SALVAGE—EXTRA SPECIAL
By Holman Day
A ship’s captain who didn’t want to be rescued.
Off Cape Sable, the coast-guard cutter Arrowsic received orders to return to her regular strategic position in a port on the Maine coast. For six weeks the cutter had been offshore on iceberg patrol in the steamer lanes.
The radioman’s ears fairly wiggled with the impulse of an expansive grin. He carried that grin when he trotted aft along the main deck, the message fluttering in his hand. Men observed the radiant visage and guessed hopefully.
Captain Rawson Bent received the message in his quarters, a spacious room below the quarter-deck. He was pacing to and fro across the beam of the ship. He performed a queer little jig when he started for his desk. No expression of hilarity, this! His countenance between his frosted temple locks was as stonily stern as usual. His muscles were unruly ever since he had spent a half-hour in icy Alaskan water after wind-lashed boat tackle had knocked him off the cutter Bear.
He pushed buttons on his desk, summoned executive officer and ship’s writer, gave orders for change of course, dictated acknowledgment of the receipt of orders, and the Arrowsic swung in a foaming half-circle and rode a tail sea in a sou’easter, heading for port. The tumble of graybacks suggested menace for the coasters. Captain Bent, returning to station, was now thinking solely of coast affairs.
When, eventually, the Arrowsic plowed past shipping in the home harbor, she was greeted by whistle toots of steamers and was hailed heartily by men leaning over the rails of anchored schooners. Captain Bent paced the bridge and swung his arm in reply. He was accepting the acclaim in behalf of the cutter and her salvage record.
As soon as the Arrowsic, crawfishing with churning screw, had backed into her dock within jumping distance of the pier head, a sailor leaped, beating a heave line to the wharf. He swarmed up a telephone post and made connection with the cutter’s private wire from central.