The Sea Rovers

by Rufus Rockwell Wilson

A LIFE-SAVER ON PATROL

The breeches-buoy, to which reference has been made, is a circular life-preserver of cork, to which short canvas breeches are attached, and will hold two persons. But when a large number of people are to be rescued, the life-car, invented by Joseph Francis and connected with the hawser by a simple device to prevent it from drifting, is used. This is a water-tight, covered boat of galvanized sheet iron and will carry five or six adults at a time. At its first trial more than two hundred persons were rescued from the wreck of the Ayrshire on the New Jersey coast, when no other means could have availed. Silks, jewels and other valuables have often been saved by its use and from one vessel the car took ashore a large sum of gold bullion belonging to the United States, together with the mails. On the lake and Pacific coasts, where the shores are steep and the water deep, the self-righting and self-bailing lifeboat is in general use. This, the best lifeboat yet devised, is the result of more than a century of study and experiment, following the first model designed in 1780 by an English coachman, Lionel Lukin. It possesses great stability, is rarely upset, and when this happens instantly rights itself, while when full of water it empties itself in from fifteen to twenty seconds.

The work of the life-savers seldom ends with the rescue. After all have been brought ashore from a wreck, the benumbed and helpless sufferers are quickly conveyed to the station-house, transferred for the moment into a hospital, where an abundance of dry clothing is instantly applied; the prostrated ones put to bed; lint, plasters and bandages supplied to the bruised and wounded, and stimulants from the medicine chest, never absent from any station, given to those who need them. At the same time the mess-cook prepares and serves out hot coffee alike to rescued and rescuers. When this has been partaken of, the keeper assigns a portion of the crew to look after the needs of the strangers and the others retire to rest until called to relieve the patrol.

After what has been written one would expect to find rich material for true stories of peril, adventure and heroism; and for romances in real life among the records of the life-saving service—stories that never fail to stir the blood and quicken the pulse of those to whom they are told. And such is the case. The annals of the service are replete with splendid deeds of daring, and each month's record adds to the roll of honor. Often the surfmen know they are going forth to almost certain death,' and yet never a moment do they falter. A year or so ago a crew that rescued four sailors from a stranded vessel under the most trying conditions, before launching their boat, left their slender effects in the charge of a comrade for the benefit of their families—not one of them believing that they would return alive! And when the life-savers went off through the violent sea to rescue those on board the German ship Elizabeth, stranded on the Virginia coast, in January, 1887, all but two of the crew perished, together with the entire ship's company. The brave fellows' doom was sealed from the first, but this did not swerve them from their duty.

One of the saddest chapters in the annals of the service deals with the death of the keeper and two of the surfmen of the Peaked Hill Bar Station, on the Massachusetts coast. In the waning hours of a stormy November night, fifteen years ago, the sloop Trumbull was descried by the patrol on the inner bar, and a few moments later the lifeboat, manned by Keeper Atkins and Surfmen Mayo, Taylor, Kelly, Young and Fisher, was on the way to the rescue. The crew, save two who, refusing assistance, remained on board the vessel, were speedily brought to land. The gale was now increasing and the sea running mountain high, but Keeper Atkins and his crew again essayed the rescue of the two men, who still remained on the Trumbull. It was very dark, and the lifeboat in approaching the ship was struck by a swinging boom and capsized. After clinging for a time to the upturned boat, the surfmen released their hold and attempted to swim to shore. Surfmen Kelly, Young and Fisher reached the beach barely alive, and were picked up and tenderly cared for by a comrade, but Keeper Atkins and Surfmen Mayo and Taylor, although strong swimmers, were finally overcome and vanished in the storm and darkness. The sea gave up their bodies many hours later, and there were few dry eyes among the hundreds who followed to their graves three heroes as dauntless as ever were sung in song or story.

