Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Charles Lewis
Royal Navy [1891-1905]
West Africa Station
1900-1904
Part 4
Written 1900-1904 on HMS BLANCHE
Algoa Bay 1902
We left Zanzibar August 26th,
for Simon’s Town. On our way down, ran into a hurricane in the Mozambique
Channel.
It was a beautiful calm night,
not a breath of wind, the sea was as
flat as a table.
The wind sprang up so suddenly
during the night that we were taken completely by surprise. It seemed
incredible that, in so short a space of time, the sea could go from flat smooth
to mountainous high. The storm just struck our ship without the least warning.
When I got on deck, pandemonium reigned.
Darkness added to our
difficulties; the watch below was turned in and asleep, it was four bells – 2
o’clock, they had to be got on deck. The ship pitched, jumped and rolled. But
after a great deal of labour at the risk of our lives, we managed to get things
secure and snug once more. Only those who have seen heavy gear adrift and being
washed or flung from one side of the vessel to another, can tell what a risky
job it is securing them again.
After we got everything was
snug, I remembered I had hung some washed clothes on the ridge rope, a rope
above the gunwale; Like a fool I thought I would try to get them down, if they
were not blown away. After a struggle I managed to get onto the tower ridge
rope, it was dark as pitch too. I worked my way along to where I thought my
clothes would be, when the old ship took a dive. I was washed overboard, I just
managed to get on the ridge rope, and was in the act of casting off the stops
which fasten the clothes to the ridge rope, when the vessel gave a dive. I was
completely submerged and I clung onto the rope, with all my strength; it seemed
as if my arms were being torn from their sockets. It seemed ages before I could
breathe.
Needless to say, that as soon
as the vessel righted herself, I was off that rope and down on deck as quickly
as possible. I clambered down on deck, more dead than alive.
I may add that I recovered my
clothes after the gale abated, thanks to the strong stops which I had in my
clothes. sailors don’t use clothes pegs, they use clothes stops for stopping
clothes to the clothes lines. God certainly watched over me that night,
otherwise I must have been washed overboard.
Before one had time to realise
what had happened, the wind had passed on, leaving us nearly a wreck.
We went on to Port Elizabeth,
there in the Bay [Algoa Bay], we saw a sad sight; 19 large sailing ships were
driven ashore by the terrible gale that nearly put us under. The beach was
strewn with wreckage and dead bodies, there must have been hundreds of lives
lost.
Our ship was asked to land a
party of torpedo ratings to blow up the wrecks. I was told to get off to land,
but at the last minute I was told I could not be spared, as my boat would be
required. I was some disappointed.
Our men were the guests of the
Port Elizabeth Mayor and Corporation, as we would say at home, and a right
Royal time they gave them, they were there a fortnight; they joined us at
Simon’s Town.
[
This is something that Captain John Lester Vivian Millett spoke of concerning
the loss of the THE TWEED, a ship he had sailed with earlier.
The
ship timbers were used to build a church there.]
Algoa
Bay wrecks
[31st
August 1902; Charles Lewis later saw a newspaper article about the disaster and
cut it out, to place in the back of his diary;From the Newspaper clipping]
Algoa Bay lies open to the
south-east, but, as the wind rarely blows from that direction, it is considered
a safe roadstead. On this occasion a gale of hurricane force set in, and was
known years afterwards as the “black south-easter”. Nineteen sailing ships
dragged their anchors or parted their cables, and came piling on to the beach
of Algoa Bay. All through the dark morning hours they cam sweeping ashore, and
when dawn broke, the beach presented the most terrible sight ever seen.
Wreckage and bodies lined the foreshore, while further inland were hundreds,
perhaps a thousand or more, utterly helpless people, unable to move a hand to
save. The INCHCAPE ROCK was pounding in about ten in the morning, head on, her
cables parted, and some courageous souls at the wheel, striving to prevent a
broadside stranding. But when she hit, she slewed round and canted, and men
were washed off her decks like flies, 200 yards from the shore. Some fastened
on to wreckage, others trusted to belts, but the terrible undertow got them
when almost ashore, and back, back, back, they went to mocking Death.
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