Francis Rolt-Wheeler

“ You are an expert swimmer, are you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"You are sure of yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, Mr. Swift," the officer answered, looking over him keenly, "You may go."
With a quick pulse in his ears throbbing in excitement and elation, the boy slipped out of his cadet uniform and tied the life-line round him. A swirl of eager oars brought the boat again beneath the stern of the burning steamer. Eric plunged into the sea, the thought flashing through his mind as he did so that he wished he could make a spectacular dive like those he used to envy in the Eel. ”

“ The boy felt an overwhelming admiration of a man who could dare to take a ship over the worst piece of coast in all the broad Atlantic, in a driving hurricane, with never a landmark or a light to guide him, and hold his nerve cool and self-assured. The captain was on the bridge, but Eric noted that he never spoke to the first lieutenant. This, the boy thought, told even more the spirit of the Coast Guard. Each man had faith in the knowledge and skill of the other. ”

“ Under the slope of the mountainous shores the swirling spume of gray-yellow dust was so dense and yet so light in weight that the men struggled in ashes to their waists, and it was hard to tell where earth ended and air began. It was as though the earth had no surface. Unconsciously Eric found himself using the motions of swimming, in order to cleave his way through the semi-solid dust. ”

“ The decks of the cutter seemed to bristle with men, as when Jason sowed the dragon's teeth. Eric, though quick and keen, had all he could do to fulfil the part of the work that was given him and set the crew at the lines of the breeches-buoy. Every man was on deck and every man was working with frantic haste. ”

“ A ship 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?" ”

“ The sea was far too rough for the lowering of a boat, no matter how well handled. The gale was such that it was unsafe for the Miami to anchor. In the case of the Northwestern, anchoring had been her last resort. There was fully twenty fathom of water, and fortunately the steamer's anchors held. The captain had put ninety fathom of chain on each anchor, and though the weight pulled her nose into the water, so that she snubbed into the sea like a ram trying to butt down a wall, still everything held. The Miami stood by all night, keeping close to the imperilled vessel. ”

“ In spite of the fact that the boy had seen dozens of half-drowned persons brought back to consciousness, the process never lost to him its half-terrible fascination. He always felt the lurking danger and he had been well-trained never to forget how much hung in the balance. Always it was a human life, flickering like a candle-flame in a gusty wind. ”

“ Little by little, however, the Miami began to close up. The breeze freshened, increasing the chances of the fugitive, but still the cutter lessened the distance between them.
Immediately after dinner, a few minutes before eight bells struck in the second dog watch, the first lieutenant, at the captain's direction, gave orders to clear away the bow gun. The gun crew sprang to stations, and a moment later the sharp crack of a rapid fire six-pounder sounded across the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, an order from Uncle Sam for the fleeing bark to stop. ”

“ It was a night calculated to shake the nerve of a youngster who knew that this deadly menace to the life of every one on board might be suddenly lurking in the trough of any one of the waves, that came shouldering their vengeful resentment against the sturdy little vessel that defied them. They had nourished their grudge against Man, the violator of their ancient domain, over a thou [277] sand leagues of sea, for the Miami was a hundred miles to the eastward of the Lookout Shoal, though westward of the limit of the Gulf Stream. ”

“ The keeper looked at her sharply. He was a man of judgment and accustomed to read faces. Without another word, and in the tone he would have used in speaking to another man he said,
"Get right out there and hold the man's head above water as he comes in. Jefferson and you, Eric, will break the way for the buoy."
And so it was, that with a light-keeper's daughter, a girl seventeen years old, as the seventh in the crew, the life-savers of Point Au Sable saved from the City of Nipigon every soul on board. ”

“ Eric flashed a grateful glance at the doctor.
"If I might?"
"Go ahead!"
"Mr. Willett," said the boy, coming close to the stretcher. "Mr. Willett!"
"Well?" said the rescued man, waking out of a remorse-haunted dream.
"Jake has been saved. He's all right."
In spite of his exhaustion and his sudden awakening from sleep, the first man who had been rescued sat up on the stretcher and craned his head forward to see his friend. In spite of the sufferer's bruised and swollen appearance, it was evident to the most inexperienced eye that life was not extinct. ”

“ The captain of the steamer had just thrust one leg through the breeches-buoy and the Miami's men, with a cheer, had started to haul him inboard, when that gust struck the wrecked vessel. It keeled her over, snapping the line of the breeches-buoy like a whip, and the captain of the steamer was jerked out into the sea.
Absolutely without thinking of what he did, reverting for the instant back to the old volunteer [345] life-saving work, when every man went on his own initiative, Eric tore off coat, trousers, and shoes, snatched a life-belt, and plunged into the boiling breakers. ”

“ The United States Government naturally turned to the Coast Guard—then known as the Revenue Cutter Service—well assured that whatever was possible in the realm of human courage and skill would be done.
Between the marooned whalers and civilization lay a thousand miles and more of the most fearful road that man has ever had to travel, a road un [204] trod, with cold like to the bitterness of death as its constant state and the howl of the blizzard for its sole companion. ”

“ For the first time Eric heard the whole story of that heroic trip when the Coast Guard sent three men to save the lives of three hundred men, imprisoned in the polar ice. He heard how the men who were now his brother officers had done that which no white man had ever done before, how they had gone from Nome to Point Barrow in the dead of winter, their only base of support in those months of frozen night being their own fortitude and resourcefulness. ”

