Chapter XX. The Battle of the Bayou

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　The priest came directly to the boat, in which Henry Ware andAdam Colfax were sitting - the remainder of the five were in thenext boat - and held up his hand as a sign of recognition andrelief.

　　"Father Montigny!" said Henry.

　　"Yes, my son, it is I, and I give thanks to Heaven that I havefound you in time."

　　"What is it, father?" It seemed natural that at this moment Henryshould be the spokesman for the fleet.

　　"A great danger has closed upon you and all here."

　　"Alvarez?"

　　"Yes, he is the master spirit, but back of him are the alliedtribes of the south, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, even Osagesfrom the west, and others, and in addition there are two hundreddesperate white men drawn from all nations. Alvarez has promisedto lead them to great spoil and plunder.

　　"He is the buccaneer chief now and they will follow him. Atnight-fall they surprised a French trading schooner tied to theshore for safety, slaughtered all those on board, and have nowdrawn the schooner across the mouth of the bayou to shut you in.The vessel also carries four bronze nine pounders which they willuse against you. Outside in the Mississippi is a great fleet ofIndian war-canoes which has been above you in the stream."

　　Adam Colfax paled a little.

　　"It seems," he said, "that when we thought we were pulling tosafety we were merely entering a trap."

　　"It was a trap," said Henry with energy, "but we're strong enoughto break any trap into which we may fall."

　　"That's so," said Adam Colfax.

　　"You may ask me how I knew all this," continued the priest. "Itell you not what I have heard, but what I have seen. I was withthe Choctaws, and I sought to dissuade them from this campaignupon which they were marching. I told them that Alvarez was madwith ambition and disappointment, that he had rebelled againstlawful authority, that he was an outlaw and buccaneer, and thathe could not keep his promises. My words availed nothing. Icontinued with them, hoping still to dissuade them and the otherbands that met them, but still I failed.

　　"I was yet with the tribe when they met Alvarez and the wickedrenegade, the one Wyatt, and their men. Alvarez would have usedforce, he would have driven me from the camp with heavy blows;even this, the white man who has inherited Holy Church would havedone, but the red men, born savages, would not let him. Althoughthey would not listen to me they let me stay, unharmed. Iwitnessed, or rather heard, their attack upon you last night, andtheir repulse has made them only the more eager for yourdestruction. It has also united them the more firmly."

　　"When do you think they will attack us, Father Montigny?" askedHenry.

　　"That I cannot tell. I heard their plans, and I deemed it myduty to warn you. A guard, one whom I have converted to ourfaith, let me slip away and here I am."

　　"And our debt to you is still growing," said Henry. "As formyself, I think the attack will come to-night, when they deem usdisorganized and beaten down by the storm."

　　"And so do I," said Adam Colfax. "We have no time to waste."

　　"May God preserve you," said the priest. "I have no desire towitness scenes of slaughter but I trust, for the sake ofyourselves, for the sake of Bernardo Galvez, the good GovernorGeneral of Louisiana, and for the welfare of this region, thatyou may beat them off. But the contest will be fierce andbloody."

　　A young man, at the order of Adam Colfax, sounded a trumpet, alow thrilling call that aroused the men from their brief sleep,and the word was quickly passed that they were blockaded in thebayou, and that the hordes were advancing to a new attack. Theygrumbled less now than at the storm.

　　Here was a danger that they knew how to meet. Battle had been apart of all their lives, and they did not fear it.

　　The moonlight increased, the forest was dripping, but there was anoise now of bullet clinking against bullet, of the ramrod senthome in the rifle barrel, and of men talking low.

　　Adam Colfax called a conference in his boat. His bestlieutenants and the five were present. Should they await theattack or advance to meet it? In any event, the fleet mustescape from the bayou, and the nearer they were to the river whenthe battle occurred the better it would be for them.

　　"Ef we know thar's a danger," said Tom Ross, "the best thing furus to do is to go to it, an' lay hold uv it."

　　The vote on Tom's suggestion was unanimous in its favor, and thefleet once more began to move. A small force of riflemen marchedon either bank in order to uncover possible skirmishers.

　　The advance was very slow and in silence save for the dip of theoars and the paddles. The moonlight grew stronger and stronger,and they could now see a good distance on the deep, still bayou.The five had remained in the leading boats and they watchedclosely for sight or sound of the hostile force, but as yet eyeand ear told nothing. The trees now grew close to the water'sedge and, looped heavily with trailing vines, they presented ablack wall on either side. But they had no fear of shots fromsuch a source, as they knew that the trusty riflemen going inadvance would clear out any skirmishers who might have hiddenthemselves there.

