THE ATTACK OF TORPEDO-BOAT NO. 5.
BY LIEUTENANT YATES STIRLING, JUN., U. S. N.
The night is dark and cloudy, and a heavy mist hovers over the entrance to the highly fortified port of ——. Like gigantic aquatic ghosts a fleet of American men-of-war is cautiously and silently approaching this strong-hold of the enemy. Every light on board the vessels is masked, and the lookouts are vigilantly peering into the darkness, for fear that one of the swift and unmerciful torpedo-boats of the enemy steal unseen and unheard upon their ship and launch its deadly charge of destruction.
The American squadron, six huge battle-ships and four fast cruisers, accompanied by ten sea-going torpedo-boats, have been detailed by the commander-in-chief to attack and capture this important naval station. Within safe distance from the forts on the harbor's entrance the squadron's mighty engines are stopped, and the ships soon cease to forge ahead in the quiet sea. One of the swift little crafts, then another and another, noiselessly runs alongside the Admiral's ship, and an officer from each climbs the precipitous side of the battle-ship. They make their way at once to the cabin of the Admiral.
"I have dangerous work for you and your little vessels, gentlemen," is their commander's quiet explanation, as the lieutenants remove their caps, and group themselves in respectful attention around their gray-haired superior. "Your small flotilla is to make an attack on the enemy's fleet in the harbor yonder; the entrance is narrow, and too early a discovery means failure to the expedition if not annihilation to yourselves. No. 5 will lead the column, for her commanding officer is familiar with the harbor, and will be a valuable guide on this dark night. The plan is to make a simultaneous attack on the fleet, and unless they are very much on the alert and ready with their guns, you should render a good account of the night's work. After your purpose has been accomplished, or you have been driven off, join me at the entrance to the bay. I will move to the attack as soon as you are discovered. The army is co-operating with us, and even now we should hear the distant roar of their guns."
Many an eye is dim and voice husky with emotion as the officers grasp the Admiral's hand in parting, and listen to his kind and encouraging words. When the torpedo lieutenants reach the deck, their small commands are lying alongside the flag-ship, steam pouring from their miniature escape-pipes, a dumb protest to be off.
As the Lieutenant of No. 5 reaches the conning-tower of his little boat, the flotilla is going at full speed, nearly twenty-five knots an hour, in column, his vessel in the lead. They are heading for the sombre outline of the distant land where he knows is the entrance to the harbor.
By his side stands a young ensign, his assistant, looking fixedly out into the night. Not a word is spoken. Each knows his life is to be staked at awful odds for his country.
Death has always seemed of little consequence to these young lives. They have in the few years of their lives barely given it a thought, but now in the little tomb of the conning-tower they are almost face to face with the grewsome intangible hereafter. They think of the time when as children they have whispered their prayers at their mothers' knees—prayers almost forgotten; but they come back to them now with startling clearness, and are mentally repeated, coming like a soothing draught of water to a thirsty mortal. On flies the little craft, while behind her noiselessly follow her nine sisters. The big battle-ships have long since been swallowed up in the black night.
The ever-watchful officers, as they stand in the confined space of the wheel-house, protected by three inches of steel from the cool breeze that the speed of the boat makes as she rushes madly along, are gazing through the small apertures in the metal, straining their eyes to see the first obstacle that dare be in their way. They see naught but darkness. They have been into the harbor before, to a great naval review given in commemoration of some important event in history. How different were the circumstances! Then the holders of the naval station were friends, and held out a cheerful welcome. Lights were upon the rugged and dangerous coast to show the mariner the many hidden dangers, and to navigate him clear of the many treacherous shoals and rocks. But now a difference had arisen between the two nations that could not be arbitrated, so they had resorted to cruel war to settle their difficulties. No lights are visible save now and then a small flicker from a fisherman's hut, and it is doubtful whether the small visitors will reach the harbor, even though they escape the steel from the guns that are surely soon to play upon them. The Lieutenant is the first to break the silence.
"We have tough work ahead, Church. Heaven only knows whether we will ever come out of this death-trap alive."
The younger man shakes his head in concurrence with his comrade's views of the situation, but dares not venture a word, for fear he may betray his nervousness in his voice. He knows exactly what is expected of him, and will sacrifice his life without an outward qualm in this his first real duty to his flag.
