The Big Gun (Dusty Fog's Civil War Book 3) (16 page)

At that moment, Red returned with Captain
Douglas St. John Staunce. Having introduced the girl to the
Englishman, Dusty had her go over her story once more. With his
companions brought into the picture, he let her continue.

‘
Lyle’s having steel plates put around Big Minnie,’ Harry
warned. ‘He’s going to arm it with two Williams Rapid Fire cannons
that have been captured from the Confederate Army and fix scythes
on the wheels to help hold off attackers—’

‘
The
blighter must have met, or heard about, James Cowen,’ Staunce put
in. ‘He suggested the British Army did the same to the
Burrell-Boydell engines, but my father wouldn’t have anything to do
with such a barbaric idea.’

‘
Lyle
doesn’t have Sir Arnold’s scruples,’ Harry warned, having met
Staunce’s father while attending a demonstration of a traction
engine’s use as an Artillery tractor in England. ‘He’s having the
“improvements” installed, in fact they’re nearly completed. Then
he’s going to use it when the big gun has forced the Confederate
Army to come back across the Ouachita. He thinks that Big Minnie
will be all that’s needed to win the battle.’

‘
An’
he could be right at that!’ Dusty breathed, visualizing the effect
of such a device against men who would already be outnumbered.
‘Damn it. More than ever, we’ve got to get that blasted big
gun.’

That won
’t be easy, with the kind of
country that’s between us and them, old sport,’ Staunce warned.
‘With the balloon up, they’ll know we’re coming and I’d hate to run
into a full company armed with Spencers. Especially when they know
we’re on our way and can pick their ground.’

‘
You
blasted foreigners always wants things too easy,’ Red scoffed. ‘And
we don’t have much choice, except to chance it.’

‘
What’s worrying you, Harry?’ Dusty inquired, for he could
see traces of alarm and perturbation on the girl’s face. She had
been very helpful, giving them much useful information regarding
the strength of the big gun’s escort and other matters, but he had
suspected that something was disturbing her as she had been doing
so. ‘Something is, I’d say.’

‘
Yes,’
the girl admitted. ‘Before Lyle sent Poppa off with Pulling Sue,
Mama Lukie—Eric’s mother—heard him telling Captain Stabruck that if
it looked like the Rebels were going to capture them, Poppa was to
be killed to stop him being able to work for the South.’

‘
Whee-dogie!’ Red breathed. ‘Now that’s not what I’d call
being helpful to us Southron boys.’

‘
Now
who’s wanting things easy?’ Staunce countered, but their
expressions told the girl that they were concerned by what they had
just heard. ‘It just means we’ll have to play things a mite more
carefully, as
you
foreigners say.’

‘
That’s for sure,’ Dusty declared. ‘Is there anything else
you can tell us that might help, Harry?’

‘
Mama
Lukie and Oscar, he’s our butler, have told me a few things they’ve
overheard,’ the girl answered. ‘Lyle doesn’t want to chance losing
either Pulling Sue, or the big gun. So he’s given orders to
Stabruck not to take any chances. If it looks like they might be in
danger, they have to pull back to the nearest outfit that has
strength enough to protect them.’

‘
That’s interesting,’ Dusty said quietly.

‘
I’ve
been thinking about that balloon, Dusty,’ Red remarked. ‘If it
wasn’t there, we could likely sneak up on them.’

‘
It
is
there, old thing,’ Staunce pointed out.

‘
Why
sure,’ Red replied. ‘The Company couldn’t sneak up on it by day and
we’d not get there with enough darkness left to do it, even if they
hadn’t seen us coming before sundown, But two, or maybe three of us
ought to be able to slip through. Especially if we wore Yankee
uniforms.’

‘
Us
?’
Dusty asked.

‘
I
should’ve said “me” and a couple more,’ Red corrected. ‘You can’t
go and Doug has to hold those Limey wagon-soldiers’ hands so they
don’t get lost. Which only leaves me.’

‘
Like
you say,’ Dusty drawled, after looking in silence for almost half a
minute at his cousin. ‘That only leaves you. What do you aim to do
after you’ve sneaked up on the balloon?’

‘
Cut
it loose, burn it, burst it, whatever we get the chance to do,’ Red
answered. ‘I reckon we could get into their camp and do it while
most of them’s sleeping.’

‘
They
could shoot you as spies if they caught you wearing their
uniforms,’ Staunce warned.

‘
I’m
not figuring on letting them catch me,’ Red countered ‘How about
it, Dusty? I’ll order Vern Hassle and Wilbur Sprigg to volunteer
and we’ll make a stab at it.’ Then he looked at the girl, ‘Thing
being, Harry, what’re they likely to do to your pappy if we should
get rid of their balloon?’

‘
I
don’t
think
they’d do anything,’ the girl decided after a moment’s
consideration. ‘They need him to drive Pulling Sue and keep her
rolling. But don’t let Stabruck lay hands on
you,
Red. He’s a soft-shell and hates all
Southrons. He’d kill you out of hand and slowly if he caught you,
no matter what uniform you’re wearing.’

‘
I’ll
mind it,’ Red promised cheerfully. ‘Happen I get to go, that
is.’

‘
All
right,’ Dusty sighed. ‘You’re set on going, so I won’t stop
you.’

‘
Corporal Vernon James Cuthbert
Hassle,
bearing in mind that I’m your lawful and superior officer
and backed by the full and awful powers of the
Manual of Field
Regulations,
’
First Lieutenant Red Blaze whispered, ‘would you be
inclined to say that I maybe talk just a
little
mite too much on occasion?’

‘
Bearing all that in mind,’ the ancient corporal
replied
sotto voce,
‘I’m obliged to come out right truthful and say “no”. May
the Good Lord take pity on me for lying.’