　　Paul was beside Henry. Near him was Long Jim and in the boatnext to them was Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross. At this moment,which they felt to be heavy with import, it was good to betogether. Paul in particular, Paul, the impressionable andimaginative, looked around at the familiar figures in theclearing moonlight, and drew strength and comfort from their nearpresence.

　　The dark fleet moved slowly on, cutting the deep still waters ofthe bayou with almost noiseless keel. The men had ceasedwhispering. Now and then an oar splashed or the water gave backthe echo of a paddle's dip, but little else was heard. Alllooked straight ahead.

　　Suddenly they saw in the middle of the bayou, about a hundredyards before them, a small, black shape, so low that it seemed toblend with the water. It was an Indian canoe, the first outpostof the savage force, and its occupant, promptly firing a rifle,raised a long, warning shout. In an instant the woods on eitherside began to crackle with rifle-fire. Skirmishers had metskirmishers, and the battle of the bayou had begun.

　　"Press on! Press on! We must cut through somehow!" cried AdamColfax, and the American fleet moved steadily and unfalteringlyon toward its goal. They came now to the narrowest part of thebayou, and stretched across it they saw a dark line of canoes,all crowded with Indians and the desperadoes of Alvarez. Behindthem heeved up the dark bulk of the captured schooner.

　　The battle blazed in an instant into volume and fury. Two linesof fire facing each other were formed across the bayou, one bentupon pushing forward, the other bent upon holding it back. Theselines, moreover, stretched far into the woods on either bank,where sharpshooters lay, and both sides shouted at intervals asthe blood in their veins grew hot.

　　The dark hulk of the schooner suddenly burst into spots of flame,and the woods and waters echoed with heavy reports. The capturedfive pounders were now helping to block the passage but the brasstwelve pounders on the supply fleet replied. Steadily the fireof both sides grew in volume and the lines came closer and closertogether.

　　The moonlight faded again and little clouds of smoke began torise. These clouds gradually grew bigger, then united into oneheavy opaque mass that hung over the combatants. Strips of vaporwere detached from it and floated off into the forest. A sharp,pungent odor, the smell of burnt gunpowder, filled the nostrilsof the men and added to the fire that burned in their veins.

　　This, the largest battle yet fought the southern woods, had asomber and unreal aspect to Paul. All around them now was theencircling darkness. Only the area in which the battle wasfought showed any light, but here the flashes of the firing werecontinuous and intense. The crash of the rifles never ceased.Now and then it rose to greater volume and then fell again, butrising or falling it always went on, while over it boomed the bigguns answering one another in defiant notes of thunder.

　　The schooner was the most formidable obstacle to the passage. Itlay full length across the narrow bayou and, even if the boats ofthe supply fleet should reach it, there was little room to passon either side. From its decks the nine pounders were fired fastand often with precision, and the majority of the Spaniard'sdesperate band found shelter there also, firing with rifles,muskets, and pistols. Others sent bullets, also, from thecomparative security, of port holes. The possession of theschooner gave them a great advantage and they did not neglectit. Now and then they sent up fierce yells, the war-cries of theWest Indian pirates, and their Indian allies answered them withtheir own long-drawn, high pitched whoop, so full of ferocity andmenace. Both looked forward to nothing less than completetriumph.

　　The space between the combatants was lighted up by the incessantflash of the firing. Little jets of water where a missent bulletstruck were continually spouting up, and then would come a biggerone when a cannon ball plunged into the depths of the bayou.

　　Paul suddenly heard a heavy impact, a crash, as of ripping wood,and a cry. A canoe near them had been struck by a cannon ball,and practically broken in half. It sank in an instant, and oneof the men in it, wounded in the arm, and crippled, was sinking asecond time, when Paul sprang into the water and helped him intotheir own boat. But not all the wounded were so fortunate. Somesank to stay, and the dark night battle, far more deadly thanthat of the night before, reeled to and fro.

　　The combat at first had been more of a spectacle than anythingelse to Paul. The extraordinary play of light and darkness, theinnumerable shadows and flashes on the surface of the bayou, theblack tracery of the forest on either bank, the red beads offlame from the rifle fire appearing and re-appearing, made of itall a vast panorama for him. There were the sounds, too, thepiratical shout, hoarse and menacing, the Indian whoop, shrillerand with more of the wild beast's whine in it, the fierce, sharpnote of the rifle fire, steady, insistent, and full of threat,and over it the heavy thudding of the great guns.