Suddenly on the port bow a small light springs up from out the darkness. It is on one of the patrol torpedo-boats of the enemy. If it discovers the invaders all is useless: the alarm will be given, and the forts cannot be passed. It would be foolhardiness to attempt it. Once beyond them, undiscovered, the mission will be easily accomplished. On go the insidious weapons of war on their errand of destruction. They are now between the forts on the harbor's entrance. The many guns there are pointed in their direction, but are dumb. Their crews are asleep, and are peacefully ignorant of the angels of death stealing past their vigil. The night is so dark that the outline of the land so close aboard has melted into the all-pervading blackness. No sound can the officers in the leading boat hear save the slight whir of the little engines making hundreds of revolutions a minute, the swash of the water cut like a knife by the sharp bow of the little craft, and the beating of their own hearts. The last seems so loud that each thinks the other surely must hear.
The minutes drag slowly by; they seem like hours to the anxious men on the torpedo-boats. The forts are passed in safety. The discovery must come soon. Farther and farther the destroyers penetrate into the bay. If there are ships here they must soon discover these unwelcome visitors. Hark! From out of the darkness to port is heard the report of a rifle-shot, quickly followed by a number of others in rapid succession. The officers in No. 5 suppress a cry of relief. The suspense has been telling. Hot work is better than uncertainty.
In a very short time lights are shown on the forts astern of the attacking party; they are the unfocussed rays of the powerful search-lights, and soon will make the torpedo-boats as conspicuous on the surface of the bay as the picture in a magic-lantern slide is on the sheet. The tunnels of light sweep quickly, nervously, about the bay, endeavoring to concentrate upon the swiftly moving enemy. On, on goes the flotilla in its mighty effort to reach its goal. Every torpedo is in its tube, and to launch it on its errand will be the work of a second. The long shafts of light are now rapidly focussing on one after another of the long line of small hulls, stretching nearly across the bay, ready to sink anything that may lie in their path.
The stillness of the night is disturbed by the thunder of heavy artillery and the fitful report of rapid-fire and machine guns. Shells go screeching about them, throwing columns of water high in the air as they strike it with a baffled hiss.
Search-light after search-light flashes up from the men-of-war in the inner harbor, and are sweeping the bay with their blinding light.
Closer, closer draw the attacking boats to their huge enemies.
An exclamation of terror escapes from the officers in No. 5 as they see what resembles a bunch of enormous sky-rockets shoot high above the bay almost directly over them. But they know it is from a group of 16-inch rifled mortars on the shore only a short mile away. With a sickening whir the mighty bolts of steel swoop down and blot out of existence three of the small crafts. Church has left his Lieutenant's side, and with a nervousness hard to suppress stands at the breech of the bow torpedo-tube, ready to launch its 300 pounds of guncotton at the owner of the search-light ahead of them, if they escape the rain of metal long enough to get within the limited range of the weapon.
Right ahead, nearly within the coveted distance, a dark hull looms up; her search-light is boring through the inky darkness, but as yet has not discovered the whereabouts of the fast-approaching danger. All at once Church, from his position in the bow, sees the small conning-tower lighted up through the peep-holes by the dazzling light, and hears simultaneously the quick reports of her machine-guns.
All about the bay is a scene of firing; but for this the men in No. 5 have no eyes; the deadly peril of their boat from the countless guns on the black hull ahead is their only concern. No thought of personal safety now enters their minds; such feeling has long since been forgotten; their only idea is to reach the enemy in front of them. Church, lockstring in hand, sees the moment has nearly arrived. In the next they may all be blown to pieces by a well-aimed shot. His hand is nervously clutching the lanyard, while his eyes are fixed on the face of his superior. He sees his face, pale as death, in the terrible glare of the search-light. He sees his lips move, yet he can hear no sound above the roar of the firing. He knows the word they frame. Fire! A sharp report fills the small compartment, and the next second he is thrown heavily against the vessel's side, as, in answer to her helm, she swiftly swerves to starboard, and is soon speeding away from the column of water thrown up by the explosion of her torpedo against the steel hull of the sinking ship. For the shot has done its work, and the great mass of steel and cannon will soon lie at the bottom of the bay. The commands of her unfortunate officers to "Abandon ship!" can be distinctly heard in the lull after the explosion.
