“And there I was, just a-sitting and waiting,” Billy Jack admitted as he stood on the hurricane deck of the Rosebud with Dusty. “Comes fifteen minutes, I got to figuring that happen it took him that long, he should be told how good croton oil works. So I went to tell him and, dog-my-cats, if there’s not another door out of the room. It led to the street, but time I got ’round to figuring that, he’d up and was long gone.”
Looking at his sergeant-major’s miserable expression, Dusty had difficulty in holding down a grin. Billy Jack knew Dusty’s attitude when somebody reported a failure through lack of foresight, and expected an explosion. However, Dusty realized that the lean non-com had not been trained in the business of following a suspected person and so made a mistake which lost Engels.
“It can’t be helped,” Dusty declared. “I’ll go down and see if he’s come back on board.”
“You reckon he’s a Yankee spy, Cap’n Dusty?” asked Billy Jack.
“I’m keeping an open mind,” Dusty answered. “He did meet up with that Maudie gal and buy her a meal. But that doesn’t mean he wanted to learn anything from her.”
“Nope,” agreed Billy Jack. “Happen he’s come back, what say we lay hold of him tonight and ask him a few questions?”
“He might not want to answer,” Dusty pointed out.
“Maybe he’d change his mind after he’d been dragged head down for a spell behind the boat.”
Unfortunately for Billy Jack’s plan, one essential item was missing. On visiting the clerk’s office, Dusty learned that Engels had sent a messenger to the boat with instructions to collect his baggage. Knowing that travelling salesmen often made unscheduled departures should business come their way, the clerk raised no objections and could offer no suggestion as to where the baggage went after leaving the boat. Nor did he connect Engels’ departure with a letter brought aboard for delivery to an address in Alexandria; although both the baggage collector and the man who brought the letter had been hired by the departed Engels.
While Dusty would have liked to make an immediate start to search for Engels, the Rosebud was due to leave Shreveport before he could do so. Allowing Billy Jack to return to the card game which went on pretty continuously in the barber’s shop, Dusty went down to the boiler deck and located Belle, Red and Amesley.
“Billy Jack lost him,” Dusty told them after making sure he would not be overheard by any of the passengers other than his party. “He followed Engels into town and saw him meet up with that Maudie girl. Engels took the gal into an eating house, bought her a meal and then started talking quiet to her. She did some answering but Billy Jack couldn’t hear what they were saying.”
“Could have been asking her what happened on the promenade deck,” Amesley commented. “Most likely was; if he’s a Yankee spy and suspicious of Miss Boyd.”
“Reckon he is a Yankee spy, Dusty?” asked Red.
“Could be. Or maybe he’s just the kind of sneak who’d listen at a stateroom door for fun.”
“The riverboats have always been good sources of information.” Belle put in. “A solider going on or coming off furlough tends to talk more than when he’s with his outfit. There’s a chance that Engels was aboard to learn anything he could.”
“What’ll we do about him?” Red growled.
“There’s not much we can do,” Belle replied. “We can’t delay our trip while we go back and look for him. Even if we could persuade Captain Boynes to turn around without telling him far too much. When we reach Alexandria, I’ll see a friend and arrange for a very close watch to be kept on Mr. Engels.”
“Happens he’s decided that you aren’t what you seem, maybe even guessed that you’re Belle Boyd,” Dusty said quietly. “Can he pass on the news to the Yankees?”
“I’d be surprised if he couldn’t,” Belle answered. “There’s no telegraph to them, of course, but he could pass the message verbally, or written and concealed on a courier.”
“Which same the feller couldn’t reach the Yankees until long too late to find us,” Red stated, sounding a mixture of relief and disappointment. Red always craved for excitement and had so far found the trip boring.
“Unless Engels decided his information is so important that he sends it by carrier-pigeon,” Belle warned.
“Do you reckon he might do that?” Amesley inquired. “Would he have access to the pigeons, I mean?”
“Don’t sell the U.S. Secret Service short, major,” Belle replied. “I’d bet that every major town along the river has its spy set-up including pigeons hid away somewhere.”
“Of course it could be that we’re blowing this thing up out of all proportion,” Amesley said. “Engels might be no more than a venal sneak who wanted to know something bad about a young man who’s gained the fame he can never achieve. The kind of man who’s a failure himself and wants to bring everybody down to his level.”
