In the Track of the Troops

Bella was up on deck enjoying the sunset; so was my mother. Lancey was busy cleaning my fowling-piece, near the companion-hatch.

“It is charming,” exclaimed my mother.

“So calm,” said Bella.

“And settled-looking,” remarked Nicholas, flipping the end of his cigar over the side.

“Mr Whitlaw does not appear to think so favourably of the weather,” I remarked.

The skipper, looking gravely at a particular point on the horizon, said, in a quiet tone—

“The clouds are heavy.”

“From which you judge that the fine weather may not last?”

“It may be so, but the indications are not certain,” was his cautious reply.

That night we were in a perfect chaos of wind and water. The storm-fiend seemed to have reserved all his favours in order to give us a befitting reception. The sea roared, the wind yelled, the yacht—but why repeat the oft-told tale that invariably ends with “Biscay, O!” A week later and we were in a dead calm, revelling in warmth, bathed in sunshine, within the straits of Gibraltar.

It was evening. All sail was set. Not a puff of wind rendered that display available. The reef-points pattered as the yacht rolled gracefully from side to side on the gentle heave of the Mediterranean’s bosom.

Sitting on a rug on the deck, between my mother and Nicholas, Bella said, in a low quiet tone, “This is perfect felicity.”

“Agreed,” said Nicholas, in a similar tone, with a puff from his cigar.

Bella referred to the calm, of course!

A sea-captain, sitting astride the bulwarks of his ship in the “Doldrums,” far far away from Bella, said, in reference to a similar calm which had beset him for three weeks, “This is perfectly maddening,” with many other strong expressions which we would rather not record; but Bella, of course, did not know that, and could not be expected to reflect on it. She was taken up with her own comforts at the time.

“My dear,” said Mrs Childers, “I think I shall go to bed. Come with me. Good-night, Nicholas. Will you keep the skylight off to-night, Jeffry? It was too hot in our cabin last night.”

“Of course I will,” said I; “why did you not ring, and let me know that you would like fresh air? But I shall see to it to-night.”

About eleven o’clock that night, I lay on one of the lockers of the main cabin, in a wakeful mood. Nicholas lay on the other locker, in that profound slumber which is so characteristic of healthy youth. His regular breathing was the only sound I heard, except the soft footfall of our skipper, as he slowly paced the deck.

Presently I heard another step. It advanced, and a low “Fine night, sir,” apprised me that it was Lancey, who had come on deck to air himself after the culinary and other labours of the day, for he served in the capacity of cook and steward to the yacht.

“I wish you’d tell me about that expedition you was speakin’ off to the master this morning,” said Lancey.

“With pleasure,” replied the skipper; “sit down here, and I’ll spin it off to you right away.”

I knew by the sound of their motions that they had seated themselves at the foot of the main-mast, just between the skylights of the two cabins, and feared that their talk might disturb my mother; but, reflecting that she must have got to sleep long ago, I thought it better not to disturb them, unless their talk should become too loud. As for myself, in my wakeful mood, their converse could not annoy me. After a time it began to interest me deeply.

“It was about the blowing-up of Southern ironclads, was it not?” said the skipper. As he spoke I could distinctly hear the puff, puff, of his pipe between each half-dozen words.

“Just so,” replied Lancey. “The master is uncommon fond of blowin’s-up and inquirin’ into the natur’ of things. I never know’d another except one as beat ’im at inwestigation, but that one beat everybody I ever seen or heard of. He was a Scotch boy, named Sandy—”

“What was his other name?” asked the skipper.

“’Aven’t a notion,” replied Lancey. “We never called ’im anythink else. I don’t believe he ’ad any other name. He said he was the son of an apothecary. No doubt the schoolmaster knew ’is other name, if he ’ad one, but he never used it, and we boys were content with Sandy. That boy, sir, seemed to me to know everythink, and was able, I believe, to do hanythink. He was a tremendous fighter, too, though not out o’ the way as regards size. He could lick the biggest boy in the school, and when he made up his mind to do a thing, nothin’ on earth could stop him a-doin’ of it.”