In the excitement of the attack the operations of the fleet at the entrance to the harbor have escaped the notice of the crew of No. 5. Now they see flash after flash from the forts answered by tongues of fire from the invading fleet, the search-lights of both throwing a lurid light over the awe-inspiring spectacle. From astern of them they also hear the sounds of a mighty struggle, the rumble of heavy ordnance and the rattle of musketry tell them that the army has moved to the attack.
With all speed the remnants of the flotilla are leaving the scene of their triumph, leaving half their number as a sacrifice on the altar of their country.
Morning dawns over the bay, and reveals a mass of wreckage and destruction difficult to picture.
A fleet is anchored in the harbor, battle-scarred and begrimed with smoke. On the grassy slopes of the harbor the white tents of a large army are pitched. On the many flag-stalls a bright flag is waving in the balmy breeze. The flag is the stars and stripes.
[CAPTAIN JACK AND THE MUTINEERS.]
The newspapers from town had been full of the accounts of a great strike in a manufacturing district of the city, and Tommie, after his father had finished reading them, had asked to be allowed to take the papers down to old Jack. Jack had once said to the boys that he never knew what was going on anywhere, because he was too poor to buy the daily newspapers, and had added:
"It's only when I have luck that I even get a Tribune a year old. Why," said he, "a small boy down here once brought me a New York Tribune that told all about the milishy being called out to stop a riot up in Buffalo, and it was a mighty exciting story, I can tell you. Next day a feller come down and hired my boat to go out a-bluefishin' with, and after we'd been out two or three hours I says to him, 'How's the riot at Buffalo this morning?' 'The what?' says he. 'The riot,' says I. 'Haven't you heard of the riot?' 'No,' says he. 'It's all in the paper,' says I, and I went into my cabin and brought out the paper. 'Oh! I see!' says he, with a laugh. 'That was two years ago.' And I looked at the date of that there Tribune, and shiver my timbers if the thing warn't dated two years before!"
This unhappy condition rather appealed to Tommie, and the result was that he got his father to promise that when he had read his morning paper he could have it to take down to the beach to old Jack, and Jack was very appreciative.
"It's very kind of you, Tommie," he said. "The news I get nowadays is at least young enough to be interesting, and I hope you'll never forgit that I'll never forgit your kindness. Take them strikers up in town, for instance. In the old way I'd never have heard anything about 'em for a month or two anyhow, but now I hear about 'em right off, and I sort of feel as if I was still living in the world, instead of being out of it, as I used to be."
"What do you think of the strike, Captain Jack?" asked Bobbie.
"What do I think of it?" echoed the Captain. "What could any sea-captain think of it—any self-respectin' sea-captain? It had ought to be stopped. That's what. That's just the trouble with being on land, though; you can't do things like you would on the water. 'F I was runnin' a big factory, I'd do it ship-shape, and I wouldn't stand any mutinies. I tell you what, now, my factory'd be a model. In the first place, I'd give the factory a name, just as if she was a ship, and the men who came there to work would be my crew, and the very minute one of 'em didn't behave himself, and tried to kick up a rumpus with me as their Captain, I'd clap him into irons. I believe in ironing them, I do; and it almost makes me wish I owned a factory, and the sailors in it would strike, so's I could show the world what I'd do under the circumstances.
"I'll never forget the last mutiny I had to deal with. It was back in '83. I was skipper of the clipper Benjamin Q., of Nantucket. We were engaged in carrying coal from Sandusky to Kennebunkport, and one morning two o' the crew up an' declined to shovel another ton.
"'Why not?' says I, calmly.
"'It's too dirty. We thought this was hard coal, and it's soft. It takes us an hour to get clean after the day's work's over, and that makes nine hours a day's work. We won't work more'n eight.'
"'I guess you're reasonable,' says I. 'Knock off, an' go in and take your bath. I'll turn the water on for ye myself. I'll let ye use my tub.'
"So they went aboard, and I went in and turned on the water in my tub, and I put about two pounds o' starch in the water. They all took turns, and said they felt better.
