The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents

Fifteen minutes later the Boy Aviators were on board the insurgent gunboat General Estrada and safe.

CHAPTER XXIV.

UNLOADING AN ARMY

After what they had passed through the previous night the boys, as may be imagined, did not awaken till late next day, to find the sun streaming through the porthole of their cabin and the ship rolling in a heavy beam-end sort of a way that showed them at once that they were at anchor. Hurriedly dressing they hastened on deck and found themselves on board what was evidently a converted yacht, to judge by her brass and mahogany fittings. Several machine guns, though, and the presence forward of hundreds of ragged soldiers gambling and chicken-fighting, showed them that they were not on board any pleasure craft, but one that was equipped strictly for business – and the grim business of war at that.

They had hardly poked their heads out of the companion before a dapper little man in a brass-buttoned sea uniform hastened up to them. This personage introduced himself as Captain Hans Scheffel, of the vessel and a former commander of a German passenger boat. In a few words he informed the boys that the craft was one of the yachts purchased by the revolutionists for conversion into gunboats and that she was at that moment anchored a few miles south of Bluefields, where it was the present plan that the revolutionaries should be put ashore and commence a march to the Rama River, and possibly across it, to gain the main body, as somewhere in the Rama country Rogero and his troops were supposed to be encamped.

The boys were much relieved to learn that the vessel on which they found themselves was not, as they had at first feared, one of the government’s craft. They well knew that the government of Nicaragua was no friend to Americans and that, in their case especially, Rogero’s enmity would make it risky, – if not actually perilous, – for them to fall into the hands of Zelayan troops.

After the first introductions and explanations of the stout little German and the profuse thanks of the boys for their rescue, he led them below to breakfast in what had been the elaborately decorated saloon of the American millionaire who formerly owned the gunboat. All the “gilt and gingerbread,” however, had been stripped from her when she was converted into a fighting-craft, and now she was as plain as a barge in her interior fittings.

The loss of their Golden Eagle had been a severe blow to the boys and they were not feeling in any too cheerful a mood as Captain Scheffel ushered them into the room and motioned to a table on which was spread an ample breakfast served by black stewards. They were just sitting down to it with healthy young appetites, that even regret over the loss of their ship could not dull, when one of the doors opening off the saloon opened and a tall, black-mustached young man of unmistakably South American descent entered.

He wore a uniform and a sword and walked with an air of assurance that made it apparent that he was a dignitary of some sort, and that this was the case was at once evidenced when the Captain, with a bow and flourish, introduced to the boys:

“Señor General Ruiz, in command of this section of General Estrada’s army.”

The name made both boys start.

“General Ruiz,” exclaimed Frank, “surely not General Ruiz – Mr. Chester’s neighbor?”

“The same;” replied the young man, with a laugh at the boy’s frank astonishment, “and you?”

“We are Frank and Harry Chester,” began Frank.

“Ah, I might have seen the family likeness,” interrupted the soldier with a smile, “forgive me for my inattention.”

“But we believed that you were dead!” exclaimed Harry. “Jose, our father’s servant, brought the news the day before we arrived in Nicaragua.”

Ruiz raised his hands with an exclamation of grief.

“My poor wife,” he exclaimed, “it must have been a sad blow to her. However, in a few days now I trust that we shall be on familiar soil and I shall be able to atone to her for her worry and grief.”

“Familiar soil – ” repeated Frank, delightedly; for this could only mean one thing.

“Yes,” replied the general, “we are to join the main force somewhere along the coast south of here and march toward La Merced. I understand that – and I am sorry to convey the news to you – that Rogero has announced that he is going to make it his headquarters.”

“His headquarters;” repeated both boys, gritting their teeth, “he would not dare.”

“Rogero would dare anything,” replied General Ruiz. “If I had not made my escape after the battle in which Jose believed me shot, I should not be here now, but a victim of Rogero’s drumhead court-martial. As it was, I had a narrow shave. Fortunately, however, for me, one of my guards was a former servant of my family, and a small bribe, combined with his loyalty to the Ruiz clan, sufficed to make him forget his charge for awhile. I made my way north and then sent messengers to General Estrada, who ordered me to take charge of the northern division which was encamped at Mazucla, fifty miles north of here and bring it down the coast on this gunboat.”

General Ruiz concluded his narrative with a few words of sympathy to the boys for the loss of their Golden Eagle which, he said, he had always hoped to see, having heard such reports of it from Mr. Chester, but supposed that would now be impossible.

“Not at all,” replied Frank bravely, “if you will come to New York six months from now you will see the Golden Eagle II, a finer, stancher craft even than the one that lies at the bottom of the Caribbean.”

Under General Ruiz’s direction the work of disembarking was gone about immediately the meal was concluded. There were five hundred men to be got ashore and runners despatched to learn the whereabouts of Estrada’s force with which Ruiz had orders to combine, besides a camp site to be found, all of which demanded expedition.

Frank and Harry watched with much eager amusement and interest the work of getting the troops ashore. Not many of the men could swim and all of them, like most Spanish-Americans, had a hearty dislike of cold water. When every once in a while one of them happened to miss his footing, in boarding the shore-boats, there would go up a cry that made even the restful blue land-crabs in the mangroves ashore scuttle for shelter.

