THE LIEUTENANT'S DARING EXPLOIT
Captain Breaker was perplexed when his ship came alongside the enemy and
was made fast to her, for things were not working according to the usual
rules made and provided for such occasions, and Captain Rombold was
evidently resorting to some unusual tactics. The two steamers were of
about the same height above water, so their decks were very nearly on a
level.
The men with muskets on both sides were reloading their weapons, and
those with navy revolvers were discharging them at the enemy; but the
officers of divisions concealed their men behind the bulwarks when the
order to board did not come.
Christy saw the perplexity of the commander at his side, and it was
evident to both of them that some unusual strategy was to be adopted,
and Captain Breaker did not intend to fall into a trap if he could avoid
it. They could see nothing that looked suspicious except the position of
the enemy's force on the starboard side of the ship.
Before the captain could stop him, the first lieutenant had leaped into
the mizzen rigging, and ascended far enough to obtain a view of the
quarter deck over the bulwarks, while the commander walked aft far
enough to accomplish the same purpose by looking through the aperture
made by the shot which had carried away the wheel of the enemy, without
exposing himself to the fire of the seamen on board of her.
Christy's action occupied but the fraction of a minute; but several
muskets and revolvers were discharged at him in this brief time. Letting
go his hold of the rigging, he dropped to the deck before the captain
could see what he was doing; and it was supposed that the daring officer
had been brought down by the shots fired at him.
"Second division, follow me!" he cried, as he picked up the cutlass he
had dropped.
About thirty men rushed to the quarter-deck, hurried on by Mr. Walbrook.
Christy leaped upon the rail, with the cutlass in his right hand, and
the revolver in his left, and dropped down upon the quarter deck of
the Tallahatchie, upon a squad of seamen who were lying low behind a
thirty-pounder, whose carriage was close to the bulwark, the piece
pointed forward.
The first lieutenant had seen from his position in the mizzen rigging
the trap which had been set for the crew of the Bellevite. They were
expected to leap to the rail, and cut away the boarding nettings--not
always used, but were on this occasion--and then drop down to the deck.
The first command would naturally have been to "Repel boarders;" but
this was not given, and no fighting was to be done till the boarders
reached the ship, when the thirty-pounder, doubtless loaded with grape
or shrapnel, was to mow down the invaders of the deck.
Christy's men poured down after him, and before the crew of the gun, who
had no doubt been ordered to conceal themselves, could get upon their
feet they were cut down by the impetuous tars from the Bellevite. It
was the work of but a moment. Christy had taken some pains to have the
opinion of Captain Rombold that American seamen were inferior to British
circulated, and the men evidently intended to prove that they were the
equals of any sailors afloat.
"Swing the muzzle of the gun to starboard!" shouted Christy, as he took
hold with his own hands to point the piece, which was in position in a
moment.
Captain Rombold stood but a short distance from the stump of the mizzen
mast with a cutlass in his hand. He rushed forward to rally his crew;
and he seemed to be rendered desperate by the failure of the scheme to
which he had resorted. At this moment Christy heard Captain Breaker
shout the order to board, and the men were springing to the rail, and
tearing away the boarding netting.
"Stand by the lanyard!" cried the first lieutenant on the quarter-deck
of the enemy, and he had sighted the piece himself in the absence of any
regular gun crew. "Fire!"
The cloud of smoke concealed all of the deck forward of the mizzen mast,
and Christy could not see what effect had been produced by the charge of
grape, or whatever it was. At any rate the men the commander had rallied
for a charge did not appear.
The smoke was blown away in a minute or so, and the Bellevite's sailors
had made a lodgment on the deck of the enemy. They were led by the
officers of the divisions, and were rushing over to the starboard, where
the enemy's men had been concentrated. They were brave men, whether
English or not, and the moment they could see the boarders, they rushed
at them by command of their officers; but they pushed forward, as it
were, out of a heap of killed and wounded, those who had fallen by the
grape-shot intended to decimate the ranks of the loyal band.
Christy rallied his men as soon as they had done their work in the
vicinity of the thirty-pounder, and ordered them to join their division
under the command of the third lieutenant. But the seamen on the part of
the Confederates seemed to be dispirited to some extent by the bad
beginning they had made, and by the heap of slain near them. Captain
Rombold lay upon the deck, propped up against the mizzen mast. He looked
as pale as death itself; but he was still directing the action, giving
orders to his first lieutenant. Two of his officers were near him, but
both of them appeared to be severely wounded.
The battle was raging with fearful energy on the part of the loyal tars,
and with hardly less vigor on the part of the enemy, though the latter
fought in a sort of desperate silence. The wounded commander was doing
his best to reinspire them; but his speech was becoming feeble, and
perhaps did more to discourage than to strengthen them.
At this stage of the action Graines, closely followed by his twenty men,
sprang over the starboard bulwarks, and fell upon the enemy in the rear.
Finding themselves between an enemy in front and rear, they could do no
more; for it was sure death to remain where they were, and they fled
precipitately to the forecastle.
