Gang aft agley."
The Secretary of War having carried his point, the Major directed his efforts towards another quarter, and more successfully. Indeed he rarely failed in any enterprise requiring nerve, perseverance, tact, and ability; and it may well be added that he seemed to accumulate wealth to enjoy the pleasure of spending it worthily. His unostentatious charities during the war were almost boundless; and hundreds of widows and orphans blessed him for the relief which he extended to them in those dark days, when even medicines were contraband of war, and the simplest necessaries of life were beyond the reach of nearly every one in the Confederacy.
CHAPTER VIII.
Dyer and the Sailing Captain.—First Voyage to Nassau.—Major Ficklen and the Two Young Lieutenants.—Our Old Skipper "Captain Dick."—Bermuda.—The Races there and elsewhere.—Description of Bermuda.—Moore, the Poet, and his Rival Mr. Tucker.—Tame Fish.—The Naval Station.—Col. B.'s Accident.
Before sailing with our cargo of cotton for Nassau, a signal officer was detailed for the ship, (signal stations having been established along the coast for the benefit of the blockade-runners;) and I was compelled to discharge my pilot Dyer. He and the sailing captain, who was to take passage with us, his engagement having terminated with the transfer of the vessel to the Confederate flag, had been quarreling incessantly during my absence from Wilmington, and had finally become mortal foes. An hour or more after my return to the ship, while sitting in the cabin, I heard loud and angry altercation overhead; and going on deck, I saw Dyer pacing up and down the wharf, along side which the "Lee" was lying; while the sailing captain was bidding him defiance from the steamer's deck; Dyer with a drawn knife in his hand, and the captain armed with a handspike. They had exhausted their vocabulary of abuse, but neither was disposed to invade the enemy's territory. At last Dyer cried out "Come ashore you d—d English hog, and I'll make mince meat of you!" I shall never forget the expression of the captain's face at this cruel taunt. He was literally struck speechless for a moment; then turning to me and drawing himself up with a thumb in his arm-hole, and the handspike over his shoulder, he exclaimed, "Now, sir, isn't that too bad! Do I look like a Henglish og?" To this pathetic appeal, I could but answer "no," but the fact was they bore a ludicrous resemblance to two boars about to engage in mortal combat; the captain, with his jolly, rosy face and portly figure, not at all unlike a sleek, well fed "White Chester," and Dyer quite as much resembling a lean, lank, wiry "razor-back" native of his own pine woods. I discharged Dyer. The poor fellow's subsequent fate was a sad one. While acting as pilot of a blockade-runner, inward bound, he committed the folly one day of saying that he would put a steamer under his charge ashore, before he would be captured. The remark was overheard and treasured up by some of the crew; and a night or two afterwards the steamer ran aground on the bar in the attempt to enter Cape Fear River, and was deserted. As she was under the shelter of the guns of Fort Caswell, a boat from shore was sent off to her next morning, and poor Dyer was found in a dying condition on the deck with his skull fractured. He had paid for his folly with his life.
Our first voyage to Nassau was made without any unusual incident. The Major took passage with us by permission of the Secretary of War, and his practical jokes amused every one except the butt of them; even the aggrieved party, himself, being frequently obliged to laugh at his own expense. There were two very young lieutenants of the Confederate Navy then in Nassau, on their way to Europe; the senior of whom ranking the other by one or two days, assumed much authority over him. One day the Major with the help of an accomplice, who was supposed to be able to imitate my handwriting, addressed an official letter to the senior in my name, informing him that both of them had been reported to me for unofficer-like and unbecoming conduct, and requiring them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior demurred, believing it to be a hoax, but the senior peremptorily ordered him to accompany him on board. They were caught in a drenching shower on their way to the Lee; and they made their appearance in the cabin in a sorry plight, reporting themselves "in obedience to orders," handing me the written document. As I pronounced it a forgery, the junior turned to the senior and exclaimed, "What did I tell you? didn't I say it was a hoax of that d—d Major Ficklen?" They started to the shore, vowing vengeance; but the Major had posted his sentinels at every street corner near the landing, and successfully eluded them. They were to sail that afternoon at four o'clock; and after a fruitless chase, went to the hotel to get dinner. While sitting at the table, and some time after soup was served, a waiter came to them "with Major Ficklen's compliments and the pleasure of a glass of champagne with them." After a hurried consultation, they decided to bury the hatchet; and bowed over their wine to the Major, who had just slipped into a seat reserved for him at the other end of the long and crowded table, and was smiling graciously in their direction. As Ficklen bade them "good-bye," he said "Don't forget me, my sons!" "No, indeed," they replied, "you may swear we never will!"
Seeing the necessity, while at Nassau, of carrying a Bahama Banks pilot, I engaged our worthy old skipper, Captain Dick Watkins, who served under my command for many months, maintaining and deserving the respect of all on board. His son, and only heir to his name and fortune, Napoleon Bonaparte, gave him much anxiety. "Ah, Sir," he said on one occasion, "dat b—y's heddication has cost me a sight of money, as much as ten dollars a year for two or three years, and he don't know nothing hardly." During one of our voyages he had left his wife quite sick at home. My young friend Johnny T—— was endeavoring to console him. "But the ole 'oman is mighty sick, Master Johnny," said the old fellow, "and I don't spect to see her no more." Johnny's heart was touched. The silence was broken by Captain Dick after a long pause, "dere are some mighty pretty yaller gals in Nassau, Master Johnny!" He had the profoundest respect for the head of the firm of A—y and Co. in Nassau, the "King Conch" as he was irreverently styled by us outside barbarians. Speaking of the firm upon one occasion he assured me the members were as wealthy as the "Roths children." My good purser and the old captain were fast friends, the former fighting the old fellow's battles in Rebeldom; and once, when the latter was unjustly treated in Wilmington, the purser "took the daggers," and bore him triumphantly through the difficulty.
We made two or three trips between Wilmington and Nassau during the winter of 1862-3 encountering no extraordinary hazards. During one of them we arrived within ten or twelve miles of the western bar too early in the night to cross it, as the ebb tide was still running; and it was always my custom to cross the bar on a rising tide, if possible. All the usual preparations had been made on board for running through the fleet, and as no sail was in sight we steamed cautiously in toward the land until we arrived within a cable's length of the shore, and in the dense shadow of a comparatively high bluff. Here we dropped a kedge and rode by the hawser. Although there was no moon, the stars were shining brightly; and the air was so calm and still, that the silence was oppressive. While we were lying in the friendly shadow of the bluff, one of the blockading fleet could be occasionally seen from our deck, steaming slowly along upon her "beat" a short distance outside of us. When the time arrived for making the dash at the bar, the kedge was run up to the bows by willing hands, and the "Lee" started at full speed. When the land was once fairly got hold of, and our exact position known, the chances were ten to one in our favor. No blockader could get inshore of us to cut us off from the bar, and we believed that we could either go by or go over anything in our course; and in extremity we could beach the vessel with the probability of being able to save most, if not the whole of the cargo.