangerous matter, in consequence of the raffle of spars and cordage in the water.
Merciful Heaven! it was true, right athwart our path, as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom on either bow, there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers and spouting foam, gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of the murky heavens; and even as I gazed, spell-bound, at the dreadful spectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against the ghostly whiteness, and in another instant she had swung broadside-on; and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding her in its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled with the sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the sound of a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind.
The four men-of-war anchored stem and stern, broadside-on to the shore, while the three transports took up their berths about half a mile farther seaward, the ships themselves being screened from the rebel fire by the steel hulls of the men-of-war.
With this press of canvas topping her unaccustomed hull, the poor old barquey heeled over more and more as the violent gusts caught her broadside-on at intervals, rolling, too, a bit on the wind fetching round aft; while, her stern lifting as some bigger roller than usual passed under her keel, the screw would whiz round aimlessly in mid air, from missing its grip of the water, "racing," as sailors say in their lingo, with a harsh grating jar that set my teeth on edge, and seemed to vibrate through my very spinal marrow as I stood for a moment on the line of deck immediately over the revolving shaft.
Running in, I reached her just as she lifted again; and managed to slew her nose in-shore, but not in time to prevent half-a-hogshead pouring over her quarter. This wave knocked her broadside-on again, and the water shipped made her heavier to handle.
There was a craft of some sort alongside her, completely hidden from our view by her hull and canvas, braced as sharp up as possible, and undoubtedly there were boats in the water on the other side of her, employed to keep her broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel.
"Brail up the main-sail, boys," shouted the skipper cheerily, and in a second it was done; the helm was put up, the boat's head fell off, and away she went with a rush, broadside-on to the sea.
While this was going on a third vessel was driven ashore on the Battery Rock. The South Shields lifeboat made towards her, succeeded in getting alongside, and rescued the crew. A mile west of Folkestone Harbour a brigantine, laden with rum and sugar, went ashore, broadside-on, near Sandgate Castle. The ever-ready coastguardsmen turned out.
Then, when the two craft were not more than fifteen feet apart, the schooner's head fell off, she turned broadside-on to the sea, and, our people smartly hauling down our fore-staysail, the brigantine drew slowly ahead and clear of us, our bowsprit-end missing her mainboom by the merest hairbreadth, and the danger was over.
We at once hailed the quarterdeck, shouting: `Breakers ahead and on both bows! but it is exceedingly doubtful whether or not we were heard, and if we had been, it would have made no difference, for before anything could be done the ship was among the breakers, and a second later she struck, not very hard, but just sufficiently so to cant us broadside-on.
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