CHAPTER XIX
The captain, not ill pleased at this and other manifestations of hearty spirit which had met him on every hand, mounted the ladders and resumed his station on the high poop-deck of the frigate.
Anything less like a war vessel could hardly be imagined. The Bon Homme Richard had been an old-fashioned, high-pooped East Indiaman with a towering forecastle. This antiquated makeshift, formerly called the Duc de Duras, had been turned over to Jones for a ship-of-war through the grudging kindness of France. It was the best ship Franklin and the other commissioners of the new American Republic could procure for their greatest sea captain. Jones, out of compliment to Franklin, author of the "Poor Richard" papers, had renamed her; the name was the only thing new about her. She had been pierced for thirty-six guns, twenty-eight twelve-pounders on the main-deck, and eight nine-pounders on the quarter-deck and forecastle. In utter desperation at her entire inadequacy, Jones had recourse to the dangerous experiment, not often resorted to, of mounting six eighteen-pounders in ports pierced for them on the berth-deck, and of course very near the water line. The guns were all of an obsolete pattern and much worn by use, the eighteen-pounders being especially bad; as dangerous, in fact, to friends as foes. Bad as they were, they were all he could obtain, and, with characteristic determination, Jones resolved to make the best of them.
The ship herself was so old and rotten that she was not even fit for an ordinary merchant cruise, much less prepared for the shocks of battle. Through an unfortunate combination of circumstances, all of her senior officers were absent except Dale, the first lieutenant, Stacey, the sailing-master, and Mease, the purser. Among that half of her crew who were soldiers, many had scarcely yet acquired their "sea-legs," and some of them were actually seasick during the battle! The Serapis, with which they were about to engage and to which they were rapidly drawing near, was a brand-new, double-banked frigate, mounting fifty guns on two covered and one uncovered decks, twenty eighteen-pounders, twenty nines, and ten sixes. She was manned by three hundred and fifty well-drilled able seamen and commanded by one of the best officers in the English navy, who was ably seconded by a full quota of capable and experienced subordinates.
Pearson had no more doubt of winning the victory than he had of the rising of the sun next morning. Leaving one factor out of a comparison of the opposing forces, his confidence was absolutely warranted. But Jones had no more doubt of winning the victory than Pearson had. Pearson knew his ship and his crew; Jones knew himself. He was the unconscious factor which vitiated Pearson's conclusions. When a man like the little Scotch-American captain makes up his mind to do a thing, there is only one thing to prevent his doing it, and that is to remove the man! Jones intended to conquer. There never was a man who had more of the spirit of absolute determination, of unconquerable, unshakable, unbreakable pertinacity in continuing a conflict, than he. He never knew when he was beaten; perhaps because he never was. There was something in the sheer determined, persistent pugnacity of the man which absolutely compelled success. He wrenched victory from overwhelming odds, superior force, fortuitous chance,--everything.
The men understood this, too. There is nothing your real hard-bitten dare-devil, your imprudent ruffian, likes so much as a man who is not afraid of him and who will be his master. Your ruffian curses and swears at your man, plots against him, rebels, mutinies, conspires, and in the moment of action follows him like a devotee. The little man standing at the break of the poop, cool, calm, thoughtful, with his student face and somewhat poetic, dreamy smile, did not look like the iron-handed, iron-willed, indomitable master of the motley ruffian band which had been dumped upon his deck--which he certainly was. With the dainty manner of a Frenchman, the courteous deference of a gentleman of the oldest and best school, the calmness of an ancient philosopher, there was in his appearance no outward evidence of the tremendous qualities inherent in the man, save in the sparkling, flashing, piercing eye which plunged through and through those upon whom its glances were fastened, with the keenness of a sword-blade.
His men were wont to say that he could look even a frigate into striking her colors if given an opportunity! The hardest ruffian cringed like a cur before him, and this when he was peaceful and quiet. When he grew angry, which was rare, his passion was like Washington's, blasting and appalling. He was perfectly quiet now, however, and he stood by Dale's side at the break of the poop looking over the bows of the ship toward the enemy.
