A SHIP IN DISTRESS
Had Henry but known it, there was no immediate necessity for his
return to the _Iroquois_. Indeed, the Coast Guard cutter not only
was unable to sail that day, but she did not cast off her hawsers
until afternoon the day following. Although Henry thus had an
unexpected half day in Boston, he saw no more of the city than he
had seen on the preceding day, for when he awoke rain was pouring
down, a vicious east wind was blowing, and the elements were as
nasty as they well could be.
Even a complete suit of rubber would hardly have kept one dry very
long in the slashing, blustering blasts that came howling through
the Navy Yard. The rain drove in horizontal sheets. It whipped
around corners and under doorways and awnings. It roared across open
decks. It beat against the air-ports. With ever-increasing force the
gusts came tearing in from the sea. Trees bent far over and groaned
before their onslaught. Flags whipped themselves to ribbons.
Halyards beat a very devil’s tattoo against their masts, and on the
_Iroquois_ the cordage fairly shrieked in wild, wailing notes that
made Henry almost shudder.
He was glad enough that the _Iroquois_ had been unable to get away.
Never had the captain’s cabin seemed half so comfortable and
attractive. He told himself that he would be glad enough to spend
the time there, reading some of the interesting books from the
captain’s bookshelf, while waiting for the storm to subside.
Yet the movement of stores went forward without interruption.
Sailors, cased from head to foot in sou’westers, oilskins, and
rubber boots, worked without ceasing in the downpour to finish the
transshipment. Henry could hear them clumping about the deck in
their clumsy footgear. On the pier trucks rattled and banged. Boxes
were wheeled aboard and dumped on the deck. Men swore and slipped in
the wet. Machinery rattled.
While Henry and his host were eating their luncheon, the noises
suddenly ceased. There were a few shouted orders, indistinguishable
in the roar of the storm, then some banging noises as hatches were
closed and battened down, and other openings made fast. Soon all was
quiet. When the luncheon was ended, Henry went up the companionway
and peeped out. Things had been made tight. Awnings had been
removed. Everything was lashed fast. The decks were bare. The
_Iroquois_ was stripped for action.
Henry could hardly believe that Captain Hardwick would leave port in
such a storm. He knew that storm warnings must be showing all along
the New England coast, and perhaps the entire Atlantic seaboard, but
before he could return to the cabin and ask the captain if he
intended to put to sea, he saw the chief electrician running aft
along the slippery deck. Henry threw open the door for him, and the
radio man dodged in out of the blinding rain. He had a message for
the captain.
Henry descended to the cabin with the electrician. Captain Hardwick
took the telegraph blank from Mr. Sharp and studied it a moment.
“No orders?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said the electrician.
The captain sat down at his desk, drew a red-bordered telegraph
blank from a pigeonhole, and wrote. “Send that,” he directed.
The radio man struggled out into the storm. The captain rose and
touched his call-bell.
“Rollin,” he said, when his attendant appeared, “ask Mr. Farley to
come to me at once.”
The commander picked up the telegram and handed it to Henry. “You’ll
have a chance to see something today, Henry,” he said.
Henry looked at the message in his hands. It was a cry of distress,
an SOS message the radio man had picked out of the air:
“Steamer _Capitol City_ ashore east
coast Cape Cod forty-two north, seventy
west. Pounding badly. Need immediate
assistance.”
The chief engineer entered the cabin. “Start your engines at once,
Mr. Farley. We just caught a distress call. Steamer ashore on the
east coast of Cape Cod. See that everything is ready for a hard
run.”
“All right, sir,” and the chief engineer hurried forward.
Soon the ship began to vibrate. The rumbling noise of the machinery
arose. Yet the _Iroquois_ lay quiet in her dock.
“He’s warming her up,” thought Henry. “It’s a good thing, too, for
this is going to be some struggle. I’ll bet the waves are like
mountains.”
The captain rang his call-bell. “Send Lieutenant Hill to me,” he
said.
The lieutenant came briskly into the cabin. The two officers
conferred a moment. Henry stepped over to the wardroom. Not even the
doctor was there. Cards and books lay on the table in disorder, as
they had been dropped at news of the wireless. Everybody was at his
post, preparing. Henry returned to the cabin. The lieutenant was
gone. The commander was pulling on his oilskins.
“Where can I get a slicker?” Henry inquired.
“Ask Rollin. He will get you one.”
