FEBRUARY 8TH. - THURSO, CAITHNESS-SHIRE. A northerly gale was blowing, with high confused seas and storms of snow and sleet when, at 2.30 in the afternoon, the Wick coastguard rang up the life-boat station to say that two miles to seaward of Melvick Bay two objects had been seen. They seemed to be dinghies. At three o’clock the motor life-boat H.C.J. was launched. She made with all despatch for Melvick Bay, 12 1/2 miles away, the coxswain reasoning rightly that, whatever the objects were, they were being blown rapidly inshore. The seas were running very high, sometimes ahead and sometimes abeam of the life-boat, and she shipped much water. As she approached Melvick Bay the seas became more confused, and the bay was covered with broken water. At 4.30 the life-boat saw two rafts. The smaller was only about 170 yards from the rocks, the larger still about a mile and a half away. The coxswain made at once for the smaller raft. Two exhausted men were clinging to it. He took the life-boat alongside it on the lee, or inshore side, and two spectators on the shore saw the grave risk that he was running, in those heavy, swirling seas, of losing his boat and his crew. Very quickly the two exhausted men were lifted on board - they had been rescued in the nick of time from certain death - and the coxswain turned at once for the other raft.

As he approached it he could see men lying on it, apparently beyond the power to help themselves. This time he took the life-boat alongside the weather side. There he made her fast with ropes at each end, fending her off with boathooks, and two of his crew, David Thomson, life-boatman, and the assistant motor-mechanic, William Sinclair, jumped on the raft.

Five men were on it, all dead of exposure. Their bodies were huddled together, arms and legs entwined.

Thomson and Sinclair had to extricate each one from the others, before throwing it to the other men in the life-boat. The work had to be done as quickly as possible, for all the time the two men were in considerable danger of being washed off the raft or crushed between it and the life-boat.

With all the life-boatmen fully engaged in the work it took ten minutes.

The life-boat then made for Wick, and on the way the life-boatmen stripped the two rescued men, put them into dry, warm clothes and revived them.

They were from the Norwegian steamer Freidig, of Haugesund, bound from Aberdeen to Liverpool, with a cargo of grain. The grain had shifted, and off Cape Wrath the steamer had foundered. The life-boat reached Wick at 7.10 that evening and the two rescued men were taken to hospital.

They recovered.

The service had been carried out at great risk, in a high and dangerous sea, and the coxswain had handled the life-boat with splendid seamanship, daring and resource. The Institution made the following awards : To COXSWAIN JOHN MACLEOD, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To DAVID THOMSON, life-boatman, and WILLIAM SINCLAIR, assistant motor-mechanic, each the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum for his courage in risking his life without hesitation by going on board the raft ; To the coxswain and each member of the crew a special reward of £1 in addition to the reward on the ordinary scale of £2 7s. Rewards on the ordinary scale to crew and helpers, £22 19s. ; special rewards to the crew, £8 ; total rewards, £30 19s.

Coxswain MacLeod was also awarded the M.B.E.