A NARROW ESCAPE
It was Christmas morning, and very early on Christmas morning, for the
sun, like a great ball of burnished copper, was just rising above the
mist that hung low along the eastern horizon, gilding with the first
flush of dawn the cold, gray clouds and shimmering on the crest of the
waves that rippled in the freshening breeze.
Under all sail and braced close to the wind, a war-ship is standing in
for the land, where a long stretch of low sand hills is broken by the
entrance to a bay, an ugly line of breakers making across; while a mile
beyond, the tall, white shaft of a half-ruined lighthouse is visible.
The vessel is a clipper-built bark, her long, tapering masts heavily
sparred and spreading a cloud of canvas. The lines of her hull are so
fine, her bow is so sharp, and her run so clean moulded that she could
evidently show great speed were she not so closely hauled. As it is,
although every thread of canvas is drawing, the bowlines are hauled
well out and the weather leeches of the topsails shiver as the ship
rises and falls on the strong easterly swell; for she is kept almost
in the wind’s eye by the old quartermaster at the wheel, under the
watchful conning of the officer of the deck.
Near one of the after guns stands an officer looking through his marine
glass toward the southward, steadying himself, meanwhile, by leaning
against the weather mizzen rigging.
“Well, sir, what do your young eyes make of her?” I queried.
“It is certainly the Connecticut, and she is making the best of her way
down the coast, under steam and sail.”
“Just as I thought! Confound it, why couldn’t we have been a couple of
hours earlier! Well, Mr. Bailey, it seems pretty certain that we have
lost the supply steamer, as we did our blockade runner last night, by
being a little too late!”
“That will make it a very dismal Christmas for us, sir.”
“I know it, Mr. Bailey, and I am as much disappointed as you possibly
can be. I was anxiously expecting some important private letters by the
Connecticut, to say nothing of the necessity of stocking up my mess
stores. I fancy that you are not much better off in that respect in the
wardroom.”
“Better off, sir! Why we are down to our very last can of tomatoes, and
that, with salt beef, is very likely to be our Christmas dinner to-day
in the wardroom, with possibly a plum duff as a wind-up. It’s simply
awful, sir!”
“I am heartily sorry for you, Mr. Bailey, and I must see if my steward
cannot rake up something among my stores to help out your table a bit.
I shall expect you and the doctor to dine with me to-day, however. But
we must be getting in very close to our anchorage, I think. Yes, there
is our buoy just off the lee bow. We shall fetch it nicely on this
tack. Call all hands, sir, at once, and bring the ship to an anchor.”
The order was passed, the boatswain’s call rang out sharp and clear,
the boatswain’s mates took up the refrain in a minor key, and above the
notes of the whistles the hoarse cry, “All hands bring ship to anchor,
ahoy!” resounded through the berth deck. Responsive to the call, the
quiet ship was soon alive with men hastening to their stations.
“Stand by halyards, sheets, clewlines, and downhauls fore and aft!”
shouted the executive officer through his trumpet. “Lower away; let
go; clew up, haul down!” There was a whizzing of ropes, a flapping of
canvas, and in a moment the yards were down and the sails were hanging
in festoons.
“Away, topgallant and royal yard men! Lay aloft, topmen and lower yard
men! Trice up booms; lay out; furl!”
A hundred men sprang into the rigging as they were called away; each
yard swarmed with them as they rapidly furled the sails; and as the
ship lost her headway, the anchor was let go, the crew quickly laid
down from aloft, and the beautiful ship that but a few minutes before
had been alive under a cloud of canvas was quietly swinging to her
anchor, with sails trimly furled, bunts triced up, yards squared by
lifts and braces, and no man to be seen above the hammock nettings save
the lookout at each masthead and the commanding officer, who from the
poop had been critically watching this evolution of “a flying-moor,”
and now turned to express his satisfaction to the executive officer,
who was turning the trumpet over to the officer of the deck.
“Very neatly done, indeed, Mr. Bailey! We couldn’t have beaten that in
the old Richmond with three times our crew! Men who show the result of
your excellent training so smartly as this at least deserve a Christmas
dinner. Have my gig called away immediately after breakfast, and I will
go on shore and see if I cannot knock over a bullock. I don’t believe
any of us will object to a bit of roast beef, and I shall be glad to
make a little reconnaissance at the same time.”
My predecessor on this station had been Captain Robert Wade, in command
of the United States bark Arthur. As she was at Pensacola when I took
command of the Anderson, I went on board of her one day to learn
something about my new station.
