CHAPTER XII
CAPTAIN GARCIA’S STRATEGY
CAPTAIN Garcia’s face showed the midshipmen his keen disappointment.
“You are denying my men and myself a rightful pleasure,” he answered after an appreciable silence. “They are acclaiming you their deliverers and I fear they will not observe my orders when I counsel secrecy. Señor O’Neil is already their idol; to a man they are wildly enthusiastic over his rough and ready ways, and unless I am much mistaken the praises for the three Americans will be sung in every house in La Boca a short time after we have returned.”
“But, Captain Garcia,” Phil replied hastily, a sudden fear in his voice, “you must tell the men that by speaking of our work on board the ‘Aquadores’ they will injure those to whom they wish well. Our future careers in the navy may be jeopardized.”
“Never fear them,” exclaimed the captain earnestly, seeing the alarm on the lad’s face. “My men know that they owe you their lives. They shall be silent. I can vouch for that.”
Captain Garcia soon departed to lay his plans for the coming night, leaving the boys in the cabin. It was the first time they had been alone since the battle.
“Syd, you were a wonder during the fight,” Phil began enthusiastically; “you appeared to be as cool as if you were only drilling.”
“I wasn’t cool,” Sydney confessed; “I was all-powerfully scared, I can tell you. As the men deserted the guns, when the ‘Soledad’ fired her torpedo and the shells were exploding, it seemed all about me, I felt as near like making a mile run as I ever did in my life.”
“That’s only modesty,” Phil declared in admiration. “You acted like a veteran under fire.”
“I am glad I didn’t show my true feelings,” he replied much pleased, “but to me the greatest marvel was O’Neil; he doesn’t know what fear is. I saw him, on two occasions, catch in his arms a man who had been killed at his side by an exploding shell, lay him gently out of the way of the guns, and go back to his work with jaws set like iron and his eyes flashing with the joy of fighting. A crew of such men could do miracles.”
“Syd, during the fight, when I saw O’Neil, I forgot the sense of fear myself,” he cried gladly. “He was superb.”
“Did you really mean what you told the captain here,” questioned Sydney anxiously; “that our careers might be endangered if the part we took in the battle were known?”
“I fear I did,” he returned. “Our enemies could use it against us and do us a great deal of harm. My conscience is clear, however; our lives were in mortal danger and our actions were prompted by the natural law of self-defense.”
“Will you tell Captain Taylor what we have done?” Sydney asked.
“Yes, I shall have to make a clean breast of it to him,” Phil declared. “He may condemn our actions and even send us home in disgrace; but we must take that risk. He should know all. From now on we must return to our rôle as neutrals. I do not know what Captain Garcia’s plans may be, but I feel sure he will not be satisfied until the torpedo-boat is disposed of. She will remain a menace to the ‘Aquadores’ as long as she floats and flies the flag of the rebellion.”
“Then we shall take no further part in the fighting,” exclaimed Sydney ruefully.
“No, not unless we can do so justly,” his companion answered. “It will have to be in self-defense. We dare not take the initiative in a hostile act—— Hallo! We are moving rapidly,” he added glancing through the gun-port, “and we seem to be heading toward La Boca. We surely cannot be going to abandon the torpedo-boat.”
It took the midshipmen but a few moments to appear on deck. There they saw that the “Aquadores” was steaming swiftly to the northward, followed by the “Barcelo.” The harbor of Rio Grande was gradually fading astern.
“What does it mean?” exclaimed Sydney. “If I were Captain Garcia I’d make short work of the torpedo-boat before I left this port. One of these dark nights she may steal into La Boca harbor and torpedo the ‘Aquadores.’”
“I am not so sure that he is abandoning the idea of destroying her,” replied Phil thoughtfully. “I have come to consider him a clever naval officer. There is some good reason for his action. Let’s go to the bridge—I am sure he will enlighten us.”
The lads found Captain Garcia in the wheel house carefully studying the chart of Rio Grande.
Phil shot a swift glance at Sydney as he divined the captain’s intentions. “There’s more work ahead,” he whispered.
The captain raised his head finally and greeted the midshipmen.
“The more I look into this matter the more hazardous it appears,” he confided, a worried look on his face. “I may undo the effect of our victory by losing both ships. Yet I cannot return to La Boca and report one vessel still at large and a menace to our cause.”
The captain paused and seemed in deep thought. The boys regarded him intently in silence.
