CHAPTER XIX.
A WILD STORM.
At a life saving station, there are various drills in which the surfmen are exercised. There is the beach apparatus drill. “Open boat–room doors! Man the beach wagon!” shouts the keeper. Every man knows his place, the doors are opened, and the cart is rushed out. “Forward!” cries the keeper, and each man knows just where to station himself and pull. Then come the other orders. “Halt! Action!” A pole representing a wreck, the men proceed as if attempting a rescue, sending a line to the wreck. Then come other orders. “Man weather whip! Haul out! Man lee whip!”
“Haul ashore!” and the buoy for conveying the crew supposed to be wrecked, travels backward and forward as often as desired. Then there is the boat practice, and the boat must be launched through the surf, and the men drilled in the management of the oars. The crew must also practice with signals. Stations may be near enough to communicate with one another, and this is done in the day time with flags and in the night with star rockets and Coston lights. An example would be the showing of a red flag by day and the burning of a red Coston light and firing of a red rocket by night. It is the danger signal, and means that a wreck has been seen, or a vessel is discovered to be in need of help. By means of the box of flags that every station keeps under its roof, the crew can talk with any vessel off shore and needing assistance. The crew must also be practiced in methods of restoring the apparently drowned. It was one dreary, rainy day that Keeper Barney was drilling the crew in these last methods. Cook Charlie had offered himself as a subject on whom the crew might practice. The keeper commenced a list of questions, asking: “What first is to be done to the patient?” Cook Charlie stretched upon the floor submitted patiently to the pressing and pounding and other parts of the process of resuscitation.
It was not a practice that on a dreary winter day when the sea was wrathfully roaring, could be classified as pleasantly suggestive.
While they were resuscitating Cook Charlie, Walter glanced occasionally out of the window. The sea rapidly roughened, and huge waves were launching on the sands broken and angry masses of surf. A ragged curtain of fog was drawn across the rim of the sea, but it was only ragged near the shore. Farther out, its denseness was without a seam. The day ended with many jokes about Cook Charlie, the resuscitated mariner, but mingled with the laughter were dismal cries of the storm. The rain could be heard splashing against the window panes, and occasionally the whole window shook as if a violent hand had been laid upon it. All the while, there was the wrathful thunder of the sea as if over some invisible bridge just above the station, the heavy squadrons of the storm were gloomily marching. Still, around the old cook stove whose fire burnt jollily, echoed the laughter of the surfmen as they cracked their jokes and told humorous stories of the sea. So the evening wore away. The storm yet raged. As the different patrolmen arrived, they came with dripping hats, with faces wet by the storm, with clothes that hung stiffly about them.
“It’s a howlin’ night,” reported Tom Walker, slamming his lantern on the table.