The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Part 32

"And, what's more," continued the young engineer, "they're going to give the new town the name of 'Perry,' in honor of our skipper, as the department said, for 'recognition of his heroic services at the time of the eruption.'"

As soon as arrangements for the wintering of the homeless natives had been completed, the _Bear_ returned to Unalaska and thence made one more trip to Nome on business connected with the Federal Courts at that place. Then, as winter was closing in, the Coast Guard cutter stood out to sea up toward the Bering Straits, to await the outcoming of the several vessels in the whaling fleet, and make sure of the safety of every American sailor in the Arctic. The last of the whalers cleared the straits on October 29, and on the following day the _Bear_ started on her southerly course, leaving the Arctic to its annual eight months of unvisited silence.

Eric had wondered a good deal what a.s.signment or appointment he would get for the winter. Great was his delight to find that both he and his chum had been a.s.signed to the _Miami_, and were to report for duty on December tenth. The extra couple of days allowed him on the journey across the continent gave the boy a chance to visit his relatives in San Francisco, and he also managed it so that he took a short run up to Detroit to see his family and to have a chat with his old friend, the puzzle-maker.

He found the _Miami_ to be a beauty. Unlike the Bear, which depended as much on sails as on steam, the _Miami_ was well-engined. Almost the first thing that struck Eric when he came to go over her arrangements was her unusually large coal and water capacity.

"No wonder she can stay out for months at a time on ice patrol, or chasing up a derelict," said Eric; "she's got coal enough for a trip around the world!"

"Wouldn't mind if she was going to," said Homer, with a grin.

Eric shook his head.

"Not for mine," he answered; "I've a notion there's enough going on right around here. Anyhow, the Gulf of Mexico will feel good after a norther like this," and he s.h.i.+vered in his uniform, for the wind was nipping.

"How would it feel to be somewhere around Point Barrow now?" his friend suggested.

"It might be all right if a fellow were used to it, and dressed for it.

At that, I don't believe I'd want to put in a whole winter up in that country. It isn't so much the actual cold I'd hate as it would be having to stay indoors half the time because it was too cold to go outside." He sniffed the salt air. "Guess my folks have been sea-dogs too many hundred years for me to cotton to anything that means indoors."

"Me, too," said his chum. "From what I know about the _Miami_, what's more, I don't believe we're going to spend too much time ash.o.r.e. When are we sailing, have you heard?"

"Day after to-morrow, I believe," Eric replied. "We're going right down to our southern station."

"The Gulf?"

"Yes, and Florida waters as far north as Fernandina," was the answer.

"The sooner the quicker, so far as I'm concerned," said the other, as they strolled below.

Two days later the _Miami_ was steaming down Chesapeake Bay. The weather was ugly and there was a little cross-current that kept the cutter dancing. Eric had his sea legs, after his summer on the _Bear_, but he was surprised to find how different was the motion of a steamer and a sailing s.h.i.+p. The other junior lieutenant, whom he had already come to like rather well, laughed as Eric stumbled at a particularly vicious roll.

"This isn't anything," he said. "Wait until we strike the edge of the Gulf Stream. Then she's apt to kick up her heels a bit. And you ought to see the _Yamacraw_! She's got any of these modern dances pushed off the map!"

"I don't mind it," Eric answered, "only it's a different kind of roll.

I'm just off the _Bear_. She rolls enough, but it's a longer sort of roll, not short jerks like this."

"Of course," said the other, nodding; "bound to be. A s.h.i.+p under sail is more or less heeled over and she's kept steady by the pressure of the wind on the sail. The long roll you're talking about isn't the sea, but the gustiness of the wind. That's what makes the long roll."

"At that," said Eric, "it seems to me that the _Miami's_ pretty lively now for all the sea there is."

"There's more sea than you'd reckon," was the reply. "Chesapeake Bay can kick up some pretty didoes when in the mood. You'd never believe how suddenly a storm can strike, nor how much trouble it can make. You see that skeleton lighthouse over there?"

"Yes," said the boy. "Smith's Point, isn't it? I remember learning all these lights by heart," and he rattled off a string of names, being the lights down Chesapeake Bay.

"I see you haven't forgotten the Academy yet," said the other. "Yes, that's Smith's Point Tower. And while it's not a particularly imposing looking sort of building, it's a very important light. It was when they came to build that light, they found out what Chesapeake Bay can be like. Aside from some of the really big lighthouses like Minot's Ledge, Smith's Point gave as much trouble to build as any lighthouse on the United States coast."

"Why?"

"Bad weather and natural difficulties," said the other. "My father was the designer, and because Mother was dead, Father and I used to be together all the time. I was a small shaver of twelve years of age at the time so I was right in the thick of it."

"Tell the yarn," pleaded Eric.

The lieutenant smiled at the boy's eagerness, but filled his pipe and began.

"Right opposite Smith's Point," he said, "on the Virginia sh.o.r.e, the tides and currents at the mouth of the Potomac River and at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay have built out a shoal which, if you remember your chart, you will recall juts out in the bay over nine miles from the land. The same tides had scoured Smith's Island on the other hand--port side going out of the bay, but there are some nasty rocks in the channel. It's a tricky spot, that Smith's Point Shoal, and many a good vessel has gone to pieces on it.

"It was the wreck of the barque _Mary Louise_ that drew public attention to Smith's Point. She struck the shoal and went down with all hands.

