“We can’t, lad, an’ that’s a fact; but I allow our eyes do better service than those that haven’t been trained to the work. There’s Dick Sawyer, for instance, he’s by far the best man among us in this kind of work. I’ve been with him when it seemed as if he smelled a vessel, for he’s struck his signal when I couldn’t see six inches before my nose, an’ I never knew him to go wrong. But we can’t loaf here much longer if we count on covering our beat in the regulation time.”
It was as if the storm had begun without warning. The first particles had no more than fallen when the air seemed thick with swirling wreaths that struck the skin like needle-points, and were forced by the increasing wind through every aperture in one’s clothing.
Benny found it necessary to shield his eyes, because of the pain caused by the icy particles, and could give little heed to his footsteps, but followed directly behind his companion.
Sam, on the contrary, appeared to suffer no especial inconvenience; he kept constant watch over the sea, although at times it was necessary to cover his eyes, and breasted his way against the wind as if finding real pleasure in the struggle.
“I’m sorry you came to-night, lad,” he said when they paused for an instant. “My idea was that this flurry would hold off till past midnight, or you wouldn’t have had a chance to show your nose outside the station.”
“I’d been sorry if you hadn’t let me come, ’cause I’ll never make any fist at being a surfman by staying under cover all the time.”
“It ain’t my plan to coddle you up, Benjamin; but at the same time there’s no good reason why you should get it quite so tough at the start. You won’t learn much——”
Sam paused as, sheltering his eyes, he gazed steadily seaward, and Benny tried in vain to discover what had thus attracted his companion’s attention.
During fully a minute the surfman stood immovable as a statue, regardless of the howling wind and stinging snow, and then muttered half to himself, as he drew from his pocket one of the Coston signals:
“The work has begun sooner than I counted on.”