“I am resorting to strategy,” he finally explained, pointing ahead in the direction of La Boca. “It is now three o’clock; there are three more hours of daylight and by dark we shall be fifty miles from Rio Grande. Our enemy will watch us pass below the horizon and I hope will believe that we have continued our way northward. As soon as it is dark I shall turn about and steam back for the harbor at full speed.”
The boys were consumed with delight at the plan.
“And then?” asked Phil.
“I have reasoned thus,” continued Captain Garcia smiling in spite of himself at the lads’ eager faces: “the torpedo-boat, believing we have gone, may leave the harbor and go outside to reconnoitre. She will go out to the locality where the ‘Soledad’ sank; there is a great deal of wreckage there which has undoubtedly been seen from ashore. I am depending upon the curiosity of my countrymen to see the ill-fated spot. If she should leave the harbor now she would be back inside before I could turn and head her off, but if she delays until sunset she will find me waiting here at the harbor’s mouth on her return. When we reach the entrance the ‘Barcelo’ will leave us and search to seaward.”
“And if she is still inside?” questioned Phil.
“Then I shall sacrifice the ‘Barcelo,’” the captain answered quickly, “in an attempt to run the mine fields to engage the enemy inside. The night will be moonless and the advantage will be with the attacking force.”
The boys could not hide their admiration of the captain’s strategy.
“How could you ever have thought of it?” cried Phil delightedly. “I believe that is exactly what she will do.” Then a thought came to him. “But if she is outside will she not discover you before you see her? You dare not use your search-lights, for she can then easily avoid you and escape into shallow water, where you could not follow her.”
“That is the risk of war,” Captain Garcia answered grandiloquently. “If she torpedoes us we must sink her even if we ourselves are sunk. My government can buy another ‘Aquadores.’”
The two vessels steamed swiftly away from their enemy. The sun sank slowly toward the horizon to the westward. The midshipmen watched the molten ball dip into the fiery sea. Darkness came quickly, for in these latitudes there is no twilight.
Inside of ten minutes night had settled down over the sea and the war-ships had turned about and were steaming at full speed toward the enemy’s harbor.
The hours passed with leaden feet. Cloud banks which had been visible on the horizon before sunset slowly spread a filmy mantle over the sky, blotting out the brilliant tropical stars. The night became darker. With all lights screened, the gray hulls moved noiselessly through the calm sea.
“If she is outside the night is in her favor,” Captain Garcia said, peering through the inky blackness. “We couldn’t see her five hundred yards away, while from her low deck she could see our hull at nearly twice that distance.”
“Maybe our better chance is to enter the harbor after all,” exclaimed Phil, losing heart.
“But think of the mines and the guns of the forts,” replied the captain; “for me, I’d rather find her outside. She can hardly be lucky enough to sink both ships, and I have confidence that we shall sink her if we see her.”
He turned to Phil questioningly.
“May I count upon my American friends for aid?” he added.
Phil hesitated. If the torpedo-boat attacked them it would be surely self-defense for them to help defend the cruiser.
“We are entirely at your service, sir,” he declared, “if the boat is outside. I am sorry, but our aid cannot be given otherwise.”
Captain Garcia seemed perplexed.
“I find I become ever more heavily your debtor. Are all American naval men like you and your companions?” Then he added sincerely, “I pray that some day I shall be given an opportunity to show my gratitude.”
The boys took his proffered hand and wrung it warmly.
O’Neil stepped hesitatingly on the bridge. The lads seized upon the sailor and brought him up beside them.
“What is it now?” he inquired, peering into the darkness ahead.
The situation was quickly explained.
The boatswain’s mate’s face lit up with pleasure for a moment, then he turned to Phil, a troubled note in his voice.
“Them dagos can’t hit even the water at night,” he whispered; “some of them have been begging me to come and find out what’s going to happen.”
“But the enemy’s sailors are just as much afraid of the dark,” Phil declared in a low tone.
“These men ain’t sailors,” he answered disgustedly, “they are soldiers, landlubbers. All the sailormen of the country are with the rebels.”
A sudden idea struck the lad. He turned from O’Neil toward Captain Garcia, wrapped in his own thoughts.
“Captain Garcia, O’Neil says all your men are soldiers,” he cried anxiously.
The captain nodded.
“I had to take them,” he returned; “the sailors were disloyal to a man. I was naval attaché at the outbreak of the war in Washington and was forced to be satisfied with the men my government sent to me to man my ship.”
