III
MIDSHIPMAN JACK, U.S.N.
The Action of Appalachicola
“I AM not one of those fellows who ‘can fight and run away, and live to fight some other day,’” one of the bravest Lieutenant-Commanders in the United States navy said one evening to a party of friends, who were making him feel uncomfortable by discussing his brilliant war record. “My bad leg won’t let me run, so I always have to stand and fight it out.”
“Why, Commander,” one of his friends exclaimed, “I did not know that you had a bad leg. You do not limp.”
“No,” he answered, “not ordinarily. But when I tire myself I limp a little, and if I were to undertake to run I should come to grief.”
“Where did you receive your injury?” another asked.
“In action at Appalachicola,” the Commander replied; “the severest action I ever saw.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke, and he looked about the table to see what effect the words had upon his friends. Two of them merely muttered their sympathy, and the third asked for the story of the fight; but the fourth man looked up with a comical expression that told the Commander he was understood in one quarter at least.
“You will certainly have to tell us about that,” this fourth man laughed, seeing that the Commander was waiting for a question; “for I have always understood that Appalachicola, being an out-of-the-way place, was one of the few Southern towns that escaped without a scratch in the war. I never heard of any battle there.”