Aid, and that tug was out of the harbour,
dragging the lifeboat, head to sea, 110 yards astern of her.

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.

The vessel on the Goodwins was the three-masted schooner or barquentine
The Crocodile, laden with stone from Guernsey to London, and when about
a mile or so north of the Goodwins 'reaching' on the port tack, 'missed
stays' in the heavy sea, and before they had time to 'wear' ship, she
struck the northern face of the Goodwins, against which a tremendous
sea was driven by the black north-easter that was blowing from the
Pole. She struck the Goodwins bows on with her head to the south-east,
and she heeled over to starboard, the sea which rolled from the E.N.E.
beating nearly on her port broadside.

The wrecked crew knew their position, and that their only chance was
the advent of some lifeboat, and they burned flares, which consisted on
this occasion of their own clothes, which they tore off and soaked in
oil. They were soon beaten off the deck as the tide rose, and in the
darkness had to take to the rigging, the captain, who was an elderly
man, and his crew all together climbing in the mizzen weather rigging.
The weather rigging was of course more upright than the lee rigging,
which leaned over to the right or starboard hand as the vessel lay.

As the tug bored to windward and rapidly neared the vessel they could
see the flares being carried up the rigging by the sorely beset crew,
and knew the extremity of the case; then the next snow squall wrapped
them in like a winding-sheet, and all was shut out. But still, on
plunged the Aid at great speed, for the new tug-boat Aid is a much
faster and more powerful boat than either of the old tu