The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1912-06-07

and the beach that lay before II was well-nigh
impossible After twenty minutes of grim effort
it was finally gained only to find that the vessel
had passed it and was drifting on.
Perhaps the best account of the remainder OF
the terrible march to its ultimate end is given
in the report of the service of 1880, which says
of It:
From first to last the difficulties of the life
savers and the perls which beset them never
slackened a moment. The wheels of the cart,
in coast phrase, 'sanded down so rapdly-that
is sank so quickly in the infiltrated soilthat the
conveyance had TO be kept on the move lest it
should be lost Often the cart had to be partial
ly moaded and portions of the apparatus car
red by the crews to Tighten it sufficiently to make
progress possible, and at other times the men
would have to fling themselves upon the wheels
and hold them with all their strength to prevent
the cart from being capsized by the inequalities
Of the submerged ground or the overwhelming
inburst of the sea rushing high over the aXles.
The escapes were numerous. 1t was with
great difficulty that thorn could keep their feet
in this constant onslaught and pelting of drift
wood But not a man fell away finched from
the work before him.
Not the least difficult of their tasks was that
of keeping the lines, and especially the guns and
powder dry in the universal drench around them,
and it is difficult to understand how they con-
trived it; for, aside from the number of actual
firngs wherever a momentary pause of the yes
sci as she grazed bottom a slowing of her
notion offered an opportunity for action, at least
a dozen times, and probably more, the cart was
hurredly unloaded on the nearest emnence the
gun planted and the shot-line arranged for the
effort, when the wreck would suddenly roll away
upon her course, and the men would have to re-
load the cart and toll again after her In this
way and with these Interruptions, they worked
down along the beach to station No. u and a
quarter of mile beyond it, when chance of
fered for another shot; but the line parted. The
crew again moved stubbornly on. 1t was now
noon, and suddenly the man so long hang
ing in the rigging fell into the and was gone.
The crew still followed the vessel with unslack-
ened activity. Half an hour later they saw an
other man drop lfeless from the ratlines.
"Laboring forward now for the rescue Of the re-
naming five, they suffered a misfortune. In stag
gering and laundering through of the worst
sideways with the cart, the gun toppled off into
the food and lost A desperate search was
made at once, and finally it was found in four or
five feet of water, fshed up and wiped dry, and
carried thenceforth by the stout keeper on his
shoulder. A man was dispatched back to No. IL
for dry shotline, While the crew, moved on to
a point three-quarters of a mile below the sta
ton, where they got another chance to fire a
shot, which, however fell short the tide having
forced the firing party farther and farther back
on the hills as they advanced and the line, too,
being weighted with moisture
The cart was again reloaded, and the march
resumed A mile below the station the man over
took them with the dry shotline and, chance Of
ferng, the last shot fired. This time it was
a success. The line flew between the foremost
and the jibstay and, the cut sweeping the blight
OF the line in to the side of the vessel the sailors
got hold of it and fastened it to the fore and
main rigging.
LAS the schooner still continued to drift and
roll, nothing could yet be done, but while the
greater parJ of the force loaded up the cart and
trudged on with it, three or four kept fast hold
of the shore end of the shot-line, and kept pace
with the wreck in leash. AT the end of another
quarter of a mile the vessel suddenly struck the
tide setting north, stopped swung head offshore
and worked back 30 her anchors under the comb
of the breakers. The time had come a. last; and
the Whip-line, with its appurtenances, was bent
on to the shot-line, hauled aboard, and made fast
by the tail of the block to the mainmast head.
The wreck now sued around broadsde to the
and rolled frightfully The hawser followed
the whip-ne on board, and the breeches-buoy
was rugged on, but the vessel rolled so that it
was impossible to set the hawser up on shore in
the usual manner, so it was rove through the
bulls-eye in the sand-anchor while several men
held to the end to give and take with each roll
of the vessel. The work Of hauling the sailors
from the wreck was begun with electric en-
ergy. After two men were landed, the vessel
took the ground, but the circumstances increased
rather than diminished her rolling, and some con-
cepton of this powerful motion may be derived
from the fact that in instance the breeches'
buoy with a man in It swung in the off-shore roll
fully fifty feet in the air.
The strain and friction upon the hawser were
so great that the lignum-vitae bullseye through
which it ran at the sand-anchor despite the hard.
ness of the wood, was worn fully half an inch
deep during 80 minutes of use Within those 80
minutes, however, the five men safely land.
ed the last man getting out of the buoy at half
past two"
And so closes the story of that which in the
department at Washington, is spoken of casually
as "A nights work on the Jersey coast"