“Good,” said the skipper, with an emphatic puff; “that’s what we Americans call the power to go ahead. Did Sandy become a great man?”

“Don’t know,” answered Lancey. “He went a’ead too fast for me to foller. One day the master gave ’im a lickin’. He vowed he’d be revenged. Next mornin’ early he got up an’ smashed the school winders, redooced the master’s desk to matchwood, an’ walked away whistlin’. I never seed ’im since.”

“Nor heard of him?”

“Nor ’eard of ’im.”

“That was a pity,” said the skipper, with a prolonged whiff.

“It was. But go on, Mister Whitlaw, with your hanecdotes. I couldn’t rightly hear all you said to the master.”

“It was about torpedo warfare we were talking,” said the skipper. “You know that sort o’ thing is only in its infancy, but the Americans, as usual, had the honour of starting it fairly into being.”

“The ‘honour,’ eh?” said Lancey; “h’m! well, I’m not so sure about the honour, but go on.”

“Well, whether it be an honour or no, I won’t dispute,” returned the skipper, with a puff; “but of this I am sure, that during the late war between the North and South in America, torpedo practice was regularly brought into play for the first time, and the case which I brought before Mr Childers yesterday is only one of many which I could describe. I’ll not relate the same story, but another and a better.

“About the beginning of the war, in 1862, the Confederates—these were the Southern men—blew up our ironclad, the Cairo, in which I lost one of my most intimate friends; and in 1864 they attempted to blow up the Wabash, and myself along with it. The Cairo business was caused by sunk torpedoes. She was going up the Yazoo river at the time, and had lowered a boat to search for torpedoes, which were known to be sunk there. They succeeded in fishing up one, which was found to be an exploded one. Meanwhile the Cairo, having got rather too close in shore, backed out towards the middle of the stream, when two explosions occurred in quick succession, one close to the port-quarter, the other under the port-bow. The effect was tremendous. Some of the heavy guns were actually lifted from the deck. The captain instantly shoved the Cairo on the bank, and got a hawser out to a tree to keep her, if possible, from sinking in deep water. The pumps, steam and hand, were set going immediately; but her whole frame, ironclad though she was, had been so shattered, that nothing could save her. Twelve minutes afterwards she slipped down into six fathoms water, giving them barely time to get out the boats and save the sick men aboard, and the arms. My friend was one of the sick, and the moving was ultimately the death of him, though no lives were lost at the time.”

“You’re not tellin’ me crackers, are you?” said Lancey, in an incredulous tone.

“My good fellow,” returned the skipper, “I wish that I were. The story is only too true, and I would it were the only one of the sort I had to tell. You can find a book in London,[1 - “A Treatise on Coast-Defence … Compiled from official reports of officers of the United States. By Von Scheliha, Lieutenant-Colonel and chief engineer of the department of the Gulf of Mexico of the army of the late Confederate States of America.”] if you like, which tells all about this and the other torpedo work done during the late American war.”

“Well, then,” said Lancey, in the tone of an eager listener, while, by the tapping on the combings of the hatchway, I could distinguish that he was emptying his pipe, with a view, no doubt, to the enjoyment of another, “and what happened when they tried to blow you up?”

“Well, you must know,” resumed the skipper, “it was long afterwards, near the end of the war. I was in the US steamer Wabash at the time. We were at anchor off Charleston, and we kept a sharp look-out at that time, for it was a very different state of things from the wooden-wall warfare that Nelson used to carry on. Why, we never turned in a night without a half sort of expectation of being blown into the sky before morning. It was uneasy work, too, for although American sailors are as good at facing death as any men, they don’t like the notion of death coming in on them, like a sneak below the waterline, and taking them in the dark while asleep. We were always on the alert, and doubly so at that time, for only a short while previously, the Confederates had sunk another of our ironclads, the Housatonic, with one of their torpedo-Davids,—little boats that were so called because, compared with the great ironclads they were meant to attack, they somewhat resembled David when he went out against Goliath.

