CHAPTER VII
Then there was Isaac T. Foy of South Chatham. He was of average height and was that handsome that the women called him the “Handsome Surfman.” He was married, but had no children. Before Isaac T. Foy, I was a surf man on the old Monomoy Lifesaving Station. One disagreeable stormy day off on the shoals assisting a stranded schooner, I was severely injured almost fatally. For over two years I fought against that thing called death, and at last I won. It was one of the rules of the service that whenever you were disabled, you were kept on the roll for a year. At the end of the year, if you didn’t come forward with the required physical percentage, you were dropped from the service. So I was dropped from the service. Of all the men who applied for the position they selected Isaac T. Foy. Without a doubt—without a doubt if it had not been for that injury I had received, I would have been with those men in the boat that morning, and Isaac T. Foy would have been elsewhere. Do you believe in luck? Do you believe in fate? Do you believe in an unseen power that controlsthe destiny of every human being like you and I? We have the right to believe as we will but over forty-one years have passed along since that fatal day and here I stand telling you the story. But where, oh where is Isaac Thomas Foy. Pay attention to this tragedy as it develops and see the end—the tragic end of the man who took my place and carried on.
Then there was Captain Marshall N. Eldredge of South Chatham. A giant in stature, standing over six feet tall, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, hard as nails, he was the toughest surfman who ever patrolled Monomoy Beach. He was so tough that he went barefooted in the cold sand until the first of December. In the early spring and fall, he wouldn’t wear oil clothes but said that he would rather be wet than bother with them at all. He had a wife and three children. Those were the men in the boat that morning.
They were all ready. Captain Eldredge gave the orders to go ahead. It was the 1st of a southeast storm the tide was running to the windward kicking up a nasty treacherous sea. They went around the point and headed into the rips. Some of the rips they went around; the smaller ones they went through. So they worked themselves along slowly but surely. At last they arrived at the barge safely. They threw the painter aboard, and it was made fast. Captain Eldredge saw Mr. Mack standing on deck. He hailed them and said, “Mr. Mack, you’ve got your colors in the rigging. What’s the trouble?” Mr. Mack said, “We had an awful night last night. The wind blew and those seas rolled in, and we pounded and thumped on the bottom until we thought we were going to pieces. We were afraid and still are and we want to go ashore.” Captain Eldredge replied, “That’s all right, but we’re not coming aboard. It’s too rough. Throw a rope over the side and lower yourselves down.” So they came down, one by one, and the captain placed them in the bottom of the boat in a safe place. He put three of them on the platform at his feet, the other he put on the thwarts outside the oarsmen.They pumped out the boat and everything was ready. Captain Eldredge gave the order, “Cast Off.” There was no-one aboard to cast off so Osborne F. Chase, the bowman, cut the painter and as he did her bow fell off, a sea came rolling around the lee quarter, caught the boat under her bilge, and shoved her ahead. As she went out from under the lee of the “Wadena” the tide caught her under the weather bow and she drifted off in the trough of the sea. Before the men could get control of their oars, a sea broke over in the bottom of the boat. Those men from the barge, the very men they were trying to save, if they had only known—why one of the first lessons you are taught when you go out over the surf in an open boat in a rough sea is to sit down, the lower the better, and no matter what happens, if a sea breaks over and wets your feet, take your medicine but sit still. But when that sea broke over and wet their feet they all jumped up, interferedwith the oarsmen, and then they couldn’t row. The boat drifted off into a rip, another sea broke over, and filled her half full. Then all was confusion. She drifted into another rip, another sea broke over her, another, and still another. Down she went, turned over, and came up floating bottom up. Every man struggling in the sea. Captain Mack and his men never had a chance. In five minutes they all were engulfed by the seas, except one. One young boy, a colored fellow, was clinging to the bow of the boat. He was so afraid that he turned yellow, and the whites of his eyes bulged right out of his head. A sea came rushing along, broke over him, and washed him off. He gave a terrible scream, threw up both hands, and went down to join his companions who had gone a few minutes before. Now the surfmen—every man for himself, no orders, no discipline, every man struggling and fighting for a position on the bottom of that up-turned boat. At first they all got a hold. Osborne F. Chase was clinging on the bow where the young colored fellow had just been washed off. A sea came breaking and tearing along, it caught him in its grasp, he lost his hold and drifted away,the first to go. Captain Eldredge, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, weighted down with his oil clothes and boots, was fighting amidships. He was grabbing and clutching at those lapstreaks. A sea broke over, caught him in the face and chest, and washed him off. He grabbed again but he was short and went drifting off in those rushing, roaring rips. The next, Elijah Kendricks, if anyone had told me that the crew of the Monomoy Station would be lost with the exception of one and asked me who the one would be I would have said without any hesitation, “Elijah Kendricks”. He was an athlete from the word go he excelled in all sports, in running, jumping, baseball, skating and swimming. He was a regular water-dog in his day, but was rendered helpless by the carelessness of another. When that boat left the shore that morning, laying on her thwarts was a sail. It was a mutton leg sail used in times of emergency. When thewind was fair the men would sail instead of row. It was a rule that the sail should be lashed to the thwart. Someone neglected his duty because that sail came floating out from under the boat, right up under Kendricks. He struggled and kicked to free himself but his feet became tangled up in the halyards and main sheets. With this added weight, he couldn’t hold on. He grabbed and clutched at those lapstreaks but his fingers slipped. He sensed his doom, threw himself over on the mast and boom, floated away and was never seen again. Now five men left, five men still fighting and struggling for their lives, five men still clutching and clawing at those lapstreaks. She drifted into another rip this was the largest of them all. It was on the shoalest part of Shovelful Shoal. That morning on Shovelful Shoal the seas were breaking and pounding, hissing and foaming, roaring and crossing, a combination of sand and water, five men still clinging on, Arthur W. Rogers, Valentine D. Nickerson, Edgar C. Small, Seth Linwood Ellis and Isaac T. Foy—five men fighting for their lives—she drifted into this rip and was completely submerged. What happened nobodyknows. It was a fearful tragedy, an unseen drama. When she drifted out on the other side in a smoother sea there were only two left. Isaac T. Foy wasn’t there. Isaac T. Foy perished in those breaking, pounding seas on the shoalest part of Shovelful Shoal. When she drifted out on the other side in a smoother sea there was only two left. Arthur W. Rogers was clinging to the bow of that boat waterlogged and exhausted. He was that exhausted he could hardly raise his arms. Seth Linwood was lying across the bottom clinging on with the grip of death. She drifted into another rip a sea came swashing along and washed Arthur W. Rogers amidships he grabbed and clutched at those lapstreaks but couldn’t hold. A sea washed him still further, he sensed his doom, with a supreme effort he threw himself upon the bottom of that boat and grabbed again, his fingers slipped a sea washed him off. He sank, a few bubbles and he was gone forever.
Now Seth Linwood Ellis alone on the bottom of that boat fighting for his life. His dogged determination, physical stamina, and perserverance had just begun to assert themselves. All the others had perished, but he had commenced to fight. He kicked off his rubber boots, he tore off his oil clothes, his jacket vest and trousers, intending as a last resort to swim for the shore. Then he was washed up on the crest of a sea and looking over saw the “Fitzpatrick” and going down over her side was a dory; sitting on the thwart of that dory was a man, then Ellis remembered;—the man of mystery.