the vessel struck with the greatest suddenness and with such force that even above the roar of the wind and the thunder of the surf pounding at the foot of the dunes the people gathered in the vanton house heard the dull crash and jumped to their feet.
dick hand exclaimed: “what’s that!”
mary vanton answered with the thought that was in all their minds: “a ship!”
her mind ran instantly to the children, absurdly, as if they were in danger.
seven-year-old mermaid, the youngest, was in bed and was not likely to be awakened by sounds outside. keturah and the two boys were with richard hand and herself.
[270]she spoke to the three of them with stern distinctness:
“children, whatever happens, you mustn’t leave the house. you mustn’t step off the veranda. the sea is up to the foot of the dunes.”
she called the servant and governess and ordered them to keep to the house and to help her.
richard hand was already at the telephone and calling the lone cove station.
“hello, tommy!” they heard him say. “a ship has struck just opposite the house. wait a moment.” he lifted his head from the transmitter and asked: “can you see anything?”
“they’re sending up rockets,” replied mary vanton. she was at the window, the two boys crowding close to her to look out.
“it’s certain,” richard hand said into the telephone. “we can see her distress signals.... all right.”
he hung up the receiver with a crash and went to the window to see for himself.
the utter darkness of the angry night was broken, at a distance of perhaps 400 yards from where these onlookers were clustered, by a stream of rockets, which lit the blackness faintly for an instant and then expired, making the night seem darker than before. the illumination was not sufficient to disclose much of the vessel but she seemed to be a schooner or ship with three[271] masts. not a large craft; something of about 2,500 tons and something more than 200 feet long, richard hand surmised.
there was no sail on her that they could see. what little she had been carrying must have been blown from the bolt-ropes before she struck, and this, indeed, had probably caused the disaster to her, forcing her on a lee shore. the gale was from the southwest. it had been blowing all day, with hail and snow flurries, and it was bitterly cold.
mary vanton left the window and taking the servant went into the kitchen. she dragged out a washboiler, took from a cupboard a fresh can of coffee, emptied the coffee in the washboiler, but not without measuring and estimating, put the boiler on the stove and began pouring in water.
she ransacked the pantry and sent her older boy to the cellar. from that region john emerged bringing a side of bacon.
“bread!” exclaimed mary, and for a moment she stopped in complete perplexity. then a recollection relieved her.
“john,” she told the boy, “go down cellar again and bring up all the hardtack there is there. bring it up a little at a time. don’t try to bring it all at once. there’s plenty of that, anyway.”
her attention was caught by certain preparations that dick hand was making.
[272]“what are you going to do?”
“i’m going to join the united states coast guard on a temporary assignment to active duty,” he responded, grinning as he struggled to get into a pair of hipboots belonging to her husband. mary’s face showed a moment’s dismay but cleared instantly.
“tommy will appreciate it.”
“he’d better,” dick asserted. “pretty way to celebrate the holiday season, this!” but he changed his tone a second later. “i ought to be kicked for jesting about it,” he said. “think of the poor devils on that boat!”
he had got into the boots and was wrapping an oilskin coat about him.
john and guy, holding the lookout at the window, shouted: “the man on patrol is out here sending up answering rockets.”
keturah, dissatisfied, came to her mother’s side in the kitchen.
“can’t i help here?” she asked.
“break out some of the ship’s biscuit,” replied her mother, perhaps unconsciously falling into sea speech. keturah began opening a box of the hardtack.
having got under way the work of preparing food and a hot drink for those who would soon be needing both, mary vanton allowed herself a moment at the window with the boys.
above the steady diapason of wind and ocean came[273] sounds of men shouting faintly. this was the crew of the lone cove station, dragging apparatus to the dunes close by the vanton house. a moment later keeper tom lupton came in, banging the door; that being, indeed, the only way to close it against the force of the gale.
mary vanton hastened toward him.
“we shall go around the house,” he said, without wasting time in greeting her. “we can work better in the lee of the house. it will be a wonderful protection to us and if the line falls short it will be less likely to be fouled.”
“the whole house is yours,” mary vanton told him, quietly. “use it. come and go as you like. i am making gallons of hot coffee; there will be bacon and bread or hardtack.”
he thanked her and praised her with a single glance. “i must be getting outside,” he said, and left.
the boys had deserted the south window for one looking east where they could see the life savers bringing up their apparatus on the crest of a dune close by the house. their mother spoke to them:
“john and guy, bring in wood and get some dry wood up from the cellar and start fires in the fireplaces.”
they obeyed willingly enough. mary went into the kitchen and sped the servant and her daughter in the task of victualling.
