THE “HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES
The accident to the Screamer had delayed work at the Ledge but a few
days. Other men had taken the place of those injured, and renewed
efforts had been made by Sanford and Captain Joe to complete to
low-water mark the huge concrete disk, forming a bedstone sixty feet
in diameter and twelve feet thick, on which the superstructure was to
rest. This had been accomplished after three weeks of work, and the
men stood in readiness to begin the masonry of the superstructure
itself so soon as the four great derricks required in lifting and
setting the cut stone of the masonry could be erected. They were only
waiting for Mr. Carleton’s acceptance of the concrete disk, the first
section of the contract. The superintendent’s certificate of approval
was important, one rule of the Department being that no new section of
the work should begin until the preceding section was officially
approved.
Carleton, however, declined to give it. His ostensible reason was that
the engineer-in-chief was expected daily at Keyport, and should
therefore pass upon the work himself. His real reason was a desire to
settle a score with Captain Joe by impeding the progress of the work.
This animosity to Captain Joe had been aroused by an article very
flattering to the superintendent, published in the “Medford Journal,”
in which great credit had been given to Carleton for his “heroism and
his prompt efficiency in providing a hospital for the wounded men.”
The day after its publication, the “Noank Times,” a political rival,
sent to make an investigation of its own, in the course of which the
reporter encountered Captain Joe. The captain had not seen the Medford
article until it was shown him by the reporter. He thereupon gave the
exact facts in regard to the accident and the subsequent care of the
wounded men, generously exonerating the government superintendent from
all responsibility for the notice; adding with decided emphasis that
“Mr. Carleton couldn’t ’a’ said no such thing ’bout havin’ provided
the hospital himself, ’cause he was over to Medford to a circus the
night the accident happened, and didn’t git home till daylight next
mornin’, when everything was over an’ the men was in their beds.” The
result of this interview was a double-leaded column in the next issue
of the “Noank Times,” which not only ridiculed its rival for the
manufactured news, but read a lesson on veracity to Carleton himself.
The denial made by the “Times” was the thrust that had rankled
deepest; for Carleton, unfortunately for himself, had inclosed the
eulogistic article from the “Medford Journal” in his official report
of the accident to the Department, and had become the proud possessor
of a letter from the engineer-in-chief commending his “promptness and
efficiency.”
So far the captain had kept his temper, ignoring both the obstacles
Carleton had thrown in his way and the ill-natured speeches the
superintendent was constantly making. No open rupture had taken place.
Those, however, who knew the captain’s explosive temperament
confidently expected that he would break out upon the superintendent,
in answer to some brutal thrust, in a dialect so impregnated with
fulminates that the effect on Carleton would be disastrous. But they
were never gratified. “’T ain’t no use answerin’ back,” was all he
said. “He don’t know no better, poor critter.”
Indeed, it was only when a great personal danger threatened his men
that the captain’s every-day, conventional English seemed inadequate.
On such occasions, when the slightest error on the part of his working
force might result in the instant death or the maiming of one of them,
certain and it is to be hoped unrecorded outbursts of profanity,
soaring into crescendos and ending in fortissimos, would often escape
from the captain’s lips with a vim and rush that would have raised the
hair of his Puritan ancestors,—rockets of oaths, that kindled with
splutters of dissatisfaction, flamed into showers of abuse, and burst
into blasphemies which cleared the atmosphere like a thunderclap. For
these transgressions he never made any apology. In the roar of the sea
they seemed sometimes the only ammunition he could depend upon.
“Somebody’ll git hurted round here, if ye ain’t careful; somehow I
can’t make ye understand no other way,” he would say. This was as near
as he ever came to apologizing for his sinfulness. But he never wasted
any of these explosives on such men as Carleton.
As the superintendent persisted in his refusal to give the certificate
of acceptance, and as each day was precious, Sanford, whose confidence
in the stability and correctness of the work which he and Captain Joe
had done was unshaken, determined to begin the erection of the four
derricks at once. He accordingly gave orders to clear away the
mixing-boards and tools; thus burning his bridges behind him, should
the inspection of the engineer-in-chief necessitate any additional
work on the concrete disk.
These derricks, with their winches and chain guys, were now lying on
the jagged rocks of the Ledge, where they had been landed the day
before by Captain Brandt with the boom of the Screamer,—now stanch and
sound as ever, a new engine and boiler on her deck. They were designed
to lift and set the cut-stone masonry of the superstructure,—the top
course at a height of fifty-eight feet above the water-line. These
stones weighed from six to thirteen tons each.
During the delay that followed the accident the weather had been
unusually fine. Day after day the sun had risen on a sea of silver
reflecting the blue of a cloudless sky, with wavy tidelines engraved
on its polished surface. At dawn Crotch Island had been an emerald,
and at sunset an amethyst.
