“I must be off now on the beach.”
As he left the room, Cook Charlie went to the door leading upstairs and called out, “Come here, Walter. The Cap’n’s proposed jest what we wanted, and I engaged to speak to you. Come down! I want to ‘tech’ you up.”
Details were all arranged, and one afternoon the “Barney Literary Club” held its first meeting. It was a wintry day without. The wind blew sharp and strong from the north–west, and meeting the tide that was coming in, broke up the sea into short, fierce little waves whose dark, angry blue was spattered with flakes of white, chilling foam. Across the frozen land and the dark sea, the brightest of suns looked smilingly out of a clear sky, but his smiles did not warm the land or cheer the sea. Did not all this though, make the living–room of the station a snugger, jollier place?
“A grain small,” thought the keeper, “is this room when we and our big boots all try to get into it, but we have had some good times here, and we will have to–day another.”
The keeper, as president, sat in the chair of honor, and that was an ordinary chair placed against the wall between the boat–room door and the outer door. At his right sat Cook Charlie, the secretary, awkwardly fumbling a lead pencil and sheet of paper. Walter was on the left of the president. An eager yet embarrassed look was on his face, for he had been appointed to read a paper which he nervously clutched with both hands. The other members of the crew were scattered about the room, all of them permanently located except Slim Tarleton. It was his watch, and every few minutes he would run up the stairs and from the lookout sweep with his glass the sea, that subtle, treacherous power which must be watched, day and night. The president made a very short speech to the “Barney Literary Club,” and then read a paper on the United States Life Saving Service. The facts given are embodied already in this book.
“I will now call on Walter for a paper,” said the president.
There was a tickle that needed to be expelled from Walter’s throat, and at the same time a warm blush spread up to the roots of his hair.
“My paper is on the Life Saving Service of other countries. Great Britain, which has a coast almost five thousand miles long, has a Royal National Life–boat Institution. It is supported by voluntary offerings. Its object is to provide and maintain life–boats, and it also rewards efforts to save the shipwrecked at points where it may have no station. A life–boat with all necessary equipments, and that would include carriage, will cost somewhat over three thousand dollars, and a boathouse can be built for about seventeen hundred. The cost of keeping up a station is about three hundred and fifty dollars for the year, a sum that would support an American station with seven men for only one month. In England, the above sum pays the crew for going off to any wrecks, for exercising their boat once every three months, and covers also the coxswain’s salary and any repairs. The life–boats are of different sizes—six, eight, ten and twelve–oared. Some of the crews go out but seldom. When it is rough thereabouts at the Goodwin Sands, the life–boat men must stand watch all the time. At Ramsgate, the service is so important that a steamer waits on the boat constantly, its fires banked up ready for any emergency. Different cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and others, have given life–boats to the Institution, and contribute every year to its funds.
“England’s work though for the shipwrecked takes in something else besides the work of the life–boats. There is the Rocket Service. The thirtieth of June, 1881, there were two hundred and eighty–eight rocket stations. The rocket apparatus consists of the rocket, the rocket line, the whip, the hawser, and sling life–buoy. The rocket has a line, a light one, fastened to it, which is shot over a wreck. Then the rest of the apparatus is used. We use the gun or mortar instead of the rocket. England’s rocket stations are under the control of the Board of Trade. The men of the coastguard manage the rockets. For every life saved, the Board of Trade pays a sum of money. It gives medals also to those who may have shown unusual courage. The wants of sailors and others who may be saved from shipwreck are now met by the ‘Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society.’ The work, then, that we do in our stations, in England seems to be spread out, and it is done by several bodies, and how much the whole may cost, I can’t say. Of course, it is not fair to compare the money expended in England with the amount we spend, until we know all the expenses there. I think, though, our system is better than England’s.
“There is a ‘French Society for Saving Life from Shipwreck.’ It was started in 1865, and not only along the coast of France, but in Algeria and other colonies, has this society carried on its work. In sixteen years, it saved two thousand and one hundred and twenty–nine lives. June 30th, 1881, it had sixty–two life–boat stations, and three hundred and ninety–one mortar or other projectile stations. It is modeled after the English system, but it prefers the gun to the rocket.