by J. T. Edson
“And if we do?” asked Dusty, wondering what the tiny vessel could hope to accomplish against even one of the small ‘tin-clad’ river gun-boats, so-called because of their very light armor plating.
“You’ll return to the stern, sit down and keep quiet,” Pinckney replied. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, though.”
With his passengers aboard, Pinckney ordered his men to cast off. Despite using a rear-screw, as opposed to the twin side-wheels of the riverboats, the Jack handled well and showed a surprising maneuverability. After being poled away from the shore, the little submersible gathered way and headed across the lagoon. Ahead lay a narrow gap barely wide enough for the boat, but Pinckney guided it through with little change of speed and once on the river headed down stream.
Clearly the Jack’s crew knew their work and went about it without needing orders. In addition to their cutlasses and Navy Colts, the men had two shotguns and a pair of Sharps carbines for armament.
“Which same stops us coming alongside and trading broadsides with any Yankee we meet,” Pinckney drawled as he saw Dusty studying his ship’s weapons. “Mind you though, apart from those Yankee steam-launches, there’s not a craft on the Big Muddy can catch the Jack running with the current and we’d give a launch a good run for its money.”
Even as Pinckney spoke, one of the crew men hauled on a cable which raised the torpedo spar from the water. Then the sailor swung over the cockpit and advanced along the deck to stand by the elevating spar. He looked down at the water intently, giving an occasional direction over his shoulder to the coxswain. On shore the shapes of the guardian batteries showed, gun crews on the alert but not challenging the little ship.
“We’re passing through the frame-torpedoes,” Belle breathed. “That’s why they raised the spar.”
Dusty did not need to ask why. Frame-torpedoes—the name ‘mine’ had not yet come into use—were copper or cast-iron shells filled with explosives, mounted on wooden frames firmly anchored to the river’s bottom. Fixed to come just below the surface, the shells carried percussion caps to be ignited when struck by an enemy vessel coming up-river. However it did not pay to knock or jolt the torpedoes from any angle and Pinckney took no chances.
Even the Jack’s crew members looked relieved when they had passed through the frame-torpedo maze. On went the little boat, its screw propeller making only a small sound instead of the thrashing thump a side-wheeler’s paddles gave out. With the current behind them and the engine turning the propellers steadily, they made a steady fifteen miles an hour.
Suddenly Dusty heard a gurgling sound and became aware that the Jack appeared to be settling deeper in the water. None of the crew showed the slightest concern, although the cox’n turned the wheel over to Pinckney and watched the river’s surface creeping higher. At last, with the water lapping at the very bottom of the cockpit, the gurgling stopped. Pinckney swung the wheel and the Jack moved across the river, turned back and resumed its course downstream. Nodding in satisfaction, Pinckney gave an order and the smallest member of his crew ducked out of sight under the deck. Turning over the wheel to his cox’n, Pinckney smiled at his passengers. It seemed that he noticed their agitation for the first time.
“I’ve just been ballasting her down,” he explained. “Run water into two tanks so that we lay lower and aren’t so easy to see. Most of the time we’ll be at normal level, but we’ll have to go down when we’re passing Yankee ships or batteries. When we’re by, we pump out the water and go on as before.”
“That’s smart thinking,” Dusty drawled, trying not to reveal that he had been worried.
“The Hunley was a better one,” Pinckney answered. “She’d got right under water. The crew stayed down for just over two and a half hours once.”
“If we could have found some way to power her, it would have made all the difference,” Belle remarked.
“It’ll come one of these days,” prophesized Pinckney.
Even in Arkansas word of the submarine Hunley’s exploits had been heard. Lacking engines, for steam could not be generated under water, the crew operated handles on a crank shaft to propel it through the water. After experimentation and some loss of life, the Hunley went down in a successful attempt to destroy the U.S.S. Housatonic.
While unable to submerge completely, the little David-class boats achieved greater success than the true submarine.
