We agreed to double the watch, and to be prepared to take “boarders” at any moment.
Nights of sleepless anxiety followed.
I recollect that during the Virginius troubles we were beating down the Windward Channel one Winter’s night on board the United States frigate Wabash. I was a member of the ship’s company. We had been at sea for several weeks, and did not know whether or not war with Spain had been declared. Suddenly, in the moonlight, we made out a large Spanish man-of-war, about one mile off, on our starboard bow. The men were called to quarters. The decks were sanded down. The powder magazine was opened, and every gun on board was loaded with shell or solid shot. For half an hour, in the silence of the night, every man stood at his post, awaiting a signal to open fire. Even the surgeon had his knives, his saws and artery forceps ready on the wardroom table.
The great steel ship, that could have sunk our wooden craft in a minute’s time, passed.
Not a sound on board! Not a moving light! Only silence—and suspense.
The memory of that moonlight night in the Windward Channel was renewed every night on board the Happy Shark.