The captain pulled on his sou’wester, tied the strings under his
chin, and mounted to the deck. Henry rang for Rollin and stated his
wish. The attendant brought boots, hat, and slicker. Henry pulled on
a sweater, buttoned his coat up tight, and pulled on the
waterproofs.
The gust of wind that struck him as he came out of the companionway
sent him reeling back against that structure. He could hardly catch
his breath. The driving sheets of rain blinded him. He fought his
way forward, and entered the radio shack. The chief electrician was
copying down a message. It was an order for the _Iroquois_ to go to
the rescue of the _Capitol City_. But Henry knew that it was not
needed. Already the _Iroquois_ was prepared to get under way.
Henry took the message to the bridge and handed it to the commander.
“Tell Sparks to wire that we are leaving Boston to help the _Capitol
City_,” shouted the captain.
Henry carried the message to Mr. Sharp and watched him send it. Then
he went back to the bridge. The rain beat on him as irresistibly as
ever, but the weather-cloth offered surprising protection from the
wind. A sailor slipped the hawsers over the posts on the pier. Other
sailors drew in the hawsers and stowed them away. The captain
pressed his signal-bell, and the _Iroquois_ began to move astern.
She backed out into the stream and then turned and headed for the
sea, into the teeth of the driving storm.
The beating rain obscured the view. Fog made the shores almost
indistinguishable, for in from the sea, blown on the breath of the
icy blasts, came racing great clouds of murky white vapor that
screened all they touched. The captain looked grim and inscrutable.
His jaw was set hard. He stood by the wheelhouse, conning the ship.
At half speed the _Iroquois_ slowly nosed her way down the channel.
Wiped from view was the beautiful scene that had so delighted Henry
a few short hours before. Nothing could be seen but occasional
glimpses of shore, the tumultuous, muddy water, and the driving
curtains of fog.
One by one the captain made the proper turns in the tortuous
channel. As the _Iroquois_ stood farther and farther out toward the
sea, the waters became ever more tumultuous, the winds roared more
fiercely, and the fog shut in ever denser. Fathom by fathom the ship
crept past one after another of the island defenses along the way,
that served as breakwaters to the sea and broke the sweep of the
winds. When at last the little ship turned eastward at George’s
Island, and faced the storm with the last vestige of protection
gone, she trembled and shook in the grasp of the roaring blasts.
A smother of foam was the sea. Waves rose and broke in incredible
confusion. The waters were churned as by a giant hand. The racing
winds whipped the crests from the combers and flung them forward in
sheets of blinding spray. Fog drove onward in clouds, now completely
hiding the sea, now lifting momentarily, to expose the wild waste of
tossing waters. The fury of the storm was indescribable.
Mountain high indeed seemed the waves. Before the bow of the
_Iroquois_ they rose up, up, up, as high as the men on the bridge,
then rushed savagely at the little boat, seemingly bent on her
destruction. Down they crashed, and the nose of the cutter was
buried in a smother of foaming water. Sometimes the crests swept
completely over the bow, pouring over the forward deck in great
floods that raced aft and went foaming out of the scuppers. Now
Henry saw why the decks had been cleared of all movable objects.
Indeed, as he watched the smashing combers crash over the bow, he
feared that the big guns themselves would be torn from their
foundations on the iron deck-plates and hurled aft against the
wheelhouse. With blanched face he stood on the bridge, desperately
gripping the rail, and peering with fascinated gaze at the snarling,
hungry seas.
Meantime the captain had sent a reassuring message to the _Capitol
City_, telling her the _Iroquois_ was on her way to assist her. And
when the ship was fairly in the sea, past all chance of harm by rock
or shoal, the captain left the lieutenant in charge of the bridge
and went himself to the chart-room to plan his coming movements.
With him went Henry. He had seen enough of the sea for a time. Some
of the fear that first gripped his soul had gone. He knew that the
_Iroquois_ was safe so long as she held her course, but he wanted to
shut out for a time the sight of those terrifying billows; so he
staggered to the chart-room, and stepped inside, glad of a relief
from the terrible tension that had held him.
The captain was calmly poring over his charts and guide-books.
“Forty-two north, seventy west,” he muttered, sweeping his glance
over an outstretched map. He placed his pencil on the indicated
spot. “She’s on the shoals almost dead east of Truro,” he said to
Henry.
