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Updated: May 19, 2025
But every upward send emptied the noble little craft, like pulling out a plug in a wash-basin, and in a few minutes we were again alongside the light-vessel. This time there were six or seven men looking over the side. "What do you want?" we shouted. "Did you see the Sunk lightship's rocket?" they all yelled out together. "Yes. Did you say you saw a boat?"
Summoned by the lightship's guns and rockets to the rescue for the red three-masted North Sand Head lightship was only two miles from the wreck the Ramsgate lifeboat, towed by the steam-tug Aid, came to the spot, and, after a long trial, failed to get the schooner afloat, and, having taken her crew out of her, returned to the shore.
It was black midnight, and no man in the boat could see his neighbour; the pier was like a great iceberg and sheeted with ice; the sea was flying over the oilclad figures in the lifeboat and freezing almost as it fell, rattling against the sails or on the deck, or fiercely hurled into the faces of the men; indeed, every oilskin jacket was frozen stiff before they had been towed a quarter of a mile against the furious sea, which drenched them 'like spray, as the coxswain expressed it, 'from the parish fire engines. The brave fellows were more than drenched they were all but frozen, but no one dreamed of turning back, for though the lightship's rockets had stopped they could see the piteous flares from the distant wreck now and then, as the snow squalls broke, beckoning them on.
At last the conviction was forced upon them that the boat must have been stove by the wreck and swamped. In the midst of their gathering despair they caught sight of the lightship's bright beam, shining like a star of hope through the surrounding darkness. With a faint hope they made for the vessel and hailed her. "Have you seen anything of the lifeboat?" was the eager question.
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