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Updated: August 8, 2024
"I loved ye! You knowed it, boy. I hoped to tell ye so out loud so everybody could hear. Now they'll never know." Straightening himself up, he walked firmly to the open door about which the people pressed, held back by the line of surfmen headed by Polhemus, and calmly surveyed the crowd. Close to the opening, trying to press her way in to Jane, his eyes fell on Lucy.
A strict investigation was made, and it was proved by the testimony of the people in Provincetown that all the apparatus was in perfect order and the keepers and surfmen exerted themselves heroically in aid of the doomed vessel, but that she was stranded so far from shore that it was simply impossible to reach her.
I saw their faces as they passed under the Heman Street lamp, James Burke, Fred Burke, Sandy Snow, half a dozen other surfmen home for the Summer from the Point station, and Captain Cook himself hanging on to Sandy's shoulder as he struggled to get his Sunday blacks wriggled into his old, brown oil-cloths.
"What can it be?" Louise cried. "The lifesavers!" "And their gear lifeboat and all," Mr. Tapp agreed. "Must be a wreck " His gaze swept the sea and he seized Louise's arm. "There! Don't you see her? A vessel in distress sure enough. She's drifting in upon Gull Rocks. Bad business, Miss Grayling." "Oh, there is Lawford!" murmured Louise. "He's with the surfmen!"
Only the night before she and her uncle had figured out the Curlew's course homeward-bound from her last port of call. She might pass in sight of Cardhaven Head and the lighthouse any day now. The thought sobered Louise. Clinging to I. Tapp's arm she went nearer to the spot where the surfmen had brought their gear and boat.
Everything that would help to save life under any condition is provided, and a number of appliances are duplicated in case one or more should be lost or damaged at a critical time. Signal flags are supplied, and the surfmen are taught their use as a means of communicating with people aboard a vessel in distress.
"Things have to be shipshape when the lives of a crew may depend on a missing match or wet powder. The houses," he added as we came out of the door and he stopped to close it, "are built every three miles along the beach. From November 15 until April 15 the keeper and six surfmen live in this house, and take watches, patrolling the beach night and day, meeting halfway between the stations.
To load the surf-boat with the wrecked, half-frozen crew of the stranded vessel, when there was none too much room for the oarsmen, and then encounter the fearful surf, was a method to be pursued only in case of dire need. To reach the wreck from shore was a much safer and surer method of saving life, not only for those on the vessel, but also for the surfmen.
All along the coast, from Maine to Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, and the Pacific, these men patrol the beach as a policeman walks his beat. When the winds blow hardest and sleet adds cutting force to the gale, then the surfmen, whose business it is to save life regardless of their own comfort or safety, are most alert.
Another ringing order now rose above the roar of the waters, and a chain of rescuing surfmen the last resort with Captain Nat at the head dashed into the turmoil. It was a hand-to-hand fight now with death. At the first onslaught of the battery of wreckage Polhemus was knocked breathless by a blow in the stomach and rescued by the bystanders just as a log was curling over him.
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