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Stevens asked, as the inspection was completed. "Not very. It's been quite a climb, but I've had a wonderful time." "So have I," he declared, positively. "I know what we'll crawl up into one of these stern lifeboats and make us a cup of coffee before we climb back. With me?" "'Way ahead of you!"
"Kate!" they cried in the same breath, and rushed for the main cabin. The decks were already thick with half-dressed sailors. Here and there lanterns gleamed, and what they showed was the three lifeboats of the Heron two on one side of the cabin and one on the other blown into matchwood. Only shapeless fragments and bundles of kindling wood dangled from the davits.
He said that he did it for the sake of the women and children on board; as the sea was rough, their lives would have been in danger if they had been put in the lifeboats when the ship was bombed. He was confined to his cabin for the rest of the voyage, but we managed to see and talk to him from time to time, and thanked him for his bravery.
I have known him only as a good old man; and in regard to these same notions he has about lifeboats, it's my firm belief that we'll see his plans, or something like them, carried out before long. He's not so mad as folk think, and certainly not half so mad as the people who give no thought whatever to these subjects."
Two lifeboats are maintained here, manned by a dauntless crew; but it is very rarely that they can be of any use; the area to be covered is far too large. The story of the wrecks has been admirably told in the Homeland Handbook to the Scillies, a little work that also contains much excellent detail about their natural history.
The lifeboats were emptied of their passengers, and once more there was a feeling of comparative safety as the passengers again thronged the decks. On came the destroyer. She proved to be one of Uncle Sam's boats, and the joy with which she was greeted was vociferous and perhaps a little hysterical.
They knew that water was coming into the hold; they knew that there were but four lifeboats and seven hundred men and women; they knew that the Doraine was going down in a very few hours; they knew that the Captain had given up all hope of rescue. Nothing could "turn up" now but death. Madame Obosky had taken a great fancy to Algernon Adonis Percival, and for a most peculiar reason.
If a lifeboat, therefore, saves a ship worth 1000 pounds from destruction, it literally presents that sum as a free gift to the nation. We say a free gift, because the lifeboats are supported for the purpose of saving life, not property. A few remarks on the value of loaded ships will throw additional light on this subject, and make more apparent the value of the Lifeboat Institution.
Sometimes it would mean that only those boats on the side sheltered from a heavy sea could ever get away, and this would at once halve the boat accommodation. And when launched, there would be the danger of swamping in such a heavy sea. All things considered, lifeboats might be the poorest sort of safeguard in certain conditions.
Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass binoculars. "Call all hands," he said quietly. "That's a big ship ahead of us, and she'll carry a lot of people. God send she's only an old tramp. At those lifeboats there!" he shouted. "Swing the davits outboard, and pass your painters forward. Hump yourselves, now."
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