"The weather 'n' the cold. The seas had come up, over 'n' over that steamer, ontil the decks were one straight glare of ice. There wa'n't nothin' a man could get hold of. If a sailor stepped out on that ice, he couldn't stand, for she was heelin' over to port like the side of a hill. An' the lee bulwark was torn away. Worst of all, the waves kep' a dashin' over 'n' over without stoppin'. Our line wa'n't more'n fifteen feet from the pilot-house, but no one couldn' get to that line without bein' washed off.
"In a way, we'd done all that was necessary. We'd dropped a line where they'd ought to be able to get it. We couldn't know there wa'n't no way for 'em to do it. But when the minutes went by 'n' there was no sign from the steamer, it begun to look bad. If it hadn't been for the ice on the decks they was as good as rescued, but with the way it was, they wa'n't no better off, even with rescue fifteen feet away, than when our crew was a hundred miles off in Ship Island. There wa'n't nothin' for us to do but tackle the job ourselves.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.
Laying the Lyle Gun.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.
Firing the Shot and Line.