There were no lighters to be obtained at this point of the coast of course and so the army was landed in the ship’s lifeboats – a tedious process. The boys could not help thinking what a contrast the noisy, confused scene offered to the orderly evolutions of American troops. All about the boats, as they were rowed ashore, – landed gunwale-deep with their chattering, ragged occupants, – there cruised ominously the black, three-cornered fins of the man-eating sharks that abound along this coast. Occasionally one of these monsters would actually cruise right up alongside one of the boats. At such times the hubbub became louder than ever and with a great shouting and waving of their broad-brimmed Panamas the soldiers would endeavor to drive the menacing monsters away.

One of the last boats to leave the vessel’s side was loaded until the waves almost lapped over her gunwales and it looked to the boys as if she could never reach the shore in safety. It only needed the least little ripple of a sea to send a wave toppling into her that would swamp her in a wink and spill her crew out into the water and among the sharks. Perhaps the sharks noticed this too for they clustered round till the water was almost black with their wicked torpedo-like evolutions.

“It’s a good thing there’s a smooth sea;” remarked Frank, as, with his brother, General Ruiz and the fussy little captain, he stood on the gunboat’s bridge.

“Ya;” replied the latter, “if der sea was smood not dere would food for der fishes be by sundown. I regollect vunce yen I vas ad Ceylon dot – ”

The worthy captain’s reminiscences, however, got no further. They were cut short by a cry from the heavily-laden boat which by now was several yards distant. Two of the men aboard were struggling desperately, having clinched after a wordy war that had started when she left the vessel’s side. The boys and their companions could hear the cries of protest of the crew who manned the oars:

“Sit down or you’ll have us over.”

Their warning came too late, however. The unexpected disturbance to her equilibrium had careened the overloaded boat till she was canted over to a fatal angle and the water rushed into her. With loud shouts and cries of fear her crew, and the soldiers aboard her, clung desperately to her gunwales but the sheer weight of them pulled her down and the boys could see with horrified eyes the black fins begin to rush in on the doomed men.

There was a boat that had just returned from the shore lying at the foot of the gunboat’s gangway and Frank, followed by Harry and General Ruiz, leaped into this and ordered the crew to “give way.” The men pulled like demons, at the sight of their comrades’ distress, and in a few seconds were in the thick of the battle. Already several of the poor fellows had been seized by sharks and the water about the capsized boat was crimsoned. The ravenous monsters, however, far from being glutted, were rushing in from all directions and their triangular fins shot about in the water for a space of several yards surrounding the doomed boat.

The boys and General Ruiz worked like Trojans hauling in such survivors as they could reach, and in a short time all but those the sharks had taken toll of were aboard. It was then determined to right the other boat and put some of the survivors into her and set them ashore. General Ruiz leaped into her to bale her out but as he did so his foot slipped and, with a desperate grab at the bulwark to save himself, he shot over the side into the water already red with the blood of his followers.

A cry of horror burst from the throats of the onlookers as they saw this accident. It seemed that their general was doomed to certain death. He came to the surface, however, in a moment and struck out bravely; but behind him came rushing through the water the fin of a huge shark. An agonized shout for help broke from the general’s lips as he realized his peril. He had faced death in battle a score of times but to die like this appalled him.

“Save me!” he shouted.

“Fire, Frank, fire!” shouted Harry, wild with excitement, for his elder brother with pale face and lips – but with a hand as steady as a rock – was already standing in the stern sheets of the boat with his revolver leveled.

“Steady on,” rejoined Frank, in a tense tone. “I don’t want to run any chance of the bullet deflecting.”

In the meantime the rowers had sat paralyzed at the dreadful drama being enacted under their eyes and made no effort to save the unfortunate General Ruiz. Desperately the general swam for the boat. He saw Frank standing upright in the stern and realized that the boy was waiting till he could get a fair shot at the monster. Suddenly the swimmer gave a cry, his hands shot above his head and he seemed to be literally dragged out of view.

At the same instant Frank’s revolver opened fire.

One after another the ten shots poured out and before two had been fired the men, with a cheer, saw a huge white-bellied body, armed with a terrible triple row of saw-like teeth, rear itself out of the seas as if in agony and then flop back with a mighty writhing that beat the water into waves and threatened to swamp the boat.

And General Ruiz?

A few seconds after Frank’s first shot had left the automatic revolver the swimmer was alongside the boat and being hauled inboard by a score of hands. His first action was to take Frank’s hand and grasp it with a pressure that showed him to be possessed of a muscularity rare in Latin-Americans.

“We Spaniards do not forget;” he said, after he had uttered a few warm words of gratitude to the boy who had saved his life.

“Oh,” laughed Frank, “it’s tit for tat. Didn’t you save us last night?”

General Ruiz looked grave.

“Laugh if you will, Señor,” he said, “you Americans take things more lightly than we do; but perhaps some day the time will come when I shall be able to render you service, and you will see that my words were not spoken in jest.”

That was all, but there was a ring of sincerity in his voice that left no doubt in his hearers’ minds that he meant what he said and, while both boys hoped that no contingency would ever arise in which they would be in such dire need of General Ruiz’s aid, at the same time they felt that if it ever did they had a friend to count on.

CHAPTER XXV.