Despite the fact that the Red River remained in Confederate hands, one member of the tiny crew stayed on the look-out all the time. The U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron sometimes sent raiding vessels off the main river and even a steam-launch’s crew submerged to cockpit level, crept by the Confederate batteries guarding the mouth of the Red and swung out on to the wide Mississippi.
“I never knew it was this big!” Dusty breathed as daylight gave him his first view of the main river.
“It’s even wider lower down,” the girl replied, then looked at Pinckney. “What do we do now?”
“Go on as far as we can, then find a place to lie up until nightfall,” he replied. “We have to pass the towns at night, the Yankees have garrisons in some of them.”
Dusty and Belle exchanged glances. All too well they realized the extreme urgency of their mission; and understood what such an extensive delay might cost the South. Yet there did not seem to be any way of slipping unseen by the Yankee garrisons along the river’s banks.
While thinking about the problem, Dusty glanced upstream and saw something bobbing in the current some way behind them. Even as he opened his mouth to give a warning, he realized the thing was a large tree either cut or torn down up-river and, having fallen in came floating down on the current. From the lack of interest in the sight shown by the Jack’s crew, Dusty concluded it must be a reasonably regular occurrence. Pinckney confirmed the view when Dusty put a question to him.
“Trees? Sure, you see plenty of them; bushes too. I’ve seen what looked like whole islands floating down-river at times.”
“Reckon the Yankees’d be used to seeing them, then,” Dusty drawled.
“I’d say so,” agreed Pinckney.
Looking at the wooded banks of the river, Dusty sucked in a breath. He did not wish to appear foolish and hesitated before offering what might be an impractical suggestion.
“I’ve got a fool notion that you might like to try, Mr. Pinckney,” he said, and after explaining it finished, “Mind, I don’t know sic ’em about boats or if it’ll be possible to do.”
“It’d be possible all right, but riskier than all hell,” Pinckney answered. “Just how important is this mission you’re on, Miss Boyd?”
“So important that its failure could cost us the war,” Belle told him. “And any delay increases the danger.”
“Then it’s important for us to take the chance,” Pinckney decided. “We’ll give your ‘fool notion’ a whirl, Captain Fog. Take her ashore, cox’n.”
Deftly swinging the Jack nearer to the bank, the cox’n watched for a place where there would be sufficient water close in for them to stop without running aground. Not until two miles fell behind them did he find the kind of place he wanted and during that time Pinckney explained Dusty’s scheme to his attentive crew. If the grins of the three men proved anything, they felt no concern at chancing their lives to the small Texan’s ‘fool notion’.
With the Jack bobbing in a bay just deep enough to keep her afloat, but offering some slight shelter should any Yankee warship happen to pass, the party went to work. Taking the field glasses used by the look-out, Belle went to a place from which she could keep watch on the river and left the men to handle the work. Putting aside all thought of rank, Dusty and Pinckney helped the three enlisted men to cut branches and bushes, then take the material to the boat. With a sense of urgency driving them, the men secured their gatherings until all the upper deck and its fittings lay hidden under a ragged, yet natural-appearing, mass of vegetation. While the sailors added the finishing touches, Pinckney and Dusty discussed the dangers whic
h lay ahead.
“We’ll have to go with the current when anybody’s watching,” the lieutenant warned. “And stay as far away as possible from whoever is watching. It’d be best if we ran by Baton Rouge in the dark, too. The Yankees only have small garrisons in most places, but they hold the major cities with strong forces.”
“How about fuel?” asked Dusty.
“We’ll need to pick some up. I know of a couple of secret supplies left by the cutting parties from the different woodings.”
Having made a long trip on a riverboat, Dusty knew about woodings. Professional wood-cutters made their living by hewing timber and collecting it at established points along the river for sale to passing boats. Pinckney explained that the Yankees destroyed some of the woodings, but maintained others to supply fuel for their vessels. Under the guise of co-operating, some of the wooding owners laid on secret wood-piles for use by such Confederate ships as might need it while on raiding missions along the river.
