CHAPTER XIII.

THE BOAT-EXPEDITION.

“All the starboard watch, ahoy!” piped the boatswain’s mate at eight bells on the following morning.

Jack turned out of his hammock, eager to engage in the expedition which was to start at this time. Hastening to the spar-deck, he heard the order given to clear away the cutters. The men and material for the enterprise were ready. Boat-howitzers were placed in the bows of the cutters; a supply of ammunition, provisions, and water, was taken on board of them; and the men embarked.

Mr. Granger, the second-lieutenant, was to command the expedition, with the fourth-lieutenant in the third cutter, and a master’s mate in the fourth. It was the first active service in which either officers or men had been engaged during the cruise; and everyone, from the second-lieutenant down to the powder-boys, was anxious to distinguish himself, and each one felt competent to whip two or three rebels in any fair encounter. There was pluck enough in the expedition to have supplied three times as large a company: and it was fortunate for them and for the Government that Mr. Granger was a prudent and sensible man; otherwise the expedition might have taken it into its head to attack the city of New Orleans or Mobile, or pitched into Fort Pike, Fort Gaines, or some other rebel stronghold in the vicinity.

When the boats were ready to start, Mr. Granger ordered the second and third cutters alongside the first, in which he was seated himself. The officers in command of the other boats had already been instructed in regard to their duties; and Mr. Granger proceeded to give a few general directions for the conduct of the men. The oars had been “tossed,” and the crews listened in respectful silence to the remarks of the commander of the expedition.

“Cast off!” said the cockswains of the cutters; and the three boats separated, so as to permit each to use its oars.

“Let fall!” added the cockswains. “Give way!”

The cutters dashed away, the men pulling with a will. As yet, they knew not where they were going; and, aside from the natural curiosity all men feel, it is not probable that they cared, provided they were introduced to some stirring scene which would enable them to do something for the old flag, and furnish an opportunity for the daring spirits to distinguish themselves in a hand-to-hand fight.

Jack Somers stowed himself away under the lee of Tom Longstone, who was in the same boat with him; partly because the old quartermaster wished “to keep an eye on him;” and partly because the veteran was a sage and a prophet, and Jack wanted the benefit of his observations and instructions.

“Do you know where we are going, Tom?” asked Jack in a low voice; for loud talking was not permitted.

“Haven’t the least idea, my lad,” replied Tom in a whisper.

“Where do you suppose?”

“The likes of you and me, my darling, are not to know anything about it. Bless you, Jack, Mr. Granger hasn’t asked my opinion about anything, and hasn’t even told me where we are going!”

“Can’t you tell in what direction we are pulling?”

“As to the matter of that, my honey-bee, we are heading due north.”

“What do you _think_ we are going to do?”

“I have not the leastest idee in natur’. May be we are goin’ to capter Mobile; that lays off here away somewhere: but I don’t think we are, Jack.”

“Of course we are not,” replied Jack impatiently.

“May be, Fort Pike: I heard one of the jollies say there was such a battery or fort in here somewhere. I don’t think we are, though.”

“You know we are not, Tom.”

“May be we are going across the country to strike New Orleans,” chuckled Tom; “but I don’t believe we are.”

“You know very well we are not going to do anything of the kind. You are an old seaman. I didn’t know but you could tell, from the arms and other things in the boat, what kind of work we are to perform.”

“Well, my baby, seein’ as how you want to know so bad, I’ll give you my opinion. ’Taint worth much; but old Tom’s always ready to give the best he’s got.”

The veteran spoke in low tones; and the seamen near him gathered closer around him, so as to hear the opinion of the sage of the first cutter. Tom took off his cap, scratched his bald head as if to stimulate his intellectual powers, and sharpen his judgment up to the requisite pitch for the important decision he was about to render.

“I don’t know where we’re goin’, or what we’re goin’ to do, as I said before,” continued Tom, when all heads were bent down to catch the words of wisdom when they should fall from his venerated lips. “Howsomever, in my opinion, we’re goin’ to take a look at the rebels, or else to attack some shore-battery, or else some steamboat or sailing vessel. Now, my lads, you’ve got my opinion: so don’t pester me no more.”

Old Tom indulged in a low chuckle as he settled back on the thwart, and glanced around him to discover in the darkness how his opinion had been received.

“Bully for you, Tom! I thought you knowed all about this work,” laughed an old sheet-anchor man.

Jack gave up in despair, and was obliged to content himself with knowing no more than the law allows. The men at the oars were relieved every hour; for it was a long pull before they reached the scene of operations. At eight o’clock, the expedition came into a broad bay extending into the mainland. The boats were passing between two headlands about two miles apart, when a cannon-shot dropped into the water a short distance ahead of the first cutter.

“There’s music for you!” said Tom Longstone.

“There’s some more!” added the sheet-anchor man.

This was the first time that Jack Somers had ever listened to the whizzing of a cannon-ball; and the sensation was decidedly novel, if not agreeable. It was different from what our sailor-boy had anticipated. One of the ugly missiles might hit the first cutter, and smash her in pieces, killing half her human freight. There was no chance to strike a blow in self-defence, or even to fire a shot in return from the howitzers; for the battery from which the shot came was situated on the headland on the port-hand, and more than a mile distant.

Mr. Granger being a prudent man, and unwilling to expose the boats’ crews to the fire of the battery, gave orders for them to pull up into the favoring shelter of a small island, several of which appeared near the entrance to the bay. The fort then opened with shell; to whose hideous screaming, Jack and a majority of the party listened for the first time. The second-lieutenant landed upon the island, and with his glass made a careful examination of the battery and the shores of the bay.

“We’re in the stocks!” said Tom Longstone with the peculiar low chuckle with which he often delivered himself.

