Strange things happen on that Beach and have happened. My experience was
no new one, but it takes hold of a man, nevertheless, and he can't shake
it off for months. Ever since white men frequented that Beach, some one
at intervals has undergone the same foreboding experience.
In the early part of the last century a whaling crew, half Indians, had
their hut east of Quanch. They used to land and come off at the point
there, where the water is deep, called Whale House Point till this day.
From the days of the earliest settlement, whaling crews used to go on
the Beach. They would live there during the season and watch the sea day
by day, ready to launch their boats and push off whenever they saw a
whale blow. Their supplies were brought from the north side of the
Island, and fires were built on Long Point as a signal for the crew to
come off. The Long Point of those days is now Ireland's Point, which
pushes out into the bay a mile, about, west of the mouth of Carman's
river.
When a fire flashed up at night, part of the crew would row across the
bay, heading directly for the fire. After they had put the supplies in
their boat and were ready to return, they would throw sand on the fire
and put it out. Soon after it disappeared a fire would blaze up on the
Beach to guide them back. In that way Fire Place got its old name. That
was a name that had something behind it and never ought to have been
changed.
This crew had been expecting for three days the signal fire. They were
getting short of supplies. People didn't get around lively in those
times, you know. The trouble was that they hadn't much to get around
lively with.
For two nights until nearly midnight--all this I heard from my
great-grandfather--the crew had set a watch on the top of Quanch Hill to
look out for the signal fire upon Long Point. Now the curious thing
about this is that a man named Jonas was the watch both nights. The
first night was his regular watch, but the second night he volunteered
to take the place of another member of the crew. The men in the hut
spoke about this during the evening. None of them, however, knew that
Jonas's idea was to satisfy himself as to whether the strange experience
he had had the night before would repeat itself. That Beach, you know,
is one of the most lonely places in the world. There are times when it's
awful on there. Take it on a dark night with the wind wild and the sea
mad.
That night Jonas made up his mind to walk eastward a mile and a half.
Frequently he would go down in the hollows and stop to listen. He heard
the sound of the wind in the grass, and the beat of the surf--each of
these distinctly. And yet something more. His heart began to thump and
his own breathing interfered with his judgment. He tried hard to listen.
Could he be deceived? he asked himself. Suddenly he turned and walked to
the top of a hill where no grass grew. He got his breath and then held
it. He heard even the delicate beat of the particles of sand blown by
the wind, and he was sure that besides he recognized what he had heard
in the hollow. He could not be mistaken. Farther away now, moving among
the hills--almost gone, then quite gone. The thought occurred to him
then that he had forgotten he was on the lookout. Immediately he scanned
the horizon to the northeast of him but discerned no spot of flickering
red. He looked up at the stars to see how far they had moved westward.
Some drifting clouds obscured two or three stars he knew best, so he
waited till the clouds had shifted, and then he knew it was near
midnight. There was no use to watch longer, for those who brought
supplies never made a fire after midnight. He turned to make his way
toward the hut. He had not taken three steps, when he stopped and stood
stock-still again. He heard distinctly the rumble and beat of the surf,
the sifting of the sand, the sound of the wind in the dried beach grass,
yet plainly apart from these something else. It moved on the wind
rapidly away and away, and was gone. But as he stood thinking of it, it
came again, stronger than before. This time not eastward of him, but
clearly westward. His head grew hot. It moved farther and farther to the
west, rising and falling, then with sudden increasing force stopped
abruptly. He made his way to the hut and crept into his bunk. It was two
hours before he got to sleep.
The next morning a whale was sighted close in shore. The crew launched
their whale-boat and put off for him. They calculated where he would
next rise and rowed to the spot. He came up lengthwise of the boat, just
far enough ahead to smash it with his flukes. It was a right whale, and
they strike sideways, you know, with their tail.
"Stern all," was the order quickly uttered. A short distance back, they
whirled the boat around, and then pulled at the order. Whale-boats, I
suppose you know, are sharp at both ends.
Before they were in position, however, to row straight on to the whale
and keep clear of his flukes, he started. Quebax, the harpooneer,
fastened his oar, grasped the harpoon, rose up in the bow and threw it.
