Roy made his way directly through the little park to the water-front. A low sea-wall, built of great blocks of granite, formed the very end of the island. Along this sea-wall ran a wide promenade of asphalt, with benches on the landward side. The sweeping wind was churning the bay into whitecaps, and these came slap! slap! against the sea-wall, throwing showers of water high into the air and drenching the promenade. Even the benches on the landward side of the broad walk were soaked by the driving spray.
But the thing that took Roy’s eye was the harbor. Six miles away, as the crow flies, rose the hills of Staten Island, where he and his fellows had watched so long for the German spies. Far to the right were the low shores of New Jersey, almost hidden in the smoke pall of the cities there bordering the bay. In that direction, too, loomed the Goddess of Liberty, symbol of all that the word America means to the world—the gigantic goddess whose high-held torch, flaming through the midnight darkness, shows the anxious mariner his way through the murky waters of the harbor. To the left were the shores of Brooklyn and the cliffs of Bay Ridge. While near at hand and almost in front of the little park lay Governor’s Island, with its antiquated stone fort, its barracks, and all the other buildings necessary in a military post. For Governor’s Island is the army headquarters for the Department of the East.
The miles of water, now tossing turbulently and capped with white, were alive with shipping. One of the great municipal ferry-boats, starting for St. George, was tossing the spray to right and left as she breasted the waves. Tugs, seemingly without number, were puffing and bustling about, mostly with great barges or lighters on either side of them, like men carrying huge boxes under each arm. Some of these barges were car floats, with strings of freight-cars on their decks. Some were huge, enclosed lighters, built like dry-goods boxes, and towering so high in air as fairly to hide the tugs that were propelling them. A string of twenty barges, like a twenty-horse team, with ten couples, two abreast and drawn by twin tugs far ahead of them, was coming down the Hudson. Heavily laden freighters of one sort or another were riding deep in the swelling waves. One or two sailing vessels, beating their way across the harbor, were heeling far over under the sharp wind. A motor-boat was scooting across the end of the island, and Roy even saw a venturesome Battery boatman riding the waves in a rowboat, at times standing out boldly on the crest of a wave and again almost lost to sight in the trough. But the sight that caught Roy’s eye and thrilled his heart was an incoming ocean liner, her high decks crowded with a multitude of expectant folks. Many of those folks were men who had come to New York, like himself, to seek their fortunes. But they had come from far across the seas. They were strangers in a strange land. Roy wondered how they felt.
“If those fellows come here and succeed,” smiled Roy to himself, as he watched the ship ride majestically by, “I’d be a poor pill if I couldn’t make good, wouldn’t I? Why, a lot of them can’t speak English, and they’ve never even been to school. I’ll make that captain of mine take back what he said.”
Poor Roy! If he could have seen all the difficulties ahead of him, he would not have smiled so confidently. But he could not, and presently he turned away from the harbor, still light-hearted, to see what further things of interest he could discover.
At that instant a bell clanged. Close at hand, and directly on the water-front, Roy had noticed a low structure with a little tower. But he had been so engrossed with the stirring spectacle of the harbor craft that he had paid scant attention to the building or the narrow, low craft moored to the pier in front of the building. He judged that this bell, which was still striking sharply, must be in this building. Curious to know what the bell signified, Roy turned sharply about. He was just in time to see a number of men in dark blue uniforms rush from the building, race across the narrow wharf, and leap into the little boat. The hawsers were cast off and in a second’s time the little craft was shooting swiftly from her pier.
“I never saw anything like that before,” said Roy to himself. “I wonder what that can be.”
He ran over to the little house, and on its front were the words “Fire Department—City of New York.”
“By George!” muttered Roy. “Those fellows are firemen and that is one of those fire-boats I’ve read about.”
He ran around to the seaward side of the building and took a good look at the little steamer that was plunging through the waves at a rapid rate. She was long, low, narrow, and decked over in the centre somewhat like a low lighter. She resembled a tug more than anything else, yet she was unlike any tug Roy had ever seen. Fore and aft and amidships, Roy saw long, glistening brass nozzles permanently mounted on the superstructure and he knew that the boat’s engines would suck up the harbor water and shoot it through these nozzles with terrific force.