Stand By The Union
Page 20
CHAPTER XVIII
A BATTLE ON A SMALL SCALE
"On deck!" shouted the lookout at the foremast head. "Light on thestarboard bow!"
"Silence, all!" cried the commander, as soon as he heard the hail fromaloft. "Go forward, Mr. Pennant, silence the hands, and direct thelookout to hail in lower tones."
The third lieutenant sprang forward to obey the order, and Christyfollowed him at a more moderate pace, consistent with his dignity asthe officer highest in rank on board. It was not so much a questionof dignity, however, with him as it was the intention to preserve hisself-possession. A light had been reported on the starboard bow; butChristy had no more means of knowing what it meant than any other personon deck. It suggested a blockade runner, a battery, or a house near theshore where he did not expect to find one.
The captain went on the bridge; but he could not see the light. Hedescended to the deck, and then mounted the fore-rigging. The lookoutsaw him, and said he could not see the light any longer; it had been insight a couple of minutes, and then had disappeared. It was useless tolook for it if gone, and Christy returned to the bridge, where Mr.Pennant was attentively studying the compass.
"In what direction is the head of the steamer pointed, Mr. Pennant?"he asked as he joined the lieutenant.
"Exactly north-east, sir," replied Mr. Pennant.
"Then the report of the light on the starboard bow places it directly tothe eastward of us," added Christy. "That is about where the entrance toSt. Andrew's Bay ought to be, if my calculations were correct. We havebeen running to the eastward since we left the blockaders' station offPensacola Bay. My ruler on the chart gave me that course, and Mr.Galvinne followed it while he was in charge. We could not have got morethan half a mile off the course in coming about twice. The shoaling ofthe water also indicates that we are all right."
The body of the fog evidently lay near the water, and the lookout hadprobably seen the light over the top of the bank, as it could not bemade out on the bridge. Christy expressed his belief that the sun wouldburn the fog off soon after it rose. No variation of the drift lead hadbeen reported, and the Bronx was not even swinging at her anchor. For anhour longer entire silence was preserved on the deck, and the lookoutmade no further report.
"There is some sort of commotion among the men on the top-gallantforecastle," said Mr. Pennant, while Christy was still studying thesituation, and one of the men was seen in the act of hurrying aft.
"I heard men's voices off to the eastward," said this man, when he hadmounted the bridge, and touched his hat to the officers there; and hespoke in a whisper, in conformity with the orders given.
"Could you hear any slapping of a paddle wheel, or other noises thatsound like a steamer?" asked Christy in the same low tone.
"No, sir; nothing but the voices; but I think the speakers must be ina vessel of some sort, for the sound since I first heard it, and couldhardly make it out, comes from farther south," replied the man.
"Take a force of twelve men, with pistols and cutlasses, Mr. Pennant, inthe first cutter, and pull down to the south-east. Whatever you find inthe shape of a vessel or a boat, capture it, and return to the Bronx.Get off with as little noise as possible, and muffle your oars."
Silently Mr. Pennant selected his crew for the boat, saw them armed, andhad the cutter lowered into the water. In a very short space of time theboat was off. The commander did not believe that anything very seriouswould result from this boat expedition, for he was confident there wasno vessel of any size near the Bronx. The men in the cutter pulled veryquietly, and hardly splashed the water with their oars, for they had allbeen trained by Christy himself to pull without noise when he wasexecutive officer.
This was the first responsible position Mr. Pennant had been calledupon to fill, and he knew that his future depended in a large measureupon the skill and fidelity with which he obeyed his orders. His crewbelieved in him, and they were very painstaking in their efforts to workin silence. He had stationed quartermaster Vincent in the bow of theboat as the lookout, and he was industriously peering out into the gloomof the fog and darkness to discover a vessel or a boat. He had heard thesounds himself, and he knew there was something there. When the boat hadpulled about fifteen minutes, Vincent raised his hand up into the air;this was a signal which the third lieutenant understood, for he hadarranged several of them with the quartermaster.
"Stand by to lay on your oars," said Mr. Pennant in the lowest tonesthat could be heard by the crew. "Oars!"
At the last order the men levelled their oars, feathering the blades,and remained like eight statues in their seats. Vincent listened withall his ears in the dead silence which prevailed.
"I hear the voices again," he reported to the lieutenant in the sternsheets, in a voice just loud enough to reach him; "they are more to thesouthward."
"Stand by!" added Mr. Pennant, who had been duly trained in boat serviceat an oar. "Give way together! No noise!"
The boat went ahead again, though only at a moderate speed consistentwith the least possible noise. The quartermaster in the bow continued togaze into the fog bank, though by this time there was a little lightingup in the east, indicating that the day was breaking. For half an hourlonger the cutter continued on its course. Occasionally Vincent hadraised his hand over his head, and then dropped it to his left,indicating to the officer in command that the sounds came from fartherto the southward, and the cockswain was directed to change the course.
