The Spaniards, when their broadsides became visible, were seen to be ships of no importance, mere little gunboats for work in the shallows back of the reefs; and it was certainly discreet to refuse encounter with the five-inch guns of the Chancellorville. But the joyful Adolphus took no account of this discretion. The pursuit of the Spaniards had been so ferocious that the quick change to heels-over-head flight filled that corner of the mind which is devoted to the spirit of revenge. It was this that moved Shackles to yell taunts futilely at the far-away ships. “Well, how do you like it, eh? How do you like it?” The Adolphus was drinking compensation for her previous agony.
The mountains of the shore now shadowed high into the sky, and the square white houses of a town could be seen near a vague cleft which seemed to mark the entrance to a port. The gunboats were now near to it.
Suddenly white smoke streamed from the bow of the Chancellorville and developed swiftly into a great bulb which drifted in fragments down the wind. Presently the deep-throated boom of the gun came to the ears on board the Adolphus. The shot kicked up a high jet of water into the air astern of the last gunboat. The black smoke from the funnels of the cruiser made her look like a collier on fire, and in her desperation she tried many more long shots, but presently the Adolphus, murmuring disappointment, saw the Chancellorville sheer from the chase.
In time they came up with her, and she was an indignant ship. Gloom and wrath was on the forecastle, and wrath and gloom was on the quarter-deck. A sad voice from the bridge said: “Just missed ’em.” Shackles gained permission to board the cruiser, and in the cabin he talked to Lieutenant Commander Surrey, tall, baldheaded, and angry. “Shoals,” said the captain of the Chancellorville. “I can’t go any nearer, and those gunboats could steam along a stone sidewalk if only it was wet.” Then his bright eyes became brighter. “I tell you what! The Chicken, the Holy Moses, and the Mongolian are on station off Nuevitas. If you will do me a favor—why, tomorrow I will give those people a game!”
III
The Chancellorville lay all night watching off the port of the two gunboats. Soon after daylight, the lookout descried three smokes to the westward, and they were later made out to be the Chicken, the Holy Moses, and the Aldolphus, the latter tagging hurriedly after the United States vessels.
The Chicken had been a harbor tug, but she was now the U.S.S. Chicken, by your leave. She carried a six-pounder forward and a six-pounder aft, and her main point was her conspicuous vulnerability. The Holy Moses had been the private yacht of a Philadelphia millionaire. She carried six six-pounders, and her main point was the chaste beauty of the officers’ quarters.
On the bridge of the Chancellorville, Lieutenant Commander Surrey surveyed his squadron with considerable satisfaction. Presently he signaled to the lieutenant who commanded the Holy Moses and to the boatswain who commanded the Chicken to come aboard the flagship. This was all very well for the captain of the yacht, but it was not so easy for the captain of the tugboat, who had two heavy lifeboats swung fifteen feet above the water. He had been accustomed to talking with senior officers from his own pilothouse through the intercession of the blessed megaphone. However, he got a lifeboat overside and was pulled to the Chancellorville by three men—which cut his crew almost into halves.
In the cabin of the Chancellorville, Surrey disclosed to his two captains his desires concerning the Spanish gunboats, and they were glad for being ordered down from the Nuevitas station, where life was very dull. He also announced that there was a shore battery, containing, he believed, four field guns—three-point-two’s. His draught—he spoke of it as his draught—would enable him to go in close enough to engage the battery at moderate range, but he pointed out that the main parts of the attempt to destroy the Spanish gunboats must be left to the Holy Moses and the Chicken. His business, he thought, could only be to keep the air so singing about the ears of the battery that the men at the guns would be unable to take an interest in the dash of the smaller American craft into the bay.
The officers spoke in their turns. The captain of the Chicken announced that he saw no difficulties. The squadron would follow the senior officer in line ahead, the S.O. would engage the batteries as soon as possible, she would turn to starboard when the depth of water forced her to do so, and the Holy Moses and the Chicken would run past her into the bay and fight the Spanish ships wherever they were to be found. The captain of the Holy Moses, after some moments of dignified thought, said that he had no suggestions to make that would better this plan.
