The Drummer Boy Part 18

And in acknowledgment of the compliment, the modest hero of the expedition stood up in the boat, and uncovered his high, bald forehead and dome-like head.

The rowers pulled at their oars, and the boat dashed on over the dancing waters, greeted with like enthusiasm every where, until the general's flag-s.h.i.+p, the little steamer Picket, took him on board.

And now the anchors were up, the smoke-pipes trailed their cloudy streamers on the breeze, flags and pennants were flying, paddle-wheels began to turn and plash, the bands played gay music, and the fleet drew off, in a long line of countless steamers and sailing vessels, down the Severn, and down the Chesapeake.

All day, through a cold, drizzling rain, the fleet sailed on, the transports still keeping in sight of each other, in a line extending for miles along the bleak, inhospitable bay.

The next morning, Frank went on deck, and found the schooner at anchor in a fog. The steamer lay alongside. No other object was visible--only the restlessly-das.h.i.+ng waters. The wild shrieking of the steamer's whistle, blowing in the fog to warn other vessels of the fleet to avoid running down upon them, the near and far responses of similarly screaming whistles, and of invisible tolling bells, added impressiveness to the situation.

At nine o'clock, anchors were weighed again, and the fleet proceeded slowly, feeling its way, as it were, in the obscurity. There was more or less fog throughout the day; but towards sundown a breeze blew from the sh.o.r.e, the fog rolled back upon the sea, the clouds broke into wild flying ma.s.ses, the blue sky shone through, and the sunset poured its placid glory upon the scene.

Again the troops crowded the decks. The fleet was entering Hampton Roads.

Upon the right, basking in the golden sunset as in the light of an eternal calm, a stupendous fortress lay, like some vast monster of old time, asleep. Frank s.h.i.+vered with strange sensations as he gazed upon that immense and powerful stronghold of force; trying to realize that, dreaming so quietly there in the sunset, those gilded walls, which seemed those of an ancient city of peace, meant horrible, deadly war.

"By hooky!" said Seth Tucket, coming to his side, "that old Fortress Monroe's a stunner--ain't she? I'd no idee the old woman spread her hoop skirts over so much ground."

"You can see the big Union gun there on the beach," said At.w.a.ter. "To look at that, then just turn your eye over to Sewell's Point there, where the rebel batteries are, makes it seem like war." And the tall, grave soldier smiled, with a light in his eye Frank had seldom seen before.

The evening was fine, the sky clear, the moon s.h.i.+ning, the air balmy and spring-like. The fleet had come to anchor in the Roads. The bands were playing, and the troops cheering from deck to deck. The moonlight glittered on the water, and whitened the dim s.h.i.+ps riding at anchor, and lay mistily upon the bastions of the great slumbering fortress. At a late hour, Frank, with his eyes full of beauty and his ears full of music, went below, crept into his berth, and thought of home, and of the great world he was beginning to see, until he fell asleep.

The next day the fleet still lay in Hampton Roads. There were belonging to the expedition over one hundred and twenty-five vessels of all cla.s.ses, freighted with troops, horses, forage, and all the paraphernalia of war. And this was the last morning which was to behold that magnificent and powerful armada entire and unscattered.

At night the fleet sailed. Once at sea, the sealed orders, by which each vessel was to shape its course, were opened, and Hatteras Inlet was found to be its first destination.

The next day was Sunday, January 12. The morning was densely foggy.

Frank, who had been seasick all night, went on deck to breathe the fresh sea air. The steamer, still towing the Schooner, was just visible in the fog, at the other end of the great sagging hawser. And the sea was rolling, rolling, rolling. And the s.h.i.+p was tossing, tossing, tossing.

And Frank's poor stomach, not satisfied with its convulsive efforts to turn him wrong side out the night before, recommenced heaving, heaving, heaving. He clung to the rail of the schooner, and every time it went down, and every time it came up, he seemed to grow dizzier and sicker than ever. He consoled himself by reflecting that he was only one of hundreds on h.o.a.rd, who were, or had been, in the same condition; and when he was sickest he could not help laughing at Seth Tucket's inexhaustible drollery.

"Well, try again, ef ye want to," said that poetical private, addressing his stomach. "Be mean, and stick to it. Keep heaving, and be darned!"

Stomach took him at his word, and for a few minutes he leaned heavily by Frank's side.

"There!" he said to it, triumphantly, "ye couldn't do any thing, and I told ye so. Now I hope ye'll keep quiet a minute. Ye won't? Going at it again? Very well; do as you please; it's none o' my business--by gos.h.!.+"--lifting up his head with a bitter grin; "that inside of me is like Milton's chaos, in Paradise Lost. 'Up from the bottom turned by raging wind and furious a.s.sault!'--Here it goes again!"

Frank had been scarcely less amused by the misery of Jack Winch, who declared repeatedly that he should die, that he wished he was dead, and so forth, with groanings unutterable.

But Frank kept up his courage, and after eating a piece of hard bread for breakfast, began to feel better.

