United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then, as she sat upon a bench, recovering her strength, he flipped on the lifeboat's visiphone projector and shot its invisible beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored figures furiously busy at the panels. "Dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazed to his captain, man to man formality disregarded, as it so often was in the Triplanetary service.
They dared not get in their cable and heave their anchor on board, lest they should be carried back and dashed against the wreck, the danger of which, a glance at the sketch will show. So they got a spring on the cable, to cant the lifeboat's head to starboard or landsward, and with a parting 'Hurrah! they slipped their cable, of course thus sacrificing it and their anchor.
Her boats were gone; a davit stuck up at the end of the poop crumpled like a ram's horn; and by the taffrail her worn and sodden crew clustered and cheered the Burdock. The Captain rang off his engines and rang again to stand by in the engine-room. The mate came up the ladder to him while his hand was yet at the telegraph. "Lifeboat's all clear for lowering, sir," he said.
Bax hauled on the rope and raised him half out of the water for a few seconds; the boat made a wild sheer towards them, and the missionary uttered a cry of agony as he fancied his child was about to be run down, perhaps killed, before his eyes; but the cry was transformed into a shout of joy and thanksgiving when he saw one of the lifeboat's crew seize Guy by the hair, and another catch his daughter by a portion of her dress.
At this critical moment Hanger, seeing the lifeboat's safety was endangered, and regarding it as a question of saving not only his comrades' lives but the lives of all, most reluctantly gave orders to cut the steel hawser of the tug, which was made fast on board the vessel.
Then Eri reached out, and, seizing his friend by the belt round his waist, pulled him from his hold. Davis fell into the bottom of the dory, only half conscious and entirely helpless. Captain Eri lifted him so that his head and shoulders rested on a thwart, and then, setting his oar against the lifeboat's side, pushed the dory clear. Then he began rowing again.
The lifeboat's head was, therefore, pointed at the stern of the wreck, which was leaning over hard to starboard, and the lifeboatmen shouted to the crew, some in the rigging and some clutching the weather toprail, to 'come on and take our line. But there was no response; only in the darkness they could see the men in distress slowly working their way towards the stern of the wreck.
It sounded cheerfully, and from the voices on board the tug and in the lifeboat and galley towing astern our Commandant gathered that the danger was over. Again Sergeant Treacher hailed and flung a rope; this time the lifeboat's crew caught it and made fast. "Reub Hicks is aboard," said a voice, naming one of the St. Ann's pilots.
Every horror in the world has its fitting ritual. For the fifth time and four times in just such weather I heard the screw stop; saw our wake curve like a whiplash as the great township wrenched herself round; the lifeboat's crew hurry to the boat-deck; the bare-headed officer race up the shrouds and look for any sign of the poor head that had valued itself so lightly.
It is always backed into the surf so deep that the boat may be launched from it, with her crew seated, and the oars out, ready to pull with might and main the instant the plunge is made. These first strokes of a lifeboat's crew are of immense importance. Want of union or energy on the part of steersman or crew at this critical point may be fatal.
Word Of The Day