THE BOAT-EXPEDITION.
“All the starboard watch, ahoy!” piped the boatswain’s mate at eight
bells on the following morning.
Jack turned out of his hammock, eager to engage in the expedition which
was to start at this time. Hastening to the spar-deck, he heard the
order given to clear away the cutters. The men and material for the
enterprise were ready. Boat-howitzers were placed in the bows of the
cutters; a supply of ammunition, provisions, and water, was taken on
board of them; and the men embarked.
Mr. Granger, the second-lieutenant, was to command the expedition,
with the fourth-lieutenant in the third cutter, and a master’s mate in
the fourth. It was the first active service in which either officers
or men had been engaged during the cruise; and everyone, from the
second-lieutenant down to the powder-boys, was anxious to distinguish
himself, and each one felt competent to whip two or three rebels in
any fair encounter. There was pluck enough in the expedition to have
supplied three times as large a company: and it was fortunate for them
and for the Government that Mr. Granger was a prudent and sensible man;
otherwise the expedition might have taken it into its head to attack
the city of New Orleans or Mobile, or pitched into Fort Pike, Fort
Gaines, or some other rebel stronghold in the vicinity.
When the boats were ready to start, Mr. Granger ordered the second and
third cutters alongside the first, in which he was seated himself. The
officers in command of the other boats had already been instructed in
regard to their duties; and Mr. Granger proceeded to give a few general
directions for the conduct of the men. The oars had been “tossed,”
and the crews listened in respectful silence to the remarks of the
commander of the expedition.
“Cast off!” said the cockswains of the cutters; and the three boats
separated, so as to permit each to use its oars.
“Let fall!” added the cockswains. “Give way!”
The cutters dashed away, the men pulling with a will. As yet, they
knew not where they were going; and, aside from the natural curiosity
all men feel, it is not probable that they cared, provided they were
introduced to some stirring scene which would enable them to do
something for the old flag, and furnish an opportunity for the daring
spirits to distinguish themselves in a hand-to-hand fight.
Jack Somers stowed himself away under the lee of Tom Longstone, who
was in the same boat with him; partly because the old quartermaster
wished “to keep an eye on him;” and partly because the veteran was a
sage and a prophet, and Jack wanted the benefit of his observations and
instructions.
“Do you know where we are going, Tom?” asked Jack in a low voice; for
loud talking was not permitted.
“Haven’t the least idea, my lad,” replied Tom in a whisper.
“Where do you suppose?”
“The likes of you and me, my darling, are not to know anything about
it. Bless you, Jack, Mr. Granger hasn’t asked my opinion about
anything, and hasn’t even told me where we are going!”
“Can’t you tell in what direction we are pulling?”
“As to the matter of that, my honey-bee, we are heading due north.”
“What do you _think_ we are going to do?”
“I have not the leastest idee in natur’. May be we are goin’ to capter
Mobile; that lays off here away somewhere: but I don’t think we are,
Jack.”
“Of course we are not,” replied Jack impatiently.
“May be, Fort Pike: I heard one of the jollies say there was such a
battery or fort in here somewhere. I don’t think we are, though.”
“You know we are not, Tom.”
“May be we are going across the country to strike New Orleans,”
chuckled Tom; “but I don’t believe we are.”
“You know very well we are not going to do anything of the kind. You
are an old seaman. I didn’t know but you could tell, from the arms and
other things in the boat, what kind of work we are to perform.”
“Well, my baby, seein’ as how you want to know so bad, I’ll give you my
opinion. ’Taint worth much; but old Tom’s always ready to give the best
he’s got.”
The veteran spoke in low tones; and the seamen near him gathered closer
around him, so as to hear the opinion of the sage of the first cutter.
Tom took off his cap, scratched his bald head as if to stimulate his
intellectual powers, and sharpen his judgment up to the requisite pitch
for the important decision he was about to render.