As they swept forward through the peaceful sea, a fragrance of balm and spicery and myrrh, which seemed to suggest the many voyages of the old ship in the distant tropic latitudes, clung about the decks and pervaded the gentle air already redolent with the sweet scent of new-mown hay from the not distant shore. It was as calm and sweet an autumn night as ever falls across the tired earth. The land breeze blew softly across the decks; the bright radiance of the glorious moon of harvest sparkled and wavered and flickered with sinuous, restless brilliancy on the tossing water ahead. All the busy notes of preparation had died away. There had come over the hearts of all, in that moment before the approaching crisis, a little silence which bespoke a recognition of the gravity of the impending conflict The mellow-toned bell forward was striking the time; two, four, six, seven bells in the second dog watch, half after seven o'clock. The minutes were being rung away for some of the men upon the decks of the great old ship; for many of them the bell would strike no more. Some who had gazed carelessly upon the setting sun would not see it rise again. Laughter ceased, jests failed, and some unwonted lips, while eyes were heavenward turned, murmured the name of God in belated petition. Even the most hardened and indifferent sailor felt the influence of the hour and was still.
Off on the starboard bow, the Pallas was gallantly speeding toward her distant foe. The Alliance, having paid no attention to repeated signals, was still edging in toward the convoy. The Serapis with her topsail to the mast, her men at quarters, ports open, lanterns lighted, was grimly waiting. As Jones's eye fell upon the Alliance, his lips were tightened; a black shadow swept across his face which boded ill for Landais again. When Dale, standing by his side, ventured to break his reverie by a bitter comment upon the defection of the frigate, Jones remarked,--
"Never mind, sir. The fewer we are, the more honor we shall gain by taking them."
But in the main the two officers kept silent watch together. Even the chattering Frenchmen caught the contagion of the portentous moments and stood in quiet ranks prepared and ready. It was no quarrel of theirs, this in which they fought, but their old and ever present hatred of England gave them inspiration enough for the conflict. The breeze freshened slightly; and as the Richard drew nearer the Serapis, the latter swung her ponderous main-yard and slowly filled away. The two ships were sailing at right angles to each other, the Richard slightly ahead of the Serapis, which was moving to cross her bow.
"Shall I go to the batteries now, captain?" asked the first lieutenant.
"Yes, I think you would better," answered Jones, stretching out his hand.
"Good-bye, sir," said the other, grasping it firmly.
"Good-bye; God bless you, Richard," said the older man, looking gravely at his beloved subordinate.
"And you, sir," returned Dale, with an unusual accent of tender affection; then he turned and ran rapidly to his station.
"Pass the word quickly," said Jones to young Brooks, "for the men to deliver their fire promptly and together when the word is given. Not a gun is to be discharged until the order. After that, as rapidly as possible."
As the fleet-footed midshipman ran along the decks, a little murmur of excitement arose. There was a shifting of positions; men sprang to their stations; hoarse whispers came from the gun captains, as the smouldering matches, or glowing loggerheads, were handed to them by their subordinates.
"Silence fore and aft the decks!" came the clear voice of the captain.
The murmurs died away as young Brooks sprang up the ladder and reported that everything was ready. The boy officers choked down something that rose in their throats as they walked nervously up and down their divisions. A fleeting thought they gave to home, mother, hours of play, so far away. It was the first battle for many of them. Down on the berth-deck in front of the hatchway, little Payne looked to the priming of his pistols and whispered a word or two to his men, who stood with their muskets pointing down through the gratings covering the hatchway. He wished he had been up on deck with the rest, fighting a great gun, or attached to the side of the captain; but the captain had told him that the post of honor and importance was here, and here he would stand. There, on the starboard side, his young messmate and friend, McCollin, gave another careful inspection to his three old eighteen-pounders, firmly resolved to give such an account with them, if they did not burst, as would decide the action.
Caswell and Mayrant were in the forecastle to fight the two guns there. Mr. Mease, the purser, as brave a man as ever stepped a deck, though no sailor, had charge of the quarter-deck guns. Stacey, the sailing-master, stood aft by the wheel to assist in working the ship. Brooks and De Chamillard were on the poop near Jones. Fanning, with his bullies in the maintop, was anxiously wishing that he, too, might have a place in the centre of the conflict, the gun-deck, little knowing what decisive moment was in store for him.
They were nearer now, well within gun-shot, yet there was no sound from either ship. The tense expectancy of the moment was becoming unbearable to the younger hands. What were the captains of the ships about? Why didn't they fire? Away off on the horizon, flashes of light and the deep boom of artillery reverberating across the water, told that their consort had joined in battle with the Scarborough. Why were they so slow? Suddenly, in the midst of the silence, broken only by the soft sigh of the summer wind through the top-hamper, the splashing of the bluff bows, as they forced themselves through the rippling water, came the sound of a hail from the English ship, the words of which were indistinguishable.
