ed
us abreast, but the tide caught our warp and gave us a sheer that
brought us much too close alongside of her. When the sea took her she
seemed to hang right over us, and the sight of that great dark hull,
looking as if, when it fell, it must come right atop of us, made us
want to sheer off, I can tell you. I sung out, "Have you seen the
ship?" And one of the men bawled back, "Yes." "How does she bear?"
"Nor'-west by north." "Have you seen anything go to her?" The answer
I caught was, "A boat." Some of our men said the answer was, "A
lifeboat," but most of us only heard, "A boat."

'The tug was now towing ahead, and we went past the lightship, but ten
minutes after Tom Friend sings out, "They're burning a light aboard
her!" and looking astern I saw they had fired a red signal light that
was blazing over the bulwark in a long shower of sparks. The tug put
her helm down to return, and we were brought broadside to the sea.
Then we felt the power of those waves, sir. It looked a wonder that we
were not rolled over and drowned, every man of us. We held on with our
teeth clenched, and twice the boat was filled, and the water up to our
throats. "Look out for it, men!" was always the cry. 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?" "No," they answered, showing we had mistaken their
first reply. On which I shouted to the tug, "Pull us round to the Long
Sand Head buoy!" and then we were under weigh again, meeting the
tremendous seas. There was only a little bit of moon, westering fast,
and what there was of it showed but now and again, as the heavy clouds
opened and let the light of it down. Indeed, it was very dark, though
there was some kind of glimmer in the foam which enabled us to mark the
tug ahead. "Bitter cold work, Charlie," says old Tom Cooper to me:
"but," says he, "it's colder for the poor wretches aboard the wreck, if
they're alive to feel it." The thought of them made our own sufferings
small, and we kept looking and looking into the darkness around, but
there was nothing to be spied, only now and again and long whiles apart
the flash of a rocket in the sky from the Sunk lightship.