Part 41 (1/2)
”Heaps of them, sir,” answered the lad. ”I was on the Bering Sea patrol last year.”
”That's right. But you'll find the Atlantic bergs are different. There's a lot of ice in the North Pacific but it's mostly in small pans. No big stuff comes through Bering Strait. It would strand. And then the Aleutian and Kuril Islands make a sort of breakwater to head off big bergs. But in the North Atlantic there's nothing to keep the big Greenland glacier breaks from floating south right into the very path of the steamers. In fact that's what they do. You'll see some real ones this summer.”
As the lieutenant had pointed out to him, the whole ice question a.s.sumed great importance, viewed in the light of the Atlantic Ice Patrol. The _Miami_, on orders from the department, steamed north and relieved the _Seneca_ on duty. She picked up the bergs which the _Seneca_ had found and plotted their positions on the chart. Every day at eight bells of the middle watch (4 A.M.) the wireless operator on the _Miami_ sent to the Hydrographic office a statement as to the exact position of all bergs that had been sighted and the amount of their probable daily drift. This information was sent out again as a daily ice warning to merchant vessels by the Hydrographic Bureau.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ICEBERG WITH _MIAMI_ IN THE BACKGROUND.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GHOSTLY ALLY OF DISASTER.
Berg in the lane of Atlantic travel, continuously watched by Coast Guard Cutter, safeguarding thousands of human lives.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
The experiment of trying to demolish the larger bergs by gunnery was tried, and a six-pound shot was fired full at close range at one of the bergs. But it had no other result than to shake down a barrelful of snow-like dust. Following up the various bergs kept the _Miami_ busy. At the same time she sent and received messages from pa.s.sing steamers along the line of travel.
Only one large berg really got into a dangerous position, and this one was as carefully plotted and its position as thoroughly made known to vessels navigating the Atlantic as though it were a fixture. The course of the large Atlantic greyhound _La France_ lay directly in the path of the berg and, had it not been for the warnings of the _Miami_, there might have been another ocean disaster to record. As the summer months approached, the cruising was delightful but not particularly interesting, and Eric, who craved excitement, was glad when, at the end of June, the _Miami_ was ordered to resume her old station at Key West.
Two months pa.s.sed before an emergency arose, but when it did come, it proved to be one to tax the Coast Guard cutter to the full. Toward the end of September a storm warning of a hurricane was issued, and the _Miami_, which was searching for a derelict reported two hundred miles west of Daytona, Florida, decided to run for Matanzas Inlet. About daylight the next morning, the first actual warning of the hurricane, aside from the notice sent out by the Weather Bureau, began to show itself in short gusty puffs. The barometer fell low, finally touching 28, lower than Eric had ever seen before.
The sky clouded gradually, and by breakfast time, the wind was freshening from the southeast. By ten o'clock, the wind had risen to half a gale, and before noon it was blowing not less than forty to fifty miles an hour. The _Miami_ made good weather, but in the afternoon the hurricane reached such a pitch of violence that it was decided to run before the storm and try for the lee of Cape Fear, possibly finding a safe anchorage in Masonboro Inlet.
As evening drew on the seas became appalling. The _Miami_ pitched her nose down in the water, s.h.i.+pping it green with almost every dive, while her propeller raced ten feet clear of water; next instant her stern would settle as though she would never rise, while the bow climbed up and up as the trough rolled underneath her. Eric, who was absolutely free of any fear of the sea, enjoyed the storm extremely. It was tiring, however, for, every second of the time, one had to hang on to something for fear either of being washed overboard, or hurled around like a catapult from a sling. When, therefore, the gaunt figure of Cape Fear light was pa.s.sed and the _Miami_ slipped in behind the lee of Smith Island, every one felt a relief from the mad tossing.
They had not known this relief for more than about four minutes when the spluttering of the wireless began.
”I'll bet that's some one in trouble,” said Eric.
”Probably,” his friend, the second lieutenant said, overhearing him.
”Haven't you been expecting it?”
”Hadn't thought of it, sir,” said the boy. ”We'd plenty to do to get in here ourselves. Yes, there goes Mr. Keelson down to the captain. Could we find out what's up, sir?”
The two young officers sauntered to the wireless operator's cabin.
”Somebody in trouble, I suppose, Wilson,” the lieutenant said.
”Yes, sir,” the operator answered, ”two-masted steamer _Union_ reported in distress, partly dismasted and with her engines disabled, anch.o.r.ed in deep water off the Lookout Shoal.”
”Probably dragging, sir?” queried Eric, knowing that his companion knew the coast well.
”Most likely,” the lieutenant answered. ”If she's off Lookout, and the wind veers round to the south'ard--which it's doing--that'll send her to Cape Hatteras and Davy Jones' locker in a hurry. We may get there in time, but there's not much we can do while this weather lasts.”
”Hatteras is called the 'graveyard of s.h.i.+ps,' isn't it?”
”There are a good many places in the world thus honored,” said the lieutenant, ”and, so far as America is concerned, there are two, Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras. There are five times as many wrecks between Barnegat Point and Seguin Island as there are in all the other coasts of the United States put together, but in proportion to the amount of s.h.i.+pping that pa.s.ses, Hatteras is the worst point in the world.”
”Worse than the Horn?”