"Here comes another!"
Then we all dropped upon our faces behind the iron-plated pilot-house, which rose from the deck like a great umbrella. The screaming shot would sometimes strike our bows, but usually pass over, falling into the water behind us.
While the Rebels fired from one battery, there was just sufficient excitement to make it interesting; but when they opened with two others, stationed at different points in the bend of the river, their range completely covered the pilot-house. Dropping behind that shelter to avoid the missiles in front, we were exposed to a hail of shot from the side. Thereupon the commodore peremptorily ordered us below, and we went down upon the gun-deck.
A correspondent of The Chicago Times, who chanced to be on board, took a position in the stern of the boat, under the impression that it was entirely safe. A moment after he came rushing in with blanched face and dripping clothing. A shot had struck within three feet of him, glancing into the river, and drenching every thing in the vicinity.
That long gun-deck was alive with action. The executive officer, Lieutenant Bishop, a gallant young fellow, fresh from the naval school, superintended every thing. Swarthy gunners manned the pieces; little powder-boys rushed to and fro with ammunition, and hurrying men crowded the long compartment.
There came a tremendous crashing of glass, iron, and wood! An eight-inch solid shot, penetrating the half-inch iron plating and the five-inch timber, near the bows, as if they were paper, buried itself in the deck, and rebounded, striking the roof. In that manner it danced along the entire length of the boat, through the cabin, the ward-room, the machinery, the pantry—where it smashed a great deal of crockery—until, at the extreme stern, it fell and remained upon the commodore's writing-desk, crushing in the lid.
A moment before the noisy, agile visitor arrived, the whole deck seemed crowded with busy men. A moment after, I looked again. A score of undismayed fellows were comfortably blowing splinters from their mouths and beards, and brushing them from their hair and faces; but, by a fortunate accident, not a single one of them was hurt.
How One feels underFeels Under Fire.
As the shot screamed along very near me, my curiosity diminished. I had a dim perception that nothing in this gunboat life could become me like the leaving of it. A mulatto cabin-boy, whose face turned almost white when the missile tore through the boat, shared my sensations.
"I wish that I was out of it," he said, confidentially; "but I put my own neck into this yoke, and I have got to wear it."