With everything ready, the party ate a meal made up from supplies brought aboard in Alexandria. Then they boarded the foliage-draped Jack and started moving once more. After a few adjustments had been made, the cox’n announced that he could see well enough and discovered that the boat answered to the wheel in a satisfactory manner.
For three hours they traveled downstream without seeing anything to disturb them. Before the War there would have been other boats on the move, people working on the banks, but most activity had been suspended due to the danger of becoming involved in a clash between the two opposing forces. Suddenly the look-out turned from where he peered through a gap made in the foliage.
“Boat dead ahead, sir,” he said, offering Pinckney the field glasses.
“Stop engines!” the lieutenant ordered after studying the approaching vessel briefly. “Run us as close as you can to the starboard bank, cox’n. Not a sound or movement from any of you after that.”
With the engine stopped, the Jack drifted on the current. Gradually and in as near a natural manner as he could manage, the cox’n steered them across the river and then held the boat so that it continued to move but did not swing in the direction of the approaching enemy craft.
“It’s a steam-launch,” breathed the sailor at Dusty’s side as they peered through the foliage.
Dusty studied the other craft as it drew nearer, holding out in the center of the wide river and making good speed even against the current. In appearance it resembled a large rowing boat, but with a powerful steam-engine installed. A twelve-pounder boat-howitzer rode on a slide-carriage at the bows, while the launch’s spar torpedo hung on slings alongside instead of extending before the vessel as it would when ready for use. Although only thirty foot in length, the steam-launch carried a crew of seven men and possessed sufficient armament to blow the Jack out of the water even without using the spar-torpedo.
Nothing Dusty had ever done in action or during his patrols ever filled him with a nervous strain to equal that of watching the Yankee steam-launch go by. Born on the great open plains of Southern Texas, the largest river he had seen until joining the Army was the Rio Hondo and that looked like no more than a stream compared with the width of the Big Muddy. His eyes flickered to the Sharps carbines and his right hand touched the grip of the Army Colt at his waistband. Neither weapon offered much comfort when he considered the strength of the enemy’s armament.
Belle could sense Dusty’s tension and smiled a little, which helped relieve her own. However, having seen the small Texan’s cold courage at other times, she knew he would do nothing that might endanger their mission.
On came the launch, drawing closer, coming level and then passing them. Not one of the Yankee sailors did more than glance at the floating foliage. Soon the two vessels lay so far apart that Pinckney decided they might chance using their own engines. With the added thrust of the Jack’s propellers, they quickly ran the Yankee launch out of sight.
“How’d you like it, Captain Fog?” grinned Pinckney.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” drawled Dusty sincerely. “Give me leading a cavalry charge any old time at all.”
Seven – A Matter of Simple Priorities
The Jack continued to make good time, without meeting any other shipping or needing to do more than cut off their engines while passing some river-edge town or village. At around three in the afternoon, Pinckney told his passengers that they would soon be stopping to take on fuel at a secret dump left by Confederate supporters working out of Mendel’s Wooding.
“We’ll have to run in there behind that island,” he went on, pointing ahead. “Unless it’s silted up or something, there’s more than enough room and water for the Jack and we’ll be hidden from anybody who might happen to be coming along the river in either direction.”
“It may be as well to take a look before we pull in,” Dusty suggested. “If you put me ashore, I’ll go.”
“Two pairs of eyes are better than one,” Belle remarked. “I’ll go with you.”
“Follow the bank then,” Pinckney told them. “You’ll see a flowering dogwood tree about a hundred yards along it and the wood-pile’s hidden under a dead-fall near to it.”
“Mind if I take one of the carbines?” Dusty asked. “A dead-fall’s a good place to find a bear, if you have bear down here.”
“We’ve some,” admitted Pinckney. “But there’s a Yankee garrison at Mendel’s Wooding and if they hear a shot, they’ll come running.”
“Looks like a carbine won’t help us then, Dusty,” Belle said and opened her bag to take out the parasol handle. “It doesn’t make any noise—”
“And won’t stop a bear, either,” grinned Dusty. “We’ll just have to hope there’s not one there.”
