I knew the "boys." I had known some of them for years: ever since I picked up one of their stations—its site endangered by the scour of the tide—ran it on skids a mile over the sand to the land side of the inlet without moving the crew or their comforts (even their wet socks were left drying on a string by the kitchen stove); shoved it aboard two scows timbered together, started out to sea under the guidance of a light-draught tug in search of its new location three miles away, and then, with the assistance of a suddenly developed north-east gale, backed up by my own colossal engineering skill, dropped the whole concern—skids, house, kitchen stove, socks and all—into the sea. When the surf dogs were through with its carcass the beach was strewn with its bones picked clean by their teeth. Only the weathercock, which had decorated its cupola, was left. This had floated off and was found perched on top of a sand-dune, whizzing away on its ornamental cap as merry as a jig-dancer. It was still whirling away, this time on the top of the cupola at Naukashon. I could see it plainly as I drove up, its arrow due east, looking for trouble as usual.
Hence my friendship for Captain Shortrode and his trusty surfmen. Hence, too, my welcome when I pushed in the door of the sitting-room and caught the smell of the cooking: Dave Austin's clam chowder—I could pick it out anywhere, even among the perfumes of a Stamboul kitchen; and hence, too, the hearty hand-grasp from the big, brawny men around the stove.
"Well! Kind o' summer weather you picked out! Here, take this chair—Gimme yer coat.—Git them legs o' yourn in, Johnny. He's a new man—John Partridge; guess you ain't met him afore. Where's Captain Shortrode gone? Oh, yes!—puttin' up old Moth-eaten. Ain't nothin' he thinks as much of as that old horse. Oughter pack her in camphor. Well, how's things in New York?—Nelse, put on another shovel of coal—Yes, colder'n Christmas!... Nothin' but nor'east wind since the moon changed.... Chowder!—Yes, yer dead right; Dave's cookin' this week, and he said this mornin' he'd have a mess for ye."
A stamping of feet outside and two bifurcated walruses (four hours out on patrol) pushed in the door. Muffled in oilskins these, rubber-booted to their hips, the snow-line marking their waists where they had plunged through the drifts; their sou'-westers tied under their chins, shading beards white with frost and faces raw with the slash of the beach wind.
More hand-shakes now; and a stripping of wet outer-alls; a wash-up and a hair-smooth; a shout of "Dinner!" from the capacious lungs of David the cook; a silent, reverential grace with every head bowed (these are the things that surprise you until you know these men), and with one accord an attack is made upon Dave's chowder and his corn-bread and his fried ham and his— Well, the air was keen and bracing, and the salt of the sea a permeating tonic, and the smell!—Ah, David! I wish you'd give up your job and live with me, and bring your saucepan and your griddle and your broiler and—my appetite!
The next night the Captain was seated at the table working over his monthly report, the kerosene lamp lighting up his bronzed face and falling upon his open book. There is nothing a keeper hates to do so much as making out monthly reports; his hard, horny hand is shaped to grasp an oar, not a pen. Four other men were asleep upstairs in their bunks, waiting their turns to be called for patrol. Two were breasting a north-east gale howling along the coast, their Coston signals tightly buttoned under their oilskins.
Tom Van Brunt and I—Tom knew all about the little kitchen stove and the socks—he had forgiven me my share in their loss—were tilted back against the wall in our chairs. The slop and rattle of Dave's dishes came in through the open door leading to the kitchen. Outside could be heard the roar and hammer of the surf and the shriek of the baffled wind trying to burglarize the house by way of the eaves and the shutters.
The talk had drifted to the daily life at the Station; the dreariness of waiting for something to come ashore (in a disappointed tone from Tom, as if he and his fellow surfmen had not had their share of wrecks this winter); of the luck of Number 16, in charge of Captain Elleck and his crew, who had got seven men and a woman out of an English bark last week without wetting the soles of their feet.
"Fust shot went for'd of her chain plates," Tom explained, "and then they made fast and come off in the breeches-buoy. Warn't an hour after she struck 'fore they had the hull of 'em up to the Station and supper ready. Heavy sea runnin' too."