With the beginning of the dog-days, however, the weather had changed.
Dull leaden fogbanks dimming the distant horizon had blended into a
pearly-white sky. Restless, wandering winds sulked in dead calms, or
broke in fitful, peevish blasts. Opal-tinted clouds showed at sunrise,
and prismatic rings of light surrounded the moon,—all sure signs of a
coming storm.
Captain Joe watched the changing sky where hour by hour were placarded
the bulletins of the impending outbreak, and redoubled his efforts on
the lines of the watch-tackles at which the men were tugging, pulling
the derricks to their places.
By ten o’clock on the 15th of August, three of the four derricks,
their tops connected by heavy wire rope, had been stepped in their
sockets and raised erect, and their seaward guys had been made fast,
Caleb securing the ends himself. By noon, the last derrick—the fourth
leg of the chair, as it were—was also nearly perpendicular, the men
tugging ten deep on the line of the watch-tackles. This derrick, being
the last of the whole system and the most difficult to handle, was
under the immediate charge of Captain Joe. On account of its position,
which necessitated the bearing of its own strain and that of the other
three derricks as well, its outboard seaward guy was as heavy as that
of a ship’s anchor-chain. The final drawing taut of this chain, some
sixty feet in length, stretching, as did the smaller ones, from the
top of the derrick-mast down to the enrockment block, and the
fastening of its sea end in the block, would not only complete the
system of the four erected derricks, but would make them permanent and
strong enough to resist either sea action or any weight that they
might be required to lift. The failure to secure this chain guy into
the anchoring enrockment block, or any sudden break in the other guys,
would result not only in instantly toppling over the fourth derrick
itself, but in dragging the three erect derricks with it. This might
mean, too, the crushing to death of some of the men; for the slimy,
ooze-covered rocks and concrete disk on which they had to stand and
work made hurried escape impossible.
To insure an easier connection between this last chain and the
enrockment block, Caleb had fastened below water, into the Lewis hole
of the block, a long iron hook. Captain Joe’s problem, which he was
now about to solve, was to catch this hook into a steel ring which was
attached to the end of the chain guy. The drawing together of this
hook and ring was to be done by means of a watch-tackle, which
tightened the chain guy inch by inch, the gang of men standing in line
while Captain Joe, ring in hand, waited to slip it into the hook. A
stage manager stretching a tight-rope supported on saw-horses, with a
similar tackle, solves, on a smaller scale, just such a problem every
night.
Carleton, who never ran any personal risks, sat on the platform, out
of harm’s way, sneering at the men’s struggles, and protesting that it
was impossible to put up the four derricks at once. Sanford was across
the disk, some fifty feet from Captain Joe, studying the effect of the
increased strain on the outboard guys of the three derricks already
placed.
The steady rhythmic movement of the men, ankle-deep in the water,
swaying in unison, close-stepped, tugging at the tackle-line, like a
file of soldiers, keeping time to Lonny Bowles’s “Heave ho,” had
brought the hook and ring within six feet of each other, when the foot
of one of the men slipped on the slimy ooze and tripped up the man
next him. In an instant the whole gang were floundering among the
rocks and in the water, the big fourth derrick swaying uneasily, like
a tree that was doomed.
“Every man o’ ye as ye were!” shouted Captain Joe, without even a look
at the superintendent, who had laughed outright at their fall. While
he was shouting he had twisted a safety-line around a projecting rock
to hold the strain until the men could regain their feet. The great
derrick tottered for a moment, steadied itself like a drunken man, and
remained still. The other three quivered, their top connecting guys
sagging loose.
“Now make fast, an’ two ’r three of ye come here!” cried the captain
again. In the easing of the strain caused by the slipping of the men,
the six feet of space between hook and ring had gone back to ten.
Two men scrambled like huge crabs over the slippery rocks, and
relieved Captain Joe of the end of the safety-line. The others stood
firm and held taut the tug-lines of the watch-tackle. The slow,
rhythmic movement of the gang to the steady “Heave ho” began again.
The slack of the tackle was taken up, and the ten feet between the
hook and the ring were reduced to five. Half an hour more, and the
four great derricks would be anchored safe against any contingency.
The strain on the whole system became once more intense. The seaward
guy of the opposite derrick—the one across the concrete disk—shook
ominously under the enormous tension. Loud creaks could be heard as
the links of the chain untwisted and the derricks turned on their
rusty pintles.
Then a sound like a pistol-shot rang out clear and sharp.
Captain Joe heard Sanford’s warning cry, but before the men could ease
the strain one of the seaward guys that fastened the top of its
derrick to its enrockment-block anchorage snapped with a springing
jerk, writhed like a snake in the air, and fell in a swirl across the
disk of concrete, barely missing the men.
