THE RESCUE
Under other circumstances the captain’s words would have caused
Henry to shout with joy. Now there was no sense of jubilation in his
heart. He was stunned by the awful catastrophe that had occurred.
Nine men that he had been living with, and had come to like, had
suddenly been wiped out of existence. The horror of it had laid hold
upon every soul on the _Iroquois_. Perhaps it was fortunate for
those still left on the ship that there was so much to be done.
There was no time for brooding, or mourning for lost comrades. The
roar of the storm in the darkness was terrifying. The winds still
were shrieking through the cordage. Enormous waves were sweeping
down on the sturdy little cutter, threatening to overwhelm her. Only
a bit of iron, a length of chain, stood between the _Iroquois_ and a
fate like that of the _Capitol City_; and a chain is no stronger
than its weakest link. There might be a weak link in the chain of
the _Iroquois_. Her work must be ended and the little ship taken out
of danger as quickly as possible. Every soul on board felt this
distinctly. Perhaps no one felt it more strongly than Henry did. The
unaccustomed violence of the sea appalled him. So the office that
had come to him so suddenly did not for a moment seem to him to be a
matter of personal advancement. It was a call to duty. It was his
chance to help forward the work the _Iroquois_ had set out to do.
Very sober was Henry as he reentered the radio shack. “Belford,” he
said, “the captain thinks my experience as an operator will make me
useful on the _Iroquois_ until Mr. Sharp can get aboard again. He
has asked me to take charge of the wireless room. I did not want to
do it, for you should be in charge. But the captain has asked me to
help, and all I can do is to obey. You’ll help me, won’t you,
Belford? You’ll pull with us, won’t you? We’ve got to work together
and do our best or we may never get out of this situation.”
“Of course, I’ll help you. Don’t give the matter another thought.
I’ll help you just as loyally as I would help Mr. Sharp,” and the
lad held out his hand.
“Thank you, Belford,” said Henry, grasping his hand. “The wireless
will mean a lot to the _Iroquois_ in the next twenty-four hours.
We’ll both stand by the captain to the finish.” Then he added:
“Where’s Black? I want to talk to him, too.”
“I wonder where he is,” said Belford. “I can’t remember seeing him
for several hours past. Mr. Sharp was on watch the first four hours
after we left Boston, and I stood watch the next four. Black ought
to be on duty now. But there’s been so much excitement I never
thought about whose watch it was.”
“You don’t suppose he went in one of the boats, do you?” asked
Henry.
“No, I don’t,” said Belford. “And yet he might. I’ll see.”
He went to the stateroom. Soon he reappeared with a peculiar
expression on his face. “He’s in bed,” he said, “and has been abed
all the while we’ve been trying to save the _Capitol City_.”
The two young operators looked at each other. The same sickening
suspicion was in the mind of each. But both hesitated to put it into
words.
At that moment the quartermaster entered the room. “The captain
wants you to talk to the _Capitol City_,” he said, “and find out how
fast she is taking water, and how deep it is where she lies.”
“You do that,” said Henry to his companion. “You’ve had lots of
experience with the blinkers. I haven’t had any.”
Young Belford set the blinkers to winking merrily. The response was
immediate. Colored lights began to flash aloft on the _Capitol
City’s_ yardarm. That vessel was resting easily on the sands, came
the answer, and was taking in water no faster than her pumps could
pump it out again. The tide was rising rapidly. It was already six
feet deep. This news the assistant operator carried to the
commander.
“We’ll save her yet,” said the captain. “This tide is going to be a
very high one, if I am any judge. The wind’s been blowing the water
shoreward now a full twenty-four hours.”
Rapidly the water rose. As the captain had said, the wind had been
blowing it shoreward for a full day. The ebb tide had shown what the
wind could do, for the water was far higher than usual when the tide
turned to flood. Wind and wave both pressed the flood landward, and
now the tide, running in with the wind, mounted and mounted until it
was evident that the captain’s hope was to be realized. As the tide
rose and the water about the cutter deepened, Captain Hardwick put a
leadsman to sounding.
“We must work in with the tide, Lieutenant,” he said to his
assistant on the bridge, “and be ready for action the instant the
tide is at flood. It won’t wait a second for us, though, if this
wind holds, it will delay the ebb. We must not lose a moment.”
Long before the tide was full, Captain Hardwick ordered the
anchor-chain released. At once the cutter began to move toward the
beach, very slowly at first, then faster and faster as wind and wave
gave her momentum. The lead was kept going incessantly, the leadsman
shouting the depths up to the bridge as he made his soundings. Foot
by foot, fathom by fathom, the _Iroquois_ drew nearer the _Capitol
City_. Steadily the cutter’s searchlight played on the disabled
ship, its brilliant beam boring through the inky dark.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, yet none the less truly, the wind
abated its violence. Less often the great waves swept over the deck
of the stranded steamship. Not so shrill was the screeching of the
_Iroquois’_ cordage. The captain, with his wide experience, had
evidently foreseen a change in the weather. He was evidently
expecting the wind to fall, and if it did, it would help in the
effort to float the stranded vessel, for a great pressure against
the ship would be removed. But as the minutes passed, the wind did
not become noticeably less. It still howled angrily, and swept with
fitful force over ship and wave. Now it came in gusts, blowing
furiously for a time, then lulling. But without ceasing the tide
drove in, and the waves crept further and further up the sides of
the stranded steamship, and the combers crashed ever higher up the
sandy beach.