“How many prisoners have you?” Phil questioned hurriedly.
Captain Garcia’s face brightened.
“I see your drift,” he cried. “I believe I can depend upon them. We have over a hundred.”
“Put them at the guns, sir, and have your soldiers stand over them. I’ll make them shoot straight when I tell them it’s ‘Davy Jones’ locker’ if they don’t,” O’Neil urged.
In a short time the hundred rebel sailors were liberated from the lower hold and put at the guns. The old crew, rifles in hand, were placed as sentries about the ship.
“Me for the rigging if those chaps mutiny,” laughed O’Neil, pointing to the scores of riflemen, carelessly handling their pieces, guarding the captured sailors at the big guns. The loom of the land near Rio Grande was now dimly discernible on the starboard bow.
The two cruisers slowly closed in toward the shore. The vibrations of the engines lessened. The war-ships were soon motionless in the water. The harbor entrance had been reached.
Phil glanced apprehensively through the darkness. He could see dimly the smudges of forts, but he knew from them the “Aquadores” and her mate, although but a scant half mile distant, were quite invisible; their steel gray sides blended in with the dark sea and sky, showing an unbroken line.
His companions were at their stations at the guns. Every gun was loaded and ready to be fired instantly.
Phil from his station at the range finder above the battery deck peered down on the scene below him. He could make out the shadowy figures of the men at the guns; he saw the men at the sight telescopes and the anxious loaders behind the breech of each gun, with the shell and powder ready. O’Neil stood almost directly under him; he seemed to be the unconscious man-of-war’s man surrounded by perils.
“Put down those firing keys,” he cautioned. His voice was low, but it sounded distinct and commanding over the silent deck. “You’ll be getting nervous and shooting off before we clap eyes on her.”
The “Barcelo” steamed by; she had received her orders from Captain Garcia to search the neighborhood of the wreck for the enemy.
They watched her slowly dissolve in the night.
Phil’s pulses beat fast. The moment was fraught with grave perils. The unseen torpedo-boat might be even then aiming a deadly blow at the motionless cruiser.
The crew were all watching intently; keyed to the highest pitch of nervous excitement; their eyes set fixedly, staring into the total gloom about them; alert for the first sound of the approaching enemy.
The attitude of the prisoners was reassuring; they could not load as rapidly as O’Neil had made the soldiers do; but they were used to naval warfare, they were on their own element, the night and the unseen danger held for them many terrors, but they were not so terrified as their soldier comrades; also they had been told that they would all be drowned if the “Aquadores” was torpedoed and that if they refused to fire they would suffer death from the soldiers’ rifles. Phil felt confident the sailors could be depended upon. He glanced aloft at the search-light platforms, high above the bridge deck; the operators stood ready, like shrouded statues, silhouetted against the starless sky.
Captain Garcia was the man of action, one hand on the telegraph to the engine room and his other on the switch for the search-lights, his eyes peering into the night.
Phil read his intention at a glance: on the discovery of the enemy to start ahead at full speed and flash both search-lights on her simultaneously.
“The ‘Barcelo’ should be there by now,” the captain said in a tense voice to the lad beside him. “Will my strategy fail? Have I made an error in my judgment of my countrymen?”
Phil was silent. His nerves were at too high tension to speak.
“The ‘Barcelo’s’ orders were if she discovered the torpedo-boat,” Captain Garcia continued in a nervous whisper, “to turn her search-light upon the enemy and steam at full speed toward us. We shall remain dark. My dread is that our enemy may be now returning to the harbor and will suddenly find me in her path.”
“But even if that happens will she be able to fire a torpedo immediately?” questioned Phil in a voice he tried hard to control.
“Her torpedoes will be in the tubes,” he answered, “and probably primed ready to be fired, but she must first aim her tube at us and not suspecting that we are near, there should be a sufficient interval for us to sink her.”
Captain Garcia had been so fully occupied gazing to seaward that he had failed to notice that the tide entering the harbor was slowly setting the “Aquadores” in toward the forts. An exclamation from the lad at his side made him throw an apprehensive glance over his shoulder at the near-by shore. It seemed very close. He seized the engine room telegraph and signaled for full speed ahead. But a flash from the batteries and a sullen roar showed him their thoughtlessness had discovered them to the watchful enemy. The shells screeched over their heads and struck the water with a spiteful hiss.
