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Updated: June 8, 2025
Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe." "But has the Stiletto broken down?" I asked weakly. "How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she 'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended.
'Hold on, men, for your lives! sang out the coxswains, and on came the hollow green sea, so far above their heads that it seemed as they gazed into its terrible transparency that the very sky had become green, and it broke into the lifeboat, hoisting her up to the vessel's foreyard, and then plunging her bodily down and down.
Nothing but experience and the faculty of coming to a right decision in a moment, amidst the appalling grandeur and real danger which surrounded them, enabled the coxswains to anchor just in the right spot, having made the proper allowance for the set of the tide, the sea, and the wind.
The lifeboat was now on the port bow of the Mandalay, which lay fast on the Sands with her head to the S.W., and the coxswains laid out a kedge or small anchor, with warp attached, to the N.E., five of the lifeboatmen remaining in the lifeboat with Roberts, the coxswain, to direct the course of action on the Sands, while Hanger, the second coxswain, went on board with seven lifeboatmen to direct operations there, and to heave on the warp, in order to move the vessel.
Both crews had quickened their stroke until the boats had practically been converted into submarines, and the rival coxswains were observing bitterly to space that this was jolly well the last time they ever let themselves in for this sort of thing, when round the island there hove in sight a flotilla of boats, directly in the path of the racers.
Dodd had a monitory finger; it was on her left hand; she raised it; and that moment, as if she had given a signal, the boats, fore-shortened no longer, shot out to treble the length they had looked hitherto, and came broadside past our palpitating fair, the elastic rowers stretched like greyhounds in a chase, darting forward at each stroke so boldly they seemed flying out of the boats, and surging back as superbly, an eightfold human wave: their nostrils all open, the lips of some pale and glutinous their white teeth all clenched grimly, their young eyes all glowing, their supple bodies swelling, the muscles writhing beneath their jerseys, and the sinews starting on each bare brown arm; their little shrill coxswains shouting imperiously at the young giants, and working to and fro with them, like jockeys at a finish; nine souls and bodies flung whole into each magnificent effort; water foaming and flying, rowlocks ringing, crowd running, tumbling, and howling like mad; and Cambridge a boat's nose ahead.
As soon as the boats were in the water they were taken charge of temporarily by their respective coxswains the best four men in the ship who at once proceeded to supervise the shipping and mounting of the guns, each coxswain assuring himself, by personal inspection, that this important piece of work was properly executed.
"Ready pull!" he continued. The stroke was very slow, and each coxswain was obliged to keep his boat in line with the others, the flag boat regulating their speed. When the squadron had reached the upper part of the lake, the pennant was dropped, and up went a red flag. "Cease rowing!" said all the coxswains, except the Zephyr's. Then the red flag was lowered, and a blue one was hoisted.
This took time. Again in the fury of the storm the word was given 'Up anchor! and 'Run down closer to the wreck! and again the anchor was dropped to the best of the judgment of the coxswain. Fish and Cooper were first and second coxswains ten years before, and exactly ten years before to the day and hour the same brave men were in a similar desperate struggle at the wreck of the Indian Chief.
Christy had been given full powers to make all preparations for the boat expedition, and was allowed ten men to each of the quarter boats. He had selected the ones for his own boat, and had required Flint to pick his own crew for the other. The oars had been carefully muffled by the coxswains, for it was desirable that no alarm should be given in the place.
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