"'Now,' says I, 'you fellers can do this every day. Seven hours' work, and one hour for bathin', and I don't want anymore kickin'.' The mutineers agreed, and thought I was easy. Every day for a week they took starch baths—though they didn't know anything about the starch. I took care o' that. Well, you know what starch is. There they was a-soakin' it into their systems for an hour a day, and, by the flyin' Dutchman, when Sunday came around every one of 'em was so stiff they couldn't move. Monday they was like iron—couldn't move a joint. And then I says to 'em, says I, 'Kinder stiff, ain't ye? Little stiffer'n ye thought ye was goin' to be, eh? Thought ye was goin' to take the starch out of me, eh? Did too—if ye only knew it. Now ye can go about your business, and the next time ye take it into your heads to mutiny, choose another Captain to fool with.' I had 'em carried ashore and laid on the dock, and I sailed away. What ever became of 'em I don't know, but I heard that one of 'em had made a fortune as a ossified man in a Chicago museum."
With which astounding story of his method of dealing with strikers, Captain Jack rose up and walked away, leaving Bob and Tommie wondering if it really could have happened as the old tar had said.
[THE VOYAGE OF THE "RATTLETRAP."]
BY HAYDEN CARRUTH.
VIII.
The next morning the condition of the tempers of the crew of the Rattletrap was reversed. Jack was feeling better, and was quite amiable, and inclined to regret his bloodthirsty language of the night before. But Ollie and I, on our diet of gooseberries, had not prospered, and woke up as cross as Old Blacky. The first thing I did was to seize the empty gooseberry can and hit the side of the wagon a half-dozen resounding blows.
"Get up there," I cried, "and 'tend to breakfast. No pretending you're sick this morning."
"All right," came Jack's voice, cheerfully. "Certainly. No need of your getting excited, though. You see, I really wasn't hungry last night, or I'd have got supper."
"But we were hungry!" answered Ollie. "I don't think I was ever much hungrier in my life; and then to get nothing but a pint of gooseberries! I could eat my hat this morning."
"I'm sorry," said Jack, coming out; "but I can't cook unless I'm hungry myself. The hunger of others does not inspire me. I gave you all there was—your hunger ought to have inspired you to do something with those gooseberries."
"I'd like to know what sort of a meal you'd have got up with a can of gooseberries?"
"Why, my dear young nephew," exclaimed Jack, "if I'd been awakened to action I'd have fricasséed those gooseberries, built them up into a gastronomical poem, and made a meal of them fit for a king. A great cook like I am is an artist as much as a great poet. He—"
"Oh, bother!" I interrupted; "the gooseberries are gone. There's the grouse Ollie shot yesterday. Do something with that for breakfast."
Jack disappeared in the wagon, and began to throw grouse feathers out the front end with a great flourish. The poor horses were much dejected, and stood with their heads down. They had eaten but little of the hay. Water was what they wanted.
"We must hitch up and go on without waiting for breakfast," I said to Ollie, "It can't be far to water now, and they must have some. Jack can be cooking the grouse in the wagon."
So we were soon under way, keeping a sharp lookout for any signs of a house or stream of water. We had gone five or six miles, and were descending into a little valley, when there came a loud whinny from Old Blacky. Sure enough, at the foot of the hill was a stream of water. The pony ran toward it on a gallop, and as soon as we could unhitch the others they joined her. They all waded in, and drank till we feared they would never be able to wade out again. Then they stood taking little sips, and letting their lips rest just on the surface and blinking dreamily. We knew that they stood almost as much in need of food as of water, as they had had nothing but the hay since the noon before. There was a field of corn half a mile away, on a side hill, but no house in sight.
"I'm going after some of that corn," I said to the others. "If I can't find the owner to buy it, then I'll help myself."
I mounted the pony and rode away. There was still no house in sight at the field, and I filled a sack and returned. The horses went at their breakfast eagerly. But twice during the meal they stopped and plunged in the brook and took other long drinks; and at the end Old Blacky lay down in a shallow place and rolled, and came out looking like a drowned rat.
In the mean time Jack had got the grouse ready, and we ate it about as ravenously as the horses did their corn. We had just finished, and were talking about going, when a tall man on a small horse almost covered with saddle rode up, and began to talk cheerfully on various topics. After a while he said,
"WELL, BOYS, WAS THAT GOOD CORN?"
"Well, boys, was that good corn?"
We all suspected the truth instantly.
