A WRECK AT THE HARBOR.
The excitement of football had passed like most things in college and
out of it. The 'Varsity had triumphed over Princeton, and tied with
Harvard in a stirring, up-hill game, and now the students had settled
down to the ordinary routine. While it was late in November, the fall
had been such an open one that the crews, eager to get every day of
practice possible, stuck to their work in the harbor. Codfish held
manfully onto the job of coxswain in the Second Freshmen eight, the
long-looked-for place on the First still eluding him. He was hopeful,
however. "I'll get it before the rowing stops, and if not then, when
it starts in the spring," he boasted to his roommates. "Watch me."
This afternoon he was perched on the window seat, legs crossed,
lolling back on the cushions, and tickling the guitar.
"For the love of Mike," cried Frank from his room, where he had gone
to nab an elusive French irregular or two, "isn't that 'stoogent from
Cadiz' ever going to graduate?"
"Why so peevish?" inquired the Codfish, keeping up his strumming and
humming. "There are fourteen different keys, you know, Mr. Armstrong,
and as you never know which one you're going to be caught in, I've
got to be a Spanish student in every one of them. I only have ten
more to fix in my retentive memory, so the agony will soon be
through."
"How many have you circumvented?"
"Six to date. I'm going to tackle the minors to-night; plaintive
little things, those minors, they get the heart-throb stuff."
"Heavens!" said Frank. "Why don't you hire a hall somewhere out in
Hampden? I'll go halves with you to get rid of you."
"'Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,'" quoted the Codfish,
"but not the football player."
"Music did you say?" growled Frank.
"No soul, no soul at all for the beautiful," sighed the guitar
player. "Such music ought to move you to tears."
"It does, bitter tears, very bitter tears. Please desist, stop and
quit. I'm having trouble with this dose of Romance language. I wonder
why they ever called them Romance languages?"
"Give it up." Then, throwing down the guitar: "I say, Frank, chuck it
and come down to the harbor. We are going to have a bit of a brush
with the First Freshmen crew, and you've never seen your old pal hold
the tiller ropes. Maybe I can get you into the launch. We go out at
three. Where's Turner and David?"
"David is probably grubbing on his Lit. stuff, and there's no use in
trying to get him. Jimmy went over to Chapel street to get something,
and ought to be back here in a minute. Here he comes now. I'll go if
he does."
Turner came into the room whistling a merry tune, threw himself
on the couch and elevated his heels to the end of the desk in the
national attitude.
"Gee whiz, but it's a great day! Why don't you fellows get out? Not
many more days like this between now and next May."
"The Codfish has just invited us down to the harbor to see how well
he can't steer a boat, and I said I'd go if you would. I've some
French here, but there's no hope of doing it when this musical bug
is doing his stunts."
"I'm your man," said Turner, jumping up at once. "I know the coach
and maybe we can get on the launch."
"I'll attend to that," said the Codfish, majestically. "I haven't
been knocking around that old boathouse two months for my health. You
are my guests to-day."
"Go it, old skate. So long as we get aboard we don't mind who does
the trick."
"Lead on, Macduff," quoted Frank, and like playful dogs newly
unleashed, they broke for the street. Racing over to Chapel street,
they caught a steamboat car at the York street corner, and, after a
fifteen-minute ride, reached their destination.
On the float was a scene of great activity. The crews of half a dozen
boats were standing around waiting their turn to embark. Some carried
oars in their hands, others were stretched at full length on the
runways, taking in to the full the rays of the warming late fall sun.
Most of them were stripped to the waist as in summer, for the day had
an uncommon warmth. One crew had just landed, evidently from a smart
row, for sweat glistened on their bare and brawny backs, as they
unshipped their oars and at the word of their coxswain snapped their
shell out of the water and turned it upside down over their heads in
one splendid free sweep.
They were just in time to see the 'Varsity go out, eight
clean-limbed, stalwart young fellows, who carried their shell easily,
with a quick and springy step, and with almost military precision.
Without a word spoken, the long sweeps were quickly adjusted in the
row-locks. At a word from the captain, the men stepped to their
seats, bent and fastened their feet into the sandal-like attachments
at the footboards. Then the boat was shoved off until the long sweeps
were free to catch the water on both sides of the boat.
