The Sea Rovers

by Rufus Rockwell Wilson

The riddle offered by the message was speedily solved by the officers of the Bear. The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 off Cape Navarin, and only fourteen of the crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of the unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Siberian shore, but nothing had been heard of their subsequent fate. The officers of the Bear reasoned that the sender of the message was a member of the Napoleon's crew who had found refuge with the natives to the southwest of Cape Navarin and was now anxiously awaiting rescue. This reasoning proved correct, and a few weeks later the weary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, of Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Napoleon, had a happy termination.

The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of tragic and absorbing interest. The Napoleon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in the ice and its crew compelled to take to the boats. The boats, four in number, were soon separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suffering passed before the one containing Vincent and his companions reached shore. In the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the boat had died and several others had been driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent was the only one who could walk when they reached land. Five more soon died and three of the survivors were helpless from frost bites and exhaustion when they fell in with a party of natives. A portion of the latter lived inland, and these took Vincent with them when they returned to their homes. The following Spring when the natives visited the shore to fish, Vincent found his three shipmates barely alive, and they died soon after.

When the fishing was over Vincent went back to the mountains with his new-found friends, and during the following winter carved and entrusted to wandering natives from Cape Behring the message which later brought about his rescue. When spring of the second year opened Vincent, with the natives, again started for the seashore to fish. Great was his joy a few weeks later when he was attracted by the shouting of the natives and looked up to see a white man and to find himself rescued at last. The Bear conveyed him to San Francisco, whence he made his way to his home in Massachusetts.

While among the Eskimo, Vincent was kindly cared for by an old native, whose wife received him as her son. After a year the husband died, but his last instructions to his wife were to care for and keep their guest until he was rescued. When relief at last came the old woman with tears in her eyes, said that she was ready to die, for she had done as her husband wished. Warm and tender hearts can be found even in Siberian wastes.

The Revenue Cutter Service is part of the Treasury Department, and comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury. Subordinate to him are a chief and assistant chief of division. Each vessel of the service patrols the district to which it is assigned, and forms a picket line at the outer edge of government jurisdiction, which extends four leagues from the coast. Every vessel arriving in United States waters is boarded and examined, and its papers certified. If a vessel liable to seizure or examination does not bring to when requested to do so, the commander of a cutter, after discharging a warning gun, has authority to fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his orders are indemnified from any penalties or action from damages. On each cutter there are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an engineer and two assistants, and a crew of a dozen or more men.

The service includes in its several grades about one thousand men. Strict discipline is maintained, and its crews receive constant instruction and exercise in the use of great guns, rifles, carbines, pistols, cutlasses and the like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter Service must not only possess considerable executive ability, but must also be a man of varied and accurate information, having a knowledge of gunnery and military drills, and be thoroughly familiar with the customs and navigation laws of the country.

Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter being governed by written competitive examinations, from three to five of the senior officers of a lower grade being selected for any vacancy occurring in the higher grade. A young man wishing to join the service as an officer undergoes a rigid examination held annually at Washington, and then serves for several years aboard the revenue schoolship, where he learns sea mathematics, sea law and seamanship. His period of apprenticeship ended, he joins a regular cutter as a junior officer and waits for promotion at a salary of $85 per month.

Life on board a revenue cutter during the months of summer is usually an easy and pleasant one, but in the winter there is another and different story to tell. From December to April of each year the cutters cruise constantly on their stations to give aid to vessels in distress, and are, in most cases, forbidden to put into port unless under stress of weather or other unforeseen conditions arise.

Few stormy winter days pass without the revenue cutter seeing a signal from some vessel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. The cutter steers straight for the signal as soon as it is sighted, and when a quarter of a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat is launched into a sea where death seems certain, but officers and men never shrink from their duty. When the boat gains the side of the vessel seeking aid, the master whom misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, to be towed into port. When such a request is made, a line must be got to the distressed vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task often performed with infinite difficulty and at the risk of life and limb.