“We have lost,” Captain Garcia exclaimed in bitter anguish; “if the torpedo-boat is out she can easily avoid us, knowing we are near. From her deck she can see us long before we can sight her. My hope was that they would not be watchful; now they have been warned and will run cautiously.”
The “Aquadores” slowly gathered speed and, turning, steamed out to sea in the direction taken by her consort.
Shell after shell followed her, but in the darkness the fort’s aim was bad; the gunners ashore could not know the range.
Suddenly Phil saw a flash far out on the ocean.
“See, a shot,” he cried breathlessly, grasping the captain’s arm in his excitement. A distant boom came to their ears.
Flash followed flash in rapid succession, as if a firefly were flying low above the horizon. Then a white shaft of light cut the blackness, swung undecidedly to and fro, and then held steadily on the water.
Phil’s glasses trembled as he gazed at the end of the light shaft.
Captain Garcia’s voice rang out joyfully when his keen eyes saw the small white object under the search-light’s ray, far out on the ocean.
“Be ready, men, she’s coming this way. Either they will sink, or we shall. You must choose—I promise full pardon to all—if we sink her.”
A low murmur ran along the decks. In it were betrayed both joy and fear:—joy for the promised reprieve, fear at the sudden unknown danger of the approaching torpedo-boat.
O’Neil’s clear voice was raised in cautioning.
“Steady, men. Don’t fire; she’s too far away. Wait till I give you the word. Then fire for your lives.”
The “Aquadores” turned swiftly toward the object illuminated by the search-light of the “Barcelo.” The former ship was in complete darkness.
“Can you read the range?” questioned the captain’s eager voice.
Phil put his eyes to the range finder and moved a switch which made the torpedo-boat’s bright hull appear as a line of light. He moved his wheel and brought the direct and reflected rays together.
“Five thousand yards,” he announced.
“Let me know when she is twenty-five hundred yards away,” said Captain Garcia.
The “Aquadores” was steaming at full speed toward the rapidly moving torpedo-boat. They were approaching each other at terrific speed, yet to the overwrought midshipman it seemed an age when his range pointer reached the distance given him by the captain.
“Twenty-five hundred yards,” he cried, his voice rising with an excitement he was powerless to control.
A second afterward the blinding flashes from the “Aquadores’” guns, accompanied by ear splitting discharges, made the scene on the cruiser one of terrible splendor.
The “Barcelo’s” search-light still illumined the enemy, but she had by her superior speed drawn out of range of the former’s guns.
Phil’s fascinated gaze held to the torpedo-boat with grim tenacity.
“She’s lost her,” he cried, as the end of the “Barcelo’s” search-light swept uncertainly over the water. The boat had vanished into the night.
“Cease firing,” cried O’Neil’s stentorian voice, as he saw the torpedo-boat had slipped away from the discovering light.
The “Aquadores’” lights were flashed and groped about in despair for the lost vessel. The sailors stood terrified at their guns. O’Neil walked coolly along the deck, shaking men roughly to wake them out of their stupor of fear—some had fallen to praying on their knees.
“When we pick her up you’ll need all your prayers,” he cried, “if you don’t shoot.”
Phil felt he was nearer a panic than he had ever been; he walked up and down, his eyes following one struggling beam and then the other; he almost resolved to go up to a search-light himself. Captain Garcia during the moments of uncertainty had turned his vessel toward the harbor’s entrance. He would brave the fire of the forts if that could prevent his prize from escaping. He was ready to sacrifice his ship in this last attempt.
Suddenly through the black night Phil saw a darker shade on the surface of the water. It seemed but a stone’s throw away. His voice was paralyzed. He tried to speak but it was impossible. His lips gave out unintelligible sounds. Grasping Captain Garcia’s arm, he pointed a trembling finger at the dread object.
“Port quarter, quick, your search-lights,” shouted the captain.
The lights, before uncertain, now swung obediently to the assigned direction, and in the bright glare, the torpedo-boat flashed in sight heading bows on to the luckless cruiser.
“Don’t look. Shoot,” cried O’Neil to the gunners fascinated, terrified; while he and Sydney stormed among them.
It seemed ages before the tension was relieved by the discharges of their own guns.
The torpedo-boat was so close that the range finder could not get her distance. She could not be over five hundred yards away and coming on with terrific speed. Even now a Whitehead torpedo might be speeding below the inky water on its mission of destruction.