Surrey pressed an electric bell; a marine orderly appeared; he was sent with a message. The message brought the navigating officer of the Chancellorville to the cabin, and the four men nosed over a chart.
In the end Surrey declared that he had made up his mind, and the juniors remained in expectant silence for three minutes while he stared at the bulkhead. Then he said that the plan of the Chicken’s captain seemed to him correct in the main. He would make one change. It was that he should first steam in and engage the battery and the other vessels should remain in their present positions until he signaled them to run into the bay. If the squadron steamed ahead in line, the battery could, if it chose, divide its fire between the cruiser and the gunboats constituting the more important attack. He had no doubt, he said, that he could soon silence the battery by tumbling the earth-works on to the guns and driving away the men, even if he did not succeed in hitting the pieces. Of course he had no doubt of being able to silence the battery in twenty minutes. Then he would signal for the Holy Moses and the Chicken to make their rush, and of course he would support them with his fire as much as conditions enabled him. He arose then, indicating that the conference was at an end. In the few moments more that all four men remained in the cabin, the talk changed its character completely. It was now unofficial, and the sharp badinage concealed furtive affections, Academy friendships, the feelings of old-time shipmates hiding everything under a veil of jokes. “Well, good luck to you, old boy! Don’t get that valuable packet of yours sunk under you. Think how it would weaken the navy. Would you mind buying me three pairs of pajamas in the town yonder? If your engines get disabled, tote her under your arm. You can do it. Good-bye, old man; don’t forget to come out all right——”
When the captains of the Holy Moses and the Chicken emerged from the cabin, they strode the deck with a new step. They were proud men. The marine on duty above their boats looked at them curiously and with awe. He detected something which meant action, conflict. The boats’ crews saw it also. As they pulled their steady stroke, they studied fleetingly the face of the officer in the stern sheets. In both cases they perceived a glad man and yet a man filled with a profound consideration of the future.
IV
A bird-like whistle stirred the decks of the Chancellorville. It was followed by the hoarse bellowing of the boatswain’s mate. As the cruiser turned her bow toward the shore, she happened to steam near the Adolphus. The usual calm voice hailed the dispatch boat. “Keep—that—gauze undershirt of yours—well—out of the—line of fire.”
“Ay, ay, sir!”
The cruiser then moved slowly toward the shore, watched by every eye in the smaller American vessels. She was deliberate and steady, and this was reasonable even to the impatience of the other craft, because the wooded shore was likely to suddenly develop new factors. Slowly she swung to starboard; smoke belched over her, and the roar of a gun came along the water.
The battery was indicated by a long thin streak of yellow earth. The first shot went high, plowing the chaparral on the hillside. The Chancellorville wore an air for a moment of being deep in meditation. She flung another shell, which landed squarely on the earth-work, making a great dun cloud. Before the smoke had settled, there was a crimson flash from the battery. To the watchers at sea, it was smaller than a needle. The shot made a geyser of crystal water, four hundred yards from the Chancellorville.
The cruiser, having made up her mind, suddenly went at the battery, hammer and tongs. She m
oved to and fro casually, but the thunder of her guns was gruff and angry. Sometimes she was quite hidden in her own smoke, but with exceeding regularity the earth of the battery spurted into the air. The Spanish shells, for the most part, went high and wide of the cruiser, jetting the water far away.
Once a Spanish gunner took a festive side show chance at the waiting group of the three nondescripts. It went like a flash over the Adolphus, singing a wistful metallic note. Whereupon the Adolphus broke hurriedly for the open sea, and men on the Holy Moses and the Chicken laughed hoarsely and cruelly. The correspondents had been standing excitedly on top of the pilothouse, but at the passing of the shell they promptly eliminated themselves by dropping with a thud to the deck below. The cook again was giving tongue. “Oh, say, this won’t do! I’m damned if it will! We ain’t no armored cruiser, you know. If one of them shells hits us—well, we finish right there. ’Tain’t like as if it was our business, foolin’ ’round within the range of them guns. There’s no sense in it. Them other fellows don’t seem to mind it, but it’s their business. If it’s your business, you go ahead and do it, but if it ain’t, you—look at that, would you!”
