In the Track of the Troops. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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of the nation to which he belonged,—tall, lanky, broad-shouldered, gentlemanly, grave, self-possessed, prompt, good-humoured: I have seldom met a more agreeable man. He had been in the Northern navy of America during the last war, and had already introduced some of the discipline, to which he had been accustomed, amongst my small crew.
Bella was up on deck enjoying the sunset; so was my mother. Lancey was busy cleaning my fowling-piece, near the companion-hatch.
“It is charming,” exclaimed my mother.
“So calm,” said Bella.
“And settled-looking,” remarked Nicholas, flipping the end of his cigar over the side.
“Mr Whitlaw does not appear to think so favourably of the weather,” I remarked.
The skipper, looking gravely at a particular point on the horizon, said, in a quiet tone—
“The clouds are heavy.”
“From which you judge that the fine weather may not last?”
“It may be so, but the indications are not certain,” was his cautious reply.
That night we were in a perfect chaos of wind and water. The storm-fiend seemed to have reserved all his favours in order to give us a befitting reception. The sea roared, the wind yelled, the yacht—but why repeat the oft-told tale that invariably ends with “Biscay, O!” A week later and we were in a dead calm, revelling in warmth, bathed in sunshine, within the straits of Gibraltar.
It was evening. All sail was set. Not a puff of wind rendered that display available. The reef-points pattered as the yacht rolled gracefully from side to side on the gentle heave of the Mediterranean’s bosom.
Sitting on a rug on the deck, between my mother and Nicholas, Bella said, in a low quiet tone, “This is perfect felicity.”
“Agreed,” said Nicholas, in a similar tone, with a puff from his cigar.
Bella referred to the calm, of course!
A sea-captain, sitting astride the bulwarks of his ship in the “Doldrums,” far far away from Bella, said, in reference to a similar calm which had beset him for three weeks, “This is perfectly maddening,” with many other strong expressions which we would rather not record; but Bella, of course, did not know that, and could not be expected to reflect on it. She was taken up with her own comforts at the time.
“My dear,” said Mrs Childers, “I think I shall go to bed. Come with me. Good-night, Nicholas. Will you keep the skylight off to-night, Jeffry? It was too hot in our cabin last night.”
“Of course I will,” said I; “why did you not ring, and let me know that you would like fresh air? But I shall see to it to-night.”
About eleven o’clock that night, I lay on one of the lockers of the main cabin, in a wakeful mood. Nicholas lay on the other locker, in that profound slumber which is so characteristic of healthy youth. His regular breathing was the only sound I heard, except the soft footfall of our skipper, as he slowly paced the deck.
Presently I heard another step. It advanced, and a low “Fine night, sir,” apprised me that it was Lancey, who had come on deck to air himself after the culinary and other labours of the day, for he served in the capacity of cook and steward to the yacht.
“I wish you’d tell me about that expedition you was speakin’ off to the master this morning,” said Lancey.
“With pleasure,” replied the skipper; “sit down here, and I’ll spin it off to you right away.”
I knew by the sound of their motions that they had seated themselves at the foot of the main-mast, just between the skylights of the two cabins, and feared that their talk might disturb my mother; but, reflecting that she must have got to sleep long ago, I thought it better not to disturb them, unless their talk should become too loud. As for myself, in my wakeful mood, their converse could not annoy me. After a time it began to interest me deeply.
“It was about the blowing-up of Southern ironclads, was it not?” said the skipper. As he spoke I could distinctly hear the puff, puff, of his pipe between each half-dozen words.
“Just so,” replied Lancey. “The master is uncommon fond of blowin’s-up and inquirin’ into the natur’ of things. I never know’d another except one as beat ’im at inwestigation, but that one beat everybody I ever seen or heard of. He was a Scotch boy, named Sandy—”
“What was his other name?” asked the skipper.
“’Aven’t a notion,” replied Lancey. “We never called ’im anythink else. I don’t believe he ’ad any other name. He said he was the son of an apothecary. No doubt the schoolmaster knew ’is other name, if he ’ad one, but he never used it, and we boys were content with Sandy. That boy, sir, seemed to me to know everythink, and was able, I believe, to do hanythink. He was a tremendous fighter, too, though not out o’ the way as regards size. He could lick the biggest boy in the school, and when he made up his mind to do a thing, nothin’ on earth could stop him a-doin’ of it.”
“Good,” said the skipper, with an emphatic puff; “that’s what we Americans call the power to go ahead. Did Sandy become a great man?”
“Don’t know,” answered Lancey. “He went a’ead too fast for me to foller. One day the master gave ’im a lickin’. He vowed he’d be revenged. Next mornin’ early he got up an’ smashed the school winders, redooced the master’s desk to matchwood, an’ walked away whistlin’. I never seed ’im since.”
“Nor heard of him?”
“Nor ’eard of ’im.”
“That was a pity,” said the skipper, with a prolonged whiff.
“It was. But go on, Mister Whitlaw, with your hanecdotes. I couldn’t rightly hear all you said to the master.”
“It was about torpedo warfare we were talking,” said the skipper. “You know that sort o’ thing is only in its infancy, but the Americans, as usual, had the honour of starting it fairly into being.”
“The ‘honour,’ eh?” said Lancey; “h’m! well, I’m not so sure about the honour, but go on.”
“Well, whether it be an honour or no, I won’t dispute,” returned the skipper, with a puff; “but of this I am sure, that during the late war between the North and South in America, torpedo practice was regularly brought into play for the first time, and the case which I brought before Mr Childers yesterday is only one of many which I could describe. I’ll not relate the same story, but another and a better.
“About the beginning of the war, in 1862, the Confederates—these were the Southern men—blew up our ironclad, the Cairo, in which I lost one of my most intimate friends; and in 1864 they attempted to blow up the Wabash, and myself along with it. The Cairo business was caused by sunk torpedoes. She was going up the Yazoo river at the time, and had lowered a boat to search for torpedoes, which were known to be sunk there. They succeeded in fishing up one, which was found to be an exploded one. Meanwhile the Cairo, having got rather too close in shore, backed out towards the middle of the stream, when two explosions occurred in quick succession, one close to the port-quarter, the other under the port-bow. The effect was tremendous. Some of the heavy guns were actually lifted from the deck. The captain instantly shoved the Cairo on the bank, and got a hawser out to a tree to keep her, if possible, from sinking in deep water. The pumps, steam and hand, were set going immediately; but her whole frame, ironclad though she was, had been so shattered, that nothing could save her. Twelve minutes afterwards she slipped down into six fathoms water, giving them barely time to get out the boats and save the sick men aboard, and the arms. My friend was one of the sick, and the moving was ultimately the death of him, though no lives were lost at the time.”
“You’re not tellin’ me crackers, are you?” said Lancey, in an incredulous tone.
“My good fellow,” returned the skipper, “I wish that I were. The story is only too true, and I would it were the only one of the sort I had to tell. You can find a book in London,