Part 35 (1/2)

It was the evening of the second day after the worst part of the blow started that the _Miami_ dropped her anchor in eight fathoms of water off the North Carolina coast. Steam was kept full up, although the position of the cutter in the lee of a point of land precluded the immediate possibility of her dragging her anchors.

Almost exactly at noon the next day, the wireless operator intercepted a message from the Norfolk Navy Yard that the steamer _Northwestern_ was anch.o.r.ed 55 miles southwest of Lookout Shoals, with her propeller gone.

As this position, p.r.i.c.ked on the chart, showed the steamer to be in a dangerous and exposed position, and as, moreover, she was a menace to navigation, being full in the path of vessels, the _Miami_ got under way immediately.

As soon as the Coast Guard cutter reached the bar, a snowstorm, which seemed to have been waiting around, as if for that very purpose, struck down upon the water and the _Miami_ clawed out over the bar in a blinding smother. There was a nasty, choppy sea, the wind having hauled round to the westward, though it was not as violent as the day before.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the radio operator received a storm warning for a nor'wester.

A pa.s.sing vessel spoke the _Miami_ by wireless and stated that she had sighted the _Northwestern_, but gave her position twelve miles to the westward of the point first quoted. It was evening before the steamer in distress was sighted. The Coast Guard cutter ran up under her stern, and asked if she could hold on for a while. The captain of the steamer answered that he could.

”I'm all right, so far,” he shouted back through the megaphone; ”it's that blithering bally-hoo of a propeller!”

His language was picturesque, fluent, and convincing, and everybody on board the cutter grinned while the old sea-dog expressed a highly colored opinion of the whole tribe of s.h.i.+p-fitters, machinists, and mechanics generally. After ten minutes of descriptive shouting, during which he never repeated an adjective twice, he wound up by saying that he considered ”an engine-room an insult to a seaman's intelligence,”

and said that ”he'd like to pave the bottom of the sea with the skeletons of engineers diving a thousand fathom for his lost propeller!”

Following which, he seemed to feel better, and discussed what was best to be done with his s.h.i.+p.

The situation was dangerous. The sea was far too rough for the lowering of a boat, no matter how well handled. The gale was such that it was unsafe for the _Miami_ to anchor. In the case of the _Northwestern_, anchoring had been her last resort. There was fully twenty fathom of water, and fortunately the steamer's anchors held. The captain had put ninety fathom of chain on each anchor, and though the weight pulled her nose into the water, so that she snubbed into the sea like a ram trying to b.u.t.t down a wall, still everything held. The _Miami_ stood by all night, keeping close to the imperilled vessel.

Next morning the conditions were no better. The advantages of daylight were more than overcome by the increased fury of the sea. The _Northwestern_ lay in an angry rip, for the gale had come on in full force and was countering the long rollers from the southeast that had been blown up by the storm of two days before, the same which had driven the _Miami_ to shelter and which had crippled the big steamer, twice the size of the revenue cutter. The _Miami_ stayed near by, hove to, waiting for the storm to abate. But of this there were no signs. The force of the gale increased steadily through the day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAN'S WATERSPOUT. A DERELICT'S END.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREPARING TO BLOW UP A DERELICT.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

The _Northwestern_ was pitching terribly. She was heavily loaded with a cargo of crude oil, and as she swung to the squalls, the sea breached her completely and continuously. Only her high bow, p.o.o.p, and pilot-house were out of the water for any length of time. The big steamer was tearing viciously at her anchors and it was amazing that they held. The long scope of chain, however, was probably her salvation.

As darkness came on, the captain of the _Miami_ called the first lieutenant.

”Mr. Keelson,” he said, ”I think we'd better get a line to the steamer.”

”Very well, sir,” the other answered.

”If we're going to take her in tow,” said Eric to Homer, overhearing the order, ”we're apt to get our stern works pulled out of us. She's pitching like all billy-o!”

”We'll make it if the skipper says so,” his friend said cheerfully.

It was then nearly half past four o'clock, and fortunately there was just a slight lull in the storm. Swinging across the _Northwestern's_ bow the gunner shot a line into her rigging. The steamer's crew were on the alert--they had good men aboard that craft--and tailed on to the line. The _Miami_ forged ahead and dropped anchor with sixty fathom of chain on the disabled steamer's starboard bow.

The _Northwestern_ had got enough steam up for the donkey engine. It did not take long for them to get first a strong rope and then the big hawser aboard, and make fast. As soon as the hawser was aboard, the _Northwestern_ began to heave up to her anchors. Closely watching, the _Miami_ hove up to hers, ready to break at the same instant that the steamer broke free. The instant the larger vessel's anchor raised, the _Miami_ swung hers free, to avoid fouling, for in so fierce a gale the merest touch would have been fatal to one or both vessels.

The _Northwestern_ swung down broadside to the sea and stood a fair chance of being swamped. The _Miami_, however, going ahead at full speed, just managed to bring the strain on the tow-line in time to swing the steamer clear into the crest of a huge comber which struck her bow harmlessly instead of hurling its tons of water on her unprotected deck.

The strain on the _Miami_ was extremely great, but the hawser held well, although the _Northwestern_ yawed frightfully. She would run up on the line, and the sea would strike her bow, throwing her off, tightening the tow-line suddenly with a jolt that shook the _Miami_ from stem to stern.

It was an awful night's tow, but just at eight bells of the middle watch the cutter and the rescued vessel pa.s.sed the Frying Pan Shoals Lights.h.i.+p, and as soon as they got within lee of the shoals they met a smoother sea. At nine o'clock the next morning the _Northwestern_ was safe and sound in a good anchorage in Southport at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.