The gang at the tug-line turned their heads, and the bravest of them
grew pale. The opposite derrick, fifty feet away, was held upright by
but a single safety-rope. If this should break, the whole system of
four derricks, with its tons of chain guys and wire rope, would be
down upon their heads.
Carleton ran to the end of the platform, ready to leap. Sanford
ordered him back. Two of the men, in the uncertainty of the moment,
slackened their hold. A third, a newcomer, turned to run towards the
concrete, as the safer place, when Caleb’s viselike hand grasped his
shoulder and threw him back in line.
There was but one chance left,—to steady the imperiled derrick with a
temporary guy strong enough to stand the strain.
“Stand by on that watch-tackle, every —— —— man o’ ye! Don’t one
o’ ye move!” shouted Captain Joe in a voice that drowned all other
sounds.
The men sprang into line and stood together in dogged determination.
“Take a man, Caleb, as quick’s God’ll let ye, an’ run a wire guy out
on that derrick.” The order was given in a low voice that showed the
gravity of the situation.
Caleb and Lonny Bowles stepped from the line, leaped over the slippery
rocks, splashed across the concrete disk, now a shallow lake with the
rising tide, and picked up another tackle as they plunged along to
where Sanford stood, the water over his rubber boots. They dragged a
new guy towards the imperiled derrick. Lonny Bowles, in his eagerness
to catch the dangling end of the parted guy, began to scale the
derrick-mast itself, climbing by the foot-rests, when Captain Joe’s
crescendo voice overhauled him. He knew the danger better than Bowles.
“Come down out’er that, Lonny!” (Gentle oaths.) “Come down, I tell
ye!” (Oaths crescendo.) “Don’t ye know no better’n to”—(Oaths
fortissimo.) “Do ye want to pull that derrick clean over?” (Oaths
fortissimisso.)
Bowles slid from the mast just as Sanford’s warning cry scattered the
men below him. There came a sudden jerk; the opposite derrick
trembled, staggered for a moment, and swooped through the air towards
the men, dragging in its fall the two side derricks with all their
chains and guys.
“Down between the rocks, heads under, every man o’ ye!” shouted the
captain.
The captain sprang last, crouching up to his neck in the sea, his head
below the jagged points of two rough stones, just as the huge fourth
derrick, under which he had stood, lunged wildly, and with a ringing
blow struck a stone within three feet of his head,—the great
anchor-chain guy twisting like a cobra over the slimy rocks.
When all was still, Sanford’s anxious face rose cautiously from behind
a protecting rock near where the first derrick had struck. There came
a cheer of safety from Caleb and Bowles, answered by another from
Captain Joe, and Sanford and the men crawled out of their holes, and
clambered upon the rocks, the water dripping from their clothing.
Not a man had been hurt!
“What did I tell you?” called out Carleton sneeringly, more to hide
his alarm than anything else.
“That’s too bad, Mr. Sanford, but we can’t help it,” said Captain Joe
in his customary voice, paying no more attention to Carleton’s talk
than if it had been the slop of the waves at his feet. “All hands,
now, on these derricks. We got’er git ’em up, boys, if it takes all
night.”
Again the men sprang to his orders, and again and again the crescendos
of oaths culminated in fortissimos of profanity as the risks for the
men increased.
For five consecutive hours they worked without a pause.
Slowly and surely the whole system, beginning with the two side
derricks, whose guys still held their anchorage, was raised upright,
Sanford still watching the opposite derrick, a new outward guy having
replaced the broken one.
It was six o’clock when the four derricks were again fairly erect. The
same gang was tugging at the watch-tackle, and the distance between
the hook and the ring was once more reduced to five feet. The hook
gained inch by inch towards its anchorage. Captain Joe’s eyes gleamed
with suppressed satisfaction.
All this time the tide had been rising. Most of the rough, above-water
rocks were submerged, and fully three feet of water washed over the
concrete disk. Only the tops of the rough stones where Sanford stood,
and the platform where Carleton sat, out of all danger from derricks
or sea, were clear of the incoming wash.
Meanwhile the Screamer’s life-boat—the only means the men had that
day of leaving the Ledge and boarding the sloop, moored in the lee of
the Ledge—had broken from her moorings, and lay dangerously near the
rocks. The wind too had changed to the east. With it came a long,
rolling swell that broke on the eastern derrick,—the fourth one, the
key-note of the system, the one Captain Joe and the men were
tightening up.
Suddenly a window was opened somewhere in the heavens, and a blast of
wet air heaped the sea into white caps, and sent it bowling along
towards the Ledge and the Screamer lying in the eddy.
