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Updated: May 3, 2025
Away to the left, over our port beam, I could see land in the distance, which Jorrocks told me was the North Foreland near Margate a place that I knew by name of course, although this information did not give me any accurate idea of the brig's whereabouts; but, later on in the day, when the vessel had run some fifteen or twenty miles further, steering to the north-east, with the wind to the southward of west, we passed through a lot of brackish mud-coloured water, close to a light-ship, that my friend the boatswain said was the Kentish Knock, midway between the mouth of the Thames and wash of the Humber, and it was only then that I realised the fact, that we were running up the eastern coast of England and were well on our way to Newcastle, for which port, as I've intimated before, we were bound.
It did not take the little craft long, running before the wind with a slack sheet, to reach the Horse Shingle shoal, beyond the outlying fort, and near the Warner light-ship, where lay the fishing-ground, or "bank," which the Captain had described as being especially favourable for their sport. "Now," said the old sailor, "the time for action has at last arrived.
Bowen usually played checkers in the cabin with the keeper, Nelson, and while they played the keeper gave him the gossip. He had been nineteen years on Tide Rip Shoal light-ship, had keeper Nelson. "No, no things never happen. He blow and she tumble about and her chain chafe chafe tarrible sometime. Nineteen year those chain ban chafe so. Good ol' 67, she ban right dere.
A dozen, twenty, surely a hundred times he repeated the letters, holding up every half minute or so to listen. By and by he caught an answering call. It was the Navy Yard station. Feverishly he sent: "Light-ship 67. Tide Rip Shoal. Have parted moorings. Drifting toward beach. Send help." He waited for an answer. None came. He repeated. No answer. Over and over he sent it.
The British freighter Strathend, of 4321 tons was the first victim. Her crew were taken aboard the Nantucket shoals light-ship. Two other British freighters, West Point and Stephano, followed in short order to the bottom of the ocean. The crews of both were saved by United States torpedo boat destroyers who had come from Newport as soon as news of the U-53's activities had been received there.
There she held for a moment, started to rise, and then a following sea caught her and overbore her and that time she rolled low enough to take salt water down her funnel. She came back after a time. Up, up, nobly; but when they next looked from the light-ship they could see no figure in her stern. Bowen leaned far over the light-ship's rail.
As we passed the light-ship I added an ulster and tied a handkerchief around the collar to hold it snug to my neck. So rapidly had the summer gone and winter come again? By nightfall we were far out at sea, with no land in sight. No telegrams could come here, no letters, no news. This was an uplifting thought.
Take us all round, and, in spite of our difference of tonnage, I reckon we're pretty much of a size, and consequently a very fair match, so far as that goes. I should like to be alongside of her in the Lily in such a breeze and such water as this." By this time we were close to the light-ship, still leading, and in another minute we shot under her stern and hauled up on the port tack.
Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into existence the gleam of a distant light-ship. 'When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place as this? 'Yes, it was. 'You don't tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return?
There was absolutely nothing to be seen but the two lights of the light-ship, glaring from the dark sea like a wolf's eyes from a cavern. They looked nearer and brighter than in ordinary nights, and appeared to the excited senses of the young men to dance strangely on the waves, and to be always opposite to them, as they moved along the shore with the wind almost at their backs.
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