The Chancellorville had sent up a spread of flags, and the Holy Moses and the Chicken were steaming in.
V
They on the Chancellorville sometimes could see into the bay, and they perceived the enemy’s gunboats moving out as if to give battle. Surrey feared that this impulse would not endure or that it was some mere pretense for the edification of the townspeople and the garrison, so he hastily signaled the Holy Moses and the Chicken to go in. Thankful for small favors, they came on like charging bantams. The battery had ceased firing. As the two auxiliaries passed under the stern of the cruiser, the megaphone hailed them. “You—will—see—the—en-em-y—soon—as—you—round—the—point. A—fine—chance. Good—luck.”
As a matter of fact, the Spanish gunboats had not been informed of the presence of the Holy Moses and the Chicken off the bar, and they were just blustering down the bay over the protective shoals to make it appear that they scorned the Chancellorville. But suddenly, from around the point, there burst into view a steam yacht, closely followed by a harbor tug. The gunboats took one swift look at this horrible sight and fled screaming.
Lieutenant Reigate, commanding the Holy Moses, had under his feet a craft that was capable of some speed, although before a solemn tribunal one would have to admit that she conscientiously belied almost everything that the contractors had said of her originally. Boatswain Pent, commanding the Chicken, was in possession of an utterly different kind. The Holy Moses was an antelope; the Chicken was a man who could carry a piano on his back. In this race Pent had the mortification of seeing his vessel outstripped badly.
The entrance of the two American craft had had a curious effect upon the shores of the bay. Apparently every one had slept in the assurance that the Chancellorville could not cross the bar, and that the Chancellorville was the only hostile ship. Consequently, the appearance of the Holy Moses and the Chicken created a curious and complete emotion. Reigate, on the bridge of the Holy Moses, laughed when he heard the bugles shrilling and saw through his glasses the wee figures of men running hither and thither on the shore. It was the panic of the china when the bull entered the shop. The whole bay was bright with sun. Every detail of the shore was plain. From a brown hut abeam of the Holy Moses, some little men ran out waving their arms and turning their tiny faces to look at the enemy. Directly ahead, some four miles, appeared the scattered white houses of a town with a wharf and some schooners in front of it. The gunboats were making for the town. There was a stone fort on the hill overshadowing, but Reigate conjectured that there was no artillery in it.
There was a sense of something intimate and impudent in the minds of the Americans. It was like climbing over a wall and fighting a man in his own garden. It was not that they could be in any wise shaken in their resolve; it was simply that the overwhelmingly Spanish aspect of things made them feel like gruff intruders. Like many of the emotions of wartime, this emotion had nothing at all to do with war.
Reigate’s only commissioned subordinate called up from the bow gun. “May I open fire, sir? I think I can fetch that last one.”
“Yes.” Immediately the six-pounder crashed, and in the air was the spinning-wire noise of the flying shot. It struck so close to the last gunboat that it appeared that the spray went aboard. The swift-handed men at the gun spoke of it. “Gave ’m a bath that time anyhow. First one they’ve ever had. Dry ’em off this time, Jim.” The young ensign said: “Steady.” And so the Holy Moses raced in, firing, until the whole town, fort, water front, and shipping were as plain as if they had been done on paper by a mechanical draftsman. The gunboats were trying to hide in the bosom of the town. One was frantically tying up to the wharf and the other was anchoring within a hundred yards of the shore. The Spanish infantry, of course, had dug trenches along the beach, and suddenly the air over the Holy Moses sang with bullets. The shoreline thrummed with musketry. Also some antique shells screamed.
VI
The Chicken was doing her best. Pent’s posture at the wheel seemed to indicate that her best was about thirty-four knots. In his eagerness he was braced as if he alone was taking in a 10,000-ton battleship through Hell Gate.
But the Chicken was not too far in the rear, and Pent could see clearly that he was to have no minor part to play. Some of the antique shells had struck the Holy Moses, and he could see the escaped steam shooting up from her. She lay close inshore and was lashing out with four six-pounders as if this was the last opportunity she would have to fire them. She had made the Spanish gunboats very sick. A solitary gun on the one moored to the wharf was from time to time firing wildly; otherwise the gunboats were silent. But the beach in front of the town was a line of fire. The Chicken headed for the Holy Moses and, as soon as possible, the six-pounder in her bow began to crack at the gunboat moored to the wharf.