"I don't understand you," cried Jones, then he turned to the quartermaster and said softly,--
"Over with the helm! Hard-a-starboard!" As the wheel was put over by the skilful hands of the quartermaster and his mate, the great ship swung slowly to port and rounded to off the port bow of the English ship.
The Englishman hailed again.
"This is the United States ship Bon Homme Richard," shouted Paul Jones in reply, at the top of his voice, springing up on the rail the while. "Stand by!" A quiver and shiver went through the ship from her tops to her very vitals. "Fire!"
Streams of light leaped out in the darkness; clouds of smoke rose at once from the sides of the Richard only to be met and brushed away by a broadside which had been delivered no less promptly from the English ship. Groans and curses and yells and cheers rose from the blood-stained decks upon which men writhed in the agony of ghastly wounds, or lay contorted in hideous death where they had fallen, for at close range both broadsides had done fearful execution.
The desperate men ran the huge guns in and out and loaded them with frantic energy and kept up a continuous cannonade upon their foes. The roar of the great guns drowned every other sound as the two ships sailed side by side in bitter conflict, but the trained ear of the American captain had detected another sound coincident with the first broadside which told a tale of disaster. When the loggerheads had been applied to the priming of two of the eighteens, they had exploded with a terrific concussion, killing and wounding nearly every man of their crews.
McCollin, who commanded the battery, was struck by a piece of iron and received a dreadful wound. He remained at his post, however, clinging tenaciously to a broken stanchion for a moment until he recovered himself a little. As the frightened and appalled men shrank away from the remaining gun of the battery, not yet discharged in view of the dreadful explosion, he seized the hot iron from the dead hand of the captain of number one gun, and setting his lips grimly staggered over to the last cannon.
"Don't do it, sir!" hoarsely cried the old boatswain's mate who served under him. "It'll blow up with ye, as the others ha' done!" There was no reply. McCollin was beyond words. With set lips and grim face, in silence he wavered on before the awestruck men. With tottering steps he reached the gun and applied the iron. There was a blinding roar and the gun whirled inboard in rapid recoil from the force of the discharge.
"Load it again," said the gasping boy, striving to stop the blood with his hand against his side. Before the men, who, inspired by such heroism, had sprung eagerly forward, could reach the piece, an eighteen-pound shot from the Serapis' lower deck struck it fair and square on the trunnion and dismounted it. That battery was useless. The explosion had made a gaping hole in the side of the Richard, through which the red-lighted side of the Serapis but a short distance away could be seen plainly; the deck above and below was badly shattered by the blowing up of the guns.
"All the men alive of this division," said McCollin, thickly, "will find places at the divisions on the gun-deck. We can do nothing more here. Good-bye, Payne."
A few moments later a powder-blackened, blood-stained, white-faced, desperate little figure appeared out of the smoke before the captain.
"McCollin, you here!" he cried sternly, "why are you not with your battery, sir?"
"I have to report, sir," said the boy, grasping the rail with one hand to keep from falling, while he saluted with the other, "that two of the berth-deck guns blew up, sir, and the other was dismounted. Have you any orders for me, sir?"
"Too bad!" cried Jones. "Orders!--but you are wounded!"
At this moment a round shot struck the lad fair in the chest. With his hand still at salute he was whirled across the deck and thrown against the taffrail, a broken mass of what had been humanity.
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the captain, staring and almost losing his iron nerve at this double shock,--the loss of the battery and the death of the midshipman. "Poor lad! A hero!"
The ships were nearer now; the rifles of the Frenchmen were cracking and the fire from the great guns was continuous. The Richard had drawn well ahead; and fearful that the Serapis would cross his stern and rake, Jones now shivered his headsails, threw his after-sails aback, checked the way of his own ship, and the Serapis, firing madly into the smoke, drew ahead of the Richard. Jones then put his helm up to try to cross her stern and rake. The quick handling of the English ship frustrated this plan. The bow of the Richard struck the port quarter of the Serapis. The two ships hung together a moment, boarders were called on both sides; but before they could be used, the two ships drifted apart and formed a line ahead, with not a single gun bearing on either ship. The roar of the guns gradually subsided and even the crack of the small arms died away. The smoke drifted slowly off to leeward.