The Finest Hours Read Online Free Page B

of clothes. The ice-cold seawater had soaked through their foul-weather gear right into their aching bones. Gouthro was shaking from both the cold and the flu he was suffering from.
    As the tired men paused on the Chatham Fish Pier to survey their work, a coast guard truck pulled up alongside.
    â€œGet over to Orleans and Nauset beach,” the driver yelled. “There’s a shipwreck offshore, and they need help.” Ground confirmation of the Pendleton ’s plight came from a woman living in the Nauset inlet. She had heard the ship’s horn sounding seven times offshore.
    Webber and crew were instructed to join the Nauset Lifeboat Station crew in their amphibious vehicle to try to locate the tanker and give aid if possible. The Duck, as it was called because its manufacturing code was DUKW, was a six-wheel-drive amphibious military truck developed during World War II. It was most prominently used during the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-day. And now, used by the coast guard at Nauset Beach, the Duck was the perfect vehicle to carry the coasties over the sand and through shoreline surf as they hunted for the drifting Pendleton. But first Webber and crew had to get to Orleans.
    The drive up the arm of Cape Cod on snow-covered Route 28 to Orleans was a white-knuckle ride for the three coasties. Under the snow lay a sheet of ice, and their Dodge truck pressed ahead slowly along the winding road. Fortunately, the heater in the truck was working, but the comfort only made Webber think about his friend Donald Bangs, who was out in the icy ocean, hopefully still alive.
    Webber, Livesey, and Gouthro finally reached Orleans and met the rest of the crew from the Nauset Lifeboat Station. The men piled into a Duck and continued on to Nauset Beach, where they parked at a hill. At any other time, the hill would have provided them with a perfect vantage point to scan miles of shoreline. But the high perch offered no help on this day because the shoreline had virtually disappeared. The seas were now running over the beach, across the parking lot, and halfway up the hill. However, after a few moments, the snow abated briefly and the men were able to spot a gray hulk, an object darker than the ocean, rolling rapidly along the towering waves. It was half a ship, drifting swiftly south toward Chatham!
    The coast guardsmen knew there was no way the Duck could catch her now. Bernie, Richard, and Mel immediately started back to the Chatham Lifeboat Station.
    Meanwhile, the coast guard issued a directive to all the ships currently involved in the Fort Mercer rescue operation. The alert was classified “operational immediate” and was printed in bold type:
    DEFINITE INDICATION THAT TANKER PENDLETON HAS BROKEN IN TWO — STERN SECTION IN BREAKERS OFF CHATHAM — BOW SECTION DRIFTING NEAR POLLOCK RIP LV — NO PRIOR INDICATION REGARDING CASUALTY TO PENDLETON — PENDLETON DUE IN BOSTON YESTERDAY AND NOT ARRIVED — THIS IN ADDITION TO FORT MERCER .
    *   *   *
    Back at the Chatham Lifeboat Station, the nasty weather had kept engineer Andy “Fitz” Fitzgerald inside the relative warmth of the station’s “motor-mack shack.” The 20-year-old was the youngest coast guardsman at the station. Fitz was not born to the sea, and in fact, he hadn’t even become a strong swimmer until he joined the guard. He grew up in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, and while attending high school in the 1940s, he played football. At 140 pounds, he was an undersized linebacker, but he loved the competition.
    This period was a bleak time in Whitinsville and the surrounding Blackstone Valley. The mighty mills along the Blackstone River that had given lifeblood to the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century were dying. When Fitzgerald graduated from high school, he had no money for college and no prospects for a future in Whitinsville. This prompted him and a friend to hitchhike to the local