Ahead of the Army

by William O. Stoddard

Ned took the glass with an unexpected feeling growing within him that he hoped she could not do so. He did not wish to be caught on board a British vessel taking powder and shot to kill Americans with. As he put the glass to his eyes, however, the sloop-of-war appeared to have suddenly come nearer. It was as if the Goshawk were already within reach of her guns, and she became a dangerous thing to look at. She was not, as yet, under any great press of canvas, for her commander may not have imagined that any merchant vessel would try to get away from him. There were two things, however, about which nobody on board the Goshawk was thinking. The first was that, while the American ship-of-war captain had not heard the firing at the fort on the Rio Grande, he was under a strong impression that war had been declared. The other thing came out in a remark which he made to a junior officer standing by him.

“It won’t do!” he declared, emphatically. “I don’t at all like that change of flags. It means mischief. There is something suspicious about that craft. We must bring her to, and find out what’s the matter with her.”

The distance between the two vessels was still too great for anything but a few signals, to which Captain Kemp responded with others which may have been of his own invention, for the signal officer on board the Yankee cruiser could make nothing of them. The Goshawk, moreover, did not shorten sail, and her steersman kept her away several points more southerly, instead of bringing her course nearer to that of the cruiser.

“I see!” said her captain, as he watched the change. “She means to get away from us. It won’t do. As soon as we are within range, I’ll give her a gun. She may be a Mexican privateer, for all I know.”

At all events, under the circumstances, as he thought, the change of flags had made it his duty to inquire into her character, and he decided to do so, even if, as he said, he should have to send one shot ahead of her and then a dozen into her.

There is something wonderfully exciting about a race of any kind. Men will make use of anything, from a donkey to a steamboat, to engineer a trial of speed and endurance. Then they will stand around and watch the running, as if the future welfare of the human race depended upon the result. Even the Goshawk sailors, who had previously grumbled at the British flag above them, were entirely reconciled to the situation, now that it included the interesting question whether or not their swift bark could show her heels to the cruiser. They were very much in doubt about it, for the ships of the American navy had a high and well-earned reputation as chasers. They might have been somewhat encouraged if they had known that the Portsmouth, sloop-of-war, had been at sea a long time without going into any dock to have her bottom scraped clean of its accumulated barnacles. She was by no means in the best of training for a marine race-course.

An hour went by and then another. The two vessels were now running on almost parallel lines, so that any attempt of the sloop to draw nearer cost her just so much of chasing distance. It might be that they were, in fact, nearly matched, now that the wind had lulled a little, and both of them were able to send up more canvas without too much risk of having their sticks blown out of them. It looked like it, but the Yankee captain had yet another idea in his sagacious head.

“Let her keep on,” he said. “The old Kennebec is out there, somewhere westerly, not far away. That vagabond may find himself under heavier guns than ours before sunset. Lieutenant, give him a gun.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” came back, and in a moment more there was a flash and a report at the bow of the Portsmouth.

Both range and distance had been well calculated, for an iron messenger, ordering the Goshawk to heave to, fell into the water within a hundred yards of her stern.