For a few moments the men standing in a row behind the barricade had nothing to do. The sea seemed to take a rest. But the school principal, who was tall enough to see over the barricade, was on the watch.
“Here comes one!” he shouted. “Stand by, boys!”
They stood by! Thirty-two backs were pressed with might and main against the barricade and the bulwark. The shock of the pounding wave sent them all forward a bit, but only for a moment.
The great curtain of water, which had sent them all running before this, now arched over them and splashed down upon them. Art had to gasp for breath. If only he had been tall, like the principal! But it passed, and he could breathe again. He shook himself like a dog, and glanced toward Len. Len had had a similar drenching. The dignified minister snorted. The baker sneezed. The fat hotel keeper was panting for breath. The old doctor was trying to wipe both sea water and perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief that was dripping wet.
“Stand by, boys!” the principal cried out again.
All discomfort was immediately forgotten. Backs were bent to receive another shock, and after the shock came another ice-cold bath. Again, Art gasped for breath. But they had succeeded in holding back the sea once more.
While waiting for the next wave, Art began to shiver with cold. Len was shivering, too. The old doctor began to cough.
“Stand by, boys!” The call came a third time.
Backs were bent to hold back another violent wave, and that was followed by another cold shower-bath. It became routine — the shock of the wave shoving the barricade against their backs, and then the splash of the shower — they took it, over and over, as the waves rolled in.
Help arrived — not the sandbags and the posts, but more people. Forty-five men, packed tight as sardines, filled the opening. Their shoulders grew sore from the beating, but that didn’t matter. They shivered with cold, dripping wet as they were. But that didn’t matter, either. The old doctor’s cough grew worse and worse, but he would not give up. The fat butcher could not stop panting, but he stayed in his place.
Meanwhile the sea seemed to muster all its strength. Each wave made the big planks creak and bend in spite of the forty-five backs; the bulwark tottered and seemed about to fall each time again. And still the sandbags and the posts did not come.
People began to come from everywhere — women and girls as well as men and boys.
“We need more help!” the principal called. “Pile up against us!”
Men crowded close, pressing their shoulders against the chests of the others. They made a double row.
But even so the force of the ocean seemed to be winning.
The women and girls had remained in the shelter of the nearby houses, and the principal called to them, “We need more!”
Then they came, and soon the living wall was four-deep. A hundred and fifty backs were pressed against the barricade in this battle with the sea.
“Stand by, boys!”
He called them all boys — the minister, the old doctor, the fat butcher, the thin baker, little Millie who ran the corner dry goods store and dignified Mrs. Sanders. Nobody thought to take offense.
They all obeyed, and they held with might and main.
Art found himself flattened by the fat butcher, and Len learned that little Millie could push amazingly hard, considering how old and small she was. The water plunged over them all, too. But not one of them minded it. When the shower was past, they would wipe their faces with their wet sleeves, and prepare for the next call to “Stand by!”
Art wasn’t cold anymore. He was sweating from the exertion.
So they turned back the fury of the waves — ten waves, twenty, maybe fifty. But the tide was rising and the waves were gaining strength. Each blow against the barricade was heavier than the one before.
At last the old doctor had to give up. The fat butcher went to sit on the nearest step and catch his breath. The minister stayed on, but his strength was gone. Art was pressed so flat that he couldn’t do a thing. Len had some relief, because little Millie was getting tired. The dock workers and the fishermen kept at it, but their strength was ebbing, too. Only the principal was tireless. His “Stand by, boys!” rang out as clear as ever. But there was not much response. The planks were giving way.
The buttress wavered dangerously. And the reinforcements had not yet come. Would the sea be victorious after all? Had all the effort been in vain?
The principal looked around anxiously for fresh help, but there was none. The people had reached the end of their strength. And a new breaker, a mighty one, was coming in.
“Stand by, boys!” he shouted.
His weary helpers, numb and worn, bent their backs to the task again. The blow of the breaker sent them staggering.
Back they came for the next wave. They barely held the barricade against its terrific force.
And then, out of the boiling, churning water, a dark hulk heaved in sight. For a moment, no one knew what it was. It bore down upon the barricade, and they thought that all was surely lost now. The living wall could never hold out against the pressure of this monster. It would crush them if they tried.
But to their amazement it did not press against the barricade at all! Instead, it settled down just in front of it. Something seemed to hold it there, crosswise. And instead of pounding against the planks, it became a protection for them. It broke the force of the oncoming waves!
And then Art made out what it was — a ship. A ship that had been anchored in the harbor, and loosed from its moorings by the high water! The waves had washed it over the pier, and now it was somehow caught in front of the opening, where it served as a breakwater.
That gave the human wall a chance to catch their breath. Art crawled from behind the big butcher. Len rubbed his stomach, which had suffered from the pressure of little Millie’s shoulder.
They had scarcely begun to feel relief, when men appeared with sandbags and piles. These were heaped up to make a strong dam. The human wall had done its duty and served its purpose. It was no longer needed.
“Thank you, boys! Thank you, boys!” the principal said to them all.
He had a special word for Art and Len. “You did an excellent piece of work tonight, boys!”
Both boys mumbled something. They didn’t know what to say, but the praise made them feel good.
“Now run home and get into dry clothes,” the principal added. “We don’t want you to get sick.”
They ran, in spite of the weight of their drenched clothing. The storm blew them along.
Mother Cozynse was almost sick with anxiety, and began to scold them as soon as they came in. “Where did you stay so long?” And then, “What a sight you are!”
But when she noticed how they shivered, she quickly helped them into warm, dry clothing. Art was fitted out with some of Len’s clothes. He was so tired that he let Len’s mother help him with things which his own mother had not done for him for years.
