The Rebel Spy by J. T. Edson

current and we’d give a launch a good run for its money.”
    Even as Pinckney spoke, one of the crew men hauled on a cable which raised the torpedo spar from the water. Then the sailor swung over the cockpit and advanced along the deck to stand by the elevating spar. He looked down at the water intently, giving an occasional direction over his shoulder to the coxswain. On shore the shapes of the guardian batteries showed, gun crews on the alert but not challenging the little ship.
    “We’re passing through the frame-torpedoes,” Belle breathed. “That’s why they raised the spar.”
    Dusty did not need to ask why. Frame-torpedoes—the name ‘mine’ had not yet come into use—were copper or cast-iron shells filled with explosives, mounted on wooden frames firmly anchored to the river’s bottom. Fixed to come just below the surface, the shells carried percussion caps to be ignited when struck by an enemy vessel coming up-river. However it did not pay to knock or jolt the torpedoes from any angle and Pinckney took no chances.
    Even the Jack’s crew members looked relieved when they had passed through the frame-torpedo maze. On went the little boat, its screw propeller making only a small sound instead of the thrashing thump a side-wheeler’s paddles gave out. With the current behind them and the engine turning the propellers steadily, they made a steady fifteen miles an hour.
    Suddenly Dusty heard a gurgling sound and became aware that the Jack appeared to be settling deeper in the water. None of the crew showed the slightest concern, although the cox’n turned the wheel over to Pinckney and watched the river’s surface creeping higher. At last, with the water lapping at the very bottom of the cockpit, the gurgling stopped. Pinckney swung the wheel and the Jack moved across the river, turned back and resumed its course downstream. Nodding in satisfaction, Pinckney gave an order and the smallest member of his crew ducked out of sight under the deck. Turning over the wheel to his cox’n, Pinckney smiled at his passengers. It seemed that he noticed their agitation for the first time.
    “I’ve just been ballasting her down,” he explained. “Run water into two tanks so that we lay lower and aren’t so easy to see. Most of the time we’ll be at normal level, but we’ll have to go down when we’re passing Yankee ships or batteries. When we’re by, we pump out the water and go on as before.”
    “That’s smart thinking,” Dusty drawled, trying not to reveal that he had been worried.
    “The Hunley was a better one,” Pinckney answered. “She’d got right under water. The crew stayed down for just over two and a half hours once.”
    “If we could have found some way to power her, it would have made all the difference,” Belle remarked.
    “It’ll come one of these days,” prophesised Pinckney.
    Even in Arkansas word of the submarine Hunley’s exploits had been heard. Lacking engines, for steam could not be generated under water, the crew operated handles on a crank shaft to propel it through the water. After experimentation and some loss of life, the Hunley went down in a successful attempt to destroy the U.S.S. Housatonic .
    While unable to submerge completely, the little David -class boats achieved greater success than the true submarine.
    Despite the fact that the Red River remained in Confederate hands, one member of the tiny crew stayed on the look-out all the time. The U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron sometimes sent raiding vessels off the main river and even a steam-launch’s crew submerged to cockpit level, crept by the Confederate batteries guarding the mouth of the Red and swung out on to the wide Mississippi.
    “I never knew it was this big!” Dusty breathed as daylight gave him his first view of the main river.
    “It’s even wider lower down,” the girl replied, then looked at Pinckney. “What do we do now?”
    “Go on as far as we can, then find a place to lie up until