Fathom after fathom the _Iroquois_ followed the rising tide
shoreward. When the lead showed questionable depths, the
anchor-chain was made fast, and the little cutter paused for a while
in her progress, marking time, as it were, to the music of the
storm. With unwonted rapidity the tide mounted up, and Captain
Hardwick followed it as fast and as far as he dared.
Plainly there was a good chance to save the _Capitol City_. As the
two ships came closer, every detail of the stranded ship was
visible. She had suffered astonishingly little, when the violence of
the storm was considered. She lay almost on an even keel. Though not
pointing directly to the waves, the stern was so nearly in line with
them that they were parted as they reached her, sweeping past with
little damage to her hull. A section of her taffrail was gone, and a
part of her rudder was broken off. Otherwise she appeared to have
suffered little, and the success of the pumps in keeping down the
water in the hold showed that even her plates had not been badly
started. Her superstructure had suffered little. One of her small
boats had been washed away, but otherwise she seemed to the watchers
on the _Iroquois_ to be in remarkably good condition.
What was more important, her crew was intact. Huddled high on the
bridge and in the rigging, they had crouched together while the men
from the _Iroquois_ were trying to reach them. But as the tide ran
low, those in the rigging had climbed down and mounted to the bridge
and superstructure, seeking warmth, for the piercing winds had
well-nigh frozen them as they clung to the rattling stays.
Apparently not a man had been swept from the _Capitol City_. Almost
the full crew was there to work the ship, and Captain Hardwick was
glad, indeed, that there was no such shortage of hands on the
_Capitol City_ as existed on the _Iroquois_. There would be work for
many hands when the time was ripe for the effort he had in mind.
At last the _Iroquois_ came within reach of her stranded sister. Now
a line could easily be fired across the helpless vessel. Ready was
the faking-box with the shot-line faked neatly on the tall spindles
within it, ready to run out smoothly as it traveled through the air
on its momentous journey. The little brass gun on the after-rail of
the _Iroquois_ was uncovered, a charge was inserted in it, its
Camden projectile, with shot-line bent fast, projected from the
muzzle of the little gun, and all was ready for the effort. The
captain himself sighted the little gun, for the gunner, alas! had
been in the _Iroquois’_ surfboat. A moment the commander waited,
until the cutter rode on an even keel.
“Fire,” he called.
There was a loud explosion, the night was stabbed with a sheet of
flame, and the projectile went hurtling out and up, tearing its way
across the hundreds of yards of raging sea that still separated the
two ships. For an instant those on board the _Iroquois_ were blinded
by the flash of their gun. Then they tried to trace, in the glare of
the searchlight, the flight of the shot-line. Straight and true it
winged its way toward the stranded ship. Then a rush of scurrying
forms on the _Capitol City_ told the watchers on the Iroquois that
the shot had carried true. In a moment more the crew of the _Capitol
City_ were hauling in the little shot-line.
Already a heavier line had been bent to the end of the light
shot-line, but first it had been passed out through one of the
quarter chocks. Steadily the crew of the _Capitol City_ drew this
heavier line aboard their craft. This in turn was followed by a
heavy hawser. But Captain Hardwick had no intention of risking
defeat through the use of so uncertain a towing line as a manila
hawser. He meant to make fast to the _Capitol City_ with a wire
cable. To that end young Belford had been busy with the blinkers,
and the flashing lights of the _Capitol City’s_ yardarm had answered
back. Captain Hardwick had apprised his fellow-commander of his
intention, and warned him of the necessity of heaving the heavy wire
cable an inch at a time, as it was paid out cautiously by the
_Iroquois_. No buoyancy had this line, like a manila hawser. Like a
plummet it would drop to the bottom of the sea, and once it started
to run, out it would go its full length.
Steadily the rope hawser was paid out, and steadily it was pulled
aboard the _Capitol City_. Then the end of the wire cable, bent to
the hawser, was lowered, and foot by foot, with a caution hardly
credible, the handful of men on the _Iroquois_ responded to the tug
on the line and let the wire cable slide through the quarter chock.
At the same time Captain Hardwick drifted the _Iroquois_ closer and
closer to the vessel on the shoals.
At last the steel cable was aboard the _Capitol City_, and safe
about her bitts. The other end was now made fast to the bitts of the
_Iroquois_. The great, unbreakable, steel cable now stretched from
ship to ship. With all the power at her command, the little cutter
would presently strain at this line. At this same time she would
heave in her anchor-chain, and the vast length of this enormous
chain, reaching hundreds of fathoms out into the ocean, and weighing
tons upon tons, would add to the anchor a gripping force that would
hold like the rock of Gibraltar. Like a man pulling himself up a
rope, arm over arm, the little cutter would heave itself along the
length of this anchor-chain with the full power of both its
propeller and its heaving engine, and behind it would come the
_Capitol City_—perhaps.
