Courtesy of TROVE Northern Star, Saturday 11 January 1947
SAGAS OF THE EARLY DAYS by WINDSOR LANG.
The Wreck of the “SUSSEX”
MR. LANG in his Saga instalment this week, re-narrates a story written by THOMAS EWING, called “Off the Richmond Bar.” Introducing his story, he says “I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the publishing house of William Brooks and Coy. Ltd., of 99 Pitt Street, Sydney, for its courtesy in having permitted me to quote in full, the following extract from Fifth Reader in the New Australian Series published by that house.
The dense curtain of clouds had almost reached mid-sky, and broken outliers were racing across the face of the moon. Round the humpy the trees were beginning to sough and bend under the weight of the wind.
“Yes,” I said, “it is coming up heavy, and from the worst quarter. It seems to be chopping round more to the east. Unless the ‘Sussex’ gives herself plenty of sea-room tonight, it will take her all her time to wear out when she sees the bar in the morning.”
All through the night the rain rattled on the roof of our humpy, and was driven by gusts of wind under the eaves in tiny sprays, without much troubling us, however. The rare comfort of lying in a bunk with only a sheet of bark as protection from the elements, is never known to those who sleep where lofty ceilings and strong roofs deaden the voices of the storm.
Morning broke with the air full of moisture. Nature seemed sodden. The clouds hung low, and drifted away in huge balloons to break on the Dividing Range. The river surface, frizzy with rain, stretched as a rough brown mat across to where the mangroves fringed the lagoon, and the swish of the water crumpled up the bank right abreast of the galley. Shaw’s Bay was a mass of foam. The bar was churning from the sandy terrace to Black Head.
Just outside the breakers, where the green seas changed into white racers, lay the “Sussex”. To wear out to sea was too much for the old craft; to cross in was impossible. The smooth water above the sands had disappeared, and the white horses charged right across the entrance. There the “Sussex” hung, empty as a drum, with both bow anchors out, heading to the gale, pitching like a cork, and being continually swept by great green seas.
The whole population of the settlement stood on the headland. As we joined them, we saw that the anchors of the ship were dragging, and that the vessel herself was slowly coming in. Then she seemed to gather way, and come on with a run; finally she lay aground on the sandy beach, which stretched seawards from the rocks, forming a feeble breakwater. It was clear that the stoutest timber could not long bear the strain.
Burton, the head man of the settlement, was standing in front of the group. His daughter Polly was close by. The two figures stood out in relief – Burton, weather-beaten and well on in years, but yet full of vigour, and able to “keep his end” with the best of us; and Polly, unconscious of the heavy wind driving the rain in her face, and intent on the tragedy off the bar – a type of self-reliant, vigorous womanhood, forgetting herself in the excitement which ever makes all young blood tingle, and engrossed by the pity which is rarely far down in a woman’s heart.
Her character had been formed among rough surroundings, but her mother, long dead, sprung from wealthier stock, had educated her beyond the lot of frontier women. Now, for the first time, she was to witness the powerlessness of man in the anger of the elements, and to see the waves which so often fluttered out in tiny wavelets on the beach, tear strong men from their shelter and fling them, bruised and limp wreckage, on the shore.
Burton had not seen us join the watchers, although we stood beside him.
“No boat could live in that sea,” he said; “if you launched her she’d not steer; she’d smell the sand all the way. The ship might be reached through the shallower water from the sand tongue. There is one man,” he continued, hesitatingly, “who could do it, but he is not here.” “He is here,” said Dan, and taking off his oilskin, he quietly handed it to me. “But he is not going,” interjected Polly Burton.
Burton turned sharply round and faced Dan. Disregarding his daughter, he continued: “It could be done, perhaps, but the risk is great. There is but one man left on board of her,” he added, pointing to a figure halfway up the mast.
“There is no danger,” said Dan, “for if I find the job too big for me I can make back, and besides, there will be a line from the shore. For the honor of the settlement, it must never be said the cedar-getters saw a man drown before their eyes, and made no attempt to save him.” Turning to Polly, he continued: “If your father were out there, what would you say then?”
The girl stood irresolute. Her eyes had again sought the wreck, lifting under the force of the waves, and grinding uneasily on the sand. As she looked at Dan, there were tears mingled with the rain spray on her face. “Go!” she said, and turned again towards the sea.
He hurried to Burton’s humpy, and returning with a light line, went down to the beach, where Dan and several of the men were waiting. Dan and Sutherland, the bullocky, were both stripped. Dan had a broad strap around his waist, which Sutherland stepped forward to unbuckle as I approached.
“Let me go,” he said. “I won’t be wanted till the cedar has to come up the Long Pinch, and by that time Lee will be able to drive the bullocks, and have learned what to do with Rowdy and Spot.” Dan looked at the short, broad-shouldered Londoner, and replied: “I have a foot the best of you, Suther land, and will want it all. This is my ‘contract’.” “If it is to be done,” Interposed Burton, “our best man must go. You would only make a ‘fool’, of the job. I might as well go myself.”
I tied the line to Dan’s belt. Sutherland went well out into the breakers to pay out. He staggered, as he felt the half power of the storm. Dan went steadily out. The waves broke over him in the shallower depths, as they did against the basalt rocks lying inshore from the “Sussex”.
When well out to sea he began to swim, but was flung back like a rag, and washed helplessly in to where Sutherland stood. But, without a word, he forced his way out again, and stood until the waves ran in unbroken for a moment, then dived under a huge comber just before it broke. When we saw him again he was through the first breakers, and was swimming coolly with the clean breast stroke I knew so well. Burton was holding the shore end of the line. Tears were coursing down his face. He was mumbling as if praying. Burton’s prayer had been answered when a brave heart was placed in Dan’s stalwart frame.
A few minutes’ masterful swimming brought him under the lee of the vessel, and presently he was beside the figure on the mast. A light rope was speedily passed out. This Dan tied low down on the mast, and, un fastening his belt, placed in under the shoulders of the stranger. The man was able to give but little assistance. After a short but desperate struggle, Dan and his burden reached the spot where Sutherland stood breast-high in the waves, and we eagerly helped them to the beach. We carried the stranger to Burton’s humpy, and put him into a bunk. Soon afterwards he fell into a deep sleep.
The “Sussex” gradually sagged over on to her bilge and broke up, covering the beach with wreckage. Later on, the bodies of four of the crew came ashore, but were too disfigured for recognition.
We buried them among the pines on the little sloping ridge, and at the head of each of them placed a plain wooden cross, on which was cut the name of the ship “Sussex”. Whilst I think that the late Sir T. T. Ewing did not intend that his readers accept his story as anything but fictional, it was actually a composite construction based on several contemporary bar incidents.