Less than two hours after she sank, a steamer came along and hit the wreckage. The steamer was so badly injured that it was only by a good deal of luck and clever handling that her captain succeeded in beaching her and saving all the pa.s.sengers. The Lighthouse Board had made several recommendations for the erection of a lighthouse at that point, and when public attention had been focussed to this danger by the disaster, it was easy enough to get the appropriation through Congress. So the money was set aside and Father was given the contract of designing and erecting the lighthouse.

"By the end of the next month a huge unwieldly foundation caisson was on the ways at a s.h.i.+pyard in Baltimore. I was just a kid at the time, but the queer shape of this interested me right from the start. It was like a bottomless box, thirty-two feet square on the inside and twelve feet high. It was so thick that a tall man could lie down crosswise on one of the walls and stretch out his arms to the full, and then there would be several inches beyond the tips of his fingers and the ends of his feet."

"My word," said Eric, "it must have had some timber in it!"

"It had a lot of weight to support," said the other. "After a while, it was launched--I was there--and dropped into the bay near Sparrow's Point. On it were built the first two courses of the iron cylinder which was to be the lower part of the lighthouse. Although that wooden caisson weighed over a hundred tons, so heavy and solid was the cylinder that it sank the wooden structure out of sight."

"How big was the cylinder?" queried the boy.

"It was thirty feet in diameter and each of the courses was six feet high. That's twelve feet for the two courses. Inside the big cylinder was a second smaller one, like an air-shaft, five feet in diameter. A pump was rigged on the edge of the cylinder for the journey down the bay, in case any water should splash over the sides from the wake of the tug.

"When the springtime came and there was a reasonable prospect of fair weather, quite a fleet set out for Baltimore with Father and me in the leading tug. I felt as proud of myself as if I'd been an admiral! I wasn't quite sure," he added, laughing, "whether Father was the boss of the job or whether I was, myself.

"We had a large ocean-going tug towing the caisson, but we went ahead at very slow speed. Besides the big tug there were two tugs towing seven barges with the iron work, with building materials, stone, cement, and all that sort of thing. It made quite a gallant show.

"I want to tell you right now, we missed our guess when we supposed that Chesapeake Bay was being coddled by any of the softening influences of the gentle springtime! It was only lying low! It took us three days to get to the site of the lighthouse, which was marked by a buoy. We reached there on a quiet and peaceful evening, the sort that landlubber poets write about. A little after sundown it began to breeze up, and by four bells of the first watch, there was a stiffish wind, which at midnight began to climb into half a gale.

"Then the sea began to rise. It only takes a capful of wind to make things nasty on the bay, and that iron cylinder began to toss like a cork. We'd left four men aboard the cylinder and by half an hour after midnight they were pumping for their lives. There was a big searchlight on the tug and Father came tumbling up from below and ordered the searchlight turned on to the cylinder.

"I tell you, that was a sight. There was nothing to be seen in the smother but the great black iron rim rolling savagely, the white water spouting about it, and, as it heaved above the waves, the searchlight showed its black sides with the water streaming down. There, cl.u.s.tered at the pumps, were the four men, working like a bunch of madmen and shouting for help as the cylinder rose above the water, strangling and clinging to the pump-handles like grim death as she went under. It was for their lives that they were working, for if ever half a dozen tons of water should slop over the side of the black monster, it would sink straight to the bottom, and so great would be the suction that there was not the slightest chance that any of them would ever come up alive.

"That was one time I saw Father in action. He yelled for the lifeboat and got volunteers. Out of the blank confusion he brought order, and in less than two minutes the lifeboat was over the side with twelve men aboard, Father one of them. The little boat rose on the waves like a feather and the third wave dashed it against the rim of the cylinder. As the frail craft crushed like an eggsh.e.l.l, every man leaped for the edge, hanging on to the sharp iron edge like grim death.

"Down came the cylinder again and as she careened, every man clambered on. The added weight made her top-heavy and she began to s.h.i.+p water badly. Four of the fresh men were put at the pumps to relieve the others who were exhausted by their efforts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE IRON RIM ROLLING SAVAGELY."

The cylinder of the Smith's Point Lighthouse caught in a storm while being towed down Chesapeake Bay.

Courtesy of McClure's Magazine.]

"Father had climbed on the cylinder, with a rope slung over his shoulders. He called to the men to haul in. At the end of it was a large piece of canvas, an old sail. With nothing to which they could hold on, with the waves das.h.i.+ng high and that great iron drum reeling drunkenly on the sea, those men lay flat on their stomachs and spread that sail over the top of the cylinder. More than once it seemed as though wind and sea would get under that sail and with one vast heave, pitch every man into the sea, but they held on. One of the men, an old time sh.e.l.lback, bent that sail on to the cylinder so snugly and cleverly that almost two-thirds of the surface was protected. With teeth as well as hands the men held on, and lashed the canvas into place.

"Every second they expected to feel the cylinder founder beneath their feet, for though the pumps were going steadily and furiously, more water was being s.h.i.+pped than could be taken out. Once the sail was lashed fast, however, the cylinder shed most of the wash and the pumps, now working at top speed with eight men at the handles, began to gain. Water still scuttled down the iron sides, and as the sea was rising, she put her whole side under for the fraction of a second, twice. I was watching it all from the steamer, our searchlight playing full on the ungainly craft.

"Presently, so perilous did the situation grow and so rough the sea, that the captain of the steamer signaled to one of the smaller tugs to take up her anchor and stand by to pick up survivors should the cylinder founder. He broke away his anchor himself and the big ocean-going tug steamed to windward of the cylinder, letting down a heavy coat of oil on the sea. It worked like a charm. The smoothening effect of the oil was just sufficient to enable the men to work on the cylinder with a slight, a very slight, margin of safety.