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A stone in the First Church graveyard is all the visible reminder there remains of Cap'n Amazon Silt, who for one summer amazed the frequenters of the store on the Shell Road. The life-savers brought Cap'n Abe, the storekeeper, back from the wreck, the last survivor of the Curlew's crew. He was in rather bad shape, for his night's experience on the wreck had been serious indeed.
It was only the lumber that was holding the aged hull together. As it was, sections of the sides had ripped out and planks and pieces of deal issuing from the gashes littered the waters. Three times had the life-savers launched their boats, and three times they had been cast on the beach like logs, while thrice had the lines from their mortars fallen short. "Go on back; we'll take care of her."
The boat stops opposite a red velvet tent, and an invisible orchestra strikes up an air from Le Chalet, "Arretons-nous ici." I smile at this quite French childishness. I get off and walk through the midst of a hedge of smiling, kind faces of sailors, who offer me flowers. Within the tent all the life-savers are waiting for me, wearing on their broad chests the medals they have so well deserved.
But it was a voyage of unpleasant war reminders, with life-savers carried every moment of the day, with every light out at night, with every window and door as if hermetically sealed so that the stuffy cabins deprived of sleep those accustomed to fresh air, with over sixty army men and civilians on watch at night, with life-drills each day, with lessons as to behavior in life-boats; and with a fleet of eighteen British destroyers meeting the convoy upon its approach to the Irish Coast after a thirteen days' voyage of constant anxiety.
"As I shoved off in the dory again he turned loose a distress signal. "'Where you goin'? he yells. 'Say, pard, you ain't goin' to leave me here, are you? "'I'll be back in a shake, says I, layin' to my oars. 'Don't holler so! You'll have the life-savers down here, and then the joke'll be on us. Hush, can't you? I'll be right back!
The poster pictured a bark ashore, on her beam ends, in a sea like those off the Horn. On the beach was a whole parcel of life-savers firin' off rockets and blue lights. Keepin' the Fourth of July, I judged they was, for I couldn't see any other reason.
It was Uncle Sam's farthest outpost. The Stars and Stripes floating from its flagstaff told of his watchful care of this perilous stretch of shore that his sturdy sons paced by day and night, alert to any cry for help, any sign of danger. Father Tom, whose own life work lay in some such lines, met the Life-Savers with a warm, cordial sympathy that made his visit a most pleasant one.
Phillips placed herself between the two victims on the back one; the life-savers, who had kept the discarded garments to dry, gave them all a few smiles and hand wavings; the two young women and their two young men looked on with some deference; the general crowd gave a little mock-cheer before turning its Sunday leisure to other forms of interest; and the small party whirled away.
By reason of the added weight the rope was sagging badly, and the men clinging to the buoy could be seen half in and half out of the water. "Lively, men, or they'll drown!" yelled the captain. Hardy and intrepid as were the life-savers and the volunteers who had assembled to help them, they paused a moment now.
A bad night off shore, when freight-laden craft, deceived by beacon lights, are beached upon the treacherous sand or dashed against jagged rocks. The life-savers, with rocket, and gun and line, and breeches-buoys, try in vain, and, as a last resort, grasp the oars of the life-boat and bring to safety one or two of a crew of ten.
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