Beston Henry

“ The coast guard cannot enlist, use, and discharge its men in the free manner of the Army and the Navy. It takes years for a man to know his work and the conditions at his station. The endless tricks of the wind and tide, the behavior of the sea in various storms, the mysteries of the undertow, all these are learned only through long experience. Your good surfman is no casual recruit, here to-day and gone to-morrow, but a sensible, steady family man who has made a fine and honorable life-work of his service in the guard. ”

“ The service of patrol upon the Cape is genuinely heroic, and its fine traditions are rich in honor. Surely a great Nation will not allow a great national service to fall into the pit of evil days? “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” If cities and towns can pay firemen and policemen adequate salaries, the Nation ought to be able to pay such salaries to a handful of surfmen!
Through starlight or buffeting storm, the yellow lantern will shine to-night along the beach. The man who carries it is well worthy of aid. ”

“ In the depth of winter the steep bank becomes a glare of coated ice and sand and snow strangely intermixed. Sand covers snow till the new surface seems a secure part of the land, and then a new snow hides the deceit from view. It can be extraordinarily treacherous under foot. ”

“ For days, for weeks even, if the weather is miraculously good, the surfmen may accomplish their patrols without untoward incident, but any night the luck is liable to change and adventures begin. A young friend, walking the beach, head down to a bruising sleet, suddenly finds himself trapped between the ice cliff and the tide, and with the breakers sweeping to his encumbered shoulders, fights for his life there alone in the tremendous dark ”

“ The crew of the wreck were unable to help themselves in any way.
It was now nine o’clock and the sea had dropped enough to permit an attempt at the launching of the boat. The task was one of crudest difficulty, and it was only after several hard battles and a show of finest courage and boating skill that the coast guards’ vessel was tugged to the Castagna’s pouring side. Two of the crew of thirteen had perished overside, two were dead in the rigging, their faces and bodies glassing over in strange mummy shrouds of ice, a third lay dying in the racing waters of the deck. ”

“ When there is a wreck in the surf and the lifeboat must be used, the first thing to do is to watch for a favorable opportunity and a favorable spot. The big waves break upon the beach in threes. This is not a superstition but a fact. When the third giant wave has thundered ashore and there is a small sea as far out as possible, then watch for the good moment and seize it when it comes. The three elements of success, once you have left the beach and are in the surf, are headway, speed, and strength. It is tremendously important to have powerful, skillful men in the bow. ”

“ There are strange regions in the world where a brooding melancholy dwells, regions where much that is tragic in the lives of men seems linked with a tragic something in the world. The ancient Roman towns of the Adriatic, now far from the shrunken sea, and slowly sinking into marshes that once were ports, are haunted thus, but in our own new land, this sense of ruin in a ruined world is all unknown. ”

“ The difficulty lies in holding the boat bow on to the breakers, the undertow and the sweep of the surf tend to make the boat broach too, and if this happens over she goes. Sometimes just as a big wave looks as if it were about to crash down into the boat, headway and strength will save the day. Landing? Oh, there’s the hard part of it; landing a lifeboat is much more difficult than launching it. The thing to try to do is land as naturally as possible. If you let the sea run away with you, there’ll be a spill. ”

“ I do not aim at being melodramatic when I say that the sight of the violence of the surf in a big storm is one which takes the heart out of a stranger. Moreover, a surfman should be one who has grown up with boats, and has a kind of instinct for their ways. ”

“ To begin with, the coast guard service of Cape Cod is not one for which any casual good lad will do. If you want a real surfman, you must begin with a man who is used to seeing surf, and knows what to expect in the morning when a northeaster has been howling through the night. ”

“ There are many men who would like to go into the guard if they could do so and take care of their families. But how can a married man expect to bring up a little family according to American standards on a salary averaging between seventy and eighty dollars a month? Moreover, the service is hard on clothing, while the allowances for uniforms and warm apparel are scant.
Your steady man will not enlist because he cannot enlist. You cannot get the right man for the wrong amount of money. The surfmen have a subsistence allowance, it is true, but food is dear these days. ”

“ The stations on the Cape stand on an average some six miles apart, and house a crew of eight men together with the life boat and life line cannon used in case of a wreck. The men upon patrol, however, do not walk from station to station, but to a halfway house built in some more or less sheltered nook upon the bank. A man going south from the Highland station for example, leaves a kind of brass ticket to be collected at his southern halfway house by a man coming north from Pamet River; a man going north from the Highland exchanges tokens with a man coming south from Peaked Hill. ”

“ At all the great stations you will find the old-timers trying to make the best of it in the most gallant way. Most of them have families, and it is a hard, hard fight. And little by little, the old-timers drop out, the casual substitute comes, and the roustabout youngster. ”

“ It is the task of the surfmen to warn vessels standing into danger, to rescue them and their crews from positions of peril, to furnish fuel and food and water to ships in distress, and even, should occasion arise, to navigate a ship into the nearest port. ”

“ The guards of whom I have written are of this type; they are men who have been in the guard for years, and are standing by it because they are full of grit and courage.
The men whom the service needs are to be had. ”