Storm Warriors (13 page)

Men threw chairs onto the table, Mr. Bowser strapped a cork life jacket onto my chest, and the ocean exploded into the room. Waves of seawater rushed past my legs. A stray chair slammed against my shin, knocked me down, and I swallowed a huge gulp of salt water.

“Take the boy upstairs!” Mr. Bowser yelled.

Daddy yanked my arm and dragged me to my feet. I was coughing and spitting out salt. As he pushed me up the steps, I looked back. Another wave rolled in through the open back doors of the station house and out the open front doors. The men scurried to gather floating debris: firewood, the bellows, a footstool. They threw it all onto the “higher ground” of the table, Beaver stove, and bookshelves.

Upstairs in the dormer, Daddy slapped me on the back to help me stop choking. “You going to be all right up here?” he asked.

I nodded. He left to go help the surfmen, and I plopped down on a wooden trunk. Even though the night was warm, I shivered in my clammy clothes. I looked out the tiny porthole window at the dark, tangled sea. Lines of foam crisscrossed it in a confused jumble. And downstairs, high tide rumbled through the dining hall as if the station had been built not on dry land but in the belly of the sea itself.

The tide receded, and when the last wave had rolled through the station house, the front and back doors were finally shut against the buffeting wind and rain. I ventured back downstairs. Sand, seaweed, and shells littered the floor, and the table and other high surfaces were cluttered with everything from dishes and chairs to a white ceramic spittoon.

“I'm not sweeping until I'm sure the last of those waves has hit that door,” said Mr. Wescott.

As if summoned, a rogue wave gave a rap against the back doors, squirting in more salt water. “You see?” he said, raising both eyebrows. He leaned against the table to wait.

Dorman Pugh came down from his patrol on the lookout deck and surveyed the mess. His face was drenched, and water dripped off his rain suit onto the floor. He pulled a chair off the table and sat down with a thud. “This is no northeaster,” he said, wiping his face with one hand. “As sure as I'm alive, we're in the jaws of a hurricane.”

The other men nodded their agreement.

“Better call Oregon Inlet,” he said. “See if they're still alive.”

My stomach felt suddenly hollow. The Oregon Inlet station was less protected than the Pea Island station, and it was on lower ground. If high tide had nearly washed us away …

Mr. Etheridge picked up the telephone receiver and gave the ring for the Oregon Inlet station: two short, one long. We all waited for them to pick up. No one did. He gave the ring again and waited. And a third time. The hollowness in my stomach grew with each silent, waiting moment. No one answered. Mr. Etheridge put the telephone receiver back on its hook.

“We don't know for sure what has happened,” he said. “And we have our own work to do. Theodore, I believe you're on patrol?”

Theodore Meekins nodded, put on his rain suit, and climbed the steps to take his place on the lookout deck.

The wind seemed to scream louder, and the window shutters rattled as if the storm was clamoring to enter. I took hold of a broom and set my mind to the sweeping up of seaweed and shells. I dared not think of the Oregon Inlet crew or of where my body would be flung if the walls around me lost the battle and were exploded by the hurricane.

No one spoke as we sorted out the debris and began to put things in order. The storm was too loud to shout over, anyway.

I must have been the first to smell it. There was no mistaking it—a Coston flare has its own sharp, acrid odor. I stopped sweeping and looked toward the stairwell. By the time Theodore Meekins stumbled down the steps into the room, each of the men had caught the smell and was waiting. We all watched him, dreading what he would announce.

“God help us” was all he said.

“Where is it?” Mr. Etheridge demanded.

“To the south, no more than two miles,” Mr. Meekins replied.

“The surfboat is useless in this storm,” said Mr. Etheridge. “Man the beach cart and driving cart, and hitch both mules, lame or not, or we'll never make it.”

The men scrambled to don rain slickers and life preservers, and gather lanterns, blankets, and flares. I ran upstairs to get my rain slicker. One thing was clear in my mind: I was going. I would help pull the carts, I'd do whatever they asked, and I'd stay out of the way. If I was going to be a surfman, storms like this one better not scare me off. And Daddy better not try to stop me.