Towards noon the fog blew off, and the beach was visible on the right,--long, low, desolate, a sh.o.r.e of interminable sand, over which the breakers leaped and ran like hordes of wild horses with streaming tails and manes. Not a sign of vegetation was to be seen on that barren coast, nor any trace of human existence, save here a lonely house on the ridge, and yonder a dismantled wreck careened high upon the beach, or the ribs of some half-buried hulk protruding from the sand.

On the other side was an unbroken horizon of water. Numerous vessels of the fleet were still in sight And now a little steamer came das.h.i.+ng gayly along, hailed with cheers. It was the Picket, General Burnside's flag-s.h.i.+p.

In the afternoon, more fog. But at sunset it was clear. The wind was light, blowing from the south. But now the ocean rolled in long, enormous swells, showing that the vessels were approaching Cape Hatteras; for, whatever may be the aspect of the sea elsewhere, here its billows are never at rest.

So the sun went down, and the night came on, with its cold moon and stars, and Hatteras lighthouse shot its arrowy ray far out across the dark water.

The breeze freshened and increased to a gale; and the violence of the waves increased with it, until the schooner creaked and groaned in every part, and it seemed as if she must break in pieces. Sometimes the billows burst upon the deck with a thunder-crash, and, sweeping over it, poured in cataracts from her sides. Now a heavy cross-sea struck her beams with the jarring force of an avalanche of rocks, flinging more than one unlucky fellow clear from his berth. And now her bows went under, sunk by a weight of rolling water, from which it seemed for an instant impossible that she could ever emerge. But rise she did, each time, slowly, laboring, quivering, and groaning, like a living thing in mortal agony.

Once, as she plunged, the great cable that united her fortunes with those of the steamer, unable to bear the tremendous strain, snapped like a wet string; and immediately she fell off helplessly before the gale.

The troops had a terrible night of it. Many were deathly sick. Two or three broke their watches, besides getting badly bruised, by pitching from their bunks. Frank would not have dared to go to sleep, even if he could. Once, when the s.h.i.+p gave a lurch, and stopped suddenly, striking the shoulder of a wave, he heard somebody tumble.

"Who's that?" he asked.

And the nasal sing-song of the poetical Tucket answered, "'Awaking with a start, the waters heave around me, and on high the winds lift up their voices; I depart, whither I know not; but the hour's gone by when Boston's lessening sh.o.r.es can grieve or glad mine eye.'"

And Tucket crept back into his bunk.

"We're all going to the bottom, I'm sure," whined John Winch, from the top berth, over Frank. "I believe we're sinking now."

"Well," said Frank, "the water will reach me first, and you'll be one of the last to go under; you've that for a satisfaction."

"I believe that's what he chose the top berth for," said Harris.

"How can you be joking, such a time as this?" said John. "Here's At.w.a.ter, fast asleep! Are you, At.w.a.ter?"

"No," said the soldier, who lay sick, with his thoughts far away.

"Ellis is; ain't you, Ellis?" And Jack reached to shake his comrade. "How can you be asleep, Ned, when we're all going to the bottom?"

"Let me alone!" growled Ned.

"We are going to the bottom," said Jack,--the s.h.i.+p just then rolling in the trough of the sea.

"I can't help it if we are," replied Ellis, sick and stupefied; "and I don't care much. Let me go to the bottom in peace."

"O Lord! O Lord! O Lord!" moaned Jack, in despair, feeling more like praying than ever before in his life.

Tucket had a line of poetry to suit his case:--

"'And then some prayed--the first time in some years;'" he said, quoting Byron. And he proceeded with a description of a s.h.i.+pwreck, which was not very edifying to the unhappy Winch: "'Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,'" etc.

"I never would have enlisted if I was such a coward as Jack," said Harris, contemptuously.

"I ain't a coward," retorted Jack. "I enlisted to fight, not to go to sea and be drowned."

"Drownded--ded--ded--dead!" said Tucket.

"O, yes," said Harris, "you are mighty fierce for getting ash.o.r.e and fighting. But when you were on land you were just as glad to get to sea.

Now I hope you'll get enough of it. I wouldn't mind a s.h.i.+pwreck myself, just to hear you scream."

Then Tucket: "'At first one universal shriek there rushed, louder than the loud ocean,--like a crash of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, save the wild wind, and the remorseless dash of billows; but at intervals there gushed, accompanied with a convulsive splash, a solitary shriek--the babbling cry of private Winch, in his last agony!'"

After this, conversation ceased for a time, and there was no noise but of the storm, and the groanings of the s.h.i.+p and of the sick.

Frank could not sleep, but, clinging to his berth, and listening to the shock of billows, thought of the other vessels of that brave fleet, scattered and tossed, and wondered at the awful power of the sea.

Then he remembered the story Corporal Gray had that day told them of the great Spanish Armada, which sailed in the days of Queen Elizabeth to invade England, and was blown to its destruction by the storms of the Almighty; and he questioned within himself whether this proud expedition was destined for a similar fate. Already he seemed to hear the lamentations of those at home, and the frantic rejoicings of the rebels.