Captain Joe heard Sanford’s warning cry, but before the men could ease the strain one of the seaward guys that fastened the top of its derrick to its enrockment-block anchorage snapped with a springing jerk, writhed like a snake in the air, and fell in a swirl across the disk of concrete, barely missing the men.
The gang at the tug-line turned their heads, and the bravest of them grew pale. The opposite derrick, fifty feet away, was held upright by but a single safety-rope. If this should break, the whole system of four derricks, with its tons of chain guys and wire rope, would be down upon their heads.
Carleton ran to the end of the platform, ready to leap. Sanford ordered him back. Two of the men, in the uncertainty of the moment, slackened their hold. A third, a newcomer, turned to run towards the concrete, as the safer place, when Caleb’s viselike hand grasped his shoulder and threw him back in line.
There was but one chance left,—to steady the imperiled derrick with a temporary guy strong enough to stand the strain.
“Stand by on that watch-tackle, every —— —— man o’ ye! Don’t one o’ ye move!” shouted Captain Joe in a voice that drowned all other sounds.
The men sprang into line and stood together in dogged determination.
“Take a man, Caleb, as quick’s God’ll let ye, an’ run a wire guy out on that derrick.” The order was given in a low voice that showed the gravity of the situation.
Caleb and Lonny Bowles stepped from the line, leaped over the slippery rocks, splashed across the concrete disk, now a shallow lake with the rising tide, and picked up another tackle as they plunged along to where Sanford stood, the water over his rubber boots. They dragged a new guy towards the imperiled derrick. Lonny Bowles, in his eagerness to catch the dangling end of the parted guy, began to scale the derrick-mast itself, climbing by the foot-rests, when Captain Joe’s crescendo voice overhauled him. He knew the danger better than Bowles.
“Come down out’er that, Lonny!” (Gentle oaths.) “Come down, I tell ye!” (Oaths crescendo.) “Don’t ye know no better’n to”—(Oaths fortissimo.) “Do ye want to pull that derrick clean over?” (Oaths fortissimisso.)
Bowles slid from the mast just as Sanford’s warning cry scattered the men below him. There came a sudden jerk; the opposite derrick trembled, staggered for a moment, and swooped through the air towards the men, dragging in its fall the two side derricks with all their chains and guys.