Harley Greenoak's Charge

by Bertram Mitford

But even in that brief fraction of a minute Harley Greenoak had flung off his coat, and muttering, “He’s bound to need help,” had leaped upon the rail and sprung out into the sea, cleaving his way with no less powerful strokes to where the two were struggling.

Dick had reached the drowning boy, and was holding him up in firm athletic grasp, but there was a nasty choppy sea running, which, breaking into spume, both blinded and choked him. He was treading water now, as though to wait until the boat should be lowered. But Harley Greenoak had picked up the lifebuoy and was towing it towards the pair, whom in a few minutes he was seen to reach. Then something like a gasp of relief escaped the spectators. Those two powerful men, with the aid of the lifebuoy, should have no difficulty in keeping both themselves and their charge afloat until they were picked up. But there was one to whom this consideration brought little if any relief at all, and that one was Sir Anson Selmes.

The agony of the unhappy father was simply hideous to endure. The conversation of a minute or two back burnt into his brain like letters of fire. These waters were swarming with sharks, and had not Greenoak just declared that no consideration would tempt him to venture into the sea at this point. Yet hardly had the words left his mouth than he deliberately did that very thing. Even his frenzied apprehension for the safety of his son could not dim a glow of admiration for this cool, brave man who had courted the ghastly death he himself had pronounced to be almost certain, when the object was the saving of life. Every second seemed an hour, every minute a week. Would they never lower that boat?

But the way on the steamer was far too great to allow of her being stopped at once, consequently she was being brought round to the submerged three, and although this could not be done all in a minute, it could be in far less time than that taken to pull a boat any distance in such a choppy sea.

Hurrah! The boat dropped from the davits, and went plashing through the waves as fast as sinew and muscle could send her.

“We’re all jolly,” bawled Dick Selmes, “only look sharp. It’s beastly cold.”

The words, audible to those on the ship, raised a laugh that rounded off into a mighty cheer, as the boat was seen to gain its objective and the three were hoisted in.

“Thirteen minutes from the time of going over the side,” said the officer in charge of the ship, closing his watch with a snap. “Not bad time that, sir?”

“No. It’s good,” said the captain, who, half asleep in his cabin, had been roused by the uproar and had quickly ascended to the bridge.

“Drowned rat Number One,” sang out Dick Selmes, shoving the cause of all the bother in front of him, as they gained the deck. Then there was a great deal of hugging and kissing on the part of the mother, which was cut short by the decisive voice of the doctor, ordering the drenched and shivering boy to be taken below at once.