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Updated: June 17, 2025
A fresh crew was therefore obtained, all but the coxswain, Jarvist Arnold, who stuck to his post. Back again to the ship the lifeboatmen hauled themselves, through such a sea that words which would truly describe it must seem exaggerated. Remember the bows of the ship lay nearly two hundred yards from the land in a veritable cauldron of waters.
Jarvist Arnold is, however, not forsaken; he has good and honourable children, and I know that with that inner gaze which sees more clearly as eternity approaches, he too in simple faith beholds the advancing lifeboat, and hears the glad words, 'When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee, from the mouth of the Great Commander.
One of Jarvist Arnold's sons never recovered the strain of those awful hours on the bridge of the Sorrento in her death-throes, and, to use his father's words: 'He never was a man no more. But Jarvist himself did many a subsequent good deed of rescue, and stuck to his arduous post as long as, and even beyond, what health and strength and age permitted.
As the sands were nearly dry to the southward of her, the sea was by no means so formidable as it afterwards became with the rising tide and increasing gale and greater depth of water. The Kingsdown lifeboat sent up her red light, and then came through the surf the Walmer lifeboat, guided by the red signal of success from Jarvist Arnold.
Jarvist Arnold's wife said, 'Ladies can sometimes keep their husbands, but poor women like us must let them go; and once more Jarvist Arnold steered his lifeboat shall I not say to victory? for 'Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War; and this sentence might well be emblazoned on every lifeboat in the kingdom.
Perceiving the object of those on board, Jarvist Arnold gave the order to 'Let the lifeboat go, and she plunged down the steep beach into the black billows of that easterly snowstorm and right into the very teeth of it.
Many a stormy struggle after this rescue was gone through by Jarvist Arnold and his Kingsdown lifeboat crew on the Goodwin Sands during the years 1870-1873. Holding the honourable but arduous post of coxswain of the Kingsdown lifeboat Sabrina, he also manfully earned his living as Channel pilot, being a most trustworthy and skilful seaman.
Out of the gale was borne landwards the boom of guns; far away on the horizon, or where the horizon ought to be, was seen the flash of their fire; and upwards into the winter midnight shot the distant rockets, appealing not in vain for help. Almost simultaneously the coxswains at Walmer and Kingsdown were roused, William Bushell and Jarvist Arnold.
Again the lifeboat returned with her living freight of rescued seamen, and again worn out as before with the struggle, a fresh crew was obtained; but again Jarvist Arnold for the third time went back to the wreck.
God bless the Lifeboat and its crew, Its coxswain stout and bold, And Jarvist Arnold is his name, Sprung from the Vikings old, Who made the waves and winds their slaves, As likewise we do so, While still Britannia rules the waves, And the stormy winds do blow; And the old Cork Float that safety brought, We'll hold in honour leal, And it shall grace the chiefest place In Kingsdown, hard by Deal!
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