“We could hope for that, sir,” Dusty admitted. “But I’d hate like hell to rely on it. I figure we should work on the assumption that Engels is a spy and that he’ll send word about us to the Yankees on the lower Mississippi.”
“And what will they do?” asked Amesley.
“Was I the Yankee commander, I’d make a stab at stopping us,” Dusty stated. “Reckon they could do it, Belle?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Why not go ask Captain Boynes? He knows the river better than any of us.”
The men adopted Belle’s suggestion and took their problem for solution to Captain Boynes. Having seen his boat safely on her way out of the harbor, the Captain welcomed ‘General’ Amesley and Dusty to the wheelhouse deck. Amesley followed the plan arranged as they came up to the topmost deck, by explaining that he was on an important mission with Dusty as his escort. Without going into too much detail, Amesley went on to say that he feared the Yankees might make an attempt to intercept him and prevent his arrival at Morgan City.
“What’re their chances of doing it, Captain?” Dusty asked when Amesley finished speaking.
“How do you mean?” Boynes inquired.
“Could the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron get through and attack the Rosebud?”
“With their iron-clads or gunboats?”
“Something like that.”
A grin came to Boynes’ lips. “The Yankees might control the lower river, but we own everything for a good way below the Atchafalaya. We’ve batteries of guns that nothing short of a full-scale battle might break through. And if there’s a sign of a breakthrough, there’s a fast side-wheeler kept fuelled and ready to run up river like the devil after a yearling to raise the alarm.”
“How about them slipping through at night?” Dusty went on.
“Not with iron-clads or gunboats. Going upstream they’d have to use their engines, which means noise and flames glowing from their smoke-stacks.”
“Could they run through in one of those submarine things I’ve heard about?” Amesley wanted to know. “We’ve used them and I reckon the Yankees could have them.”
“Maybe they have,” admitted Boynes. “But the biggest only carried six or eight men.”
“That’d be enough if they got in close and planted their explosives,” Dusty pointed out.
“They’d have to get close enough to do it,” Boynes answered. “Even underwater that’d take some doing. Don’t forget that my pilot’s used to spotting things under the river’s surface even in the darkness. If he could see a snag ii in floodwater mud, he’d not miss anything as large as a submarine.”
That figured as Dusty admitted to himself when thinking of the skill every successful river pilot must possess if he hoped to keep his boat out of danger.
“There’s nothing to worry about then,” Amesley commented.
“Not too much,” Boynes agreed. “But I’ll make sure that we keep an extra careful watch, General.”
“My thanks, sir. And, of course, I don’t need to ask you not to mention my mission to anybody.”
“You don’t,” Boynes replied. “I don’t want my other passengers worrying, and they sure as hell would if I let them know about your mission.”
Returning to the boiler deck, Amesley found Belle surrounded by a bunch of junior officers. A scowl from the ‘General’ caused a hurried scattering of the shavetails and Amesley sat at the girl’s side to tell her of the meeting with Boynes.
“We don’t have much to worry about then,” she said. “I didn’t expect any trouble until we’re beyond Alexandria anyway. Of course, we may have nothing to fear even then.”
While Belle did not sound any too certain as she spoke she would have been even less so had she been in a position to see a carrier-pigeon rise from the wooded country about a mile to the east of Shreveport. Circling twice until it got its bearings, the bird struck off in a south-easterly direction, headed down river in the direction of Yankee-held territory.
The journey went on without incident. Mile after mile fell behind the Rosebud and Dusty’s party settled down to the tedium of travelling. Each night Dusty and Red took their Henry rifles to the main deck where they kept watch for some suitable addition to the boat’s larder.
On arrival at Alexandria, Belle and Dusty went ashore and the girl made arrangements for a watch to be kept on Engels. From the same source she made the arrangements, she learned the latest news concerning her mission. Clearly the Yankee Secret Service knew, or guessed, where the gold taken in Arkansas was going and that meant they would try to stop its arrival. Just how far the Yankees might have gone with their plans Belle could not learn. While hoping for the best, she prepared to handle the worst.
After loading up a good-sized cargo of cotton which would be run through the Yankee blockade and sold in Europe to help finance the Confederate war effort, the Rosebud pulled out of Alexandria on the final leg of its journey to the town of Morgan City.
“There’s not much chance of getting anything tonight, Cap’n Dusty,” said the mate, Hogan, as he stood at Dusty’s side. “This’s ’gator country.”