"Quarter!" shouted these men, and the same cry came from the other parts
of the deck.
"Haul down the flag, Mr. Brookfield!" said the commander in a feeble
tone.
The first lieutenant of the Tallahatchie, with his handkerchief tied
around his leg, directed a wounded quartermaster to strike the colors,
and three tremendous cheers from the victorious crew of the Bellevite
rent the air. Captain Breaker had come on board of the enemy, sword in
hand, and had conducted himself as bravely as the unfortunate commander
of the prize.
The moment he saw Christy he rushed to him with both hands extended, and
with a smile upon his face. The four hands were interlocked, but not a
word was spoken for the feelings of both were too big for utterance.
A loyal quartermaster was ordered to hoist the American ensign over the
Confederate flag which had just been hauled down.
The situation on board of the prize was so terrible that there was no
danger of an attempt to recapture the vessel, and immediate attention
was given to the care of the wounded, the survivors in each vessel
performing this duty under its own officers.
Mr. Brookfield, the executive officer of the Tallahatchie, was wounded
in the leg below the knee, but he did not regard himself as disabled,
and superintended the work of caring for the sufferers. Mr. Hungerford,
the second lieutenant, appeared to be the only principal officer who had
escaped uninjured; while Mr. Lenwold, the third lieutenant, had his arm
in a sling in consequence of a wound received from a splinter in the
early part of the action. These gentlemen, who had seemed like demons
only a few minutes before, so earnest were they in the discharge of
their duties, were now as tender and devoted as so many women.
Captain Breaker directed his own officers to return to the deck of the
Bellevite and provide for the wounded there; but they were few in number
compared with those strewed about the deck of the prize. While the
Confederate ship had been unable to discharge her guns, and the officers
were using their utmost exertions to repair the disabled steering
apparatus, the Bellevite had had a brief intermission of the din of
battle, during which the wounded had been carried below where the
surgeon and his mates had attended to their injuries.
It was ascertained that only six men had been killed during the action,
and their silent forms had been laid out in the waist. Seventeen men
were in their berths in the hospital or on the tables of the surgeon,
eight of whom had been wounded by the muskets and revolvers of the enemy
as the ship came alongside the prize. Four others had just been borne to
the cockpit with wounds from pikes and cutlasses.
The loss of the enemy was at least triple that of the Bellevite, a
large number of whom had fallen before the murderous discharge of the
thirty-pounder on the quarter-deck, which had been intended to decimate
the ranks of the loyal boarders; and, raking the column as the men
poured into the ship, it would probably have laid low more than one in
ten of the number. This was an original scheme of Captain Rombold; and
but for the coolness and deliberation of Captain Breaker, and the daring
of his chief officer, it must have been a terrible success. As it was,
the Confederate commander, who was the only foreign officer on board,
"had been hoisted by his own petard."
Christy had done all that required his attention on board of the
Bellevite, and he paid another visit to the deck of the Tallahatchie,
where he desired to obtain some information which would enable him the
better to understand the action which had just been fought. He was
especially anxious to ascertain the condition of the Armstrong gun which
had been disabled by the first shot of Blumenhoff with the midship
Parrot. As he went on deck, he saw Captain Rombold, seated in an
arm-chair his cabin steward had brought up for him, with his right
leg resting on a camp stool.
"Good-morning, Mr. Passford," said the wounded commander, with a slight
smile on his pale face. "_Comment allez-vous ce matin?_" (How do you do
this morning?)
"_Très bien, Monsieur le capitaine. Je suis bien fâché que vous êtes
blessé._ (Very well, Captain. I am very sorry that you are wounded.) You
need the attention of the surgeon, sir," replied the loyal officer.
"I take my turn with my men, Mr. Passford, and my officers do the same.
The fortune of war is with you again, and I congratulate you on the
success which has attended you. I saw that it was you who upset my plan
for receiving your boarders. I was confident, with that device of mine,
I should be able to beat off your boarders, and I intended to carry your
deck by boarding you in turn. I think your commander can give you the
credit of winning the victory for the Bellevite in his despatches; for
I should have killed more of your men with that thirty-pounder than you
did of mine, for I should have raked the column. You saved the day for
the United States when you ran up the mizzen rigging and unmasked my
battery. You are a gentleman and a magnanimous enemy, Mr. Passford, and
I congratulate you on your promotion, which is sure to come. But you
look pale this morning."
"One of your revolvers had very nearly pinked me when I was in the
rigging; for the ball passed between my arm and my side, and took out
a piece of the former, Captain Rombold," replied Christy, who was
beginning to feel languid from the loss of blood, for the drops of red
fluid were dropping from the ends of his fingers. "But you exaggerate
the service I rendered; for Captain Breaker, suspecting something from
the position in which your men were drawn up, had dropped a hawser port,
and intended to look through the aperture made by one of our solid
shots. He would have discovered your trap."
"He could not have seen the gun or the men." At that moment Christy sank
down upon the deck.