FIGHTING FOR LIFE
Foot by foot they fought their way through the storm, conscious that
other hurrying forms passed them from time to time. Their minds were
fixed upon one thing. They must get to Uncle Tom. He would be able to
tell them everything and perhaps let them know how they could help.
But they soon found that just getting to the lighthouse was a problem.
Time and again they had to stop and turn their backs to the furious wind
in order to catch enough breath to fight their way on.
"Look!" Connie had shouted once, pointing toward the east. "It must be
almost morning. The sky is getting light."
As they hurried on they became more and more conscious that everybody
seemed to be heading in the same direction--toward the lighthouse.
"The shoal!" gasped Connie in Billie's ear. "The wind must have driven
some ship upon it, and in this gale----"
But she never finished the sentence, for at this minute they came out
upon the Point where the lighthouse stood and stopped dead at the scene
that met their eyes.
The Point was black with people all gesticulating and pointing excitedly
out toward a great shape which, looming grayly against the lifting
blackness of the sky, staggered and swayed like a drunken thing in the
grip of the gigantic foam-tipped waves.
"Oh," moaned Connie, "it's just as I thought! There's Uncle Tom. Come on,
Billie." And she elbowed her way through the crowd to where Uncle Tom
stood, his great height making him conspicuous among the other men,
bawling out directions to the life-savers who were just making ready to
launch their staunch little boats.
"Say, do you call this hurrying?" Uncle Tom was crying, his eyes
traveling from the life-savers to the wreck and back again. "Don't you
see she's just hanging on by her eyelashes? Another sea like that and you
won't have a chance to save anybody. Good boys--that's the idea. Bend
your backs, my lads. God help you--and them!" he added under his breath,
his eyes on the laboring vessel.
"Uncle Tom!" cried Connie, tugging at his arm, "have they got a
chance--those people out there? Have they?"
He glanced down at her for a moment, then his eyes sought the furious
sea. He shook his head and his hands clenched tight at his sides.
"About one chance in a thousand," he muttered, more to himself than to
her. "The Evil One's in the sea to-night. I never saw the like of it--but
once."
Then followed a struggle of human might against the will of the
overpowering elements--a struggle that the girls never forgot. On, on,
fought the gallant men in the staunch little boats. On, on toward the
quivering giant that hung on the edge of destruction--her fate the fate
of all the lives on board.
The storm that had beaten her on to the treacherous shoal was now doing
its best to loosen her hold upon it. And that hold was the one slender
thread that kept alive the hope of the passengers on board.
If the pounding waves once succeeded in pushing her back into the deeper
water of the channel, nothing could save her. The great hole ripped in
her side by the impact with the shoal would fill with water, and in five
minutes there would be nothing left but the swirling water to mark the
spot where she had been.
And the passengers! At the thought Billie cried out aloud and clenched
her fists.
"Oh, oh, it can't be, it can't be! Those boats will never reach her in
time. Oh, isn't there something somebody can do?" She turned pleadingly
to Uncle Tom, but the look on his face startled her and she followed his
set gaze out to sea.
"No, there isn't anything anybody can do--now," he said.
The storm had had its way at last. The elements had won. With a rending
of mighty timbers the tortured ship slid backward off the shoal and into
the deep waters of the channel.
"There she goes!"
"That's the last of that vessel!"
"I wonder if any of the folks on board got off safely."
"I couldn't see--the spray almost blinds a fellow."
Such were some of the remarks passed around as the ship on the shoal
slipped slowly from view.
The girls clung to each other in an agony of suspense. Never had they
dreamed that they would witness such a dreadful catastrophe as was now
unfolding before them.
"Oh, Billie, this is dreadful!" groaned Laura, her face white with
terror.
"I can hardly bear to look at it," whimpered Vi. "Just think of those
poor people! I am sure every one of them will be drowned."
"Some of them must have gotten away in the small boats," answered Billie.
"I didn't see any of the boats," protested Connie. "But, of course, you
can't see much of anything in such a storm as this."