One of the most gallant rescues performed within the scope of the service stands to the credit of the Dam Neck Mills crew, on the coast of Virginia. The schooner Jennie Hall, bound from Trinidad to Baltimore, sailing in a dense fog, struck bottom a few miles south of Cape Henry. A tempest was blowing, and a deluge of sleet blinded and benumbed the crew as they clung to the mizzenmast, on which they had taken refuge. The captain had been swept away while attempting to cross the deck, and it seemed certain that the almost helpless sailors must soon follow him. Blind desperation alone gave them strength to endure until the morning. Then, in the dawning of the day, through the lifting curtain of mist, they saw the life-savers preparing to attempt their rescue. The sea was still too high to warrant the launching of the lifeboat. What must be done was to get a hawser to the schooner, and then, by means of the breeches-buoy, haul off the wrecked men.

The gun was, therefore, placed in position, and the shot-line coiled properly, so as to follow without fouling. The ship was about three hundred yards off shore. The shot was fired, and the line carried just over the rigging at the necessary spot. All would have gone well had not the block of the whip-line become fouled. The men on the mast were too exhausted to extricate it, so the whip-line was hauled to shore, and the shot-line cut away. Another shot was fired. This time it landed out of the reach of the wrecked men, now almost insensible from cold and exhaustion. Still another shot was fired, this time fairly in the hands of the unfortunates. The whip-line was painfully drawn to the mast and properly made fast. Then the hawser was drawn slowly from shore, and also properly fixed around the mast. Just as the breeches-buoy was being sent out to make the rescue at last, just as safety and warmth and life were within their grasp, two of the six fell to the deck, struck like lead, and were washed overboard, never more to be seen. The breeches-buoy had now reached the mast. Two of the men managed to get in, and were hauled ashore, unconscious, very nearly dead. Again the buoy went on its errand of mercy, and the mate was brought to safety. There was still one man left on the mast. The buoy was sent back for him. But he made no sign of life.

Somebody must go out for him. A surfman by the name of O'Neal put himself in the buoy and was hauled to the wreck. He found that the man, now unconscious, had so firmly lashed himself to the crosstrees that it was not in his power to extricate him without help. So he returned to the shore for an assistant. An ex-surfman, Drinkwater by name, volunteered to go back with him. The sea having gone down a trifle, the keeper decided to place them on board the wreck by the lifeboat. A crew was called, and the rescuers rowed out through a still tremendous sea to the Jennie Hall. The two men skilfully got aboard, and climbed the mast, the lifeboat in the meanwhile, after nearly a fatal accident, returning to the beach. Even with help, O'Neal had great difficulty in getting the remaining sailor out of the rigging. But it was finally done, and the well-nigh frozen man sent ashore. Then the two life-savers returned in the buoy.

The records of the live-saving crews of the Great Lakes also abound with thrilling and heroic incidents. These vast inland seas, with 2,500 miles of American coast-line, are subject to sudden and violent gales, in which anchored vessels are swept fore and aft, often causing their total destruction, while others seeking shelter in harbors are driven helplessly upon jutting piers or the still more dangerous beach; and frequently just before winter suspends navigation on the lakes, a single life-saving crew is employed upon several wrecks at a time. Again, the lifeboats often go under sail and oar many miles from their station to aid vessels in distress. When the steamer Bestchey was wrecked near Grindstone City, seven miles from the Point aux Barques station, on Lake Huron, a few years ago, the crew hurried to the rescue, and found several hundred people watching the breaking up of the wreck, but powerless to aid the passengers and crew, who, for ten hours, had been face to face with suffering and death. When the lifeboat had been launched and the ship's side gained, two of the surfmen leaped into the water, and by the aid of ropes, after a desperate struggle gained the steamer's deck and directed the difficult and dangerous task of transferring those on board to the boat. Eleven women and a small boy were lowered over the bulwarks, and the boat, shoving off, gained the pier in safety. Four trips were made within an hour, and all on board, more than forty persons, brought ashore. A few months later the Point aux Barques crew responded to signals of distress displayed by a vessel three miles away, and in the fearful storm that was raging, their boat was capsized. The men tried to cling to it, but the cold overcame them, and one after another perished until six were gone. Only the keeper, bruised and insensible, was washed ashore, and he was so badly injured that he was forced to resign his position. Thus in one day, the service lost all the members of one of its most skilful and gallant crews. During the same year the men at the Point aux Barques Station had been the means of saving more than a hundred lives.