TEDDY'S DADDY.
The _Maria Teresa_ and the _Vizcaya_ were in flames, heading for shoal
water that they might not carry down with their blackened hulks the
men who had defended them, although feebly, and there was no longer
any reason why the _Texas_ should remain in that vicinity.
The _Iowa_ swung inshore to make certain the ruin was as complete as
it appeared from the distance, and when the royal ensign was hauled
down that a white flag might be hoisted on the _Vizcaya_, Captain
Philip gave the word which sent the _Texas_ ahead in chase after the
survivors of what had, less than half an hour previous, been a mighty
fleet.
As one who witnessed the battle has already written concerning this
particular time and the wonderfully one-sided engagement, his words
had best be quoted:
"Huge volumes of black smoke, edged with red flame, rolled from every
port and shot-hole of the _Vizcaya_, as from the _Teresa_. They were
both furnaces of glowing fire. Though they had come from the harbour
to certain battle, not a wooden bulkhead, not a partition in the
quarters either of officers or men had been taken out, nor had trunks
and chests been sent ashore. Neither had the wooden decks or any other
wooden fixtures been prepared to resist fire. Apparently the crew had
not even wet down the decks."
It was the experience of a full lifetime, to witness the destruction
of these four fighting-machines, and yet Teddy Dunlap and his little
comrade almost forgot what they had seen in the excitement of the
race, as their ship leaped forward in that mad chase which was to end
only with the wrecking of all those vessels that had sailed out of the
harbour to make their way past the Yankee fleet.
The two comrades were conscious of nothing save the throbbing and
quivering of their own ship, as, under press of every ounce of steam
that could be raised, the _Texas_ dashed onward, overhauling first
this Yankee vessel and then that, flinging the spray in showers over
her deck, and rolling from side to side in the heavy swell as she tore
onward at a rate of speed that probably she had never before equalled.
It was a race to the death; now and then the hatches were opened that
some one of the engineer's crew, exhausted by almost superhuman
efforts and the excessive heat, might be brought up from those fiery
depths below, while others took the place of him who had fallen at the
post of duty, and the speed was never slackened.
On, on, over the long swell, every man aboard in the highest possible
state of excitement, eager that the _Texas_ should be in at the death,
and ahead, straining every nerve as it were, fled the Spaniards,
knowing full well that there could be but one ending to such a race.
"It's Yankee grit an' Yankee skill that's winnin' this fight!" Bill
Jones cried, excitedly, forgetting that he was only a "plain,
every-day sailor, with no fightin' timber about him," and at every
onward leap of the ship his body swayed forward as if he was eager for
a fray.
But neither Bill Jones nor any man aboard the _Texas_, save those
brave souls in the very bowels of the gallant ship, had any
opportunity to display personal bravery.
The fight ended when the chase did, for then nothing was left of those
mighty Spanish ships save blackened hulks.
The _Oregon_ was sending 13-inch projectiles after the _Oquendo_ at
every fair opportunity, and the _Texas_, more than holding her own
with the other vessels, was coming up astern with a speed that
threatened to bring the long race to a speedy conclusion.
Then, suddenly, although all had been expecting it, the _Almirante
Oquendo's_ bow was headed toward the shore,--she saw the uselessness
of further flight,--and all the pursuers, save the _Texas_, hauled off
in pursuit of the _Cristobal Colon_.
Standing with a group of _Texas_ men, Teddy and Bill Jones saw the
Spaniard near the line of surf, and as their vessel's speed was
checked there came a roar mightier than when the battle was first
opened; the doomed ship rocked to and fro as if she had struck a
sunken reef, there was an uprending of the iron decks, and then came a
shower of fragments that told of the tremendous explosion within the
hull of the _Oquendo_.
Now it was the Yankee crew burst once more into shouts of triumph; but
before the first cheer arose on the morning air Captain Philip cried:
"Don't cheer; the poor devils are dying!"
Then it was that every man realised what had, until this moment, been
absolutely forgotten: the game in which they were such decided victors
was one of death! While they were triumphantly happy, scores upon
scores of the enemy were dying,--mangled, scalded, drowning,--and on
the instant, like a flash of light, came the terrible fact that while
they rejoiced, others were suffering a last agony.
"Don't cheer; the poor devils are dying!"
At that instant Teddy Dunlap understood what might be the horror of
war, and forgetting the joy and exultation which had been his an
instant previous, the lad covered his eyes with his hand,--sick at
heart that he should have taken even a passive part in that game which
could be ended only by suffering and death.
Later, after the men were sufficiently calm to be able to discuss
intelligently the doings of that day when the full Spanish fleet was
destroyed by Yankee vessels who throughout all the action and chase
sustained no injury whatsoever, it was learned that more than six
hundred human beings had been sent out of the world in less than four
hours, and nearly eighteen hundred men were taken prisoners by the
American vessels.
Teddy Dunlap was like one in a daze from the instant he realised what
all this thrilling excitement meant, until Bill Jones, who had been
ordered to some duty below, came to his side in the greatest
excitement.
"What do you think of that, lad?" he cried, shaking the boy vigorously
as he pointed seaward, and Teddy, looking in the direction indicated
by his outstretched finger, but without seeing anything, asked,
hesitatingly:
"Is it the _Cristobal Colon_?"
"Of course it isn't, my lad! That vessel is a wreck off Tarquino
Point, so we heard half an hour ago. Don't you see the ship here
almost alongside?"
"Oh, yes, I see her," Teddy replied, with a sigh of relief. "There's
been so much that is terrible goin' on around us that it's like as if
I was dazed."
"An' that's what you must be, lad, not to see that here's the
_Brooklyn_ nearer alongside than she's like to come again for a year
or more."
"The _Brooklyn_!" Teddy cried, now aroused from the stupefaction of
horror which had come upon him with the knowledge of all the suffering
caused that day. "The _Brooklyn_!"
"Ay, lad, an' her launch is alongside makin' ready to transfer some of
the prisoners. Now's our chance, when such as we don't amount to a
straw in view of the great things that have been done this day, to
slip over on a little visit to your daddy!"
Probably at no other time could such a thing have been done by two
members of the crew; but just now, when every man and officer was
overwhelmed by the fever of victory, little heed was given to the
movements of any particular person.
Therefore it was that Teddy Dunlap and the little sailor had no
difficulty in gaining the _Brooklyn's_ deck without question or check,
and the first person they saw on clambering aboard was a coal-passer,
stripped to the waist and grimy with dust and perspiration, who stared
with bulging eyes at the boy who followed close behind Bill Jones.
"Teddy!"
"Daddy!"
"I reckon this is no place for me," Bill Jones muttered as he made his
way forward, and if the "plain, every-day sailor with no fightin'
timber about him" had sufficient delicacy to leave father and son
alone at such a time, surely we should show ourselves equally
considerate.
* * * * *
It is enough to say that Teddy's troubles were at an end after a short
visit with his father, and that he did not leave the _Texas_
immediately.
Captain Philip came to hear the boy's story, and an opportunity was
given him to enlist for so long a term as his father was bound to the
_Brooklyn_.
Since the purpose of this little story was only to tell how the
stowaway found his father, there is no excuse for continuing an
account of Teddy's experience off Santiago with Sampson; but at some
future time, if the reader so chooses, all that befell him before
returning home shall be set down with careful fidelity to every
detail.
THE END.