Time alone would tell. And now all was ready. Steam was up on both
ships, ready for the supreme effort. It remained only for the tide
to reach flood, but how slowly it now seemed to advance. Up and up
it rose, creeping higher and higher up the sides of the stranded
ship, the lacy edges of the waves foaming ever higher on the sandy
beach. Anxiously the captain kept his watch. Now, with careful eye,
he studied the heavens. Now he bent his gaze upon the tumultuous
sea. Now he went forward, and with his own hands examined the
anchor-chain and looked at all its mechanism for heaving. Again he
went aft and studied the arrangement of the hawser, appraising with
practised eye the lay of the two vessels, the sweep of the waves,
the movement of the tide.
High indeed this was, and as the water mounted ever higher on the
_Capitol City’s_ side, and the leadsman found more and more depth
beneath the _Iroquois_, the captain’s face showed ever-growing
confidence. From time to time he talked with the master of the
_Capitol City_, with young Belford as his intermediary. Anon he
studied the skies and noted with satisfaction the steady abatement
of the wind. As the time drew near for the tide to be at flood, the
eager commander paced the deck, impatient for the trial. Yet with
eagle eye he watched the tide. At last the critical moment arrived.
The commander’s judgment told him it was time to be moving. The tide
was not yet quite at flood, but it was high, extremely high. It
would not mount much higher. When it turned, the very volume of it
would cause it to run out fast.
Briskly he mounted to the bridge. “Tell the _Capitol City_ we’re
going to move,” he called to the radio man. “Tell the captain to put
on full speed astern.”
Above, the blinker lights flashed forth their calls, and promptly
from the _Capitol City_ came answering flashes. The ship would turn
on her power. Meantime the indicator in the engine room of the
_Iroquois_ communicated its message to the men at the engines. The
propeller began to move, slowly at first, then faster, then at full
speed. Forward, the heaving engine began to strain at the
anchor-cable. The little cutter trembled and shook with the effort.
Loud rumbled the churning machinery in her hold.
Minute followed minute. The little craft strained and pulled. She
rose and fell in the sea. Her propeller churned the waters into
yeasty foam. Link by link the anchor-chain was heaved in. Foot by
foot the _Iroquois_ crept ahead, but she was only making the wire
cable taut. The _Capitol City_ had not budged. Glasses to eyes, the
captain studied the great steamer as her propeller drove round and
round in the swirling water. Critically he watched the waves sweep
past her sides, for continually the glaring light of the _Iroquois_
was focused on the helpless steamer. Still the tide rose higher,
though now but slowly. Every inch counted now. A few more inches and
the vessel on the sands ought almost to float of herself.
On deck the sailors watched the tide with anxious eyes. Well they
knew what a little more water would mean to the success of their
efforts. From time to time they dropped bits of wood over the sides,
to see whether the tide was still carrying toward the shore. Anon
they studied the wire cable now stretched tighter than a
fiddlestring. The tide continued to rise, though now almost
imperceptibly. Then it hesitated, halted, and stood still. It was at
flood. With every ounce of power they possessed the two steamships
strained and struggled. The tide paused, as though to give them
ample opportunity. Then, almost imperceptibly, it turned and began
to flow out toward the sea. And at that instant the lights on the
_Capitol City_ flashed forth, and a moment later young Belford came
racing up to the bridge with a message for the captain.
“The _Capitol City_ is moving,” he said. Then he turned and raced
back to his post.
A shout went up as the sailors sensed the import of his message.
Every eye was focused on the stranded steamer. For a moment no
motion was discernible in her. Then plainly she could be seen to
move. The shout was followed by a cheer, for now the big steamer was
plainly ploughing through the waves. Little by little she gained
momentum. Moment by moment the Iroquois drove ahead faster. But it
was no easy task that faced her. No tractable tow was this behind
her. With broken rudder, and advancing stern foremost, the _Capitol
City_ yawed badly. Nevertheless, she came on behind the _Iroquois_,
as the latter forged ahead, heaving in her anchor-chain fathom after
fathom, and fighting her way out to the depths.
By the time the anchor was heaved aboard, the wind had lessened
markedly. No longer was it blowing from the east. It was shifting,
working around to the north. The tide now was running out strong.
There was no danger that either wind or tide would carry the rescued
vessel back to the shoals again. When the captain of the _Iroquois_
judged it to be safe, he stopped the cutter. With great care the
crew of the _Capitol City_ shifted the towing cable from stern to
bow, and made it fast to the forward bitts. When this was done, the
_Iroquois_ pointed her nose into the wind, gradually got under way,
and with the disabled steamer behind her, headed once more for the
city of Paul Revere. It was the nearest harbor in which the crippled
vessel could find refuge.