Then he turned to a Coast Guard directory and leafed it over. “Thank
God!” he cried. “There’s a Coast Guard land station near by. It may
be two or three miles distant, but they’ll come with their outfit.
They must have gotten the wireless flash just as we did. It’s likely
they’re on their way now. What a fight that will be—those miles
across the sand with their heavy boats in this wind. They’ll do it,
though. But maybe we can get to the _Capitol City_ before she breaks
up. I wish we dared go faster.”
He stepped out on the bridge and conferred with the lieutenant. “Do
you think that we dare drive her any faster?” he shouted in the
latter’s ear.
The lieutenant shook his head dubiously. “Well, we’ll try it,” said
the commander.
And he stepped into the wheelhouse and signaled for more speed. The
response was terrifying. Under increased power the _Iroquois_ drove
ahead, bit by bit gaining greater momentum. Savagely she charged
into the seas. Wildly the waves leaped to meet her. The impact grew
ever more terrific. Soon a huge mountain of water came roaring down
on the little cutter. Up it rose and up and up, while the cutter
charged to meet it, and as it broke and crashed forward, the cutter
dived completely under it. The shock was terrific. Tons of water
crashed down on the deck, then went racing aft against the
superstructure. The _Iroquois_ seemed to stop in her tracks. She
trembled from stem to stern. She shook and quivered. The great wave
went roaring aft, twisting and tearing at the ship. A section of the
rail carried away, and went pounding astern. The tumult was
terrifying. Henry, in the chart-room, thought the ship was breaking
to pieces. With blanched face and set teeth he clung to the side of
the room, not knowing what to do. He was reassured when the captain
calmly stepped inside the wheelhouse and signaled for the engineer
to lessen speed.
Hour after hour they wallowed through the storm. Unflinching,
undaunted, in complete mastery of ship and crew, the captain stood
on the bridge, with his right-hand man. Mile by mile, league after
league, he fought his way eastward. The rain ceased, but the winds
blew on, lashing the seas to fiercer and greater fury. The sky was
totally obscured. Gradually the fog lifted, but not for long was the
increased vision. Darkness came apace, and into that roaring
darkness the _Iroquois_ drove with all the power she dared to use.
With anxious eyes the captain watched the logbook. At times he
telephoned to the chief engineer. Again and again he stepped to the
wheelhouse and looked at the compass. Anon he consulted with the
lieutenant. He must know where he was, in order to get safely round
the long arm of Cape Cod. Nor did he dare stand too close to shore
in his run along the eastward coast of the Cape, lest the storm put
the _Iroquois_ also on the shoals. Dead reckoning alone would tell
him when to turn, and carefully the commander considered every
feature that might indicate his position.
Darkness had long since shut in, and the _Iroquois_ was wallowing
through a night as black as pitch before the captain altered his
course and headed south along the outer edge of the Cape. Gradually
the course of the vessel was shifted. To Henry the change was
terrifying. No longer was the _Iroquois_ breasting the storm. The
waves took her abeam. From side to side she rolled until Henry’s
heart stood still with fear. Over and over and over she dipped until
he was certain she would turn upside down. Then slowly she righted
and swung in the opposite direction. And once, when she rolled at an
angle of forty degrees, Henry almost gasped aloud. It seemed like
eternity while the ship lay poised almost on her beam’s ends,
apparently uncertain whether to roll on over or come back on her
keel. Then she slowly righted.
Meantime the chief electrician had been in touch with the stranded
ship. From her signals he knew that she was not far away. They came
crackling out of the air sharp and clear. A distant glow showed that
the guardsmen from the land were already at the scene. At last the
_Capitol City_ wired that she could see the lights of the
_Iroquois_.
“Make a flare,” flashed back the _Iroquois’_ wireless man.
And presently, almost dead to leeward of the _Iroquois_, the
darkness was torn by a flash, and a flaming rocket went streaking up
through the night. Other rockets followed. Then a flaring light
arose, and through their glasses the men on the bridge of the
_Iroquois_ could see the stricken ship, lying in a smother of foam
on the outer edge of the breakers. She was too far from shore for
the land crew to shoot a line to her, and no small boat could live
in such a sea. If the crew of the _Capitol City_ were to be saved,
the little cutter alone could save them.
Cautiously the _Iroquois_ was worked in toward the shoals. Then
slowly she was turned, the captain gave the word, and one of the
anchors was let go. Once more the cutter was heading again into the
seas, and now, little by little, her anchor-chain was paid out,
while seamen with hand-lines took soundings, calling up to the
bridge the depth they found. Fathom after fathom the giant
anchor-chain was paid out. Fathom after fathom the _Iroquois_ rode
backward toward the seething breakers.
