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Title: Rugged Water (1924)Author: Joseph C. Lincoln* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: eBook No.: 0200621.txtLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: September 2002Date most recently updated: September 2002This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.caProject Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.auTitle: Rugged WaterAuthor: Joseph C. LincolnCHAPTER IA dark night, but a clear one. No clouds, no fog, and the wind buta light southwesterly breeze. Warm, too, for November. The littleroom in the tower of the Setuckit Life-Saving Station was chilly,of course--a landsman might have considered it decidedly cold--butto Seleucus Gammon, the member of the Setuckit crew on watch in thetower, it was warm, noticeably and surprisingly so. Seleucus, whohad come on duty dressed for the ordinary November temperature, hadunbuttoned the heavy jacket which he wore over his sweater and hadhung his cap on the hook on the wall, beside the round, brassship's clock. The brass of the clock was polished to a mirror-likeglisten. So, too, was the metal of the telescope on its stand inthe middle of the room. So, also, was every particle of brass ornickel in that room. There was no light to render these thingsvisible, and no stove or other heating apparatus. Heat within andcold without meant frost-covered window panes and consequentdifficulty in looking through and from those windows, in keepingwatch up and down the beaches and over the stretches of sea andshoal. In many stations at this period it was not customary tokeep a man on watch in the tower at night; the regulations did not
 
require it and the matter was left to the discretion of the keeper.At Setuckit, however, night watch in the tower was a part of theregular routine; at least, since Captain Oswald Myrick had been incharge there.Seleucus strolled slowly about the glass-inclosed room, stopping topeer from each window in turn. He was a huge, bulky man, with asalt sea roll in his walk, and as he lumbered from window to windowin the darkness, a seeker for comparisons might have been remindedof a walrus wallowing about in an undersized tank. A bald head anda tremendous sweep of shaggy mustache were distinct aids to thewalrus suggestion.The views from each window were made up solely of blackness,spotted with fiery points. To Seleucus, however, the blackness wasunderlaid with the familiarity of long acquaintance, and every pinprick of fire a punctuation on a page he knew by heart. Forexample, to the east, ten miles away, the steady white spark wasthe Orham lighthouse shining out from the high sand bluffs frontingthe Atlantic. Far out, and more to the south, another brilliantpoint marked the position of the lightship at Sand Hill Shoal, andstill farther to the southeast and fainter, because of distance,were the lanterns of the Broad Rip lightship. Swinging to thesouth he noted two more lightships, those marking respectively theedges of the Tarpaulin and Hog's Back, smaller shoals but quite asdangerous as their bigger brothers. To the west was still another,that moored by Midchannel Shoal, and, eight miles beyond, andflashing at minute intervals, was the lighthouse on Crow Ledge,unique because, like the house in the Scriptural story, it wasfounded upon a rock, and rocks are distinct novelties along theCape Cod coast.On this night--or morning, for it was almost that--and visiblebecause of the unwonted clearness of the atmosphere, one more sparkpricked the southern horizon, the light at Long Point, onNonscusset Island. Between these were scattered others, much lessbrilliant, and these the watcher knew to be the lights of vessels--schooners for the most part--taking advantage of the fair weatherto make safe passage between ports south of "Down East." From thetower of the Setuckit Life-Saving Station in the later years of thenineteenth century--the years before the United States Life-SavingService was taken over by the Naval Department and rechristened theCoast Guard, before the era of wireless stations and the Cape CodCanal--on a clear night from Setuckit tower one might count no lessthan six lighthouses and six lightships, not including that ofSetuckit lighthouse itself, which reared its blazing head two milesup the beach, and was, therefore, a next-door neighbor.A beautiful coast in summer; in winter a wicked, cruel coast,where, so the records show, there were more wrecks during a periodof fifty years than at any other spot, except one, from Key West toEastport, Maine.These matters, statistical and picturesque, were not, of course, inthe thoughts of Mr. Gammon as he stood, hands in pockets, gazingthrough the tower window facing west. His mental speculations wereengaged with matters much more personal and intimate. The littleship's clock on the wall had just struck twice, so he knew that the
 
time was two bells, or five o'clock, therefore it would soon bedaybreak, and, later, sunrise, when his watch would end. He knewalso that, down below, in the kitchen of the station, Ellis Badger,who happened to be cook that week, was preparing breakfast.Breakfast, the first meal of the four in the station routine ofthose days, was served before daylight. Dinner was at eleven,supper at four, and there was an extra meal about eight in theevening.Seleucus thought of breakfast and his always present and enthusiasticappetite hailed the thought joyfully. Then he remembered the sortof cook Badger was, and the joy was chilled with a dash offoreboding. It was Ellis Badger who had accidentally dropped thekitchen cake of soap into the bean pot on a Saturday of the previouswinter. The comments of his comrade were expressed with feeling."You ain't mad, be you, Seleucus?" queried Mr. Badger solicitously.Gammon's reply was noncommittal."I don't know's I'm so mad that they'll have to shoot me, Ellis,"he observed. "I ain't bit nobody yet. But I am beginnin' to showsigns--I'm frothin' at the mouth."It was he, also, who suggested that the soap be put into the Badgercoffee. "So's it'll be strong enough to wash with," he explained,referring to the coffee.His anticipations concerning breakfast were not, therefore,entirely free from misgiving, but forty-nine years of a life spentamid storms--meteorological always and matrimonial for the latterhalf--had endowed Seleucus with a sort of amphibious philosophy,and made him more or less weatherproof. The most savagenortheaster blew itself out eventually, and Mrs. Gammon--herChristian name was Jemima--stopped talking if one had sufficientfortitude to endure to the end. The sane procedure during bothtrials was patiently to wait for that end, and think of somethingelse while waiting.So, true to his code, and reflecting that, after all, a poorbreakfast was better than no breakfast, Mr. Gammon shifted histhought, also his position, and, walking to the eastern window,looked out from that. As he stood there the eastern horizon turnedfrom black to gray, the low-hanging stars above it began to dim;and below him the sand dunes and the cluster of shanties and fishhouses of the little settlement at Setuckit Point slowly emergedfrom the gloom, separated, and assumed individual shape andproportions.A step sounded on the stair leading to the tower, the door openedand Calvin Homer entered the little room. Homer was Number One manat the Setuckit Station; that is, his was, next to Captain OswaldMyrick's, the position of greatest responsibility and command. Onboard a ship, he would have ranked as mate and his associates wouldhave added a "sir" to their remarks when addressing him. On thestation records he was "Surfman Number One," but his comradescalled him Calvin or "Cal," just as they called their commander"Cap'n Oz" or "Ozzie." The keeper of a Cape Cod Life-SavingStation, at that time, had absolute and autocratic control of his
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