Earlier that day, the Rosebud had left the main river to follow the narrower but still navigable reaches of the Atchafalaya. Thick wooded country closed in on either bank, ideal territory for animals had it not been for the menace of the big Mississippi alligators which Dusty had seen sprawling on sandbars or diving hurriedly from the banks as the boat approached. Living in fear of alligator attacks made the local game far more alert, watchful and suspicious than the creatures of the upper river. However, the cook needed meat, so Dusty and Red had agreed to try their luck that night.
Accompanied by the mate and the pilot’s cub—assistant—the two Texans stood partially concealed behind the big wooden crate which still rested forward in the bows and clear of the piles of cotton bales which now covered most of the free space on the main deck. The cressets glowed brightly, lighting the river ahead and flickering upon the shoreline at both sides, giving the waiting men a clear sight of any animal which might be risking the dangers by coming to the river’s edge for a drink.
“We’ll give it a bit longer,” Dusty stated.
Time dragged by slowly and the men scanned the banks for any sign of life. Up in the wheelhouse, the pilot stood at the big wheel and his eyes never left the dull ribbon which glowed ahead as what little light filtered down from above reflected on the river’s surface. Long practice had trained him to look beyond the area illuminated by the cressets and pierce the blackness of the night in a never-ending search for signs of danger ahead.
“Cap’n!” he said.
Turning from the door of the wheelhouse where he had been standing and talking with a few passengers, Boynes stepped to the pilot’s side.
“What’s up, Marse?”
“Up ahead there,” the pilot answered. “I saw the loom of some—Yes. There it is. By cracky! It’s—”
He stopped speaking and his right hand stabbed up to close on the whistle’s cord, jerk at it and send a series of piercing blasts ripping through the night.
At about the same moment that the pilot called to Boynes, Red Blaze peered along the river, squinted his eyes and then he pointed. “What’s that ahead there, Dusty? Up the river.”
The rest of the meat-hunting party followed the direction of Red’s pointing finger. All could see the dark shapes, blacker than the surrounding area and contrasting with the dull ribbon of water, one near each bank of the river. Being more used to such sights than the Texans, Hogan recognized the dark bulks first; and did not like what he saw.
“Boats!” he growled. “Trouble ahead.”
Loud in the night rang a series of blasts from the Rosebud's whistle. In echo to it came a spurt of flame from the right side boat, the crack of exploding powder, and an instant later Dusty felt something strike the side of the Rosebud under the level of the main deck. Following the shot from the boat cannon, oars dipped down and tore apart the river’s surface as powerful arms propelled two big naval launches forward and on a course to converge with the approaching riverboat.
Raising his leg, Hogan delivered a powerful kick to the big box they had used for cover. It appeared to be of poor construction, for the sides burst open and fell outwards. Grabbing quickly, the pilot’s cub caught the falling top of the box and flung it aside. In less time than it took to tell, the box had gone and its contents stood revealed. Mounted on a swivel instead of the usual artillery carriage, a box of ammunition by its side, stood a Williams rapid-fire cannon, its one-pounder barrel pointing ahead.
Dusty and Red might have felt surprised, or delighted, to see such an effective weapon at that moment, but neither had time. Long used to reacting swiftly in an emergency, they wasted no time in idle speculation. That shot meant the approaching boats did not bear welcoming friends and so they took the appropriate action. Two Henry rifles raised swiftly, their butts snuggling against shoulders and their barrels lining on the boats. Trained fingers squeezed triggers and worked loading levers, firing bullets, ejecting empty cases and replacing them with loaded rounds so the cycle could be repeated and a hail of lead sweep into the oncoming boats.
Nor did Hogan and the cub react with any less speed or decision. Jerking open the lid of the ammunition box, the cub took out a self-consuming paper cartridge. The gun already held a charge as was proved by Hogan not operating the mechanism so that loading could take place. Standing behind the gun, he gripped the firing handle with his right hand, while his left took hold of the weapon’s reloading crank. Hogan knew that the left-hand launch, not having fired the four-pounder boat cannon in the eye of its bows, offered the greater menace at that moment, so he gave it his attention. Turning the Williams on its swivel, he took sight and his thumb depressed the lever on the side which served as a trigger.
The whip-like crack of the Williams merged with the rapid beating of the two Henry rifles. Muzzle-blast flames stabbed out and a one-pound, 1.75 inch ball tore from the Williams. At so short range, even a light ball could inflict damage on the timbers of a launch. The ball struck the boat just over the water-line, burst through and ripped into the leg of the ensign who prepared to open fire with his own cannon. A scream burst from the young officer’s lips. His hands jerked convulsively, one tugging the firing lanyard and the other swinging the gun so it pointed away from the Rosebud when it fired. As a result the four-pounder’s ball missed the riverboat.
