Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/312

 noon these became alarming. The pumps were no longer holding their own, and water was gaining in the hold of the Wilmington. By two o’clock the disabled ship was down by the head. She could no longer buck the seas.

A little later her commander wired to Captain Hardwick, “Am trying to steam backward.”

When he got the message, Captain Hardwick was worried, indeed. “They’ll never make it,” he declared to Mr. Sharp. “Ask the Oneida to hurry. We shall likely have to abandon the Hiawatha and go back to the Wilmington.”

On board the Wilmington, the volunteer crew was making a superhuman effort to carry on. The attempt to steam backward was unsuccessful. Lower settled the nose of the ship. It was desirable to make a sea anchor, to hold the ship’s head to the waves. But now the combers were crashing over the settling bow of the steamer, and water was pouring into her hold through hatchways. It was impossible for men to go below and get the materials necessary to make the sea anchor. Disabled, sinking steadily lower in the bow, the crippled vessel now rolled helplessly in the sea. It was merely a question of time until she should go under.

At three o’clock the Wilmington flashed a message to the Iroquois. Mr. Sharp went white when he read it. “We are rolling helplessly