“ Should an unreckoned-with disaster cast a vessel on the breakers, there is not a mile of beach that the Coast Guard does not watch.
Far in the northern Bering Sea, a Coast Guard cutter blazes the hidden trail through Polar ice for the oncoming fleet of whalers, and carries [vi] American justice to where, as yet, no court has been; out in the mid-Atlantic, when the Greenland icebergs follow their silent path of ghostly menace, a Coast Guard cutter watches and warns the great ocean liners of their peril ”

“ You know a Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so an officer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in the navy. He might have to take his rank on a big battleship if the United States was at war. You bet I'll have to learn gunnery. That ought to be heaps of fun."
"But gunnery is ballistics," the old man said. "And ballistics is trigonometry. Big gun is fired by figuring, not by looking."
"I'm only afraid," the lad replied, "that I'll never have a chance at the big gun. Everywhere I go, it's nothing but figuring. ”

“ Uncle Eli's an old-timer, Eel. I used to be jealous of the Tillamook Light. He's just as fond of it as he is of me, more, I think. I can quite see how he would feel that way. It's always been just like his child. He was there when the light was born."
[39] "You mean its designing?"
"I mean its being born," Eric insisted. "Nearly all my people have been in the Lighthouse Service, you know. They all have that way of thinking of the lights as if they were real folks. It's something like a captain's idea about his ship. She's always alive. And lights are just as responsive. ”

“ Eric began, but the other stopped him with a slight gesture.
"I rather envy you your first trip into the Arctic," he said; "it's an experience that no one ever forgets. And you will find out for yourself whether I have overestimated the Eskimo as a race." He put his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder, as he noticed the slight limp, and remembered.
"You're going to extremes," he continued; "from the red-hot decks of a burning ship to the ice hummocks of the polar seas. In that country I'll pass on to you a word of warning that Commodore Peary once gave me. Make it your motto in the Arctic. ”

“ He carried with him into the Arctic the old man's last advice.
"I'm gittin' old," the puzzle-maker had said to him, "not here when you come back. Life—he is like figuring, you think him straight, you work him careful, right every time!"
It was with a keen delight that Eric realized, when he boarded the Bear, that sailorship was not merely a thing of the books. Although he knew that the Coast Guard vessel was a converted whaler, it had never fixed itself in his mind that the Bear was a sailing vessel with auxiliary steam, and that she was handled as a sailing vessel. ”

“ The life of a typical boy is followed in all its adventurous detail—the mighty representative of our country's government, though young in years—a youthful monarch in a vast domain of forest. Replete with information, alive with adventure, and inciting patriotism at every step, this handsome book is one to be instantly appreciated. ”

“ Why couldn't pirates to-day have steamships, just as fast in comparison to the steamers of to-day as their clippers were to the sailing ships of old? They'd get much bigger hauls. Why, one good hold-up of an Atlantic steamer would make a pirate crew rich for life! ”

“ But do you remember just how much oxygen a lamp has to have?"
"No," the boy was forced to admit, "I've plumb forgot."
"A safety lamp will go right out with less than seventeen per cent. of oxygen, while a man can live fairly comfortably on fifteen or sixteen per cent. So the flickering out of a lamp is a sure sign that the danger line's not far off."
"It's a gentleman, too, then," said Eric with a laugh.
"Yes," the other assented dubiously, "but there's less margin. Now, 'white damp,' or carbon monoxide, is a horse of a different color. That's the real danger, Eric. ”

“ Almost any day a fellow's likely to have to chase into a bad shoal to help some ship that's fast on a lee shore; and that's usually in bad weather—it's no time to guess, then, you've got to be sure."
"I sometimes doubt," said Homer, "if all this infantry drill is going to be any use."
"Oh, I can see the use of that, all right," replied Eric. "In the Spanish-American War, the Coast Guard cutters did a lot of work, and, just the other day, our men were called on to keep San Domingo in order. After all, Homer, the Coast Guard is a military arm, just as much as the navy." ”

“ Everybody isn't cut out to be a light-keeper. The work calls for just one thing, a tremendous conscientiousness. There's no one to keep constant tab on men in isolated stations. Men who haven't got the right point of view won't stay in the service, and those who have got it, get it developed a lot more. The way it looks to me, the Commissioner has built up an organization of men who do their work because they believe in it, and who naturally have a liking for regularity and order."
"You're sure stuck on the Lighthouse Service, Eric," said his chum with a laugh. ”

“ He showed the very last set of examples in the book and Eric recognized problems of the kind he had been doing, all unwitting to himself.
"Mathematics not to learn," he said, "he is to think. You now can think. To know a rule, to do sum—bah! he is nothing! To know why a rule and because a sum—he is much. You do him."
In the few remaining visits that Eric paid the puzzle-maker, he found the old man's words to be quite true. Having learned the inside of mathematics, its actual workings seemed reasonable. ”

“ Every one not on duty, and those on duty who were able, ran to the port rail. As the Itasca steamed on, under forced draught, quivering as [175] her engines throbbed under her, the flare on the bow increased in brightness. In half an hour's time it could be quite clearly made out as a steamer on fire, the dense cloud of smoke being illumined from below by the glare of the flames.
"I hope the operator was wrong. If there is anybody on board," said Eric, in a low voice, to his friend Homer, "they wouldn't have much chance." ”

“ 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 eggshell, 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 [257] weight made her top-heavy and she began to ship water badly. Four of the fresh men were put at the pumps to relieve the others who were exhausted by their efforts. ”