CHAPTER XVI
THE LIEUTENANT'S DARING EXPLOIT
Captain Breaker was perplexed when his ship came alongside the enemy andwas made fast to her, for things were not working according to the usualrules made and provided for such occasions, and Captain Rombold wasevidently resorting to some unusual tactics. The two steamers were ofabout the same height above water, so their decks were very nearly on alevel.
The men with muskets on both sides were reloading their weapons, andthose with navy revolvers were discharging them at the enemy; but theofficers of divisions concealed their men behind the bulwarks when theorder to board did not come.
Christy saw the perplexity of the commander at his side, and it wasevident to both of them that some unusual strategy was to be adopted,and Captain Breaker did not intend to fall into a trap if he could avoidit. They could see nothing that looked suspicious except the position ofthe enemy's force on the starboard side of the ship.
Before the captain could stop him, the first lieutenant had leaped intothe mizzen rigging, and ascended far enough to obtain a view of thequarter deck over the bulwarks, while the commander walked aft farenough to accomplish the same purpose by looking through the aperturemade by the shot which had carried away the wheel of the enemy, withoutexposing himself to the fire of the seamen on board of her.
Christy's action occupied but the fraction of a minute; but severalmuskets and revolvers were discharged at him in this brief time. Lettinggo his hold of the rigging, he dropped to the deck before the captaincould see what he was doing; and it was supposed that the daring officerhad been brought down by the shots fired at him.
"Second division, follow me!" he cried, as he picked up the cutlass hehad dropped.
About thirty men rushed to the quarter-deck, hurried on by Mr. Walbrook.Christy leaped upon the rail, with the cutlass in his right hand, andthe revolver in his left, and dropped down upon the quarter deck ofthe Tallahatchie, upon a squad of seamen who were lying low behind athirty-pounder, whose carriage was close to the bulwark, the piecepointed forward.
The first lieutenant had seen from his position in the mizzen riggingthe trap which had been set for the crew of the Bellevite. They wereexpected to leap to the rail, and cut away the boarding nettings--notalways used, but were on this occasion--and then drop down to the deck.The first command would naturally have been to "Repel boarders;" butthis was not given, and no fighting was to be done till the boardersreached the ship, when the thirty-pounder, doubtless loaded with grapeor shrapnel, was to mow down the invaders of the deck.
Christy's men poured down after him, and before the crew of the gun, whohad no doubt been ordered to conceal themselves, could get upon theirfeet they were cut down by the impetuous tars from the Bellevite. Itwas the work of but a moment. Christy had taken some pains to have theopinion of Captain Rombold that American seamen were inferior to Britishcirculated, and the men evidently intended to prove that they were theequals of any sailors afloat.
"Swing the muzzle of the gun to starboard!" shouted Christy, as he tookhold with his own hands to point the piece, which was in position in amoment.
Captain Rombold stood but a short distance from the stump of the mizzenmast with a cutlass in his hand. He rushed forward to rally his crew;and he seemed to be rendered desperate by the failure of the scheme towhich he had resorted. At this moment Christy heard Captain Breakershout the order to board, and the men were springing to the rail, andtearing away the boarding netting.
"Stand by the lanyard!" cried the first lieutenant on the quarter-deckof the enemy, and he had sighted the piece himself in the absence of anyregular gun crew. "Fire!"
The cloud of smoke concealed all of the deck forward of the mizzen mast,and Christy could not see what effect had been produced by the charge ofgrape, or whatever it was. At any rate the men the commander had ralliedfor a charge did not appear.
The smoke was blown away in a minute or so, and the Bellevite's sailorshad made a lodgment on the deck of the enemy. They were led by theofficers of the divisions, and were rushing over to the starboard, wherethe enemy's men had been concentrated. They were brave men, whetherEnglish or not, and the moment they could see the boarders, they rushedat them by command of their officers; but they pushed forward, as itwere, out of a heap of killed and wounded, those who had fallen by thegrape-shot intended to decimate the ranks of the loyal band.
Christy rallied his men as soon as they had done their work in thevicinity of the thirty-pounder, and ordered them to join their divisionunder the command of the third lieutenant. But the seamen on the part ofthe Confederates seemed to be dispirited to some extent by the badbeginning they had made, and by the heap of slain near them. CaptainRombold lay upon the deck, propped up against the mizzen mast. He lookedas pale as death itself; but he was still directing the action, givingorders to his first lieutenant. Two of his officers were near him, butboth of them appeared to be severely wounded.
The battle was raging with fearful energy on the part of the loyal tars,and with hardly less vigor on the part of the enemy, though the latterfought in a sort of desperate silence. The wounded commander was doinghis best to reinspire them; but his speech was becoming feeble, andperhaps did more to discourage than to strengthen them.
At this stage of the action Graines, closely followed by his twenty men,sprang over the starboard bulwarks, and fell upon the enemy in the rear.Finding themselves between an enemy in front and rear, they could do nomore; for it was sure death to remain where they were, and they fledprecipitately to the forecastle.
