The Riverman
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Stewart Edward White >> The Riverman
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"Poor fellows!" cried Mina.
"What?" asked Carroll.
"Don't you see them?" queried the other.
Carroll looked, and in the rigging of the schooner she made out a
number of black objects.
"Are those men?--up the masts?" she cried.
She set Prince in motion toward the beach.
At the foot of the bluff the plank road ran out into the deep sand.
Through this the phaeton made its way heavily. The fine particles
were blown in the air like a spray, mingling with the spume from the
lake, stinging Carroll's face like so many needles. Already the
beach was strewn with pieces of wreckage, some of it cast high above
the wash, others still thrown up and sucked back by each wave,
others again rising and falling in the billows. This wreckage
constituted a miscellaneous jumble, although most of it was lumber
from the deck-loads of the vessels. Intermingled with the split and
broken yellow boards were bits of carving and of painted wood.
Carroll saw one piece half buried in the sand which bore in gilt two
huge letters, A R. A little farther, bent and twisted, projected
the ornamental spear which had pointed the way before the steamer's
bow. Portions of the usual miscellaneous freight cargo carried on
every voyage were scattered along the shore--boxes, barrels, and
crates. Five or six men had rolled a whisky barrel beyond the reach
of the water, had broached it, and now were drinking in turn from a
broken and dingy fragment of a beer-schooner. They were very dirty;
their hair had fallen over their eyes, which were bloodshot; the
expression of their faces was imbecile. As the phaeton passed, they
hailed its occupants in thick voices, shouting against the wind
maudlin invitations to drink.
The crowd gathered at the pier comprised fully half the population
of Monrovia. It centred about the life saving crew, whose mortar
was being loaded. A stove-in lifeboat mutely attested the failure
of other efforts. The men worked busily, ramming home the powder
sack, placing the projectile with the light line attached, attending
that the reel ran freely. Their chief watched the seas and winds
through his glasses. When the preparations were finished, he
adjusted the mortar, and pulled the string. Carroll had seen this
done in practice. Now, with the recollection of that experience in
mind, she was astonished at the feeble report of the piece, and its
freedom from the dense white clouds of smoke that should have
enveloped it. The wind snatched both noise and vapour away almost
as soon as they were born. The dart with its trailer of line rose
on a long graceful curve. The reel sang. Every member of the crowd
unconsciously leaned forward in attention. But the resistance of
the wind and the line early made itself felt. Slower and slower
hummed the reel. There came a time when the missile seemed to
hesitate, then fairly to stand in equilibrium. Finally, in an
increasingly abrupt curve, it descended into the sea. By a good
three hundred yards the shot had failed to carry the line over the
vessels.
"There's Mr. Bradford," said Carroll, waving her hand. "I wish he'd
come and tell us something about it."
The banjo-playing village Brummell saw the signal and came, his face
grave.
"Couldn't they get the lifeboats out to them?" asked Carroll as he
approached.
"You see that one," said Bradford, pointing. "Well, the other's in
kindling wood farther up the beach."
"Anybody drowned?" asked Mina quickly.
"No, we got 'em out. Mr. Cam's shoulder is broken." He glanced
down at himself comically, and the girls for the first time noticed
that beneath the heavy overcoat his garments were dripping.
"But surely they'll never get a line over with the mortar!" said
Carroll. "That last shot fell so far short!"
"They know it. They've shot a dozen times. Might as well do
something."
"I should think," said Mina, "that they'd shoot from the end of the
pier. They'd be ever so much nearer."
"Tried it," replied Bradford succintly. "Nearly lost the whole
business."
Nobody said anything for some time, but all looked helplessly to
where the vessels--from this elevation insignificant among the
tumbling waters--were pounding to pieces.
At this moment from the river a trail of black smoke became visible
over the point of sand-hill that ran down to the pier. A smokestack
darted into view, slowed down, and came to rest well inside the
river-channel. There it rose and fell regularly under the influence
of the swell that swung in from the lake. The crowd uttered a
cheer, and streamed in the direction of the smokestack.
"Come and see what's up," suggested Bradford.
He hitched Prince to a log sticking up at an angle from the sand,
and led the way to the pier.
