The Drummer Boy Part 27

"Did he really mean it for me, after all my bad treatment of him?" said Frank. "Bless his old heart!"

With his naked eye for the general view, and the gla.s.s to bring out the details, Frank enjoyed a rare spectacle that day. Roanoke Island and its surroundings lay outspread before him like a map. On the west of it was Croatan Sound, separating it from the marshes and forests of the main land. On the east was Roanoke Sound, a much narrower sheet of water; beyond which stretched that long, low, interminable strip of land which forms the outer coast, or seaboard, of this double-coasted country. Still east of that glimmered the blue rim of the Atlantic, a dozen miles away.

At about the same distance, on the north, beyond Roanoke Island and the two sounds each side of it, opened the broad basin of Albemarle Sound, like an inland sea. The island itself appeared to be some twelve miles in its greatest length, and two or three in breadth, indented with numerous creeks and coves, and forming a slight curve about Croatan Sound. It was within this curve that the naval battle took place. It had now fairly begun.

At noon the flag-officer's s.h.i.+p displayed the signal for closer action, and the engagement soon became general.

The enemy's gunboats, seven in number, showed a disposition to fight at long range, retreating up the sound as the fleet advanced--a movement which soon brought the latter under the fire of a battery that opened from the sh.o.r.e.

The air, which had previously been perfectly clear that morning, was now loaded with clouds of smoke, which puffed from a hundred guns, and surging up from the vessels of the squadron, from the rebel gunboats, and from the sh.o.r.e battery, rolled away in broken, sun-illumined ma.s.ses, wafted by a light northeasterly breeze.

The soldiers in the rigging of the transports could see the flashes burst from the cannons' mouths, the spouted smoke, the shots throwing up high in air the water or sand as they struck, or coming skip-skip across the sound, the sh.e.l.ls exploding, and the terrible roar of the battle filled the air.

For a time the fire of the attack was about equally divided between the rebel steamers and the fortification on the island. It was soon discovered, however, that boats had been sunk and a line of piles driven across the channel abreast of the battery, to prevent the farther advance of our gunboats in that direction. Behind those the retreating steamers discreetly withdrew, where they were presently reenforced by several other armed vessels. The gunboats made no attempt to follow, but took positions to give their princ.i.p.al attention to the battery.

The fire from the sh.o.r.e gradually slackened, and thousands of hearts swelled anew as the hour seemed at hand when the troops were to land and carry the works at the point of the bayonet.

Burnside paced the deck of the Spaulding, keeping an eye on the fort, watching the enemy's shots, and looking impatiently for the arrival of the transports. At length they came crowding through the inlet, dropping their anchors in the sound just out of range of the fort. Seen from the gunboats, they were a sight not less astonis.h.i.+ng than that which they themselves were coming to witness. Troops, eagerly watching the conflict, crowded the decks and hung upon the rigging like swarms of bees. Ropes, masts, and yards were festooned with the heavy, clinging cl.u.s.ters, which seemed ready to part and fall with their own weight. The effect of the picture was enhanced by the mellow brilliancy of the afternoon sky, against which the dark ma.s.ses were clearly defined, and by the perfect tranquility of the water, like a sea of gla.s.s mirroring the s.h.i.+ps and their loaded spars.

The gunboats sent to the s.h.i.+ps the roar of their artillery, and the s.h.i.+ps sent back the chorus of thousands of cheering voices for every well-aimed shot.

Frank was in the rigging of the schooner, watching the fight, making drawings to send to his mother, and talking with his comrades, among whom Sinjin's gla.s.s pa.s.sed from hand to hand.

"I tell ye, boys!" remarks Seth Tucket, "this is a leetle ahead of any game of bluff ever I took a hand in! The battery is about used up. S'pose you look at your--my--our watch, Frank, and see how often the darned rebels fire."

"Once in about ten minutes now," Frank informs him. "O! did you see that sh.e.l.l burst? Right over one of our gunboats!"

"She's aground," says Gray, with the gla.s.s. "She can neither use her guns nor get off! A little tug is going to help her."