“I don’t know where we’re goin’, or what we’re goin’ to do, as I
said before,” continued Tom, when all heads were bent down to catch
the words of wisdom when they should fall from his venerated lips.
“Howsomever, in my opinion, we’re goin’ to take a look at the rebels,
or else to attack some shore-battery, or else some steamboat or sailing
vessel. Now, my lads, you’ve got my opinion: so don’t pester me no
more.”
Old Tom indulged in a low chuckle as he settled back on the thwart, and
glanced around him to discover in the darkness how his opinion had been
received.
“Bully for you, Tom! I thought you knowed all about this work,” laughed
an old sheet-anchor man.
Jack gave up in despair, and was obliged to content himself with
knowing no more than the law allows. The men at the oars were relieved
every hour; for it was a long pull before they reached the scene of
operations. At eight o’clock, the expedition came into a broad bay
extending into the mainland. The boats were passing between two
headlands about two miles apart, when a cannon-shot dropped into the
water a short distance ahead of the first cutter.
“There’s music for you!” said Tom Longstone.
“There’s some more!” added the sheet-anchor man.
This was the first time that Jack Somers had ever listened to the
whizzing of a cannon-ball; and the sensation was decidedly novel,
if not agreeable. It was different from what our sailor-boy had
anticipated. One of the ugly missiles might hit the first cutter, and
smash her in pieces, killing half her human freight. There was no
chance to strike a blow in self-defence, or even to fire a shot in
return from the howitzers; for the battery from which the shot came was
situated on the headland on the port-hand, and more than a mile distant.
Mr. Granger being a prudent man, and unwilling to expose the boats’
crews to the fire of the battery, gave orders for them to pull up into
the favoring shelter of a small island, several of which appeared near
the entrance to the bay. The fort then opened with shell; to whose
hideous screaming, Jack and a majority of the party listened for the
first time. The second-lieutenant landed upon the island, and with his
glass made a careful examination of the battery and the shores of the
bay.
“We’re in the stocks!” said Tom Longstone with the peculiar low chuckle
with which he often delivered himself.
“We shall not stay here long!” added Jack nervously; for the shells did
not sound pleasantly to his ear.
“You aren’t afraid, are you, my little lamb?” demanded Tom.
“Of course I’m not afraid,” replied Jack with a deep blush; “but I
don’t like to lie here, and be shot at, without a chance of paying off
the rebels in their own coin.”
“It aren’t pleasant to lay still under fire, my boy; but that’s a part
of a good seaman’s duty, and he must take things as they come. Don’t be
alarmed, Jack; they won’t hit you.”
“They are just as likely to hit me as they are anyone else. I should
like something to do, if it’s nothing more than pulling an oar.”
“That’s cause you’re narvous, Jack.”
Perhaps there were not many in the boats who were not nervous as they
listened to the screaming shells.
It was a new experience to them; and it is not in the nature of man to
stand in the presence of death, without being moved by the peril. Some
of the crew laughed, and made fun of the dangerous missiles as they
screeched through the air, or burst at very inconvenient distances from
them; but it is probable that those who laughed the loudest were the
most afraid, and therefore struggled the hardest to avoid making an
exhibition of their real feelings.
Tom Longstone and a few others had been under fire before; and they
were as cool and self-possessed as though they had been on board a
receiving-ship in a peaceful port. Mr. Granger, who had recently been
promoted for gallant conduct, seemed to be perfectly calm, paying no
attention to the shells which were dropping around him. The rebels in
the fort had not yet got the range of the island; and their firing was
not accurate, though it was rapidly improving. At last, the commander
of the expedition finished his examination, and walked toward the boats.
The crews of the cutters watched him with eager interest: and most
of them believed, perhaps some hoped, that the expedition was to be
abandoned; for they did not see what three boats could do while exposed
to the fire of the rebel battery, whose guns commanded the waters of
the bay. Mr. Granger, Mr. McBride, and the master’s mate from the third
cutter, held a short consultation on the shore, out of the hearing of
the men. When it was ended, each returned to his boat, and orders were
given to cast off. It was a moment of deep anxiety to all the men; for
the question of success or failure rested upon the decision of the
officers.