"He did it," exclaimed Jack, pointing to me. "He did it all alone. We're going to give him up to the authorities at the next town."
The man laughed, and said "Don't do it. He may reform."
There seemed to be but one thing to do, so I said: "It was your corn, I suppose. Our only excuse is that we were out of corn. Tell us how much it is, and we'll pay you for it."
"Not a cent," answered the man, firmly. "It's all right. I've travelled through them Sand Hills myself, and I know how it is. You're welcome to all you took, and you can have another sackful if you want to go after it."
I thanked him, but told him that we expected to get some feed at Gordon, the next town. After wishing us good luck, he rode away.
We started on, and made but a short stop for noon, near Gordon. We found ourselves in a fairly well settled country, though the oldest settlers had been there but two or three years. The region was called the Antelope Flats, and was quite level, with occasional ravines. The trail usually ran near the railroad, and that night we camped within three or four rods of it. Long trains loaded with cattle thundered by all night. We were somewhat nervous lest Old Blacky should put his shoulder against the wagon while we slept, and push it on the track in revenge for the poor treatment we gave him in the Sand Hills, but the plan didn't seem to occur to him. It was at this camp that we encountered a remarkable echoing well. It was an ordinary open well, forty or fifty feet deep, near a neighboring house, but a word spoken above it came back repeated a score of times. We failed to account for it.
NOT OLLIE'S IDEA OF AN INDIAN.
The next forenoon we jogged along much the same as usual, and stopped for noon at Rushville. This was not far from the Pine Ridge Indian Agency and the place called Wounded Knee, where the battle with the Sioux was fought three or four years later. We saw a number of Indians here, and though they came up to Ollie's idea of what an Indian should be a little better than the one that rode with us, they still did not seem to be just the thing.
"I don't think," he said, "that they ought to smoke cigarettes."
"It does look like rather small business for an Indian, doesn't it?" answered Jack. "But then smoking cigarettes is small business for anybody. What's your idea of what an Indian ought to smoke?"
"Well, I'm not sure he ought to smoke anything, except of course the peace pipe occasionally. And he oughtn't to smoke that very much, because an Indian shouldn't make peace very often."
"Right on the war-path all the time, flourishing a scalping-knife above his head, and whooping his teeth loose—that's your notion of an Indian."
"Well, I don't know as that is exactly it," returned Ollie, doubtfully. "But it seems to me these aren't hardly right. Their clothes seem to be just like white people's."
"I don't know about that," said Jack. "I saw one when I went around to the post-office wearing bright Indian moccasins, a pair of soldier's trousers, a fashionable black coat, and a cowboy hat. I never saw a white man dressed just like that."
"Well, I think they ought to wear some feathers, anyhow," insisted Ollie. "An Indian without feathers is just like a—a turkey without 'em."
The Indians were idling all over town, big, lazy, villainous-looking fellows, and very frequently they were smoking cigarettes, and often they were dressed much as Jack had described, though their clothes varied a good deal. There were two points which they all had in common, however—they were all dirty, and all carried bright, clean repeating-rifles. We wondered why they needed the rifles, since there was no game in the neighborhood.
The chief business of Rushville seemed to be shipping bones. We went over to the railroad station to watch the process. There were great piles of them about the station, and men were loading them into freight cars.
"What's done with them?" we asked of a man.
"Shipped East, and ground up for fertilizer," he answered.
"Where do they all come from?"
"Picked up about the country everywhere. Men make a business of gathering them and bringing them in at so much a load. Supply won't last many months longer, but it's good business now."
They were chiefly buffalo bones, though there were also deer, elk, and antelope bones. We saw some beautiful elk antlers, and many broad white skulls of the buffalo, some of them still with the thick black horns on them. As we were watching the loading of the bones, Ollie suddenly exclaimed,
"Oh, see the pretty little deer!"
We looked around, and saw, in the front yard of a house, a young antelope, standing by the fence, and also watching the bone-men as they worked.
"It is a beautiful creature, isn't it?" said Jack. "And how happy and contented it looks!"
"I guess it's happy because it isn't in the bone-pile," said Ollie.
We went over to it, and found it so tame that it allowed Ollie to pet it as much as he pleased. The man who owned it told us that he had found it among the Sand Hills, with one foot caught in a little bridge on the railroad, where it had apparently tried to cross. He rescued it just before a train came along.