In the meantime, the Chancellorville prowled off the bar, listening to the firing, anxious, acutely anxious, and feeling her impotency in every inch of her smart steel frame. And in the meantime, the Adolphus squatted on the waves and brazenly waited for news. One could thoughtfully count the seconds and reckon that, in this second and that second, a man had died—if one chose. But no one did it. Undoubtedly, the spirit was that the flag should come away with honor, honor complete, perfect, leaving no loose unfinished end over which the Spaniards could erect a monument of satisfaction, glorification. The distant guns boomed to the ears of the silent bluejackets at their stations on the cruiser.
The Chicken steamed up to the Holy Moses and took into her nostrils the odor of steam, gunpowder, and burnt things. Rifle bullets simply streamed over them both. In the merest flash of time, Pent took into his remembrance the body of a dead quartermaster on the bridge of his consort. The two megaphones uplifted together, but Pent’s eager voice cried out first.
“Are you injured, sir?”
“No, not completely. My engines can get me out after—after we have sunk those gunboats.” The voice had been utterly conventional but it changed to sharpness. “Go in and sink that gunboat at anchor.”
As the Chicken rounded the Holy Moses and started inshore, a man called to him from the depths of finished disgust. “They’re takin’ to their boats, sir.” Pent looked and saw the men of the anchored gunboat lower their boats and pull like mad for shore.
The Chicken, assisted by the Holy Moses, began a methodical killing of the anchored gunboat. The Spanish infantry on shore fired frenziedly at the Chicken. Pent, giving the wheel to a waiting sailor, stepped out to a point where he could see the men at the guns. One bullet spanged past him and into the pilothouse. He ducked his head into the window. “That hit you, Murry?” he inquired with interest.
“No, sir,” cheerfully responded the man at the wheel.
Pent became very busy superintending the fire of his absurd battery. The anchored gunboat simply would not sink. It evince
d that unnatural stubbornness which is sometimes displayed by inanimate objects. The gunboat at the wharf had sunk as if she had been scuttled, but this riddled thing at anchor would not even take fire. Pent began to grow flurried—privately. He could not stay there for ever. Why didn’t the damned gunboat admit its destruction? Why——
He was at the forward gun when one of his engine-room force came to him and, after saluting, said serenely: “The men at the after gun are all down, sir.”
It was one of those curious lifts which an enlisted man, without in any way knowing it, can give his officer. The impudent tranquillity of the man at once set Pent to rights, and the stoker departed admiring the extraordinary coolness of his captain.
The next few moments contained little but heat, an odor, applied mechanics, and an expectation of death. Pent developed a fervid and amazed appreciation of the men, his men, men he knew very well, but strange men. What explained them? He was doing his best because he was captain of the Chicken, and he lived or died by the Chicken. But what could move these men to watch his eye in bright anticipation of his orders and then obey them with enthusiastic rapidity? What caused them to speak of the action as some kind of joke—particularly when they knew he could overhear them? What manner of men? And he anointed them secretly with his fullest affection.
Perhaps Pent did not think all this during the battle. Perhaps he thought it so soon after the battle that his full mind became confused as to the time. At any rate, it stands as an expression of his feeling.
The enemy had gotten a field gun down to the shore, and with it they began to throw three-inch shells at the Chicken. In this war it was usual that the downtrodden Spaniards in their ignorance should use smokeless powder, while the Americans, by the power of the consistent, everlasting three-ply, wire-woven, double back-action imbecility of a hayseed government, used powder which on sea and on land cried their position to heaven, and, accordingly, good men got killed without reason. At first, Pent could not locate the field gun at all, but as soon as he found it, he ran aft with one man and brought the after six-pounder again into action. He paid little heed to the old gun crew. One was lying on his face apparently dead; another was prone, with a wound in the chest; while the third sat with his back to the deckhouse holding a smitten arm. This last one called out huskily, “Give ’m hell, sir.”