There they had difficulty in getting close enough to see; but
Bradford, preceding the two women, succeeded by patience and
diplomacy in forcing a way. The SPRITE was lying close under the
pier, the top of her pilot-house just about level with the feet of
the people watching her. She rose and fell with the restless
waters. Fat rope-yarn bumpers interposed between her sides and the
piling. The pilot-house was empty, but Harvey, the negro engineer,
leaned, elbows crossed against the sill of his little square door,
smoking his pipe.
"I wouldn't go out there for a million dollars!" cried a man
excitedly to Carroll and Bradford. "Nothing on earth could live in
that sea! Nothing! I've run a tug myself in my time, and I know
what I'm talking about!"
"What are they going to do?" asked Carroll.
"Haven't you heard!" cried the other, turning to her. "Where you
been? This is one of Orde's tugs, and she's going to try to get a
line to them vessels. But I wouldn't--"
Bradford did not wait for him to finish. He turned abruptly, and
with an air of authority brushed toward the tug, followed closely by
Carroll and Mina. At the edge of the pier was the tug's captain,
Marsh, listening to earnest expostulation by a half-dozen of the
leading men of the town, among whom were both Newmark and Orde.
As the three came within earshot Captain Marsh spit forth the stump
of cigar he had been chewing.
"Gentlemen," said he crisply, "that isn't the question. I think I
can do it; and I'm entirely willing to take all personal risks. The
thing is hazardous and it's Mr. Orde's tug. It's for him to say
whether he wants to risk her."
"Good Lord, man, what's the tug in a case like this!" cried Orde,
who was standing near. Carroll looked at him proudly, but she did
not attempt to make her presence known.
"I thought so," replied Captain Marsh. "So it's settled. I'll take
her out, if I can get a crew. Harvey, step up here!"
The engineer slowly hoisted his long figure through the breast-high
doorway, dragged his legs under him, then with extraordinary agility
swung to the pier, his teeth shining like ivory in his black face.
"Yas, suh!" said he.
"Harvey," said Captain Marsh briskly, "we'reing back and up, shot with terrific
impact against the house and beyond. For an instant the little
craft seemed buried; but almost immediately the gleam of her black
hull showed her plunging forward dauntlessly.
"That's nothin'!" said the tug captain who had first spoken. "Wait
'til she gets outside!" The watchers streamed down from the pier
for a better view. Carroll and Miss Heinzman followed. They saw
the staunch little craft drive into three big seas, each of which
appeared to bury her completely, save for her upper works. She
managed, however, to keep her headway.
"She can stand that, all right," said one of the life-saving crew
who had been watching her critically. "The trouble will come when
she drops down to the vessels."
In spite of the heavy smashing of head-on seas the SPRITE held her
course straight out.
"Where's she going, anyway?" marvelled little Mr. Smith, the
stationer. "She's away beyond the wrecks already."
"Probably Marsh has found the seas heavier than he thought and is
afraid to turn her broadside," guessed his companion.
"Afraid, hell!" snorted a riverman who overheard.
Nevertheless the SPRITE was now so distant that the loom of the
great seas on the horizon swallowed her from view, save when she
rose on the crest of some mighty billow.
"Well, what is he doing 'way out there then?" challenged Mr. Smith's
friend with some asperity.
"Do'no," replied going to try to get a
line aboard those vessels out there. It's dangerous. You don't
have to go if you don't want to. Will you go?"
Harvey removed his cap and scratched his wool. The grin faded from
his good-natured countenance.
"You-all goin', suh?" he asked.
"Of course."
"I reckon I'll done haif to go, too," said Harvey simply. Without
further word he swung lightly back to the uneasy craft below him,
and began to toss the slabs from the deck into the hold.
"I want a man with me at the wheel, two to handle the lines, and one
to fire for Harvey," said Captain Marsh to the crowd in general.
"That's our job," announced the life-saving captain.
"Well, come on then. No use in delay," said Captain Marsh.
The four men from the life-saving service dropped aboard. The five
then went over the tug from stem to stern, tossing aside all
movables, and lashing tight all essentials. From the pilot-house
Captain Marsh distributed life preservers. Harvey declined his.
"Whaf-for I want dat?" he inquired. "Lots of good he gwine do me
down here!"
Then all hatches were battened down. Captain Marsh reached up to
shake the hand which Orde, stooping, offered him.
"I'll try to bring her back all right, sir," said he.
"To hell with the tug!" cried Orde, impatient at this insistence on
the mere property aspect. "Bring yourself back."
Captain Marsh deliberately lit another cigar and entered the pilot-
house with the other men.