“We shall not stay here long!” added Jack nervously; for the shells did not sound pleasantly to his ear.

“You aren’t afraid, are you, my little lamb?” demanded Tom.

“Of course I’m not afraid,” replied Jack with a deep blush; “but I don’t like to lie here, and be shot at, without a chance of paying off the rebels in their own coin.”

“It aren’t pleasant to lay still under fire, my boy; but that’s a part of a good seaman’s duty, and he must take things as they come. Don’t be alarmed, Jack; they won’t hit you.”

“They are just as likely to hit me as they are anyone else. I should like something to do, if it’s nothing more than pulling an oar.”

“That’s cause you’re narvous, Jack.”

Perhaps there were not many in the boats who were not nervous as they listened to the screaming shells.

It was a new experience to them; and it is not in the nature of man to stand in the presence of death, without being moved by the peril. Some of the crew laughed, and made fun of the dangerous missiles as they screeched through the air, or burst at very inconvenient distances from them; but it is probable that those who laughed the loudest were the most afraid, and therefore struggled the hardest to avoid making an exhibition of their real feelings.

Tom Longstone and a few others had been under fire before; and they were as cool and self-possessed as though they had been on board a receiving-ship in a peaceful port. Mr. Granger, who had recently been promoted for gallant conduct, seemed to be perfectly calm, paying no attention to the shells which were dropping around him. The rebels in the fort had not yet got the range of the island; and their firing was not accurate, though it was rapidly improving. At last, the commander of the expedition finished his examination, and walked toward the boats.

The crews of the cutters watched him with eager interest: and most of them believed, perhaps some hoped, that the expedition was to be abandoned; for they did not see what three boats could do while exposed to the fire of the rebel battery, whose guns commanded the waters of the bay. Mr. Granger, Mr. McBride, and the master’s mate from the third cutter, held a short consultation on the shore, out of the hearing of the men. When it was ended, each returned to his boat, and orders were given to cast off. It was a moment of deep anxiety to all the men; for the question of success or failure rested upon the decision of the officers.

The boats shoved off from the land; and, when the men gave way, instead of going about, they were headed up the bay. There was a strong inclination to give three cheers manifested by the more ardent spirits; but it was quickly repressed by a sharp word from the second-lieutenant.

The boats were kept as much as possible within the shelter of the range of islands on the easterly side of the bay, and in a few moments they had passed out of reach of the shells; for the gunners in the fort, probably enveloped in their own smoke, had not discovered the change of position made by the boats.

“Steamer on the port-quarter, sir!” shouted Mr. McBride from the second cutter.

“I see her!” replied Mr. Granger.

“Now look out for squalls, my hearties!” said Tom Longstone in a low voice, as he glanced at the new enemy, which was just emerging from behind a headland in the direction indicated by the fourth-lieutenant.

“We shall have a fight yet!” added Jack uneasily; for, on a nearer approach, a hand-to-hand fight with the rebels was not quite so sentimental an affair as it had seemed to be at a distance.

We do not mean to accuse our hero of being afraid; but the terrible inactivity of the moment was almost insupportable. He wanted to pitch right in, and do “a big thing.” He wanted something to do, so that he could prove to himself and his companions that he was no coward. To sit in the boat like a block of wood, and be shot at by the rebels, was wretched business; and he hoped Mr. Granger would pull out, and order the boats’ crews to board the steamer, and not permit her to stand off and pelt them with shot and shell.

“It will be a smart fight, too,” added Tom.

“Ay, ay; that it will. The steamer’s cut us off! I’ll tell you what, Tom: Mr. Granger has got us into a tight place!” replied Grummet, the sheet-anchor man.

“Let him alone; he knows what he’s about,” answered the veteran.

“Don’t ye see, Tom, the steamer can stand off, and whittle us up into inch-pieces; and we can’t board, nor nothin’?”

“Leave all that to Mr. Granger,” persisted Tom, whose long experience had begotten confidence in his officers.

Under the lee of one of the islands which rose higher above the water than the others, the men were ordered to lie on their oars. The fort still kept banging away at the island behind which the boats had first taken refuge. The steamer, which was a small river-boat, drawing no more water than the first cutter, came puffing across the bay, like a man with the asthma, towards the first island. She was a slow affair, and it took her some time to come within hailing distance of the expedition. As she approached the man-of-war’s boats, the fort, out of regard for her safety, ceased firing; which might have been done half an hour before, so far as any injury to the cutters was concerned.

“I tell you, Tom Longstone, we are booked for a rebel prison, as sure as you was born,” said Grummet.

“Stopper your jaw!” replied Tom impatiently. “What are your officers for, if they are going for to send you to a rebel prison?”

“Don’t you see that old snorter astern of us, Tom? Are you goin’ for to run away from a steamboat?”

“We aren’t goin’ for to run away from anything that shows a rebel rag at its peak,--mind that, you old croaker!” added Tom. “You aren’t afraid, are you, Jack?” continued he, putting his arm around his _protégé_, and hugging him like a baby.

“Of course I’m not afraid; only--only”--

“What, my bleating little lamb?”

“I wish the fun would commence.”

“See that, Tom!” continued the sheet-anchor man. “D’ye see that gun on the t’gallant fo’castle? She is swinging it round.”

“Let her swing it round,” snarled Tom. “Now batten down your jaw-port and don’t groan any more.”

At this moment, an order was heard for the men to give way; and, before the gun of the steamer was ready, the boats had doubled the island, and the men were lying upon their oars, with the high land between them and the steamer.

“See that!” said Tom triumphantly. “Mr. Granger knows all about it.”

“Perhaps he do,” replied Grummet doubtfully, as a shot from the steamer whizzed harmlessly over their heads.