Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/79

 command. On Sunday morning we were ashore on the Long Sand in a howling gale, and the brig went to pieces in six hours. I was saved with others of the crew by a smack from Harwich, in charge of brave John Tigh, but a poor boy, just fresh from a Sussex farm, perished. I shall always remember that day. There were two life-buoys aboard, and these the captain and the cook secured. The instinct of self-preservation was strong, no doubt, and it was not an era of heroes. I was a romantic child at that time, on my first sea voyage, and fresh from a course of "The Three Musketeers," "Monte Cristo," and other such entertaining literature. I thought then that we two little frightened boys would have been allowed the safeguard of the life-buoys. Now I know better.