“Well, Kelson,” said Captain Wade in response to my queries, “it is
a God-forsaken coast, and I am not sorry to have got away from it
myself. You will need to anchor in about ten fathoms, say three miles
from shore; for when the northers come along next winter you will very
likely have to slip, and then you will require plenty of sea room to
work off shore.”
“Any inhabitants about the bay?”
“I never saw any. There are some half-wild cattle on Matagorda Island,
and I used to go on shore, occasionally, and shoot one for the messes.
It’s a pretty lonely spot, I assure you!”
That was about all that I had been able to learn, in advance, of the
stretch of coast I was supposed to take care of; and up to this blessed
Christmas Day, now nearly two weeks, no signs whatever of life in the
neighborhood of the bay had been discovered, although a bright lookout
had been constantly maintained from the mastheads of my ship.
Consequently I felt that I was taking every reasonable precaution when
I ordered my boat’s crew to wear their cutlasses, and had half a dozen
Sharps’ rifles put in the stern sheets, for I knew that we would be
more than a match for any possible bushwhackers, although I had no
reason to expect any opposition. My surgeon had gladly accepted an
invitation to join me, and soon after breakfast we shoved off from the
ship on our quest for beef.
Across the mouth of the bay the breakers made a line of white-capped
surf; but acting on instructions I had received from Captain Wade, I
watched for a heavy roller, and then we gave way and went in with it,
keeping the boat’s stern to the sea, and thus crossed the bar with only
a slight drenching.
About a mile, as I remember it, from the bar stood the lighthouse.
Early in the war the rebels, in accordance with their general policy,
had removed the lantern, and had then attempted to blow up the tower;
but the sturdy shaft had defied their efforts, and, barring a ragged
gap in one side, it was, as yet, practically intact.
Landing a few rods from the lighthouse, I left the boat beached,
with orders to the crew not to stray away and to keep their arms in
readiness for use. Then, accompanied by the doctor and my coxswain, I
strolled up to the tower, intending to obtain from the top a lookout
over the surrounding country.
But this I soon found was no easy task, for the rebels had blown
out the lower iron steps from the inside: and it was only by using
considerable effort that we at last succeeded in accomplishing our
object, and only then after pulling down in the struggle two of the
steps still remaining in place. However, at last we scrambled up and
made our way to the balcony above the lantern-room.
From this point the view was very extended; and unslinging my marine
glass, I, sailor-like, turned first to look at the beautiful picture my
noble ship presented gracefully riding at her anchors, her tall masts
tapering skyward, the ensign and pennant drooping idly from the peak
and masthead in the light air, the guns peering from her side being
the only thing to indicate that she was not some “peaceful merchant
caravel.”
“She is certainly a beauty, doctor. You don’t often see a prettier
craft, and she is as good as she is bonny, and carries a swift pair
of heels into the bargain! But what are you looking at over there so
intently? It is easy to see that you are not a sailor! Have you got a
bullock in range over those hills?”
While speaking I turned my glass in the direction where the doctor
was looking so earnestly, and the sight presented almost took away my
breath, and for an instant I was speechless.
On our right, over the sheltering sand hill which had heretofore
concealed them from our view, was a rebel camp in plain sight, into
which, as I looked down from the tower, it seemed to me that I could
have cast a stone!
Two score dingy shelter tents and two or three larger marquee tents
indicated the presence of at least a hundred men, while before one of
the large tents were two brass field-pieces!
There was no perceptible stir in the camp, and for a moment I hoped
that we might not have been observed, and that possibly there was yet
time for us to escape unnoticed from this trap into which I had so
unwittingly cast myself.
But the silence and quiet were delusive; for as I looked again more
carefully, I saw that men were stealing over the sand hills toward my
boat, which they doubtless hoped to capture by surprise!
We have been told by those who have been revived, after coming
well-nigh within the gates of death by drowning, that in the few
agonizing moments before they became unconscious, a thousand
recollections of the life they were leaving flashed through their
minds. So now I recalled Wade’s words when he had told me that this
island was uninhabited, and cursed myself for having trusted to them. I
thought of the report of the affair Mr. Bailey, soon to be commander in
my place, would make to the admiral. What business had I, the captain,
out of my ship, when a junior officer could have been sent in to make a
reconnaissance, if indeed it were needed at all! And what sad news to
be sent home to my young wife, for a Texas prison pen was but a shade
better than death!
But I was aroused by the doctor’s question, “Hadn’t we better be
getting out of this, captain?” and coming to a realizing sense of the
necessity for immediate action, I made quick time in getting down to
the ground.