It was a long throw, fifteen feet, but it was the only chance. The
harpoon entered the side of the whale and must have held securely. But
the whale turned suddenly and struck the boat with his head. The crew
sprang overboard just in time, for the next moment the whale stove the
boat into flinders. The wind, so it happened, favored them, as it was
blowing directly on shore. All the crew reached the Beach except Quebax.
He was missing, nor was his body ever found. The bow of the boat, to
which the line was fastened never came ashore, so it was thought that
Quebax got entangled in the line. It was toward the end of the
season--this whale would have made their sixth--and the disaster broke
up their whaling for that year.
No man of that crew felt the great sense of relief at leaving the Beach
that Jonas did, and never after would he go on there to remain
overnight. He said nothing at the time about his weird experience among
those Beach hills the night before Quebax was lost, but in later years
he told it all.
And then, again, I have heard it said that for several nights before
that awful catastrophe at Old Inlet, at the time of the War of 1812, the
same strange calling and shouting was heard among the hills.
Old Uncle Payne, whose gunning house stood east of Molasses Island Point
near Quanch, declared that twice in his life he heard at midnight the
moaning in the hills, and each time thereafter had found bodies washed
ashore.
But at Fiddleton, at Watch Hill, and through all the hollows there, down
around Pickety Rough, even on Flat Beach, the eerie holloing, the
shouting and calling, unlike any human voice, that was heard on
different nights, suddenly changing, too, from one spot of the beach to
another, foreboded the drowning of those fifteen buccaneers from the
_Money Ship_ and the burying in the sea for all time of their blood
spent treasure. Yet having heard all this, though years before, I joined
the first life-saving crew of Station No. --. The season then was a
short one. Regular patrols of the Beach with exchange of checks for
tally was then a thing undreamt of. Only in thick, foggy, or stormy
weather did we walk the Beach. I can't see any use of patrolling that
Beach in good weather and wearing the crew out. To my thinking all that
is necessary on bright days or on clear starlight and moonlight nights
is to keep a man on the lookout with a good glass beside him, and so
save the crew; for there come times when the rescuing of life depends
upon the reserve strength of the men. Yes, there come emergencies on
that coast when power of endurance is the important, the decisive thing.
The way to meet such unexpected demands and emergencies is to give the
crew a chance to store up reserve force, power to hold on, to make a
great effort for a night and a day, perhaps. This is what counts when a
vessel is ashore far more than any regular patrolling, with the men on
the go bright weather as well as bad weather.
We had pretty good weather that year till after the holidays had passed.
Then there came a spell of thick weather. I remember distinctly how it
set in. The day had been a very bright one, with a tinge of warmth in
it. But at nightfall an ominous murky drift of cloud gathered in the
southwest, a lee set for a northeaster.
The order was given for patrol that night, and the eastern beat fell to
me. When the tide began to rise the wind hauled northeast by east and
blew lightly down the coast. It didn't seem to portend snow, but the
weather began to thicken. I faced the wind and walked briskly, but it
bit my face and searched under my clothing as only a northeast wind will
do. When within a quarter of a mile of the end of my beat, I struck a
match and held it between my two hands as a sort of a shield, and let it
burn. If you have never tried this, you have no idea how far such a
light may be seen in the darkness or how large a spot of light it
appears to make. Lanterns are of no account on that Beach. No lantern
will burn when a high wind is blowing sand before it. They choke up and
go out. And as about the only time when they would be of use is when
they won't burn, they're not carried. Then, after all, it's no place for
them. They'll do round the barnyard, but the coast is no place for a
light, down almost on the surf's edge, bobbing and moving along in the
darkness.
I lit another match and still another, but got no answer, so I concluded
that the patrol up from the next station was returning. I reached the
end of my beat, and waited some time under the lee of a hill, and near
midnight began my patrol back. Passing a deep opening between the hills,
my attention was attracted by a low moaning. At first I gave little heed
to it. Then later I walked up to the top of one of the hills that flank
the strand all along and listened. I faced the wind; then I stood back
to it. I turned my ear in every direction, even bent my head down to
render my hearing more acute. I could not distinguish any strange sound.
No sooner, however, had I descended to the strand and resumed my walk
than the moaning began again, seeming as before to be just over behind
the hills. It was continuous but uneven, like the wind. It moved down
the Beach as I walked, just abreast of me apparently, but over behind
the hills, considerably farther, however, toward the bayside when I
passed any low spot of beach. When within half a mile of the station, it
was gone. I noticed instantly when it ceased.