"Cast off!" he cried; and the silent crowd heard clearly the single
sharp bell ringing for attention, and then the "jangler" that called
for full speed ahead. Awed, they watched the tiny sturdy craft move
out into the stream and point to the fury of the open lake.
"Brave chaps! Brave chaps!" said Dr. McMullen to Carroll as they
turned away. The physician drew his tall slender figure to its
height. "Brave chaps, every one of them. But, do you know, to my
mind, the bravest of them all are that nigger--and his fireman--
nailed down in the hold where they can't see nor know what's going
on, and if--if--" the good doctor blew his nose vigorously five or
six times--" well, it's just like a rat in a hole." He shook his
head vigorously and looked out to sea. "I read last evening, sir,"
said he to Bradford, "in a blasted fool medical journal I take, that
the race is degenerating. Good God!"
The tug had rounded the end of the pier. The first of her thousand
enemies, sweeping in from the open, had struck her fair. A great
sheet of white water, slantthe riverman, "but whatever it is, it's all right
as long as Buck Marsh is at the wheel."
"There, she's turned now," Mr. Smith interposed.
Beneath the trail of black smoke she had shifted direction. And
then with startling swiftness the SPRITE darted out of the horizon
into full view. For the first time the spectators realised the size
and weight of the seas. Not even the sullen pounding to pieces of
the vessels on the bar had so impressed them as the sight of the tug
coasting with railroad speed down the rush of a comber like a
child's toy-boat in the surf. One moment the whole of her deck was
visible as she was borne with the wave; the next her bow alone
showed high as the back suction caught her and dragged her from the
crest into the hollow. A sea rose behind. Nothing of the tug was
to be seen. It seemed that no power or skill could prevent her
feeling overwhelmed. Yet somehow always she staggered out of the
gulf until she caught the force of the billow and was again cast
forward like a chip.
Maybe they ain't catchin' p'ticular hell at that wheel to hold her
from yawing!" muttered the tug captain to his neighbour, who
happened to be Mr. Duncan, the minister.
Almost before Carroll had time to see that the little craft was
coming in, she had arrived at the outer line of breakers. Here the
combers, dragged by the bar underneath, crested, curled over, and
fell with a roar, just as in milder weather the surf breaks on the
beach. When the SPRITE rushed at this outer line of white-water, a
woman in the crowd screamed.
But at the edge of destruction the SPRITE came to a shuddering stop.
Her powerful propellers had been set to the reverse. They could not
hold her against the forward fling of the water, but what she lost
thus she regained on the seaward slopes of the waves and in their
hollows. Thus she hovered on the edge of the breakers, awaiting her
chance.
As long as the seas rolled in steadily, and nothing broke, she was
safe. But if one of the waves should happen to crest and break, as
many of them did, the weight of water catching the tug on her flat,
broad stern deck would indubitably bury her. The situation was
awful in its extreme simplicity. Would Captain Marsh see his
opportunity before the law of chances would bring along the wave
that would overwhelm him?
A realisation of the crisis came to the crowd on the beach. At once
the terrible strain of suspense tugged at their souls. Each
conducted himself according to his nature. The hardy men of the
river and the woods set their teeth until the cheek muscles turned
white, and blasphemed softly and steadily. Two or three of the
townsmen walked up and down the space of a dozen feet. One, the
woman who had screamed, prayed aloud in short hysterical sentences.
"O God! Save them, O Lord! O Lord!"
Orde stood on top of a half-buried log, his hat in his hand, his
entire being concentrated on the manoeuvre being executed. Only
Newmark apparently remained as calm as ever, leaning against an
upright timber, his arms folded, and an unlighted cigar as usual
between his lips.
Methodically every few moments he removed his eyeglasses and wiped
the lenses free of spray.
Suddenly, without warning, occurred one of those inexplicable lulls
that interpose often amid the wildest uproars. For the briefest
instant other sounds than the roar of the wind and surf were
permitted the multitude on the beach. They heard the grinding of
timbers from the stricken ships, and the draining away of waters.
And distinctly they heard the faint, far tinkle of the jangler
calling again for "full speed ahead."
Between two waves the SPRITE darted forward directly for the nearest
of the wrecks. Straight as an arrow's flight she held until from
the crowd went up a groan.
"She'll collide!" some one put it into words.
But at the latest moment the tug swerved, raced past, and turned on
a long diagonal across the end of the bar toward the piers.