　　It was Paul's eye and ear at first that received the deepimpression, but now the aspect of a panorama passed away and hissoul was stirred with a fierce desire to get on, to cut throughthe hostile line, to crush down the opposition, and to reach thefull freedom of the wide river. He began to hate those men whoopposed them, the fire of passion that battle breeds was surelymounting to his head. Unconsciously, Paul, the scholar andcoming statesman, the grave quiet youth, began to shout and tohurl invectives at those who presumed to hold them back. Thebarrel of his rifle grew hot in his hand with constant loadingand firing, but 'he did not notice it. He still, at imminentrisk to himself, sent his bullets toward the dark line of Indiancanoes and the flashing hulk of the ship behind them.

　　The supply fleet was beginning to suffer severely. A number ofboats and canoes had been sunk and nearly a score of men had beenkilled. Many more were wounded and, despite all this loss, theyhad made no progress. The fire from the bank, moreover, wasbeginning to sting them and to stop it Adam Colfax landed moremen. The increased force of the Americans on the shore servedthe purpose but they were still unable to force the mouth of thebayou. The schooner seemed to be fixed there and she neverceased to send a storm of bullets and cannon balls at them.

　　Adam Colfax had a slight wound in the arm, but his slow coldblood was now at the boiling point.

　　"We've got to force that schooner!" he cried. "We've got to takeher, if it has to be done with boarders! We can never get byunless we do it!"

　　But the loss of life even if the attempt were a success, would beterrible. That was apparent to everybody and Henry made asuggestion.

　　"Let's concentrate our whole fire upon the ship," he said. "Massthe cannon and the rest of us will back them up with our rifles.Maybe we can silence her, and if we do then's the time to takeher by storm."

　　The supply fleet drew back and its fire died. It seemed, intruth, as if it were beaten and that, hemmed in by fire, as itwere in the narrow bayou, it must surrender. A tremendous shoutof triumph burst forth from the men on the schooner, and theIndians took it up in a vast and shriller but more terriblechorus.

　　Then came one of those sudden and ominous silences that sometimesoccur in a battle. The fire of the Americans ceasing, that oftheir enemies ceased for the moment also. But the pause was moredeadly and menacing in its stillness than all the thunder andshouting of the combat had been. It seemed unnatural to hearagain the sighing of the wind through the forest and the quietlap of water against the shore. The bank of smoke, no longerincreased from below, lifted, thinned, broke up into patches, andbegan to float away. The moon's rays shot through the mists andvapors once more, and lighted up the watery battlefield of thenight, the schooner, the desperate men on it, the swarms ofcanoes, the coppery, high-cheeked faces of the Indians, thesupply fleet packed now in a rather close mass, the tanned facesof the men on board it, animated by the high spirit of daring andenterprise, the wounded lying silent in the boats, and thewreckage floating on the bayou.

　　But the stillness endured for only a few moments. It was brokenby the American fleet, which seemed to draw itself together intocloser and more compact form. An order in a low tone, but sharpand precise, was carried from boat to boat, and it seemed tostrengthen the men anew, heart and body. They straightened up,signs of exhaustion passed from their faces, and every one madeready all the arms that he had.

　　Paul, like the others, had felt the sudden silence, but perhapsmost acutely of all. His whole imaginative temperament was onfire. He knew - he would have known, even had he not heard -that the sudden cessation of the firing was merely preliminary, afresh drawing of the breath as it were for another and supremeeffort. He clasped his hands to his temples, where the pulseswere beating rapidly and heavily, and his face burned as if in afever. But it was a fever of the mind not of the body.

　　"It's a big battle, Paul," said Shif'less Sol, who had come withTom Ross into their boat, "but it's wuth it. The arms and otherthings that we carry in these boats may be wuth millions an'millions to the people who come after us."

　　"Do you think we'll ever break through, Sol?" asked Paul.

　　"Shorely," replied the shiftless one. "Henry's got the plan, andwe're goin' to cut through like a wedge druv through a log.Something's got to give. Up, Paul, with your gun! Here she goesag'in!"

　　The battle suddenly burst forth afresh and with greater violence.All the American twelve pounders were now in a row at the head ofthe fleet, and one after another, from right to left and thenfrom left to right and over and over again, they began to firewith tremendous rapidity and accuracy at the schooner. All thebest gunners were around the twelve pounders. If one fell,another took his place. Many of them were stripped to the waist,and their own fire lighted up their tan faces and their brownsinewy arms as they handled rammer and cannon shot.