Fascinated, Henry watched the attempt to get within reach of the
unfortunate steamer. Gradually the _Iroquois_ drew near to the
smother of white water. The sea was shoaling fast and the tide was
running out, but the captain kept on in the hope that he could get
near enough to shoot a line aboard the _Capitol City_. His shells,
and the shot-line, loosely wound in the faking-box so that it would
run out freely, were ready for instant use. All that was necessary
was to remove the canvas cover from the little gun on the after
rail, insert the charge, and shoot. But the _Iroquois_ never came
within shooting distance. Too rapidly the water shoaled, and at
last, reluctantly, the commander gave the word and the anchor-chain
was held taut. The _Iroquois_ was rolling, head to the sea, at the
very edge of the breakers, but she was too far away from the
_Capitol City_ to put a shot across her.
“Tell them we’ll float a line down to them, and for them to be on
the lookout for it,” the captain ordered the wireless man.
The latter sat down at his key, but a moment later switched off. The
_Capitol City’s_ wireless was failing. He shifted to the blinkers,
and for the first time Henry had opportunity to see the lights on
the yardarm flash and blink. From the _Capitol City_ came answering
winks from aloft.
“They’re looking for our line,” the wireless man informed the
captain.
[Illustration: A Coast Guard Cutter Standing by a Stranded Ocean Liner]
Meantime empty kegs had been prepared. A light line was made fast to
one of them, and it was thrown into the sea. Rapidly it floated to
leeward, and as fast as the sea carried it shoreward the line was
paid out. The searchlight of the _Iroquois_ was broken out and its
beam kept on the floating keg. Slowly this bore down on the _Capitol
City_, but it was too far to one side for that ship to get it. The
line was hauled in, and again it was floated toward the helpless
ship. This time a sailor hurled the keg far to one side of the
_Iroquois_, in the hope that it might now come close enough to the
stranded ship to be caught. But again the attempt failed. The ebb
tide, with its cross current, carried it farther away from the
_Capitol City_ than it had been before.
“Lower the surfboat,” ordered the commander, when he saw the attempt
was useless. Then he called for volunteers. By the dozen the sailors
leaped forward.
“Boatswain Johnson,” said the captain, “I’m going to put you in
charge. Pick your crew.”
The boatswain selected eight sturdy sailors for oarsmen. A life belt
was strapped round each. The boat was lowered to the rail, and the
crew stepped carefully aboard. At a favorable moment the craft was
launched. Quickly she shot away from the side of the _Iroquois_, and
before another comber broke, she was at a safe distance from the
cutter and heading straight into the breakers.
The ship’s light was trained on her. On she went, now up, now down,
breasting the roaring waves, shooting through the smother of foam,
riding safely where it seemed impossible for a boat to live, under
the skillful guidance of the experienced boatswain. Swiftly she drew
toward the _Capitol City_, which no longer lay at right angles to
the beach, but had worked a little to one side, making a lee where
the water was calmer. Toward this the boatswain drove the surf boat.
Into it the little craft shot safely, while a sigh of relief went up
from the deck of the _Iroquois_.
Through powerful glasses, Henry watched breathlessly while the
surfboat drew close to the protected side of the _Capitol City_. A
line was thrown to the little boat, and a sailor in the bow caught
it. Then the surfboat was drawn close beside the stranded steamer,
and a sailor scrambled down from the rigging and dropped into it.
From seaward a giant comber was rushing toward the tiny craft. If it
caught her, it would crush her against the side of the larger ship
as an eggshell is crushed underfoot. On the _Iroquois_ not a soul
breathed. The onlookers stood tense, waiting the outcome. But the
boatswain had an eye for everything. He, too, saw the great comber
approaching. Back from the steamer’s side drew the little boat, and
the wave passed harmlessly by. Again the surfboat drew up to the
side of the _Capitol City_, and another man detached himself from
the rigging and dropped into it. But just at that moment a wave,
rising apparently from nowhere, swept over the windward side of the
stranded steamer, poured irresistibly across her deck, and sent its
tons of icy water crashing downward into the little surfboat lying
by the leeward rail. The tiny craft was swept from sight.
“My God!” cried the captain. “They’ve capsized!”