Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/159

 deck-plates and hurled aft against the wheelhouse. With blanched face he stood on the bridge, desperately gripping the rail, and peering with fascinated gaze at the snarling, hungry seas.

Meantime the captain had sent a reassuring message to the Capitol City, telling her the Iroquois was on her way to assist her. And when the ship was fairly in the sea, past all chance of harm by rock or shoal, the captain left the lieutenant in charge of the bridge and went himself to the chart-room to plan his coming movements. With him went Henry. He had seen enough of the sea for a time. Some of the fear that first gripped his soul had gone. He knew that the Iroquois was safe so long as she held her course, but he wanted to shut out for a time the sight of those terrifying billows; so he staggered to the chart-room, and stepped inside, glad of a relief from the terrible tension that had held him.

The captain was calmly poring over his charts and guide-books. “Forty-two north, seventy west,” he muttered, sweeping his glance over an outstretched map. He placed his pencil on the indicated spot. “She’s on the shoals almost dead east of ,” he said to Henry.

Then he turned to a Coast Guard directory and leafed it over. “Thank God!” he cried. “There’s a Coast Guard land station near by.