On firing, Hogan twirled forward the cranking handle and the breech opened. The cub dropped in the charge he held and bent to scoop another from the box. Around went the handle, the breech closed and sheared the end from the cartridge to expose the powder to the percussion cap’s spurt of flame—said cap being automatically fed on to its nipple from a spring-loaded container. Long before either cannon in the launches could complete the tedious process of muzzle-loading, the Williams fired again and a third time; each ball hammering into the boat.
Voices yelled, women screamed and feet pounded on the boiler and promenade decks as the passengers heard the sounds of the fight. However, the pilot and men on the bows refused to be distracted, knowing that the safety of the boat and all aboard her depended on their attention to duty.
The Yankee attack had been well-planned. Two big launches—each with a crew of twenty men armed with cutlasses and either Navy Colts or Spencer carbines—had come up the Mississippi under oars, slipping by the shore batteries and guard boats during the night. On reaching the point where the Atchafalaya cut off from the main river, the launches turned south and laid in wait for the Rosebud to make her appearance. Given surprise and the backing of the four-pounder boat cannon each launch carried, the Yankee force should have been able to sink the big side-wheeler; and might have succeeded but for the alertness of the pilot and Red Blaze—and the inventive genius of Mr. Tyler B. Henry and Captain Williams, C.S.A.
Handled by two men skilled in their use, the Henry rifles caused havoc and confusion out of all proportion to their size. Lead raked the two launches, striking down the men at the oars and throwing the others off their stroke. Equally deadly, perhaps even more so, the Williams added its quota to the rout of the enemy. Time after time, working at almost the full sixty-five rounds per minute maximum speed, the rapid-fire cannon drove its balls into the side of the launch on the left side of the river. As the number of holes grew, so water began to pour into the rocking launch. Then the weight of the cannon took the bows down and the crew plunged into the water.
Caught in the repeated hail from Dusty’s Henry, the right-hand launch swerved violently into the path of the approaching Rosebud. Swinging the tiller, the coxswain tried to steer his charge out of danger; but he only partially succeeded. The Rosebud caught the launch a glancing blow, hesitated for a moment, then the thrust of the paddles drove it on. Jolted by the impact, the nearest cresset tipped over and dumped its flaming contents into the passing launch. Yells rose as the Yankees sailors tried to avoid the down pouring fire. A man, his shirt blazing, screamed and dived into the river. Then the launch capsized and its crew found themselves floundering in the water.
With the safety of his passengers to consider, Boynes did not hesitate in his actions. Behind him men struggled in the water, some wounded and bleeding in a manner likely to attract the attention of any hunting alligator which caught the taste of gore, but he could not stop to render aid. Already some of the attacking party had reached the shore and their metal cartridge carbines cracked. Calmly Boynes dabbed his cheek where glass from a breaking wheelhouse window splintered it and then he rang up full speed ahead. On the main deck, the cursing engineer, riled at missing what sounded like a real good fight, laid hold of the controls and increased the pace of the turning paddle-wheels.
Lowering their hot, smoking rifles Dusty and Red looked back down the river. A few spurts of flame showed where the Yankee sailors on shore took final shots at the departing Rosebud, but neither Texan wasted lead in replying.
“That was close,” Dusty said.
“Real close,” agreed the mate and slapped a hand fondly on the breach of the Williams guns. “But we sure showed them how the old Rosebud can fight.”
“Wonder what those Yankees were after?” the cub put in.
“Figured to stop this load of cotton getting down to Morgan City,” Hogan answered. “What else?”
While Dusty and Red would have given the mate a good answer to his question, neither offered to do so. The small Texan took one final look back along the river before going to the boiler deck in search of Belle and Amesley.
After passing through a congratulatory crowd, he entered the lounge and went to where Belle stood alone.
“Major Amesley’s up with the captain,” she explained. “What do you think, Dusty, was the attack by chance?”
“Could be, but I doubt it,” he replied. “Anyway, we’re through them now.”
“We’re through the Mississippi Squadron’s effort,” the girl corrected. “Next time it will be the Yankee Secret Service. I’ll bet they’re watching for us in Morgan City in case the sailors failed to stop us.”