He was tired and afraid. Yes, afraid. While he stood there as part of the living wall which held back the ocean, he had not thought of danger, and he had hardly felt the cold. He had simply put his shoulder to the task each time the principal called, “Stand by, boys!” He had set his feet firmly and pushed with all his might. He had held his breath as the water tumbled over him. He had shaken himself like a poodle when it was past, and prepared himself for the next blow.
But now he began to realize what they had done. It was the mighty waves of the sea that they had held back. Suppose the barricade had broken? Suppose the water had rushed in? It would have washed all those people away. And then? He shivered at the thought.
Father Cozynse had been coming and going all night long. He had driven back and forth along the dike, between Colynsplaat and Wissekerke, and returned to telephone his report. Now he was back again.
“How are things?” Mother asked as soon as he came in. Her tone was worried. Last time he had reported conditions critical.
But this time he was cheerful. “I think we’ll make it,” he said. “The peak of high tide is past, and the dikes are still intact.”
Then he caught sight of the boys huddled close to the fire. “Ha! I see our brave boys are home!”
There was pride in his voice, and the boys looked at him half sheepishly.
“I talked with the principal,” he went on. “He told me all about it.”
“What did he tell you?” Mother asked. The confused story that the boys had stammered when they came home had not made much sense.
“Why, our boys were the first to notice that the buttress was giving way! They dragged the principal over to prove it to him, and afterward they helped hold back the sea with their backs.”
“They held the sea with their backs! What do you mean?” Mrs. Cozynse asked.
“With their backs,” Mr. Cozynse declared. “Such a thing has never happened before. The sea was turned back by men. Our boys, with the help of others, saved our village from flood.”
“You boys did that?” Mrs. Cozynse exclaimed. And she added with regret, “And I scolded you!”
“That ship ... ” Len began, because he felt that they were getting too much credit. “That ship did it. If it had not come just then, and stayed right there, we would never have held the barricade.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Cozynse agreed. “It was truly a miracle that the ship drifted in at that moment and was caught in that very place. But if you boys and men had not formed a living wall to hold back the sea long before that, the barricade would have broken before the ship came. It was the living wall of men and boys that saved North Beveland.”
“The whole island?” Art gasped.
“Of course! The dikes are holding. That barricade was the one weak spot. If that had gone, all of North Beveland would have been flooded. You saved our island.”
The boys could not help beaming. Who would have dreamed that what they did was so important? They had noticed the buttress wavering, and they had warned the principal. Who wouldn’t do as much? And then they had run in to help when he called them. They had obeyed when he called out the command, “Stand by, boys!” Of course they had done their best. They knew the barricade must not break. But they had had no idea that they were warding off so great a tragedy.
They had saved the whole island, Mr. Cozynse said! Not merely the barricade, and Front Street, and the village, but the whole island! Art began to feel tremendously happy instead of fearful. He thought of his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, and asked, “Has the water come in at Kortgene or anywhere near Pleasant Acres?”
“No,” Mr. Cozynse assured him. “The dikes held here, where they had to take the full force of the wind and waves. They most surely held on the other side of the island, too. You have saved your father and mother, and your brothers and sisters tonight.”
Sunday morning dawned slowly. It was a strange Sunday morning. Ordinarily, the village streets are empty on Sunday until the church bells ring. Then people appear, walking quietly to church. But on this Sunday morning the streets were noisy with the clatter of wooden shoes, the pounding of hammers where the dike was being reinforced, the voices of men busy carrying furniture from houses where windows had been broken by the wind and water.
Mr. Cozynse was eager to see the dike by daylight, and took the boys along. The waves had cut washouts in the steep bank, and it was harder to climb than the day before. When they reached the top, they found the dike lower and narrower than usual; for the sea was extremely high. What a marvel that the dike had kept the mighty sea out!
Thank God for that marvel!
The boys turned to look over the fields of North Beveland, fields brown and fertile, ready for the seed that must soon be sown. They could see the villages Wissekerke to the right, Kortgene to the south, Colynsplaat at their feet. Art could even make out the broad thatched roof of the barn at Pleasant Acres, in the distance. What a joy to know that all was safe. Mother need not have worried at all.
But what was that sparkling out there? It looked like water, but how could there be water on the island? Art called Len’s attention to it.
“It can’t be water,” Len said.
“But it looks like water,” Art insisted.
Len turned to his father. “Art thinks he sees water by Kortgene. That can’t be, can it?”
“No, that’s impossible,” Mr. Cozynse answered, and he continued to look out across the sea.
Art did not want to contradict Mr. Cozynse, but he still thought it looked like water. Clay cannot shine and sparkle that way, he thought.
“Could it be Sand Creek that I see, Mr. Cozynse?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Cozynse. “Sand Creek is beyond the South Dike. You cannot see over the dike from here.”
“Then there is water on the island,” Art said with conviction.
Mr. Cozynse had not looked. He was sure there could be no water there. When at last he turned his gaze in the direction of Kortgene, he could hardly believe his eyes. There was a sparkle that certainly did look like water. But how could it be water? The North Dike had resisted the fury of the storm; its one weak spot had been guarded by the backs of brave men. Surely the South dike, where the wind and the waves had not pounded with half so much fury, must have withstood the storm easily. Sand Creek, the strip of water between North and South Beveland, is not a dangerous arm of the sea. Yet that sparkle ...
“Come on, boys!”
Mr. Cozynse took the lead, and they fairly tumbled down the dike. They ran all the way to the Cozynse home. Breathless, Mr. Cozynse seized the phone and put in a call.
There was no response from Kortgene.