"Talking about that whitewashing," said the sailor who had opened the conversation, "I think it's all right enough, but it seems to me it might have been applied where it would have done still more good."
"Where's that, Tom?" said the boatswain's mate.
"I suppose you know," said Tom, "that the Itasca and Pinola went up last night to break the chain and make an opening for the fleet to pass through. Caldwell did that all right. But it's going to be a mighty hard matter to steer these big sea-going vessels through that narrow place in the current of a river like this and in the smoke of battle. The thing I'm most afraid of is that some one of our ships will get tangled up among those hulks, and then the rebs can just pound her as if they had her in a mortar. Suppose the ship at the head of the line should get caught across the opening, where would the whole fleet be then?"
"Of course there is great risk," said the boatswain's mate, "but how are you going to avoid it? They took up a new-fangled torpedo to blow up some of the hulks and make a wider opening, but the thing wouldn't work. Those machines that are to go off under water seldom do work."
"I was thinking," said Tom, "that if they had whitewashed the decks of the hulks next to the opening it would go far to prevent such an accident."
"You didn't go up there with Caldwell, and neither did your brother," said the sailmaker. "If you had, I don't think you'd have been anxious to whitewash anything and make yourselves a better target for the sharpshooters on shore. Our men were fired on all the while as it was."
"I think I could have managed it," said Tom.
"Tell us how."
"I would have taken up some buckets of white paint—I see you smile, but you've got ahead of your reckoning. No, I wasn't going to say I'd take some brushes along and make a nice job painting the decks. I'd keep the buckets covered up till just as we were ready to come away, and then I'd simply overturn them on the decks and push off. That would whiten them enough to help our pilots through."
"I'm not sure but that's a good idea," said another sailor.