tion as was possible in the pitchy
darkness and in the roar of the sea. It was agreed between them that
there would be much difficulty in finding the vessel in distress, as
her signals and blue lights had ceased and the night was very dark.
They decided that the Kingsdown lifeboat should go first, and if they
hit the vessel they were to burn a red light in token of success, and a
white light if they could not find her; but that, in any case, Walmer
was to come shortly after them and search through the breakers, whether
Kingsdown succeeded or not.

In the dark the Kingsdown coxswain put his lifeboat into the surf on
the Goodwins; it was heavy, but they got through it safely, and found
on the off-part of the Goodwins, towards its southern end--known as the
South Calliper--a large steamship aground. She proved to be the
Sorrento, bound from the Mediterranean to Lynn.

Close outside where she lay on the treacherous sands were thirteen and
fourteen fathoms of deep water, that is, from seventy to eighty feet,
while she lay in about six feet of white surf, which flew in clouds
over her as each sea struck her quarters and stern.

The Sorrento had struck the Goodwins at midnight, or a little after, in
about twenty-one feet of water, but when the lifeboat got alongside the
tide had fallen, and there was only six feet of broken water around
her. 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. Both lifeboats got alongside the great steamer, and
the greater part of the crews of both lifeboats clambered on board her,
leaving eight men in each lifeboat.

The head of the wrecked steamer lay about E.N.E., and the seas were
hammering at and breaking against her starboard quarter, which rose
high in the air quite twenty feet out of the water at the time the
lifeboats got alongside. All the lifeboatmen now turned to pumping the
vessel, which was very full of water, with a view to saving the ship
and her valuable cargo of barley.

The Walmer lifeboat lay alongside the Sorrento, under her port bow, and
the head of the Walmer lifeboat pointed towards the stern of the
wrecked steamer, and was firmly fastened to her by a stout hawser.

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