　　The fire of the cannon was supported by that of scores and scoresof rifles, and the enemy replied with furious energy. But thesupply fleet was animated now by a single purpose. The shiftlessone's simile of a wedge driven into a log was true. No attentionwas paid to anybody in the hostile boats and canoes. They couldfire unheeded. Every American cannon and rifle sent its loadstraight at the schooner. All the upper works of the vessel wereshot away. The men of Alvarez could not live upon its decks;they were even slain at the port holes by the terrific riflefire; cannon shot, grape shot, and rifle bullets searched everynook and corner of the vessel, and her desperate crew, one byone, began to leap into the water and make for the shores.

　　A shout of exultation rose from the supply fleet, which was nowslowly moving forward. Flames suddenly burst from the schoonerand ran up the stumps of her masts and spars, reaching out longarms and laying hold at new points. The cannon shots had alsoreached the inside of the ship as fire began to spout from theport holes, and there was steady stream of men leaping from theschooner into the water of the bayou and making for the land.

　　The American shout of exultation was repeated, and the forestgave back the echo. The Indians answered it with a fierce yellof defiance, and the forest gave back that, too.

　　But Adam Colfax had been watching shrewdly.

　　In his daring life he had been in more than one naval battle, andwhen he saw the schooner wrapped and re-wrapped in great coilsand ribbons of flame he knew what was due. Suddenly he shoutedin a voice that could be heard above the roar of the battle:"Back! Back, all! Back for your lives!"

　　It reached the ears of everybody in the American fleet, andwhether he understood its words or not every man understood itstone. There was an involuntary movement common to all. Thefleet stopped its slow advance, seemed to sway in anotherdirection, and then to sit still on the water. But all werelooking at the schooner with an intense, fascinated, yethorrified gaze.

　　Nobody was left on the deck of the vessel but the dead. Thehuge, intertwining coil of fiery ribbons seemed suddenly to unitein one great glowing mass, out of which flames shot high,sputtering and crackling. Then came an awful moment of silence,the vessel trembled, leaped from the water, turned into a volcanoof fire and with a tremendous crash blew up.

　　The report was so great that it came rolling back in echo afterecho, but for a few moments there was no other sound save theecho. Then followed a rain of burning wood, many pieces fallingin the supply fleet, burning and scorching, while others fellhissing in the forest on either shore. Darkness, too, came overland and water. All the firing had ceased as if by preconcertedsignal, though the combatants on either side were awed by thefate of the vessel. The smoke bank came back, too, thicker andheavier than before, and the air was filled with the strong,pungent odor of burnt gunpowder.

　　But the schooner that had blocked the mouth of the bayou was goneforever and the way lay open before them. Adam Colfax recoveredfrom the shock of the explosion.

　　"On, men! On!" he roared, and the whole fleet, animated by asingle impulse, sprang forward toward the mouth of bayou, thecannon blazing anew the path, the gunners loading and firing, asfast as they could. But the simile of the shiftless one had cometrue. The wedge, driven by tremendous strokes, had cleft thelog.

　　The Indian fleet, many of the boats containing white men, too,closed in and sought to bar the way, but they were dauntedsomewhat by their great disaster, and in an instant the Americanfleet was upon them cutting a path through to the free river.Boat often smashed into boat and the weaker, or the one with lessimpulse, went down. Now and then white and red reached over andgrasped each other in deadly struggle, but, whatever happened,the supply, fleet moved steadily on.

　　It was to Paul a confused combat, a wild and terrible struggle,the climax of the night-battle. White and red faces mingledbefore him in a blur, the water seemed to flow in narrow, blackstreams between the boats and the pall of smoke was ever growingthicker. It hung over them, black and charged now with gases.Paul coughed violently, but he was not conscious of it. He firedhis rifle until it was too hot to hold. Then he laid it down,and seizing an oar pulled with the energy of fever.

　　When the boats containing the cannon were through and into theriver, they faced about and began firing over the heads of theothers into the huddled mass of the enemy behind. But it wasonly for a minute or two. Then the last of the supply fleet;that is, the last afloat, came through, and the gap that they hadmade was closed up at once by the enemy, who still hung on theirrear and who were yet shouting and firing.

　　The Americans gave a great cheer, deep and full throated, butthey did not pause in their great effort. Boats swung off towardeither bank of the, bayou's mouth. The skirmishers in the busheswho had done such useful work must be taken on board. Theirs wasnow the most dangerous position of all, pursued as they certainlywould be by the horde of Indians and outlaws, bent upon revenge.

　　The boat containing the five was among those that touched thenorthern side of the bayou's mouth, and everyone of them, riflein hand, instantly sprang ashore.