It is no wonder our Cape is called the Cape of Storms, for the waters of Table Bay are lashed every year by winter gales. For hundreds of years sailing ships have been torn apart here and their wreckage scattered on the waves. So bad is the weather that the governors of old forbade ships to anchor in Table Bay from May to August. Instead they had to seek the calmer waters of Simonstown.
Some captains on their way to India were in such a hurry, though, that they defied the governor's orders and risked casting anchor in Table Bay. Such a one was the captain of De Jonge Thomas, an East Indiaman that sailed into the Bay about two hundred years ago. It was the month of May and De Jonge Thomas cast anchor to ride out a Northwesterly wind. But the wind rose to a gale and the next day a terrible storm broke upon them out of the sea.
All night the wind lashed the waves into mountains that crashed over the ship and tore the anchor ropes loose. Soon after midnight only one anchor rope still held. The ship was doomed and the desperate captain gave the order to fire the cannons. Above the screaming of the wind the burgers of Cape town, safe in their beds, heard the distant booms of distress and knew that the ship with her two hundred men was in peril. One of those who lay listening was a dairy farmer, Wolraad Woltemade.
Alas, in the pitch darkness there was nothing they could do to help the wretched men at sea and just before dawn the last anchor rope snapped and De Jonge Thomas was driven by the breakers onto a sandbank near the Salt River mouth and began breaking up.
In the pale dawn a group of people stood huddled on the beach. Drawn by the cannon fire, some were there to offer help to any men who might be washed ashore alive. Some rougher folk were there to pillage any cargo thrown up by the waves and thirty of the Governor's soldiers were there to see that they did not. One of these soldiers was the son of Wolraad Woltemade and, as the farmer sat in the warm house and heard the wind howl and watched the lashing rain, Wolraad thought of his son keeping watch on the beach and of the poor lost men on the floundering ship.
Who was he to sit at home by the fire while they endured the fury of the storm? He got up, packed some hot food in a bag, put on a hat and coat, saddled his great horse and rode out into the storm.
At the shore he saw a pitiful sight, for the ship was breaking up in the tug and thrust of the breakers and even above the crashing surf the cries of men came to him as they threw themselves from the splintering deck into the sea. Very few were helped alive from the waves.
For a moment Woltemade paused on the crest of a dune. He raised his hand to his forehead and looked hard from the foaming beach to the sandbank. Then, saying not a word, he threw down the bag of food, dug his heels into his horse's sides and cantered down the sand slope into the boiling sea. Bystanders watched speechless as the great horse plunged into the waves and began to swim out to De Jonge Thomas. Surely Woltemade was mad! It was not possible to swim out there and return alive! They watched with bated breath as the little figure of the man rose and fell with waves.
Wait! Wait! There he was - in the surges just below the heaving decks! They saw him raise his right arm. Two men jumped into the sea. Woltemade waited as they grasped the stirrup leathers, then he turned his horse's head and steered it shoreward again.
As they drew in, men ran into the foam and helped the stumbling sailors ashore. Without a word Wolraad Woltemade turned his gallant horse back into the sea. Four men he brought ashore in this way, then six, eight, ten, twelve... as his horse staggered shorewards with the thirteenth and fourteenth Woltemade paused for a moment. He laid his head on his horse's neck, felt the quivering exhaustion in its body. He was all but done in himself and the strained breathing of his brave companion told him that it was near the end of its strength. The man ran his hand over the long wet nose, felt its soft nostrils and saw how red the eyes were, whipped by salt water for a couple of hours now. "Could we go once more?" he muttered, "only once?"
Just then the sound of splitting timbers came across the water. Wolraad turned and saw that the decks were breaking up. Men screamed and threw themselves down. Without thinking, Woltemade turned his horse and spurred it back into the sea. Once more they struggled in the heaving water below the ship but instead of two men, more than ten grabbed onto the horse, onto mane and tail, saddle, girth and stirrups. In vain Woltemade tried to stop them. In vain he tried to loosen their hold.
"Wait! Let go or we shall all go down! Wait and I'll come back again!"
In their panic the men did not hear. They clung to each other, to Woltemade and the horse. Wolraad felt a shudder run through his exhausted horse. Dragged down by the sodden weight of the terrified men, its head went under. For a moment it rose up, struggling to breathe fresh air. Then it went down again and Wolraad Woltemade and the drowning men disappeared with it forever beneath the waves.
Thus it was that a Cape dairy farmer and his great-hearted horse saved fourteen men from De Jonge Thomas from a raging sea, men he did not even know. When we honour our bravest for a selfless act of courage it is fitting that we remember the name of Wolraad Woltemade and his gallant horse.
Story Time � 1984-1989 by Rubicon Press CC