"All we can do is to hope for the best," said Billie soberly.
"It's the worst thing I ever heard of," sighed Vi. "Why must we have such
storms as this to tear such a big ship apart!"
A groan went up from the watchers, and many of them turned away. They
could not see the end.
But the girls stared, fascinated, too dazed by the tragedy to turn their
eyes away.
The life-savers, who had almost reached the ship, backed off a little,
knowing that they could not help the passengers now and fearful of being
drawn under by the suction themselves.
The great ship hesitated a moment, trembled convulsively through all her
frame, then her stern reared heavenward as though protesting against her
fate, and slowly, majestically, she sank from view beneath the swirling
waters.
Then the girls did turn their eyes away, and blindly, sobbingly, they
stumbled back through the crowd toward the lighthouse.
"Oh, Billie, Billie, they will all be drowned!" sobbed Laura. The tears
were running down her face unchecked. "Oh, what shall we do?"
"If they could only have held on just a few minutes more," said Vi,
white-faced, "the life-savers would then have had a chance to have taken
them off."
"They may save some of them anyway," said Billie, her voice sounding
strange even to herself. "The life-savers will pick up anybody who
manages to get free of the wreck, you know."
"Yes; but Uncle Tom says that when a ship sinks like that it is hard to
save anybody," said Connie, twisting her handkerchief into a damp little
ball. "Girls," she said, turning upon them eyes that were wide with
horror, "it makes me crazy to think of it. Out there, those people are
drowning!"
"Oh, don't" cried Billie, pressing her hands to her ears. "I--I can't
stand it. Girls, I've got to walk!" And Billie started off almost at a
run along the beach, fighting her way against the wind.
The other girls followed her, and for a while they ran along, not knowing
whither they were going, or caring. All they wanted was to forget the
horror of the thing they had seen.
"What's that?"
Billie stepped back so quickly that she almost lost her footing in the
slippery sand.
"What do you mean, Billie?"
"That!"
"Why, it--it looks like----"
"Come on. Let's find out." And Billie ran to the thing that looked like a
large piece of driftwood washed up on the sand by the heavy sea.
And as she reached it she drew in her breath sharply and brushed a hand
across her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. On the thing that was
not a piece of driftwood at all, but looked like a sort of crudely and
hastily constructed raft, were lashed three small, unconscious little
forms.
"Girls, look!" she almost screamed above the shrill wind. "Do you see
them, too?"
"Why--why, they are children!" cried Laura. "Oh, Billie, do you suppose
they're alive?"
"I don't know," said Billie, dropping to her knees beside the three
pitiful little figures. Two of them were girls, twins evidently, and the
third was a smaller child, a boy. Something in their baby attitudes,
perhaps their very helplessness, stung Billie to sudden action.
"Help me get them loose!" she cried to the other girls, who were still
staring stupidly. "I don't know whether they're dead or not yet. But they
will be if we don't hurry. Oh, girls, stop staring and help me!"
Then how they worked! The slippery wet rope that bound the little forms
was knotted several times, and the girls thought they must scream with
the nightmare of it before they got the last knot undone.
"There! At last!" cried Billie, flinging the rope aside and trying to
lift one of the little girls. She found it surprisingly easy, for the
child was pitifully thin. She staggered to her feet, holding the little
form tight to her.
Laura and Vi each took one of the children and Connie offered to help
whoever gave out first. Then they started back to the lighthouse. Luckily
for them, the wind was at their backs, or they never could have made the
trip back.
When they reached the Point they found that most of the crowd had
dispersed. Only a few stragglers remained to talk over the tragedy in
awed and quiet whispers.
These stared as the girls with their strange burdens fought their way
toward the door of the lighthouse. Some even started forward as though to
offer assistance, but the girls did not notice them.
Through the window Billie could see Uncle Tom standing before his
mantelpiece, head dropped wearily on his arm. Then Connie opened the door
and they burst in upon him.
"Oh, Uncle Tom!" she gasped. "Please come here, quick!"