Captain Marsh had chosen his moment with exactitude. To the utmost
he had taken advantage of the brief lull of jumbled seas after the
"three largest waves" had swept by. Yet in shallow water and with
the strong inshore set, even that lull was all too short. The
SPRITE was staggered by the buffets of the smaller breakers; her
speed was checked, her stern was dragged around. For an instant it
seemed that the back suction would hold her in its grip. She tore
herself from the grasp of the current. Enveloped in a blinding hail
of spray she struggled desperately to extricate herself from the
maelstrom in which she was involved before the resumption of the
larger seas should roll her over and over to destruction.
Already these larger seas were racing in from the open. To Carroll,
watching breathless and wide-eyed in that strange passive and
receptive state peculiar to imaginative natures, they seemed alive.
And the SPRITE, too, appeared to be, not a fabric and a mechanism
controlled by men, but a sentient creature struggling gallantly on
her own volition.
Far out in the lake against the tumbling horizon she saw heave up
for a second the shoulder of a mighty wave. And instinctively she
perceived this wave as a deadly enemy of the little tug, and saw it
bending all its great energies to hurrying in on time to catch the
victim before it could escape. To this wave she gave all her
attention, watching for it after it had sunk momentarily below its
fellows, recognising it instantly as it rose again. The spasms of
dismay and relief among the crowd about her she did not share at
all. The crises they indicated did not exist for her. Until the
wave came in, Carroll knew, the SPRITE, no matter how battered and
tossed, would be safe. Her whole being was concentrated in a
continually shifting calculation of the respective distances between
the tug and the piers, the tug and the relentlessly advancing wave.
"Oh, go!" she exhorted the SPRITE under her breath.
Then the crowd, too, caught with its slower perceptions the import
of the wave. Carroll felt the electric thrill of apprehension
shiver through it. Huge and towering, green and flecked with foam
the wave came on now calmly and deliberately as though sure. The
SPRITE was off the end of the pier when the wave lifted her, just in
the position her enemy would have selected to crush her life out
against the cribs. Slowly the tug rose against its shoulder, was
lifted onward, poised; and then with a swift forward thrust the wave
broke, smothering the pier and lighthouse beneath tons of water.
A low, agonised wail broke from the crowd. And then--and then--over
beyond the pier down which the wave, broken and spent but formidable
still, was ripping its way, they saw gliding a battered black stack
from which still poured defiantly clouds of gray smoke.
For ten seconds the spectators could not believe their eyes. They
had distinctly seen the SPRITE caught between a resistless wall of
water and the pier; where she should have been crushed like the
proverbial egg-shell. Yet there she was--or her ghost.
Then a great cheer rose up against the wind. The crowd went crazy.
Mere acquaintances hugged each other and danced around and around
through the heavy sands. Several women had hysterics. The riverman
next to Mr. Duncan opened his mouth and swore so picturesquely that,
as he afterward told his chum, "I must've been plumb inspired for
the occasion." Yet it never entered Mr. Duncan's ministerial headCAIRT--jess a
little ne'vous. All I
had to do was to feed her slabs and l
to reprove the blasphemy. Orde jumped down from his half-buried log
and clapped his hat on his head. Newmark did not alter his attitude
nor his expression.
The SPRITE was safe. For the few moments before she glided the
length of the long pier to stiller water this fact sufficed.
"I wonder if she got the line aboard," speculated the tug-boat
captain at last.
The crowd surged over to the piers again. Below them rose and fell
the SPRITE. All the fancy scroll-work of her upper works, the
cornice of her deck house, the light rigging of her cabin had
disappeared, leaving raw and splintered wood to mark their
attachments. The tall smokestack was bent awry, but its supports
had held, which was fortunate since otherwise the fires would have
been drowned out. At the moment, Captain Marsh was bending over
examining a bad break in the overhang--the only material damage the
tug had sustained.
At sight of him the crowd set up a yell. He paid no attention. One
of the life-saving men tossed a mooring line ashore. It was seized
by a dozen men. Then for the first time somebody noticed that
although the tug had come to a standstill, her screw was still
turning slowly over and over, holding her against the erratic strong
jerking of a slender rope that ran through her stern chocks and into
the water.
"He got it aboard!" yelled the man, pointing.
Another cheer broke out. The life-saving crew leaped to the deck.