"Row," snapped the coxswain, and eight blades cut the water like
knives, sending up a little spurt of water in the front of each one
of them. Like a machine the bodies swung back and forth, the blades
dipped rhythmically, and in a minute the crew was but a dot in the
waters of the lower river where the 'Varsity launch, the "Elihu
Yale," waited.
"By Jove," said Frank, admiration showing on his face, "that was
about as pretty a thing as I can imagine."
"Don't you wish you had gone out for the crew?" inquired Turner.
"They don't twist your ankles and knees down here, or muscle-bruise
you."
"No, but they break your back and freeze you to death in the cold
winds down here," said someone laughingly. "I just heard your
friend's remark, and thought I'd enlighten you. Don't you remember
me, Turner? We wrestled this fall one night, about a thousand years
ago. Francis is my name."
Both then recognized the wrestler whom Turner threw over his head the
night of the rush. He extended a frank hand. "Coming down to look us
over?"
"Didn't know you rowed," said Turner, taking the proffered hand.
"Yes, I'm trying it. Not much good, either, but maybe I can help to
push some other fellow up a peg higher. That's all we scrubs are good
for, you know." He said it without any heat, merely stating the fact.
"We help to cultivate the flowers, but we can't pick them. It's a
part of the Yale training.
"Ta, ta, there's my call," and he dashed into the boathouse where his
crew were preparing to take the shell out.
Following the Second 'Varsity, came the First Freshmen crew, and
then on the heels of the First came the Second, the Codfish busying
himself with an air of great importance.
Permission having been given Armstrong and Turner to watch the
practice from the Freshman launch, which lay at the end of the float,
they climbed in with alacrity. The launch preceded the two crews down
to the bridge where it waited till the shell came up.
"Take it easy, now," said the Freshman coach as the crews lined up
alongside. "Keep your stroke to about twenty-six and pull it through.
Ready? ROW!"
Both crews dropped their blades in the water, pulled a long, slow
stroke, and slipped rapidly up the river, the little launch darting
first to one and then the other while the coach shot words of
criticism at the oarsmen through a short megaphone.
"Number Five, don't slump down on the catch!"
"You're very short in the water, Number Two, finish it out and get
your hands away quickly."
"Don't buck your oar, Four, on the finish; sit up straight."
"For heaven's sake," this to the Codfish. "Can't you keep that boat
straight? What are you wabbling all over the river for?"
"'Vast, 'vast," he yelled as the rowing grew ragged. "'Vast" is short
for "Avast," the usual signal to stop rowing.
When the crews came to rest on their oars, the coach shot a torrent
of criticism at the men. No one escaped.
"Exactly like football," said Frank grinning. "No one ever gets it
quite right."
"Only difference from football is," said Jimmy, "that the other
fellow is getting the hot shot now. I guess I'll take mine on the
field."
"Me, too," said Frank. "It doesn't strike me as inspiring, this crew
business."
"And the Codfish isn't such a whirlwind as he tries to make us
think," commented Turner.
The coxswain was coming in for a fire of criticism from the coach
with the megaphone. "Now try it again and watch yourselves--you get
worse every day."
"Doesn't it sound natural?" laughed Frank. "No more of that in ours
for a year."
The crews, stopping and starting, but always under a shower of advice
from the coach, drove their way up to the upper bridge where they
were ordered to turn around and line-up for the race down stream.
After much dogged paddling by fours and high-pitched orders by the
coxswains, for the boats were difficult to swing around in the swift
running current, they finally got about and were sent off with a
word from the coach who had previously ordered them to keep below
twenty-eight to the minute.
Down the river the boats flew, each crew striving with might and
main. For a little time it was nip and tuck, but by degrees the
First crew edged ahead, and half a mile from the start had a lead of
three-quarters of a length and were rowing easily, while the winded
Second was splashing along and dropping further back at every stroke.
The Codfish was steering a serpentine course which further retarded
his boat.
When the crews drew up at the end of the mile, both badly pumped out
from the sprint, the coxswain of the Second came in for a raking by
the coach.
"You wabbled down that course like a drunken man," he said hotly.
"You ought to be on an oyster boat. What's the matter with you? Can't
you see?"
"Poor Gleason, he's getting his this afternoon," said Frank.
For another hour the crews were kept on the jump and then, as the
dusk was beginning to come down over the hills, the coach ordered
them in.
"Race it for the float," he commanded, "and look out for the sand bar
by the bridge. It's low water. GO!"