“I’ll come with you,” Pinckney decided. “I know just where the wood is and can tell whether it’ll be any use to us.”
Parting the foliage, Dusty, Belle and Pinckney slipped through, into the water and waded ashore. Back on his native element, Dusty moved with easy confidence, gliding ahead of the other two and searching around him with careful, all-seeing eyes. Coming to a halt, he waited for the other two and pointed ahead.
“’Gator,” he said. “Just look at the size of it, too.”
Belle and Pinckney were more used to seeing alligators, but admitted to themselves that the specimen ahead could be termed a real big one. Full sixteen feet long, with a bulk which told of good feeding and long years, the alligator lay with its broad, rounded and flat-looking snout pointing to the water of the channel. Hearing Dusty’s voice, it lifted its powerful body on legs which appeared too slender to support it. Letting out a long hiss, it plunged into the channel’s water to create a considerable disturbance before disappearing under the surface.
As the water parted under the impact of the alligator’s arrival, something black, rounded and inanimate showed briefly above the surface. Briefly or not, Belle and Pinckney saw enough.
“A torpedo of some kind!” the girl exclaimed.
“Looks that way,” agreed Pinckney.
“Then the Yankees have found the wood-pile,” Dusty growled.
“Not necessarily,” Pinckney replied. “They’d figure this channel’d be a place where one of our raiders might hide and left a torpedo here instead of having to guard it.”
“We’ll have to move it before we can fetch the Jack in,” Belle stated.
“That’s just what we’ll have to do,” agreed Pinckney quietly.
“Can you do it?” the girl asked.
“I’ve had to do it a couple of times.”
“It might be as well for us to make sure there’s enough wood on hand for it to be worthwhile,” Dusty commented.
“There’s that,” Pinckney agreed.
Going first to the flowering dogwood tree and then making a circle of the dead-fall, Dusty found no sign of new or old tracks which would tell that the hidden wood had been discovered. While he did not put himself in Kiowa’s class as a reader of signs, Dusty reckoned he knew enough
to locate any left by inexperienced men. Finding nothing, he went to the dead-fall—a tree fetched down in a storm and supported on a clump of rock in such a manner that a hollow remained underneath. Under the dead-fall, hidden by what looked like part of the tree’s branches, lay piles of cut timber. Calling up the others, Dusty told them of his negative findings. Then he stepped aside and allowed Pinckney to take his place.
“What’d you expect to find?” Dusty asked, after the lieutenant rose from examining the wood.
“An old riverboat trick was to hollow out a log, fill it with gunpowder then plug up the end so it looked natural,” Pinckney explained. “Then when the stokers tossed it on to the boiler fire—”
“I don’t reckon it did the boilers any good,” grinned Dusty. “Is this lot all right?”
“As far as I can see,” Pinckney replied. “Let’s see about that torpedo.”
“What kind is it?” asked Belle.
“I didn’t see much,” Pinckney answered. “But I reckon it’s a Brooke, or a copy of it. The Yankees’ve fetched a few in un-exploded, I’d say.”
“They might know about Turtle torpedoes too,” warned the girl.
“Hell’s fire, yes,” Pinckney barked. “I’d forgotten all about them.”
“What’re they?” Dusty asked.
Belle explained how the Brooke torpedo consisted of a copper case holding the explosive charge and bearing either percussion or chemical detonators positioned to be struck when a passing boat made contact. As an added aid to the built-in buoyancy chamber, the Brooke rode on a wooden-spar that extended down to its anchor; which made the fast-developing art of mine-sweeping more difficult. As an added precaution against removal, the Turtle torpedo had been developed. Looking roughly like a turtle’s shell, the torpedo lay on the bottom with a length of wire connecting its detonating primer to the Brooke. Should anyone attempt to drag away the Brooke torpedo, its weight activated the Turtle’s primer and one hundred pounds of explosive went off beneath the surface.