Presence of Mind.

Evening Star, Issue 7336, 7 October 1887, Page 4

Presence of Mind.

UNLOADING A POWDER BARGE ON THE BANKS OP THE MISSISSIPPI. "Randall," said the colonel of artillery to the red-faced young man before him, " these are what I wish to have delivered first. You must exercise great care in handling them. They do not go off too easily, but a smart tap right here will explode them." His finger was on the nose of a three-inch percussion shell, as he spoke. It was a very noatly finished affair, of a new pattern, from which important results were expected by artillerists. The shells were to explode on striking, and scatter exerything in front of them in a thoroughly scientific manner. lie was mate of one of the smaller ironclad "turtle-back " gunboats of the Mississippi squadron, and had been detailed in charge of an ammunition barge or " powder boat." She had been towed down the river with a full cargo, and now lay with her head against the levee at tho "powderlanding, ' between three and four miles above Memphis. It was early in the fourth year of the Civil War, and it was well understood that a great deal of ammunition would yet be required. An hour or so later Randall stood at his post upon the stern of tho barge, watching a score of colored " roustabouts," whowere going and coming, busily employed in removing the percussion shells called for by the colonel.

Every man of them was deeply impressed with the solemnity of the work he was doing, and was visibly afraid of each burden he brought up from the hold of the barge. All the customary shouting and singing had subsided into a befitting gravity. There were no loungers on the levee, for the sentries, posted at suitable distances, prevented the approach of unauthorised persons. No other craft of any sort was moored near the barge, which contained so many tons of compressed power and peril. The ridge of the levee was many feet above the river level, and was already lined with the terrible cylinders, whose yet undimmed copper glistened in the sunshine. " Nearly done," said Randall aloud, "and I'm glad of it. Can't say I've any nerves to speak of, but I'd rather move a hundred loads of mere powder or ordinary shell. I don't like those things." He glanced down at the muddy torrent of the Mississippi, rushing by at mill-race haste, and added: "I'd be safer in the middle of the river than I am here."

He was undoubtedly a man of courage, and his nerves were Biich as fitted him for his present duty, but he was unable to put away from him a strong sense of the lonely peril of his post. Neither could he avoid a kind of vague calculation of the enormous destructive forces chained in the cargo concealed by the deck he stood upon. Tramp, tramp, tramp, with somber steadiness, the athletic "roustabouts" went down the companion-way, or came up again; each, on return, bearing one more of the new explosives. These did not make an unduly heavy shoulder-load, and there was no apparent danger of an accident. The veteran artilleryman down in the hold, who superintended the picking up and shouldering, had been ceaseless in his admonitions, and every shell had been lifted with a clear understanding that, as ono " roustabout" expressed it: " Ef I should sneeze, de shell would take dat advantage and go off." A transport steamer coming down the river seemed to sheer away from the " powder lauding," as if it were a place to be shunned ; and Randall may have been justified in asserting: "The gulls fly high over it, and even the buzzards wouldn't 'light on a dead mule if he lay on this levee. It's dreary work." So it was, and without extra pay or honor, except for the " roustabouts," who received double wages. They were all picked men, and as well fitted for that service as any white man, but the colonel of artillery had remarked of them :

" I'd rather lose them than as many volunteers if anything should happen." All war material, human or other, has its assignable value when the question of its expenditure has to be raised. Even a commanding general kiiow3 what regiment he can best afford to report as part of the price paid for a victory. The coloned did not put any estimate upon Randall or the old artilleryman down in the hold of the barge. The latter was now mopping his forehead with his bandana, and saying to the arriving squad of " roustabouts " : "Only a couple of dozen more, boys, and then we can get out of this oven. It's almost hot enough to fire a barrel of gunpowder without any fuse or match either." Each in turn picked up and shouldered the shell assigned to him and wheeled toward the companion-way. Randall, on the stern of the barge, with his pencil and tally-book in his hand, took due note of every man and shell, but now and then seemed disposed to turn and stare for a second or so at the yellow flood which went swirling and eddying by. "I could do it," he said, "if an accident should happen, only there wouldn't bo any warning. First I'd know I shouldn't know anything." At that moment a long, lank, looselybuilt "roustabout" came up the narrow stairway with a gleaming tube of copper and iron on his left shoulder.

" That's the left-handed man from Cairo," said Randall. " His bones are put together with strings. Hullo !" A small, sharp nail had worked its way out of some ragged pocket and had fallen upon the deck, with its heel in a crack and its point eo aimed that the next forward step of the loose man drove one of hi 3 bare, splay feet heavily against it. There was a sharp yell, a sudden forgetfulness of all the warnings of the old artilleryman, and Randall saw the shell pitched recklessly, point forward, toward the deck of the barge. He did not wait for it to strike. Wheeling instantly, he sprang out with all his power in a swift, headlong dive, which carried him deep below the rushing waters of the Mississippi. Behind him, as he struck the surface, rang a sharp explosion, and then, with a short interval, whose seconds no man counted, a great column of flame and blackness shot upward for a hundred feet in the air, accompanied by a vast volume of stunning sound—the voices of many detonations blended thundorously into one. Nearly a minute later Randall's head came out of the water, many rods down the river.

" They're all gone !" he exclaimed. He was a good swimmer, and an eddy aided him to reach the bank. He hurried to the spot, where a yawning rift in the side of the level now marked the landing place of the powder barge. There was no sign that any such boat had ever been there except the long, gleaming rows of percussion shells yet lying just beyond the ridgo. Not one of them had been exploded by the concussion.

When the colonel of artillery came galloping up half an hour later, Randall touched his hat and pointed at the shells on the levee. " Colonel," he said, " that's about all the report I can make." "I heard the other report," said the colonel, " and so did all Memphis. How did you manage to escape ?" That report was also briefly made. " I could hear the explosion while I was under water. It jarred me all over, but it didn't stun me," Randall said.

The colonel took off his hat and remarked, with strong emphasis: "Now that's what I call presence of mind! " ' American Magazine.'