The boats shoved off from the land; and, when the men gave way, instead
of going about, they were headed up the bay. There was a strong
inclination to give three cheers manifested by the more ardent spirits;
but it was quickly repressed by a sharp word from the second-lieutenant.
The boats were kept as much as possible within the shelter of the range
of islands on the easterly side of the bay, and in a few moments they
had passed out of reach of the shells; for the gunners in the fort,
probably enveloped in their own smoke, had not discovered the change of
position made by the boats.
“Steamer on the port-quarter, sir!” shouted Mr. McBride from the second
cutter.
“I see her!” replied Mr. Granger.
“Now look out for squalls, my hearties!” said Tom Longstone in a low
voice, as he glanced at the new enemy, which was just emerging from
behind a headland in the direction indicated by the fourth-lieutenant.
“We shall have a fight yet!” added Jack uneasily; for, on a nearer
approach, a hand-to-hand fight with the rebels was not quite so
sentimental an affair as it had seemed to be at a distance.
We do not mean to accuse our hero of being afraid; but the terrible
inactivity of the moment was almost insupportable. He wanted to pitch
right in, and do “a big thing.” He wanted something to do, so that he
could prove to himself and his companions that he was no coward. To sit
in the boat like a block of wood, and be shot at by the rebels, was
wretched business; and he hoped Mr. Granger would pull out, and order
the boats’ crews to board the steamer, and not permit her to stand off
and pelt them with shot and shell.
“It will be a smart fight, too,” added Tom.
“Ay, ay; that it will. The steamer’s cut us off! I’ll tell you what,
Tom: Mr. Granger has got us into a tight place!” replied Grummet, the
sheet-anchor man.
“Let him alone; he knows what he’s about,” answered the veteran.
“Don’t ye see, Tom, the steamer can stand off, and whittle us up into
inch-pieces; and we can’t board, nor nothin’?”
“Leave all that to Mr. Granger,” persisted Tom, whose long experience
had begotten confidence in his officers.
Under the lee of one of the islands which rose higher above the water
than the others, the men were ordered to lie on their oars. The fort
still kept banging away at the island behind which the boats had first
taken refuge. The steamer, which was a small river-boat, drawing no
more water than the first cutter, came puffing across the bay, like a
man with the asthma, towards the first island. She was a slow affair,
and it took her some time to come within hailing distance of the
expedition. As she approached the man-of-war’s boats, the fort, out of
regard for her safety, ceased firing; which might have been done half
an hour before, so far as any injury to the cutters was concerned.
“I tell you, Tom Longstone, we are booked for a rebel prison, as sure
as you was born,” said Grummet.
“Stopper your jaw!” replied Tom impatiently. “What are your officers
for, if they are going for to send you to a rebel prison?”
“Don’t you see that old snorter astern of us, Tom? Are you goin’ for to
run away from a steamboat?”
“We aren’t goin’ for to run away from anything that shows a rebel rag
at its peak,--mind that, you old croaker!” added Tom. “You aren’t
afraid, are you, Jack?” continued he, putting his arm around his
_protégé_, and hugging him like a baby.
“Of course I’m not afraid; only--only”--
“What, my bleating little lamb?”
“I wish the fun would commence.”
“See that, Tom!” continued the sheet-anchor man. “D’ye see that gun on
the t’gallant fo’castle? She is swinging it round.”
“Let her swing it round,” snarled Tom. “Now batten down your jaw-port
and don’t groan any more.”
At this moment, an order was heard for the men to give way; and, before
the gun of the steamer was ready, the boats had doubled the island, and
the men were lying upon their oars, with the high land between them and
the steamer.
“See that!” said Tom triumphantly. “Mr. Granger knows all about it.”
“Perhaps he do,” replied Grummet doubtfully, as a shot from the steamer
whizzed harmlessly over their heads.