"Quarter!" shouted these men, and the same cry came from the other partsof the deck.
"Haul down the flag, Mr. Brookfield!" said the commander in a feebletone.
The first lieutenant of the Tallahatchie, with his handkerchief tiedaround his leg, directed a wounded quartermaster to strike the colors,and three tremendous cheers from the victorious crew of the Belleviterent the air. Captain Breaker had come on board of the enemy, sword inhand, and had conducted himself as bravely as the unfortunate commanderof the prize.
The moment he saw Christy he rushed to him with both hands extended, andwith a smile upon his face. The four hands were interlocked, but not aword was spoken for the feelings of both were too big for utterance.A loyal quartermaster was ordered to hoist the American ensign over theConfederate flag which had just been hauled down.
The situation on board of the prize was so terrible that there was nodanger of an attempt to recapture the vessel, and immediate attentionwas given to the care of the wounded, the survivors in each vesselperforming this duty under its own officers.
Mr. Brookfield, the executive officer of the Tallahatchie, was woundedin the leg below the knee, but he did not regard himself as disabled,and superintended the work of caring for the sufferers. Mr. Hungerford,the second lieutenant, appeared to be the only principal officer who hadescaped uninjured; while Mr. Lenwold, the third lieutenant, had his armin a sling in consequence of a wound received from a splinter in theearly part of the action. These gentlemen, who had seemed like demonsonly a few minutes before, so earnest were they in the discharge oftheir duties, were now as tender and devoted as so many women.
Captain Breaker directed his own officers to return to the deck of theBellevite and provide for the wounded there; but they were few in numbercompared with those strewed about the deck of the prize. While theConfederate ship had been unable to discharge her guns, and the officerswere using their utmost exertions to repair the disabled steeringapparatus, the Bellevite had had a brief intermission of the din ofbattle, during which the wounded had been carried below where thesurgeon and his mates had attended to their injuries.
It was ascertained that only six men had been killed during the action,and their silent forms had been laid out in the waist. Seventeen menwere in their berths in the hospital or on the tables of the surgeon,eight of whom had been wounded by the muskets and revolvers of the enemyas the ship came alongside the prize. Four others had just been borne tothe co
ckpit with wounds from pikes and cutlasses.
The loss of the enemy was at least triple that of the Bellevite, alarge number of whom had fallen before the murderous discharge of thethirty-pounder on the quarter-deck, which had been intended to decimatethe ranks of the loyal boarders; and, raking the column as the menpoured into the ship, it would probably have laid low more than one inten of the number. This was an original scheme of Captain Rombold; andbut for the coolness and deliberation of Captain Breaker, and the daringof his chief officer, it must have been a terrible success. As it was,the Confederate commander, who was the only foreign officer on board,"had been hoisted by his own petard."
Christy had done all that required his attention on board of theBellevite, and he paid another visit to the deck of the Tallahatchie,where he desired to obtain some information which would enable him thebetter to understand the action which had just been fought. He wasespecially anxious to ascertain the condition of the Armstrong gun whichhad been disabled by the first shot of Blumenhoff with the midshipParrot. As he went on deck, he saw Captain Rombold, seated in anarm-chair his cabin steward had brought up for him, with his rightleg resting on a camp stool.
"Good-morning, Mr. Passford," said the wounded commander, with a slightsmile on his pale face. "_Comment allez-vous ce matin?_" (How do you dothis morning?)
"_Tres bien, Monsieur le capitaine. Je suis bien fache que vous etesblesse._ (Very well, Captain. I am very sorry that you are wounded.) Youneed the attention of the surgeon, sir," replied the loyal officer.
"I take my turn with my men, Mr. Passford, and my officers do the same.The fortune of war is with you again, and I congratulate you on thesuccess which has attended you. I saw that it was you who upset my planfor receiving your boarders. I was confident, with that device of mine,I should be able to beat off your boarders, and I intended to carry yourdeck by boarding you in turn. I think your commander can give you thecredit of winning the victory for the Bellevite in his despatches; forI should have killed more of your men with that thirty-pounder than youdid of mine, for I should have raked the column. You saved the day forthe United States when you ran up the mizzen rigging and unmasked mybattery. You are a gentleman and a magnanimous enemy, Mr. Passford, andI congratulate you on your promotion, which is sure to come. But youlook pale this morning."
"One of your revolvers had very nearly pinked me when I was in therigging; for the ball passed between my arm and my side, and took outa piece of the former, Captain Rombold," replied Christy, who wasbeginning to feel languid from the loss of blood, for the drops of redfluid were dropping from the ends of his fingers. "But you exaggeratethe service I rendered; for Captain Breaker, suspecting something fromthe position in which your men were drawn up, had dropped a hawser port,and intended to look through the aperture made by one of our solidshots. He would have discovered your trap."
"He could not have seen the gun or the men." At that moment Christy sankdown upon the deck.