"Bully for the tug!" says Jack Winch.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" ring the deafening plaudits from the s.h.i.+ps.

"What is it?" is eagerly asked.

"The battery's flag-staff is shot away!" shouts Frank at the top of his voice. "Hooray!"

"Some think the flag has been hauled down, to surrender the fort, but it's a mistake," declares Gray. "See! up it goes again on a piece of the pole! And the guns are at it again."

"Where's Burnside?" asks some one. And Tucket quotes,--

"'O, where was Roderick then? One blast upon his bugle horn were worth a thousand men!'"

"He is sending off a boat to the sh.o.r.e yonder, to look for a landing-place. We'll be going in there soon, boys!"

The boat approaches a cove called Ashby's Harbor, taking soundings as it nears the land. On board of her is one of the negro lads, who fearlessly pilots her towards scenes familiar to his days of bondage.

"They'd better keep their eyes skinned!" says Tucket. "There's rebels in the mash there, I bet ye a dollar!"

The officers of the boat land safely, and reconnoitre. As they are reembarking, however, up spring from the tall gra.s.s a company of rebels, and flash, flash, goes a volley of musketry.

"I wish somebody had took me up on my bet," says Tucket; "'twould have been a dollar in my pocket."

"They're off; n.o.body left behind; n.o.body hurt, I hope," says Gray, watching the boat.

"Look, boys! the rebels works are afire!" is now the cry.

Flames break through the smoke, and the firing slackens on both sides for a short time.

"It's only the barracks, probably, fired by a sh.e.l.l," says Gray. "They've no idea of surrendering. They hold out well!"

The battery is completely enveloped in black smoke, out of which leaps the white puff of the cannon, showing that the gunners are still at work.

"See! the gunboat that was aground is getting off! that's a brave tug that's handling her!" cries Frank "O!"--an exclamation of surprise and wonder. For just then the gunboat, swinging around so that she can bring her guns to bear, lets fly her broadside, dropping shot and sh.e.l.l right into the smoking battery.

"It's about time," says Jack Winch, "for us boys to go ash.o.r.e and clean the rebels out. I'm a gitting tired of this slow work."

"You'll get ash.o.r.e soon enough, and have enough to do when you get there," says At.w.a.ter. "There are strong batteries towards the centre of the islands, that'll have to be taken when we go in."

"Abe's afraid," mutters Jack to some comrades near him. "Did ye see him, and Frank, and Seth Tucket, reading their Testaments?"

"It was the 'Lady of the Lake' Seth was reading," says Harris. "He carries it in his pocket, and pitches into it odd spells."

"Winch don't know the Lady of the Lake from the Bible!" chimes in Tucket's high nasal voice.

"Yes, I do, too! The Lady of the Lake, that's one of Bryon's poems!

S'pose I don't know?"

"O, perfectly!" sneers Ellis, amid the laughter Jack's blunder elicits.

"And no doubt you'll soon find out who the cowards are among us, if you don't know already."

"What's that, afire, away up the sound, close into the main land?" asks the phlegmatic At.w.a.ter.

"I swan, ef 'tan't one of the rebel steamers! She's got disabled, and they've run her ash.o.r.e. She's all a sheet of fire now!"

"What's that saucy little tug around here for?"

"Burnside's aboard of her. He's coming to see if we're all right. We shall land soon," says Gray.

"See!" cries Frank; "our gunboats are sh.e.l.ling the sh.o.r.e, to make a landing-place for us. I wouldn't like to be in the woods there!"

"I guess Frank wouldn't!" observes Jack. "But I would; I'd like no better fun than to rush right in and skedaddle the rebels with the bayonet; that's the way to do it!"

"The woods are afire! Our sh.e.l.ls have set them afire!" cries Ellis.

"Look! there come the rebel steamers again, down the western sh.o.r.e. They think they can get down at us, now our gunboats are busy off there."

"When the cat's away the mice will play," says Tucket. "But the kittens are after 'em!"

"There goes Burnside's tug to see what the row is!"