In another half hour the noises could be distinctly heard by the thirdlieutenant, and he directed the course of the cutter without the need ofany more signals from the bow. His first move was to make a more decidedcourse to the southward. Then he hastened the crew in their work.
"Sail, ho!" called Vincent, who had not abated his vigilance on thelookout; and he pointed with his right hand in the direction he had seenthe craft.
Mr. Pennant concluded that the sail could not be far off, or it couldnot be seen, and it would be useless to maintain the dead silence, whichwas painful to all in the boat. He stood up in his place, and, afterlooking for a couple of minutes, he made out the sail himself. So far ashe could judge from what he saw, the craft was a small sloop of not morethan thirty-five feet in length.
"Give way now, lively!" said the third lieutenant, in his ordinarytones. "I make her out, and she is a small sloop. We shall not have muchof a brush."
Under the vigorous pulling of eight stalwart men, the cutter leapedforward at a speed that would have won an ordinary boat race, and in tenminutes more, the sloop could be distinctly made out, the cutter runningacross her bow. She was close-hauled, with the wind from the south-west,and very little of it. On board of her were at least ten men, as thequartermaster counted them, and there might have been more in her cuddyunder the hail-deck forward.
"Boat, ahoy!" shouted a man on the forecastle of the sloop.
"On board the sloop!" replied Mr. Pennant, standing up in the sternsheets. "What sloop is that?"
"The Magnolia, bound to Appalachicola," replied the spokesman of thecraft. "What boat is that?"
"The first cutter of the United States steamer Bronx! Heave to, and givean account of yourselves," hailed the officer in command. "Stand by tolay on your oars!" he added in a lower tone to his crew. "Oars!"
But the boat seemed to be running too far away from the sloop, though itwas near enough for the lieutenant and quartermaster to see that therewas a decided commotion on board of her.
"Hold water!" added the lieutenant. "Stern all!"
The momentum of the cutter was checked, and the boat placed in aconvenient position for a further conference with the sloop. Either byintention or carelessness the skipper of the sail-boat had permitted herto broach to, probably because he was giving too much attention to theboat and too little to the sloop. When the cutter lost its headway, itwas not more than fifty feet from the sloop.
"Hold the sloop as she is, and I will board you," said Mr. Pennant,as he saw the skipper filling away again.
"See that your pistols and cutlasses are ready for use," said the thirdlieutenant, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the crew only.
"We are all private citizens," added the sloop's spokesman.
"No matter what you are; I propose to overhaul you and judge for myselfwhat you are," answered the officer in command of the cutter. "Let goyour sheet, skipper!"
Instead of obeying the order, the boatman hauled in his sheet, and thesloop began to fill away. Mr. Pennant could form no idea of what theparty were. It was possible that they were private citizens, andnon-combatants; if they were, they had only to prove they were such bysubmitting to a further inquiry.
"Stand by, my men! Give way together, lively!" shouted the lieutenant asthough he intended that those on board of the sloop should hear him aswell as his own crew.
The cutter darted ahead; but she had not advanced half the distancebefore the men on board of the sloop fired a volley with muskets at theapproaching boat. Mr. Pennant dropped his left arm very suddenly, andthe stroke oarsman went down into the bottom of the boat.
"Come aft, Kingston!" called the third lieutenant to the nearest man inthe bow, and the one indicated crawled aft with all the haste he couldmake. "Take Hilton's oar!" added Mr. Pennant, as with his right arm hedrew the wounded man back into the stern sheets.
The progress of the boat was hardly interrupted by the volley, and inless than a minute after the discharge of the muskets, her stem struckthe bow of the sloop, though not till the lieutenant had checked herheadway, and ordered the men to stand by to board the rebellious craft.The quartermaster made fast to the sloop, and then grasped his cutlass.
"Lay her aboard!" shouted Mr. Pennant; and Vincent led the way, leapingdirectly into the midst of the eight men in the standing room.
"Do you surrender?" asked the lieutenant of the principal man on theforecastle as he came alongside of him.
"I don't see that we can help ourselves," replied the spokesman ina surly tone; for the prospect before him was not very pleasant,especially as a volley had been fired from the sloop, presumably by hisorder, for he was the one who had made the threat in the first place.
"Don't strike, my men; they have surrendered," continued Mr. Pennantwith a gesture to his men.
"This is an outrage," said the man on the forecastle, who could not helpseeing that the whole party were in a fair way to be annihilated if theymade any further resistance.
"I dare say it is, my friend," replied Mr. Pennant blandly, for he hadbeen in the navy long enough to adopt the characteristic politenesswhich distinguishes its officers. "Take possession of all the musketsand other weapons you can find, Vincent, and put them in the cutter."
This order was promptly obeyed. Before it was fully carried out anelderly gentleman crawled out of the cuddy, and stood up in the standingroom; he was a man of dignity, and evidently of importance.