‘
You’re a man’s’ll go far,’ Red drawled. ‘Some say the
farther the better. Thing being, if I didn’t go opening my mouth,
we wouldn’t be lying here in these blasted bushes and figuring out
ways to get ourselves killed or captured—which, according to Harry
Cable’s likely to come to the same thing.’

‘
You-all never telled me’s we could get hurt,’ the old timer
complained, with such querulous bitterness that he might have been
speaking the truth. ‘And, anyways, no matter whether we come this
way or with the Company, we’d’ve had to come in the
finish.’

‘
If
that’s supposed to make me feel happier,’ Red warned, ‘it’s
not
coming within a
good country mile of working.’

Peering through the darkness at
his youthful companion, Hassle grinned. Since the Battle of
Martin
’s
Mill—in which Red had distinguished himself by preventing the
destruction of a vitally important bridge—the corporal had come to
know him very well and had had no cause to revise the high opinion
formed about him. Which might have seemed surprising. To most of
Red’s elders and superiors, he was a hothead with a penchant for
becoming involved in escapades not likely to build up confidence in
his capacity as an officer.

To be truthful, Red did have a
happy-go-lucky and reckless disposition. What
Hassle
—and
Dusty Fog—realized was that when given work of importance, he
became calm, cool and capable of handling it in a responsible
manner. Yet, no matter how serious the situation, his sense of
humor was always present. Despite his comments, the corporal had
not shown the slightest hesitation when Red had asked for his help
in the attempt to destroy the Yankees’ observation
balloon.

Dressed in Union
Army
’s
Cavalry kepis, tunics and breeches—the latter covering their own
garments—but armed and mounted in their usual fashion, Red, Hassle
and the selected private soldier had successfully completed the
first part of their assignment. They had also been granted ample
evidence that there was no other way in which the destruction of
the balloon could be accomplished. It had been in the air until
nightfall and a body of men the size of Company C and the mountain
battery could not have escaped being detected by the
observer.

Making use of techniques
developed by Hassle and, to a lesser extent, Private Wilbur Sprigg,
while fighting Indians in Texas before the War,
Red
’s detail
had travelled in cover as much as possible. At a distance, they
would have been indistinguishable from ordinary Yankee soldiers,
but they had not wished to be seen if it could be avoided.
Apparently they had been successful, for they had arrived in the
vicinity of their objective without having been
intercepted.

Night had fallen by the time
the trio had decided that they dare not risk riding any closer. So,
leaving the disgruntled and reluctant Sprigg to keep the horses
quiet, Red and Hassle had completed the journey on foot. They had
wanted to discover what they were up against.
On completing his examination,
Red had concluded that their task would be anything but a sinecure.
Nor had the youngster—usually an optimist—ever tried to delude
himself and his companions that it would be.

The Yankees had established
themselves in a large hollow about two miles north of the Ouachita
River. Apparently they were not unduly concerned about the danger
of their position being located, for the bottom of the depression
was illuminated by a big fire and several cressets. The hollow was
roughly circular and, wishing to prevent their scent being carried
to and alarming the enemies
’ horses, Red and Hassle were concealed among some
bushes on the southern side. Looking down, Red took in various
details and drew conclusions from them.

The soldiers seemed, to be a
curious mixture of Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery. Their clothing
suggested horse-soldiers, but the long Spencer repeating rifles
stacked in pyramidal piles outside the enlisted
men
’s pup
tents were more like Infantry weapons; yet their tunics’ facings
and breeches’ stripes implied that they served in the Artillery.
One thing they had in common was an air of tough, hard brutality.
According to Harry, both of Lyle’s Companies had been recruited
from a New York district’s gang. The captain and two lieutenants
bore traces of mean, vicious and unscrupulous natures and Harry
Cable’s comments on them had been pungent in the extreme. Having
looked the three over, Red was inclined to believe that the girl
had been speaking the truth.

Harry
’s father—who conveyed an impression
of strength and intelligence—sat apart from the soldiers,
accompanied by the two Negroes who served as the crew of the
traction engine. Eli Cable had graying hair, a mustache of
considerable proportions, and wore the kind of peaked hat, blue
frock coat, trousers and Wellington-leg boots one would more expect
to see on a riverboat’s captain than the driver of a land
machine.

As Cable
’s party sat near Pulling Sue,
Red studied it next. It was a massive piece of machinery, parked on
the western side of the camp. On a platform ahead of the boiler and
engine was a steering wheel such as might have graced a small
paddle steamer and other controls. The chimney was tall and narrow,
its top opening out like the head of a lily. From his position, Red
could only make out that the rear wheels were almost twice as large
as those at the front. He failed to detect the features which Harry
had claimed made Pulling Sue such an effective weight hauler. A
four-wheeled trailer, loaded with logs, was hitched to the rear of
the machine in the manner of a railroad engine’s fuel
tender.

Next Red
’s attention went to the center
of the hollow. There stood the big gun, a Parrot 30-Pounder rifle
mounted on a siege carriage, long tube already pointing so that it
could start hurling death and destruction across the river into the
defenseless town of Camden. Never had the youngster seen such a
huge weapon. Neither side in Arkansas had previously possessed
siege or garrison Artillery pieces, their largest weapons being
twelve-pounder ‘Napoleons’. So the cannons with which Red was
familiar seemed almost diminutive and puny in comparison with the
great bulk of the big gun. Its caisson, holding the ammunition
supply in three large chests, was secured to the back of the
traction engine’s tender.

While Pulling Sue hauled the
Parrot and its caisson, the Yankee party used a number of horses.
These stood on picket lines at the northern side, so that the big
gun would be firing away from them. The majority were the
soldiers
’
mounts, but there appeared to be a number more suitable to harness
and heavy draught work.