Captain Joe, as he stood with the hook in his hand, watched the sea’s
carefully planned attack, and calculated how many minutes were left
before it would smother the Ledge in a froth and end all work. He
could see, too, the Screamer’s mast rocking ominously in the rising
sea. If the wind and tide increased, she must soon shift her position
to the eddy on the other side of the Ledge. But no shade of anxiety
betrayed him.
The steady movement of the tugging men continued, Lonny’s “Heave ho”
ringing out cheerily in perfect time. Four of the gang, for better
foothold, stood on the concrete, their feet braced to the iron mould
band, the water up to their pockets. The others clung with their feet
to the slippery rocks.
The hook was now within two feet of the steel ring, Captain Joe
standing on a rock at a lower level than the others, nearly waist-deep
in the sea, getting ready for the final clinch.
Sanford from his rock had also been watching the sea. As he scanned
the horizon, his quick eye caught to the eastward a huge roller pushed
ahead of the increasing wind, piling higher as it swept on.
“Look out for that sea, Captain Joe! Hold fast, men,—hold fast!” he
shouted, springing to a higher rock.
Hardly had his voice ceased, when a huge green curler threw itself
headlong on the Ledge, wetting the men to their arm-pits. Captain Joe
had raised his eyes for an instant, grasped the chain as a brace, and
taken its full force on his broad back. When his head emerged, his cap
was gone, his shirt clung to the muscles of his big chest, and the
water streamed from his hair and mouth.
Shaking his head like a big water-dog, he waved his hand, with a
laugh, to Sanford, volleyed out another rattling fire of orders, and
then held on with the clutch of a devil-fish as the next green roller
raced over him. It made no more impression upon him than if he had
been an offshore buoy.
The fight now lay between the rising sea and the men tugging at the
watch-tackle. After each wave ran by the men gained an inch on the
tightening line. Every moment the wind blew harder, and every moment
the sea rose higher. Bowles was twice washed from the rock on which he
stood, and the newcomer, who was unused to the slime and ooze, had
been thrown bodily into a water-hole. Sanford held to a rock a few
feet above Captain Joe, watching his every movement. His anxiety for
the safe erection of the system had been forgotten in his admiration
for the superb pluck and masterful skill of the surf-drenched
sea-titan below him.
Captain Joe now moved to the edge of the anchor enrockment block,
standing waist-deep in the sea, one hand holding the hook, the other
the ring. Six inches more and the closure would be complete.
In heavy strains like these the last six inches gain slowly.
“Give it to ’er, men—all hands now—give it to ’er! Pull, Caleb!
Pull, you —— ——!” (Air full of Greek fire.) “Once more—all
together —— ——!” (Sky-bombs bursting.) “All to—”
Again the sea buried him out of sight, quenching the explosives
struggling to escape from his throat.
The wind and tide increased. The water swirled about the men, the
spray flew over their heads, but the steady pull went on.
A voice from the platform now called out,—it was that of Nickles, the
cook: “Life-boat’s a-poundin’ bad, sir! She can’t stan’ it much
longer.”
Carleton’s voice shouting to Sanford from the platform came next: “I’m
not going to stay here all night and get wet. I’m going to Keyport in
the Screamer. Send some men to catch this life-boat.”
The captain raised his head and looked at Nickles; Carleton he never
saw.
“Let ’r pound an’ be damned to ’er! Go on, Caleb, with that tackle.
Pull, ye”—Another wave went over him, and another red-hot explosive
lost its life.
With the breaking of the next roller the captain uttered no sound. The
situation was too grave for explosives. Whenever his profanity stopped
short the men grew nervous: they knew then that a crisis had arrived,
one that even Captain Joe feared.
The captain bent over the chain, one arm clinging to the anchorage,
his feet braced against a rock, the hook in his hand within an inch of
the ring.
“_Hold hard!_” he shouted.
Caleb raised his hand in warning, and the rhythmic movement ceased.
The men stood still. Every eye was fixed on the captain.
“LET GO!”
The big derrick quivered for an instant as the line slackened, stood
still, and a slight shiver ran through the guys. The hook had slipped
into the ring!
The system of four derricks, with all their guys and chains, stood as
taut and firm as a suspension bridge!
Captain Joe turned his head calmly towards the platform, and said
quietly, “There, Mr. Carleton, they’ll stand now till hell freezes
over.”
* * * * *
As the cheering of the men subsided, the captain, squeezing the water
from his hair and beard with a quick rasp of his fingers, sprang to
Sanford’s rock, grasped his outstretched hand, shook it heartily, and
called to Caleb, in a firm, cheery voice that had not a trace of
fatigue in it after twelve hours of battling with sea and derricks,
“All o’ you men what’s goin’ in the Screamer with Mr. Carleton to
Keyport for Sunday ’d better look out for that life-boat. Come, Lonny
Bowles, pick up them tackles an’ git to the shanty. It’ll be awful
soapy round here ’fore mornin’.”