“Well, as I said, the Wabash was at anchor, and it was night—not very late, about ten; but it was very dark.

“Fortunately the deck was in charge that night of a young officer named Craven, and never was an officer worse named or better deserving to be called Courage. He had his wits about him. At the hour I have named, he observed something on the starboard-quarter, about 150 yards off. It resembled a plank on the water. In reality it was a torpedo-David. It was opposite the main-mast when first observed, going rapidly against the tide. At that moment it turned and made straight for the ship. Craven was up to the mark. He commenced with volleys of musketry; beat the gong for the crew to assemble at quarters; rang four bells for the engine to go ahead; opened fire with the watch and the starboard battery; and gave orders to slip the cable.

“His orders, you may be sure, were obeyed with promptitude. The gong sent every man from his hammock as if he had received an electric shock. Jack-in-the-box never came out of his box more promptly than each man shot up the hatchway. An exaggerated idea of the effect of torpedoes—if that were possible—had got possession of us. We were at our quarters in a moment; the ship moved ahead; the chain slipped; and the torpedo-boat passed us about forty yards astern. A round shot from us at the same moment appeared to strike it. We cheered. A second shot was fired, and appeared to send it to the bottom, for we saw it no more.

“But now our turn came,” continued the skipper, refilling his pipe. “Puff! you see we were not so well situated as the Southerners for the use of this weapon, for we had to go in to attack their forts, while they had only to defend themselves, which they did largely with sunk torpedoes.

“We had long been desirous of revenging their attacks in a similar fashion, and at last we were successful on the 27th of October. I had the good luck to be one of the expedition. It was risky work, of course. We all knew that, but where is the nation worthy of the name that will not find men for risky work? People talk about the difference of courage in nations. In my opinion that is all gammon. Most nations that lie near to one another are pretty much alike as to courage. In times of trial among all nations, the men of pluck come to the front, and the plucky men, be they American, English, French, German, Russian, or Turk, do pretty much the same thing—they fight like heroes till they conquer or die.”

“Better if they didn’t fight at all,” remarked Lancey.

“That’s true, but if you’re attacked you must fight. Anyhow, on this particular occasion we attacked the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle, and sent her to the bottom. I had volunteered for the duty with some other men from the squadron, and we started in a steam-launch under Lieutenant Cushing. The distance from the mouth of the river to where the ram lay was about eight miles, the stream averaging 200 yards in width, and being lined with the enemy’s pickets, so that we had to proceed with the utmost possible caution. We set out in the dead of night. There was a wreck on our way, which was surrounded by schooners, and we knew that a gun was mounted there to command the bend of the river. We had the good luck, however, to pass the pickets and the wreck without being discovered, and were not hailed until seen by the look-out of the ram itself.

“Without replying to the hail, we made straight at her under a full head of steam. The enemy sprang their rattles, rang their bell, and commenced firing. The Albemarle was made fast to a wharf, with a defence of logs around her about thirty feet from her side. A chance fire on the shore enabled us to see this, although the night was intensely dark, and raining.

“From the report afterwards published by the commander of the Albemarle, it seems that a good look-out had been kept. The watch also had been doubled, and when we were seen (about three in the morning) they were all ready. After hailing, a brisk fire was opened on us both by small arms and large guns; but the latter could not be brought to bear, owing to our being so close, and we partially disturbed the aim of the former by a dose of canister at close range. Paymaster Swan, of the Otsego, was wounded near me, and some others. My own jacket was cut in many places, and the air seemed full of bullets.

“Our torpedo-boom was out and ready. Passing close to the Albemarle, we made a complete circle round her, so as to strike her fairly. Then Lieutenant Cushing gave the order, and we went straight at her, bows on. In a moment we struck the logs, just abreast of the quarter-port, with such force that we leaped half over them, at the same time breasted them in. The boom was lowered at once. ‘Now, lads, a vigorous pull!’ said Cushing.