The Second was lying about a length ahead of the First boat when the
order was given, and, seeing his opportunity, the Codfish shouted:
"Now we've got them, beat 'em to it. Row, you terriers!"
Throwing what science they had learned to the winds, the Second
Freshman crew drove their oars into the water and, at a stroke far
above what the coach wanted, tore off for the boathouse, the shell
swaying and the water flying while the Codfish urged them on at the
top of his voice.
"Sock it through, you huskies, don't let them get you!"
The First crew, not to be outdone, started after the Second. At first
they kept the stroke down, but the coxswain, seeing his chance of
overhauling the renegades in the short distance to go, called on his
stroke to "hit it up," which that individual was nothing loath to do.
"Cut them out before they get to the float," cried the coxswain of
the First crew. Up went the stroke, and the race was on in earnest.
The coaching launch had drifted down toward the bridge on the
outgoing tide, before the coach saw what was in progress. He waved
his arms, bawled through the megaphone, and gesticulated in an
endeavor to stop the wild pace, but neither crew heard, nor wanted to
stop if they had heard. This was not a race under instructions. It
was only a private scrap and, as such, it stood, for the launch was
too far off to overhaul the flying, splashing crews.
Foot by foot the First crew gained on the Second, which now, with
the stroke over forty to the minute, merely stabbed their oars in
the water and jerked them out again, while the spray flew from each
assault of the blades. The better trained First crew kept the stroke
longer, and in coming to the float were only a few yards behind.
Edging in, they crowded the Second from their course, and in order to
avoid a collision, the luckless Codfish steered his crew widely to
the left. He knew, but had forgotten in the excitement of the race,
that a narrow sand bar almost awash at low tide, was just below the
central pier of the drawbridge.
"Look out there, Second crew," came the warning cry from the float
now directly opposite the racing shells.
The coxswain in the Second heard, but it was too late. Straight onto
the sand bar, on which rippled less than an inch of water, ran the
slender nose of the shell. The brake thus suddenly applied to the
frail craft checked the speed, and when the boat stuck midway of the
bar, with each end suspended above deep water, every oarsman was
thrown from his seat.
Immediately an ominous cracking was heard, and the front end began to
sag with its load of more than five hundred pounds.
"Jump," yelled the captain, who rowed the bow oar; but before any of
the forward four could free themselves from their foot harness, the
slender boat snapped squarely in the middle, where it rested on the
bar, and both pieces, with their crews aboard, slipped off into deep
water, filled and sank.
For a moment it looked serious, but, fortunately, every member of the
Second, with the exception of the Codfish, could swim. As they found
themselves deeply immersed, they shook themselves free from their
foot fastenings and struck out in the cold water for the float only a
few rods distant, all excepting the Codfish. He kept his seat in the
shell and held to the tiller ropes for dear life, while the current
swept him down stream in the path of the oncoming launch.
As the rear end of the broken shell swung across the bow of the
launch, the coach reached down, grabbed the ill-fated coxswain by
the back of his coat, and jerked him into the launch. Then with a
boat-hook both ends of the ruined craft were captured, for both ends,
released from their weight, now floated buoyantly, and were towed to
the float.
"I forgot about the sand bar," said the Codfish meekly, as he stood
on the cockpit of the launch, the water running from him in streams.
"And you forgot my instructions, too," said the coach, his eyes
blazing at the luckless coxswain. "This will do for you. Pack up your
duds and don't come down here again. If I see you around this float
again, I'll chuck you overboard." The bedraggled oarsmen had all made
the float in safety, and enjoyed the discomfort of their coxswain who
in his zeal had inadvertently given them a cold bath.
"How was I to remember the blooming sand bar?" complained the Codfish
that night, radiant now in dry raiment. "We were winning. What's a
sand bar in the glory of victory?"
"Are you going down again," inquired Frank, "and take the chances of
a ducking?"
"Not on your tin-type," said the ex-coxswain. "The thing was
beginning to pall on me. No diversity in the job, no spectators to
urge you on as you have out at the field, nothing but work. I've
resigned the job."
"Another way for saying you're fired, eh?" said Turner, smiling at
the imperturbable roommate.
"Have it any way you want to, old sport. One thing," continued the
Codfish, "even if I have lost the chance to shine in aquatics, I
still have the Mandolin Club left. I'll put a dent in that by and
by."
And curling himself up on the couch, with the pillows properly
arranged at his back, he struck into the Spanish Fandango, the newest
addition to his not very extended répertoire.