BURNING A “FLARE” ON A PILOT-BOAT.
But these fine schooners and the brave men they carry are rarely in port. Their time is spent far in the offing of the harbor, cruising back and forth in wait for incoming ships, and the New York pilots often go two and three hundred miles out to sea, and in storms may be blown much farther away. Other pilot-boats are waiting also, and the lookout at the reeling mast-head must keep the very keenest watch upon the horizon. Suddenly he catches sight of a white speck which his practised eye tells him is a ship’s top-sails, or of a blur upon the sky that advertises a steamer’s approach. The schooner’s head is instantly turned toward it, and all the canvas is crowded on that she will bear, for away off at the right a second pilot-boat, well down, is also seen to be aiming at the same point and trying hard to win.
The first pilots of New York harbor were stationed at Sandy Hook, and visited incoming vessels in whale-boats; and many a stately British frigate or colonial trader was forced to wait anxiously outside the bar, rolling and tossing in the sea-way, or tacking hither and yon, hoping for a glimpse of that tiny speck where flashing oars told of the coming pilot. It is in this way, as the late Mr. J. O. Davidson, the artist, who knew all about such things, told us in “St. Nicholas” (January, 1890), that many vessels are still met, off some of our smaller harbors, and at the mouth of the Mississippi River. There the waters of the great river pouring into the Gulf of Mexico through the Port Eads Jetties make a turbulent swell with foam-crested billows that roll the stoutest ship’s gunwale under, even in calm weather; yet the little whale-boats, swift and buoyant, dash out bravely in a race for the sail on the distant horizon, for there are two pilot-stations at the Jetties, and it is “first come first engaged.”
Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the ship that looks for the pilot, cruising about with the code-letters P T flying from her signal-halyards in token of her need. She may even run past a pilot-boat in the night and get into danger without being aware of it. To prevent this, says Mr. Davidson, the pilots burn what is known as a “flare” or torch, consisting of a bunch of cotton or lamp-wick dipped in turpentine, on the end of a short handle. It burns with a brilliant flame, lighting up the sea for a great distance and throwing the sails and number of the pilot-boat into strong relief against the darkness. On a dark clear night, the reddish glare which the signal projects on the clouds looks like distant heat lightning.
Having sighted his vessel, the pilot whose turn it is to go on duty hurries below and packs the valise which contains such things as he wishes to take home, for this is his method of going ashore; and when he has departed, if he is the last one of the pilot-crew, the little vessel returns herself to port in charge of the sailing-master, cook, and “boy,” to refit and take on a new set of men.
The storm may be howling in the full force of the winter’s fury, and the waves running “mountain-high,” but the pilot must get aboard by some means. It is rough weather indeed when his mates cannot launch their yawl and row him to where he can climb up the stranger’s side with the aid of a friendly rope’s end.
A PILOT BOARDING A STEAMER.
Yet frequently this is out of the question. Then a “whip” is rigged beyond the end of a lee yard-arm, carrying a rope rove through a snatch-block, and having a noose at its end. The steamer slows her engines, or the ship heaves to, and the pilot-schooner, under perfect control, runs up under the lee of the big ship, as near as she dares in the gale. Then, just at the right instant, a man on the ship’s yard hurls the rope, it is caught by the schooner, the pilot slips one leg through the bowline-noose, and a second afterward the schooner has swept on and he is being hoisted up to the yard-arm, but generally not in time to save himself a good ducking in the coaming of some big roller. Going on shipboard in this fashion is not favorable to an imposing effect; nevertheless, the pilot is welcomed by both crew and passengers, who admire his courage and trust his skill, but smile at the high hat beloved of all pilots.
Now the pilot is master—stands ahead of the captain even—and his orders are absolute law. He inspects the vessel to form his opinion of how she will behave, and then goes to the wheel or stands where best he can give his orders to the steersman and to the men in the fore-chains heaving the sounding lead. He must never abandon his post, he must never lose his control of the ship, or make a mistake as to its position in respect to the lee-shore, or fail to be equal to every emergency. If it is too dark and foggy and stormy to see, he must feel; and if he cannot do this he must have the faculty of going right by intuition. To fail is to lose his reputation if not his life. This is what is expected of pilots, and this is what they actually do in a hundred cases, the full details of any one of which would make a long and thrilling tale of adventurous fighting for life.