Part 15 (1/2)
”To keep us from bein' tired. We needed all the strength we had. An' we made good time, I'm tellin' ye. They carried out the boat an' the cart to the beach an' then their end of it was done. It was up to us, now.
An' I tell ye, I was anxious. There was somethin' mighty thrillin' in that wild train ride through the night. I've often run big chances in a boat, but this was different-like. Usooally no one knows what we're doin', but this time, the news was bein' flashed all over the country.
”When we actooally got on the beach it didn't look so bad. The boats were lyin' right on the bar 'bout two hundred 'n' fifty foot, off sh.o.r.e.
We rigged the gun, loaded her, 'n' fired. I dropped a line jest abaft the pilot-house, where we figured the men must be waitin'. It was a good shot an' I reckoned that there wa'n't goin' to be no trouble at all. It heartened me right up. We'd got there in time, an' first crack out o'
the box, there was a line, right across the steamer. The path o' rescue had been made!
”But there was one thing I hadn't figured on.”
”What was that?” queried Eric excitedly.
”The weather 'n' the cold. The seas had come up, over 'n' over that steamer, ontil the decks were one straight glare of ice. There wa'n't nothin' a man could get hold of. If a sailor stepped out on that ice, he couldn't stand, for she was heelin' over to port like the side of a hill. An' the lee bulwark was torn away. Worst of all, the waves kep' a das.h.i.+n' over 'n' over without stoppin'. Our line wa'n't more'n fifteen feet from the pilot-house, but no one couldn' get to that line without bein' washed off.
”In a way, we'd done all that was necessary. We'd dropped a line where they'd ought to be able to get it. We couldn't know there wa'n't no way for 'em to do it. But when the minutes went by 'n' there was no sign from the steamer, it begun to look bad. If it hadn't been for the ice on the decks they was as good as rescued, but with the way it was, they wa'n't no better off, even with rescue fifteen feet away, than when our crew was a hundred miles off in s.h.i.+p Island. There wa'n't nothin' for us to do but tackle the job ourselves.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LAYING THE LYLE GUN.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRING THE SHOT AND LINE.
Note line being paid out from the faking-box. This shot carried a sixth of a mile.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
”The fishermen, the ones that had been out in the yawl, came aroun' an'
said it couldn't be done. My c.o.xswain agreed it couldn't be done, but we'd do it just the same.”
”And you?” asked the boy.
”I jest started gettin' the boat ready,” the old keeper said, simply.
”It was 'way after midnight, reckon it was nearly one o'clock, an', if anything, the sea was wilder. An' I felt nothin' so cold afore in all my life. The women o' Chocolay, they was out that night, bringin' steamin mugs o' coffee. There's a deal o' credit comin' to them, too, the way I look at it.”
”I don't see that they could have done much less,” said Eric.
”Maybe aye, maybe no,” said the veteran, ”but I reckon, no matter how little a woman does, the right kind o' man's goin' to think it's a lot.
Well, as I was sayin', I turned to the boys to launch the boat. We got hold of her by the rails an' waded in through the mush-ice, same as the fishermen had done. I tell you, it guv me a big sense o' pride in men like our Michigan fishermen when I tackled what they'd tackled. They hadn't no cork-jackets, and they wa'n't rigged up for it. Their boat wa'n't built for no such work but they didn't stop to think o' their own lives or their own boat. An' a fisherman's boat, like's not, is all he's got to make a livin' with. It makes a man feel good to think there's other men like that!
”That mush reached two hundred yards f'm land. I don't know how them fisher chaps ever got through the ice at all. It took us nigh half 'n hour to make the last hundred yards. When the water deepened so's we could get into the boat, every man's clothes was drenched an' they friz right on to him. Every time we dipped the oars in that mush they'd stick, 'n' onless we'd pulled 'em out mighty fast they'd have friz right there. 'Bout every ten yards we had to chop the oar-locks free of ice an' the only part of our slickers what wa'n't friz was where the muscles was playin'. The c.o.x'n, he looked like one of them petrified men ye read about.
”At last we got through the mush. All the way through it, with the load o' floatin' ice 'n' muck, the sea wa'n't tossin' much. But jest the very minute we got clear of it an' started out, the sea hit us fair. I was pullin' stroke an' it didn't git me so hard, but the c.o.x'n, who was facin' bow, got it full. The wind was dead ahead an' the sea was a-tumblin' in as if there wa'n't no land between us an' the North Pole.
”The blades o' the oars got covered with ice, makin' 'em round, like poles, instead of oars, an' we couldn't get no purchase. I hit up the stroke a bit, exhaustin' though it was, 'n' maybe we made about twenty feet further. She was self-bailin' or we'd ha' been swamped right away.
Every sea that come aboard left a layer of ice, makin' her heavier to handle. Then, suddenly, along comes a sea, bigger'n any before, an' it takes that lifeboat 'n' chucks us back on the mush-ice, bang! The shock smashes the rudder 'n' puts us out o' business. I forces the boat ash.o.r.e for repairs.
”'Too bad,' says the railroad superintendent, to me; 'for a minute, there, I thought you were going to make it.'
”'We jest are goin' to make it,' says I, 'if we have to swim!'
”Then one o' those fisher chaps had a good idee. While we was a-fixin'