We left Rushville after a rather longer stop for noon than we usually made. Nothing worthy of mention occurred during the afternoon, and that night we camped on the edge of another small town, called Hay Springs.
"I don't know," said Jack, "whether or not they really have springs here that flow with water and hay, or how it got its funny name. If there are that kind of springs, I think it's a pity there can't be some of them in the Sand Hills."
Jack went over town after supper for some postage-stamps, and came back quite excited.
"Found it at last, Ollie!" he exclaimed. "Grandpa Oldberry was right."
"What—a varmint?" asked Ollie.
"A genuine varmint," answered Jack. "A regular painter. It's in a cage, to be sure, but it may get out during the night."
We all went over to see it. It was in a big box back of a hotel, and the man in charge called it a mountain-lion, and said it was caught up in the Black Hills. "Right where we are going," whispered Ollie. The animal was, I presume, really a jaguar, and was a big cat three or four feet long.
We were off again the next morning, looking forward eagerly to the camp for the night, which we expected would be at Chadron, and where our course would change to the north into Dakota again, this time on the extreme western edge, and carry us up to the mountains. Most of the day we travelled through a rougher country, and saw many buttes—steep-sided, flat-topped mounds; and in the neighborhood of Bordeaux the road wound among scattering pine-trees. We camped at noon near the house of a settler, who seemed to have a dog farm, as the place was overrun with the animals. We needed some corn for the horses, and asked him if he had any to sell. He was a queer-looking man, with hair the color of molasses candy, and skim-milk eyes.
"I JESS RECKON I HAVE GOT SOME CO'N TO SELL."
"Waal, now, stranger, I jess reckon I have got some co'n to sell," he said. "The only trouble with that there co'n o' mine is that it ain't shucked. If you wouldn't mind to go out into the field and shuck it out, we can jess make a deal right here."
We finally gave him fifty cents for all our three sacks would hold, and he pointed out the field a quarter of a mile away and went back to the house. We noticed that he very soon mounted a pony and rode away toward Hay Springs, but thought nothing of it. When we were ready to start we drove over to the corn-field to get what we had paid for. Jack put his head out of the wagon, took a long look, and said,
"That's the sickest-looking corn-field I ever saw!"
We got out, and found a sorry prospect. The corn was poor and scattering and choked with weeds.
"And the worst of it is," called Jack, as he waded out into the weeds, "that it has been harvested about twelve times already. The scoundrel has been selling it to every man that came along for a month, and I don't believe there were three sackfuls in the whole field to start with."
We went to work at it, and found that he was not far from right.
"No wonder the old skeesicks went off to town soon as he got his money," I said. "He won't show himself back here till he is sure we have gone."
We worked for an hour, and managed to fill one bag with "nubbins" and gave up, promising ourselves that we wouldn't be imposed upon in that way again.
We reached Chadron in due time, and went into camp a little way beyond, on the banks of the White River, a stream which flows through Dakota, and finally joins the Missouri. Our camp was on a little flat where the river bends around in the shape of a horseshoe. It seemed to be a popular stopping-place, and there were half a dozen other covered wagons in camp there. The number of empty tin cans scattered about on that piece of ground must have run up into the thousands. But there had not been a mile of the road since we left Valentine which had not had from a dozen to several hundred cans scattered along it, left by former "movers." We had contributed our share, including the gooseberry can. From the labels we noticed on the can windrow along the road it seemed that peaches and Boston baked beans were the favorite things consumed by the overland travellers, though there were a great many green-corn, tomato, and salmon cans.
"You can get every article of food in tin cans now," observed Jack, one day, "except my pancakes. I'm going to start a pancake cannery. I'll label my cans: 'Jack's Celebrated Rattletrap Pancakes—Warranted Free from Injurious Substances. Open this end. Soak two weeks before using.'"
It was a pretty camping-place on the little can-covered flat, and we sat up late, visiting with our neighbors and talking about the Black Hills.
"I think," said Jack, as we stumbled over the cans on our way to the Rattletrap, "that I'll go into the mining business up there myself. I'll just back the Blacksmith's Pet up to the side of a mountain, tickle his heels with a straw, and he'll have a gold-mine kicked out in five minutes."