When Mr. Bowser saw me with my rain slicker and life preserver on, he started to shake his head. Then he thought a moment
and said, “Oh hell, I'd rather have you where I can see you, anyway.” He handed a life preserver to Daddy. “George, we could use your help, and there's no guarantee this place won't collapse—it might be safer outside.”

We pushed out into the storm. The wind beat my ears and chest and made it hard to breathe. Rain and blowing spray stung my face. My slicker flapped like rapid gunfire.

I heard the burst of an explosion and saw a red rocket shoot into the sky. Mr. Etheridge was signaling the wrecked ship again. In answer, to the south in the distance, came a flash of red.

“Open boat room doors—man the beach cart!” Mr. Etheridge shouted over the howling wind.

Waves rolled past my legs and splashed me up to my waist. The government team was led out of their stall and hitched, one to the driving cart and the other to the beach cart. I lifted one of the drag ropes over my shoulder and, on the command of “Forward!” as the mules and surfmen pulled, I pulled.

The wind was at our backs, and gusts made me fall to my knees. The ocean was a jumble of foam and crashing waves. When the waves pushed us too hard and the currents threatened to topple all of us, we stopped to get our bearings.

The red signal came from the ship again. We were closer now, but our progress proceeded in inches. The ocean frothed white. Foam, like thick soapsuds, blew sideways across our path.

“Forward, dammit.” Mr. Bowser pulled on the lead mule.

Snot ran from my nose and dripped into my mouth. Each step wearied my legs. My brain deadened until there was only the slow movement of my legs through the water and the bite of the drag rope on my shoulder.

Finally, I heard the blessed shout: “Halt!”

I stumbled forward and caught my balance on the side of the beach cart. I faced the sea and the wind. There was the sunken ship, hardly thirty yards from us. She was a mass of dark hull and white torn sails against the foaming sea, rocking on her side, her cabin and much of her starboard already demolished by the heavy surf. As I stood with my mouth open, panting, the wind blew my cheeks floppy and dried my tongue.

A cheer went up from the sailors aboard the ship. They'd spotted us and had high hopes that they would soon be rescued. I expected to hear the command “Action,” to begin the breeches-buoy rescue, but heard nothing. It took me a moment to realize what Keeper Etheridge must already have figured out: our equipment was useless. There was no way to dig a hole for the sand anchor under these rolling waves, nowhere to set up the Lyle gun.

That's when I heard Mr. Meekins's voice above the din of wind and surf. “Those waves won't stop me from swimming through them—they're all blown over, hardly taller than a man,” he said.

Swim?
Swim out into that raging sea?

I stood rigid and watched as Mr. Etheridge pulled a large-sized shot line out of the beach cart and helped Mr. Meekins tie it around his waist. Mr. Pugh was tied in as well, and the heaving stick, attached to its own line, was secured to Mr. Meekins's body. The wind shoved at me and buffeted my ears. It was unthinkable, what these men were doing. Violence swirled around us—a deadly, churning mix of wind and sea. And these two surf-men were walking
into
it.

“Man the ropes,” shouted Mr. Etheridge. “One of them goes down, we'll haul them both back in.”

Mr. Meekins and Mr. Pugh were dark forms against the white foam, plodding into the surf. Powerful waves smacked them in the chest. They ducked their heads down and pushed forward.

I watched with a sick feeling in my stomach as the realization crept over me: I would never be able to do what these men were doing. The words of their motto ran through my head: “You have to go out, but you don't have to come back.” In that moment I knew, with not a shred of doubt, that I did not have the courage to risk my life that way. The dream, and all the months of hoping, blew away as quickly as the foam off the waves. William and Floyd and Daddy were right. I would never be a surfman.

There was no time for me to wallow in my loss. The men
were paying out the ropes, and I was a fisherman—here to help. I took hold of one of the ropes. I turned my face sideways to the wind, but still it made my eyes blurry with tears. Blindly, I let the rope out, hand over hand, then squinted out toward the ship. A ladder had been lowered, and the sailors leaned over the side, waiting. Mr. Meekins and Mr. Pugh were almost there.

I heard another cheer from the men on the ship. When I peered out, Mr. Meekins was swinging the heaving stick and line. He let it fly and it landed on deck. The sailors would tie the line to the ship so that the rope could help steady the surfmen as they made their way from ship to shore and back again.