The boat’s crew were amusing themselves by shying stones at a bottle
they had set up for a mark, in utter unconsciousness of their imminent
danger, and they were evidently greatly surprised at the rapid manner
with which we came down to the boat.
“Into the boat at once, men!” I cried, “and give way for your lives!
The rebs are almost on top of us!”
The doctor and I climbed into the stern sheets as the men sprang into
their places; and as they bent to their oars, the rebels, seeing that
they were discovered, poured over the sand hills with exultant yells.
Fortunately we got the boat well in motion before they opened fire, and
their shots flew wild, save one that buried itself in the stern of the
boat close to the rudder head.
“They are bringing the fieldpiece over the hill, captain!” said the
doctor, who was watching the enemy.
“Give way, lads! Make her jump, if you don’t want to sleep in prison
to-night!” I shouted, keeping the boat as close over to the port shore
as it was possible without fouling the oars.
Bang! and a shell came shrieking through the air so close to our heads
that, as it burst, a fragment cut a slice out of the starboard gunwale
of the boat, between the stern sheets and the after oar. At the same
time the stroke oarsman was wounded in the left arm by another bit of
shell. But the brave fellow did not abandon his oar or lose his stroke;
and the doctor, tearing a piece from his own shirt sleeve, bound it
about the wounded arm and stanched the blood, without moving the man
from his seat.
“They are waving us to come in, captain,” said the doctor, as he
finished binding up the man’s arm and took a look astern.
“Well, we won’t oblige them,” I replied. “Give them a sight of our
ensign, doctor, so that they may know for certain who we are. It will
not be the first time they have fired on that flag!”
The doctor reached behind me, as I steered, and placed the staff of the
boat flag in its socket, and “Old Glory” streamed out behind us as we
flew through the water.
This brought another shell, which passed close astern of the boat,
missing us by so little that we all held our breath as it came
screaming toward us. But we, meanwhile, were not tarrying. Our light
boat was dashing along, and her speed evidently disconcerted the
hurried aim of our adversaries, whose next shots were wide of the mark,
although quite near enough to make their singing very unpleasant music.
But another and an entirely unexpected danger now confronted us; for as
we neared the lower point of the bay, where we expected to be out of
range, men were seen launching from the beach a boat somewhat larger
than our own, with the evident purpose of cutting us off before we
could reach the bar.
Under ordinary circumstances, or single-handed, I should not have
objected to this prospective contest, for I felt very sure that, boat
for boat, we should be more than a match for them; but if we stopped to
fight, the artillerymen, who were now dragging their pieces down the
beach, would get us in range, and a single well-directed shot from the
gun would easily have put us _hors de combat_. So that I viewed
this new complication as very far from being an agreeable incident.
But before the soldiers got their boat afloat, which they were going
about in a very lubberly manner, we were startled by the report of
a heavy gun from outside, and a rifle shell came hurtling high above
our heads and landed in the sand very near our pursuers. A second shot
followed almost immediately, which to our delight exploded in the very
midst of the men, capsizing the piece and dispersing the gunners in a
very summary manner!
“Hurrah! doctor, the Anderson is talking back! There she is, God bless
her!” and as I spoke the dear old barkey appeared in plain sight under
topsails, courses, and jibs, right abreast of the entrance to the bay,
and much closer in to the bar than she had any business to be, and
the Parrott rifle rang out again, landing a shell in such very close
proximity to the party who were getting the boat afloat that they at
once abandoned their work.
“Give way now, boys; we’ll go through the breakers if we have to go
through bottom side up! Our friends will pick us up.” And we dashed
into the surf. The boat rose almost on end, then came down and touched
bottom, but at the same instant another roller lifted her, the men bent
to their oars sturdily, and in a minute more we were through the surf
and safe in the quiet water outside the bar.
As we emerged from the rollers the Anderson luffed up in the wind, her
main topsail was braced aback, and the crew sprang into the rigging and
gave three hearty cheers, which must have been very depressing to our
would-be captors.
We were received on board with a warm greeting that set all discipline
at defiance for a few minutes, and then the usual calm routine of a
well-disciplined ship of war settled down, and all excitement was
repressed as we hoisted in the gig and made sail on the other tack for
our anchorage.
My honest steward’s welcome, when I went down to my cabin, was none
the less hearty because in failing to bring off the coveted bullock I
had compelled him to serve me a very meagre dinner; and as I sat down
to the simple meal he had provided, I could not but be grateful for my
very narrow escape from taking my Christmas dinner that day in a Texas
prison pen!