An experience of this kind disturbs a man's soul, and the more he fights
it the greater trouble it becomes and the more uneasiness it gives him.
But I said nothing about it at the station.
The thick weather continued. A seething, boiling surf was running,
showing that there had been a big storm off shore. Such a surf always
indicates that. We couldn't see much beyond the outer bar for several
days.
In the next patrol at night I felt sure I should hear the moaning again,
and I did. It followed abreast of me on my patrol out, and was gone as I
approached the meeting-place at the end of my beat. But on my return it
came again and followed in the same way as before. I didn't stop once to
bother with it, but kept walking steadily back. It left me when about
the same distance from the house as on the first night.
The next night my patrol began at midnight on the short beat to the
west. I heard nothing out of the usual course of nature till I got
within three-quarters of a mile of the half-way hut. Then I heard not
only the moaning, but other noises not human, and a clapping or beating
as with two flat sticks. All this was confined to one spot, and I could
locate that spot exactly: in a rather deep hollow, with three hills
butting up around. The wind from some cause always drew down into that
hollow and kept its whole surface smooth, not a spear or root of grass
there, and as round as the inside of a cup.
As I heard the voice, its hideous changes, which at times seemed to run
into a part of some strange and weird tune, and the clapping along with
it, I knew that all this foreboded some dreadful thing.
Hot flushes came over me and I sweat at every pore. But I kept on
walking just as steadily as I could. I didn't want to quicken my pace a
bit, and I had to hold myself down in order not to do it. I left the
noises and clapping farther and farther behind, till at last I could not
hear them. They didn't move, however, but remained right in that hollow.
At length I came to the place where the half-way hut was, and turned up
from the strand to go to it.
This hut stood well up in a sort of narrow pass that opened in a
northwesterly direction through the surf hills. You could see the hut,
coming from the east, but not from the west. It was built of old timbers
and covered with seaweed and sand.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
I entered, glad to get in there, and began to blow up a fire from the
embers left by the patrolman from the west. I loaded my pipe and lit it,
and the fire gave me some cheer. I stayed there an hour, I should think,
dreading awfully to go. But the thing had to be done, so I buttoned up
my coat and started. As I came down to the strand suddenly I caught
sight of something coming toward me dripping wet. The strength went out
of my legs as quick as lightning, and my knees gave way. I nerved myself
up at once, and there was need of it, too, for a voice--a human
voice--called to me for help. It was a sailor who had just crawled up
out of the surf. Instinctively I looked off shore and saw a vessel on
the outer bar. She was not there an hour back, when I passed by.
The sailor sank down exhausted after he called to me. I helped him into
the hut and blew up the fire.
"Are there any others?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "I am the only one."
I laid on more fuel, left him, and walked along shore, looking into the
surf with the keenest eye I had. I set off lights, but no answer. Then I
went back to the hut, and the sailor had recovered sufficiently to give
me a full account of how the vessel came on.
"We had thick weather for several days," he said, "and had lost our
reckoning. We struck heavily on the bar off here, sounded, and made up
our minds that we were on Nantucket Shoals, and that the only thing for
us to do was to land. We hauled the boat up on the leeward side, the men
got in, and I stood on the rail to cast off. Just as I had thrown down
the painter, a big sea, coming round the stern of the vessel, struck the
boat and turned her bottom side up. It happened in less than no time,
for I had let go and had to jump. I struck on the bottom of the yawl and
slid off into the sea. When I came up and put out my arms to swim, I
struck an oar in front of me. This saved me. With it I worked toward the
shore, but there I had a fearful struggle. Eleven times the waves threw
me up on shore, but the undertow was so strong it carried me back each
time. My strength was about all gone. The twelfth time a large wave
carried me farther up. I felt the moving sand under my feet, and, with
the last remnant of strength, I dug both hands and feet into the sand
with all my will, and just kept myself from being carried back again. I
crawled up on the shore and rested. When I got up to look around, I saw
a crack of light from the fire in this hut, and I staggered toward it."
I summoned the rest of the crew, and we had tough work the rest of that
night and for some days afterward.
But I was always apprehensive after this experience and it weighed on my
mind. So in the spring I left the Beach, concluding that what I had
heard and seen was enough for one lifetime.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]