Soon we were hauling rope back in. The surfmen would be carrying one of the sailors between them now. I squinted into the spray. Where was the rescued sailor? Mr. Meekins and Mr. Pugh were on their way back, but without a third man between them. Mr. Meekins was carrying something a little larger than a Lyle gun.

What in the world could be more important to save off that ship than the lives of the men on board? I shook my head and hauled rope. The surfmen were half walking, half swimming, pushing forward, the waves smacking against their backs and seeming to want to spit them out of the sea.

As the surfmen drew closer, I heard what sounded like the squalling of an alley cat. Mr. Meekins handed over his bundle and shouted, “Get it into dry blankets before it goes blue!” The
bundle was passed from man to man, until it was handed to me and I found myself looking into the terrified eyes of a screaming child.

Daddy put his arm around my shoulders. “The driving cart,” he shouted over the din of waves and wind. In the driving cart, which was nothing more than an open wagon, dry blankets were packed under oilskins.

We crouched next to the cart, and it gave us some protection from the storm. The child clung to my neck. He was drenched and shivering miserably. I tried to loosen his grip so I could get his wet clothes off, but he just clung tighter. He was crying more softly now. “Mamma?” he whimpered.

I gave Daddy a pleading look. What if his mother had already been washed overboard and drowned? Daddy stood, cupped his hands around his eyes, and looked in the direction of the ship. “They're carrying a woman back now,” he said.

“Your mamma is coming,” I told the child. He looked to be about three or four years old, with pale white skin and a shock of thick brown hair. “Let's get you warm before she gets here.”

We had the boy wrapped in a dry blanket by the time his mother came running to him, cried, “Thomas!” and clutched him to her own wet clothing with such passion that she probably got him half drenched again.

The lady, who told us her name was Mrs. Gardiner, said she'd be warm enough in her wet dress under blankets and oilskins. No
sooner had we settled her with Thomas than we heard the cry “Ho, this man is injured!”

I ran to see. A young sailor had just been delivered by the surfmen. Blood dripped from his head and stained his life preserver. His lips were a sickly blue. He took two steps, then collapsed face first into the shallow water. Mr. Bowser dragged him up by his armpits and pulled him toward the driving cart.

“George, take over my place with the ropes,” he shouted to Daddy. “Nathan, come help me.”

The sailor looked hardly older than me, with dirty blond hair that had a bloody gash the size of a pole bean running through it.

“Treat the bleeding first, then the hypothermia,” I said as I recalled the words from the medical books and they comforted me with their matter-of-factness.

Mr. Bowser grunted as we lifted the sailor into the driving cart. “You did study well, Nathan,” he said.

Mr. Bowser sent me for the medicine chest, then I held a compress against the man's head wound while Mr. Bowser began to remove his wet clothes. That's when Mr. Bowser seemed to notice Mrs. Gardiner for the first time.

“Ma'am, we're going to have to …” He cleared his throat. “The boy's hypothermic, so his wet clothes have to …”

Mrs. Gardiner rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Oh, for heaven's sake!” she exclaimed. She immediately went to work to
pull off the man's boots, help Mr. Bowser get the rest of his clothes off, and bundle him in a dry blanket.

“Are there any other injured on board?” Mr. Bowser asked as he wrapped a bandage around the man's head.

“No, only Arthur,” she said. “He took quite a fall when the ship ran aground.”

Arthur groaned and his eyes fluttered open. “Lord, I'm cold,” he complained.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the ropes. “Heave!” Mr. Etheridge shouted. “Haul them all in!”

“They've lost their footing!” I cried.

Mr. Bowser grasped me by the arms. “Take over here. I'm sure you know what to do.” Then he ran to help with the ropes.

My hands felt clammy and shaky, but once again the words from the books came back to steady me: “Rub the legs and arms with linseed oil until warmth returns….” I rummaged in the med-icine chest, found the linseed oil, and poured some into my palm.

“This will warm you, sir,” I said loudly enough to be heard over the wind.

Arthur nodded his bandaged head and watched nervously as I rubbed the oil into his feet and calves, then his hands and arms. He gave Mrs. Gardiner a quizzical look. “Ain't he young to be a doctor?” he asked her.

She patted his shoulder and smoothed the hair off his forehead. “He seems to know what to do, dear,” she said.