he natural
breakwater of the Goodwins--for without those dreaded sands neither the
Downs as a sheltered anchorage would exist, nor in all probability the
towns of Deal and Walmer--was nevertheless on that day a very stormy
place, and as the wind freshened towards evening, as the east wind
nearly always does in this locality, it eventually came on to blow a
whole gale dead on shore.

The sea raised by an easterly gale on Deal beach is tremendous, and not
even the first-class luggers, or their smaller sisters, the 'cats,'
could be launched. Had there been a harbour from which the Deal
luggers could at once make the open sea, they would have been able to
live and skim like the stormy petrel over the crest of the billows; but
it is quite a different thing when a lugger has to be launched from a
beach right in the teeth of a mountainous sea, and incurs the certainty
of being driven back broadside on to the steep shingle, and of her crew
being washed out of her, and drowned by some giant sea. Hence that
evening no ordinary Deal boat or even lugger could launch. On the
morning of the same day the captain of the Royal Arch had been
compelled by some necessary business to come ashore. To have come
ashore in his own ship's boat in such a wind and sea would have
involved certain disaster and even loss of life, and therefore he came
ashore in a Deal galley punt, which successfully performed the feat of
beaching in a heavy surf.

In the evening, against an increasing gale, and much heavier sea, the
galley punt dared not launch to bring the captain back. None even of
the luggers would encounter the risk of launching in so heavy a sea
dead on the beach. He therefore tried the lifeboats, upon the plea and
grounds that his ship was dragging her anchors and in peril. She was
lying abreast of Walmer Castle, and was indeed gradually dragging in
towards the surf-beaten shore, which, if she struck, not a soul on
board probably would have been saved.

The anxious captain first tried the Walmer lifeboat, but she was too
far to leeward, and would not have been able to fetch the vessel. But
eventually, as his vessel was now burning signals of distress, he ran
to the North Deal lifeboat, and the coxswain, Robert Wilds, seeing all
other boats were helpless, decided to ring the lifeboat bell and pit
the celebrated Van Cook against the stormy sea in deadly fight.

The Deal boatmen had long foreseen the launch of the lifeboat, and they
w