"HE DIED FOR THE ROCK"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23281, 25 February 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

"HE DIED FOR THE ROCK"

Scottish Ligh th Superb Devotion to Duty

ON Christinas Day, 1900, the relief boat battled its "way to the lighthouse on Flannan Islands, Outer Hebrides. When the boat arrived there was no answering signal from the rock. At considerable risk a landing was effected, but of the three keepers shere was no trace. Dusk was falling; the lamp was in perfect order; the table sot for a meal; the kettle hissing on the kitchen stove. But the men had disappeared. No man has seen them since, and to this day the tragedy remains an unsolved mystery of the sea. Early in December last, almost unknown to the outside world, a Scottish lighthouse-keeper, in the words of his Wife, "gave his life for the 'rock.' " The celebrated, and once-dreaded Inchcape, now officially known as the Bell liock Lighthouse, which lies 12 miles east of Arbroath, was the scene of that tragedy. Before we unfold the grim story, let us draw aside the curtain of time and examine the history of this terrible reef, which lies in the direct path of all shipping having business with Britain's north-eastern ports.

The Reef of Terror, - That record is a scroll of wreck, Jruin, and dfeath, of battered sliips and broken men. Less than two centuries ago its very name struck terror into the hearts of seamen. Of its earlier history, in the dark, remote ages—who can conceive it?

In a great gale of 1799, ships from as far south as Yarmouth Roads, and even the mouth of the Thames;. were dragged from their moorings, and, later, the skeletons of •no fewer than 70 vessels were found piled up on the Inchcape Reef and on the adjacent coast.

Little wonder" men say it is haunted. They speak of a ghost ship that comes gliding abeam out of fog and blizzard ;—and of the eerie derge of a bell. Who has not heard the legend of the Inchcape Bell, immortalised in the famous poem by Southey? The legend tells us how centuries ago the abbots of the famous monastery of Aberbrothic erected a bell on the Inchcape _• Rock, and how a Danish pirate, Sir Ralf the Rover, in a mood of devilment, cut the warning signal ddrift. Ralf the Rover Years afterwards, so the story goes, his pirate vessel, sailing in the same vicinity, but without bell to warn him, crashed against the treacherous reef in a storm. ' . As the ship sank beneath the waves, in Southey's words:

of its erection, it must give pride of place to the father of lighthouses, on which the fourth and present Eddystone was modelled.

The Inchcape Rock, on which the Bell Rock Lighthouse is built, lies ten feet under water, and is never exposed for more than three hours at a time, even in the lowest tides. Here, then, is a house which was actually built in the sea, and the story of its erection is an epic of dogged perseverance and of courage which beggars description. The endles-3 breakers of a sea which is never still, even .in calm weather, such is the upward heave Of the ground swell, crash against the evil, serrated edges of that terrible rock with tremendous force. - , j;.v Wakeful Eyes Yet for four years men lived in little vessels anchored near the death-trap, and later in a fragile, swaying beacon supported on long, wooden stilts clamped into the sunken rock, and toiled in three-hour spells to erect that stately column which became the admiration of the world.

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair, He curat himself in his despair; But even in his dying fear

One dreadful sound could the Rover hear, A sound as if - with the Inchcape Bell, The Devil below was ringing his knell. All Scotland is proud of the "Bell Rock Stevensons." This noted family, of which "R.L.5.," the novelist, was the most famous, has been responsible for the building of nearly every "rockhouse" around Britain's coasts, and many, in other parts of the globe, as far away as" Japan. But it was the tragic tot! of that storm of 1799 which roused men to action, and resulted in the building of the Bell Rock by the founder of the family—one of the most daring achievements in British maritime 'history. Try to imagine it. The majestic Eddystone, famous ""light" of England's southern coast, Btands on a foundation which is never completely, under water, ahd while no one would belittle the magnificent feat

Its wakeful eyes, one red, one white, flashing at five-second intervals, have gleamed undimmed for nearly a century

and a-half, the guiding star of stormtossed mariners. Not one single wreck has occurred on the rock since the lighthouse was erected..

The impression of immovable solidity which this cold, grey, stately finger of granite conveys is not lessened in storm, but only those who have seen the boiling surf churned by those serrated teeth can appreciate the danger which the keepers must face to land on or leave the rock in a gale. Imagine, then, the following drama. He Carried On Principal Keeper William Cordiner complained of pains in his side, but carried on with the job. For 34 years he had been a "rock-man," and such was his devotion to duty that, although he became steadily worse, he refused, owing to the weather, to allbw tho other keepers to send for relief, and thus risk the lives of other men.

At last, in spite of his protests, a message was flashed shorewards by means of radio-telephone, with which every lighthouse off the Scottish coast is equipped. The Northern Lighthouse Commissioners' relief ship, Pharos, set out in the teeth of a gale to attempt the rescue of the stricken keeper.

It was a race against death, for appendicitis had developed into acute peritonitis. An immediate operation v s imperative.

Suffering untold agony, buffeted unmercifully by the howling wind, and drenched to the skin with spray, the keeper was swung from the lanternhouse, a height of 117 feet, in a bosun's chair, which is really a glorified child's swing. Too Late Three times he faced the ordeal of that swaying chair—once when he was lowered from the lantern-house into a small boat, and again when he was hauled aboard the relief ship standing by, its decks awash like a half-tide rock.

The third ordeal came later —hours later —when the Pharo3 reached Arbroath Harbour, only to find the danger-flag flying and entry impossible. The Arbroath lifeboat, however, had succeeded in forcing an outlet. It had to be lashed to the side of the relief ship before Cordiner could be swung safely aboard. Alas, too latel The terrible ordeal had proved too much, and so a brave keeper "died for the rock."