They were immediately followed by a crowd of enthusiasts eager to
congratulate and question. But Captain Marsh would have none of
them.
"Get off my tug!" he shouted. "Do you want to swamp her? What do
you suppose we put that line aboard for? Fun? Get busy and use it!
Rescue that crew now!"
Abashed, the enthusiasts scrambled back. The life-saving crew took
charge. It was necessary to pass the line around the end of the
pier and back to the beach. This was a dangerous job, and one
requiring considerable power and ingenuity, for the strain on the
line imposed by the waters was terrific; and the breaking seas
rendered work on the piers extremely hazardous. However, the life-
saving captain took charge confidently enough. His crew began to
struggle out the pier, while volunteers, under his personal
direction, manipulated the reel.
A number of the curious lingered about the SPRITE. Marsh and Orde
were in consultation over the smashed stern, and did not look as
though they cared to be disturbed. Harvey leaned out his little
square door.
"Don' know nuffin 'bout it," said he, "'ceptin' she done rolled 'way
over 'bout foh times. Yass she did, suh! I know. I felt her doin'
it."
"No," he answered a query. "I wasn't what you-all would call
scairt, that is, not really Sisten foh my bell. You see,
Cap'n Ma'sh, he was in cha'ge."
"No, sir," Captain Marsh was saying emphatically to his employer.
"I can't figure it out except on one thing. You see it's stove from
UNDERNEATH. A sea would have smashed it from above."
"Perhaps you grounded in between seas out there," suggested Orde.
Marsh smiled grimly.
"I reckon I'd have known it," said he. "No, sir! It sounds wild,
but it's the only possible guess. That last sea must've lifted us
bodily right over the corner of the pier."
"Well--maybe," assented Orde doubtfully.
"Sure thing," repeated Marsh with conviction.
"Well, you'd better not tell 'em so unless you want to rank in with
Old Man Ananias," ended Orde. "It was a good job. Pretty dusty out
there, wasn't it?"
"Pretty dusty," grinned Marsh.
They turned away together and were at once pounced on by Leopold
Lincoln Bunn, the local reporter, a callow youth aflame with the
chance for a big story of more than local interest.
"Oh, Captain Marsh!" he cried. "How did you get around the pier?
It looked as though the wave had you caught."
Orde glanced at his companion in curiosity.
"On roller skates," replied Marsh.
Leopold tittered nervously.
"Could you tell me how you felt when you were out there in the worst
of it?" he inquired.
"Oh, hell!" said Marsh grumpily, stalking away.
"Don't interview for a cent, does he?" grinned Orde.
"Oh, Mr. Orde! Perhaps you--"
"Don't you think we'd better lend a hand below?" suggested Orde,
pointing to the beach.
The wild and picturesque work of rescue was under way. The line had
been successfully brought to the left of the lighthouse. To it had
been attached the rope, and to that the heavy cable. These the crew
of the schooner had dragged out and made fast to a mast. The shore
end passed over a tall scissors. When the cable was tightened the
breeches buoy was put into commission, and before long the first
member of the crew was hauled ashore, plunging in and out of the
waves as the rope tightened or slackened. He was a flaxen-haired
Norwegian, who stamped his feet, shook his body and grinned
comically at those about him. He accepted with equanimity a dozen
drinks of whisky thrust at him from all sides, swigged a mug of the
coffee a few practical women were making over an open fire, and
opposed to Leopold Lincoln Bunn's frantic efforts a stolid and
baffling density. Of none of these attentions did he seem to stand
in especial need.
The crew and its volunteers worked quickly. When the last man had
come ashore, the captain of the life-saving service entered the
breeches buoy and caused himself to be hauled through the smother to
the wreck. After an interval, a signal jerked back. The buoy was
pulled in empty and the surf car substituted. In it were piled
various utensils of equipment. One man went with it, and several
more on its next trip, until nearly the whole crew were aboard the
wreck.
Carroll and Mina stayed until dusk and after, watching the long
heavy labour of rescue. Lines had to be rocketed from the schooner
to the other vessels. Then by their means cable communication had
to be established with the shore. After this it was really a matter
of routine to run the crew to the beach, though cruel, hard work,
and dangerous. The wrecks were continually swept by the great seas;
and at any moment the tortured fabrics might give way, might
dissolve completely in the elements that so battered them. The
women making the hot coffee found their services becoming valuable.
Big fires of driftwood were ignited. They were useful for light as
well as warmth.
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