CHAPTER XXI
On the spar-deck things had gone better. Though De Chamillard and his marines had been driven from the poop by the fire of the English, the men in the tops had more than evened that reverse. As the two ships lay side by side, the interlocking yards made a convenient bridge from one to the other, over which a bold man might pass. It happened that some of the choicest spirits on the Richard were stationed in the maintop. Fanning, who had been busily engaged with small arms, saw his opportunity. As the little parties in the two tops exchanged volleys, the midshipman threw his men on the yard; and as the smoke cleared away, the astonished British saw the Americans rushing toward them.
The first and second men were shot down and fell to the deck of the Serapis; the third, a gigantic man, by a desperate leap gained a foothold in the top. Before he was cut down, Fanning and another had joined him over the futtock shrouds; two men took the defenders in the rear by way of the lubber's hole; the rest came swarming. The force of their rush carried everything before it. The English, unable to stand the irresistible onset, were shot down or thrown out of the top. No quarter was asked or given. The Americans, having effected this lodgement in the maintop of the Serapis, now turned their fire upon the fore and mizzen tops, and enabled boarding parties from their own ship to gain possession of all the upper works of the enemy.
It was at this moment that the gunner and the carpenter reached the deck, crying that the ship was sinking and proffering surrender. The gunner ran aft shrieking, "Quarter! Quarter!" intending to lower the flag. Jones, who had been superintending the working of the quarter-deck guns, which were without an officer since Mease, who had been fighting heroically, had been severely wounded, of course heard the noise, and turning about saw the gunner running for the flag. Fortunately the flag had been shot away; and as the gunner was seeking it, fumbling over the halliards in the darkness, Pearson, hearing the cries, called out again,--
"Do you ask for quarter?"
Jones had taken two long leaps across the deck to the side of the gunner. Seizing his discharged pistol, he brought the butt of it heavily down upon the forehead of the man, cracking his skull and silencing him forever.
"Never!" he shouted in reply to the Englishman.
"Then I will give none!" said Pearson,--an entirely superfluous remark, by the way.
It was at this juncture that the "Alliance" was seen coming down again as before. Jones had time but for one glance of apprehension when he heard the noise of the leaping prisoners below. He sprang to the main hatch.
"The prisoners have been released," cried De Weibert, meeting him; the Frenchman had been toiling like a hero on the gun-deck. "The battery is silenced, we have not a single gun to work, the ship is afire! We must yield!" he exclaimed.
As the frightened men came crowding up the hatchways, Dale, who had just fired the only remaining gun on the deck that was left fit for action, took in the situation at once. He stayed the rush in the nick of time by voice and action. He sprang into the midst of them, threatening them, striking them, beating them down, driving them back with his sword. It was a magnificent display of hardihood and courage, presence of mind and resource.
"To the pumps!" he cried with prompt decision. "For your lives, men! The English ship is sinking, and we'll go down with her unless you can keep us afloat!" he shouted in thunder tones with superb audacity. The battle lost was won again in that minute.
"Well done, Richard!" shouted Jones, leaping through the hatchway and seconding the daring ruse of his noble lieutenant by his own mighty voice and herculean efforts, crying masterfully, "Get to the pumps, men! Lively! for God's sake! The ship is sinking under your feet! The English ship is going!"
It was unparalleled assurance, but it won. The two officers actually succeeded in forcing the English prisoners to man the pumps, where they worked with a frantic energy born of their persistent daze of terror. This left the regular crew of the ship free to fight the fires and to do what they could with the remaining guns. As Jones sprang back to the quarter-deck, the surgeon, covered with blood, and appalled at the carnage, came running toward him, crying,--
"The ship is sinking, sir! The cock-pit is under water! I have no place to stow the wounded. We must surrender!"
"Strike! Strike!" cried De Chamillard, who was wounded. "We can do no more!"
"What, gentlemen!" cried Jones, "would you have me strike to a drop of water and a bit of fire? Up, De Chamillard! Here, doctor, help me get this gun over."
The surgeon hesitated, looked around again, and, not liking the appearance of things about him, turned and ran below. Not to his station, for that was under water. His mates had been killed. He wandered up and down the decks, doing what he could--which was but little--for the wounded where they lay. Assisted by two or three of the seamen, with his own hands Jones dragged one of the nine-pounders from the disengaged side of the deck across to the starboard side to take the place of a dismounted one; and, while the heavy battery of the Serapis continued its unavailing fire below, these three small guns under his personal direction concentrated their fire upon the mainmast of the Serapis.
The fortuitous position of the Americans in the enemy's tops enabled them to pour a perfect rain of small-arm fire upon the spar-deck of the Serapis with little possibility of effective return. Man after man was shot down by the side of the intrepid Pearson, who, whatever his other lack of qualifications, showed that he possessed magnificent personal courage, until he remained practically alone upon the deck,--alone, and as yet undaunted.
It is impossible to describe the scene. It is not within the power of words to portray the situation, after over two hours of the most frightful and determined combat. No two ships were ever in such condition; no battle that was ever fought was like it. The decks were covered with dead and dying; bands of men in different directions were fighting the fires; the smoke in lowering clouds hung heavily over the ships, for the wind had died and there was scarcely enough to blow it away. The pale moonlight mingled with the red glare from the flames and threw an added touch of lurid ghastliness trembling over the smoke-wrapt sea. From below came the steady roar of the Serapis' guns, from above the continuous crackling of the Richard's small arms. The noises blended in a hideous diapason of destruction, which rose to an offended Heaven in the horrid discord of an infernal region. The prisoners, still under the influence of their terror, toiled at the clanking pumps. The water gushed redly from the bleeding scuppers. Order, tactics, discipline, had been forgotten. Men glared with blood-shot eyes, set their teeth beneath foam-flaked lips, and fought where they stood,--fought in frenzy against whatever came to hand, whether it was the English ship, or the roaring flames, or the rushing waters. They recked nothing of consequences. In their frantic battle-lust they beat upon the sides of the other ship with their bare hands and bloody knuckles, and knew not what they did. Their breath came quick and short; the red of battle was before their vision; they had but one thought. Slay! Kill! One would have said that the brute instinct was uppermost in every heart. But in scenes of this kind it is not the greatest brute that wins, but the greatest soul; and the one man who still preserved his calmness in this orgy of war was the man to win the battle--Jones.
The Alliance had repeated her previous performance, but the men had been worked to such a pitch that they never heeded her; many of them did not know of it. Both ships were thoroughly beaten. It was only a question as to which would realize it first, who would first surrender. Nay, there was no question whatever of Jones' surrender under any circumstances whatsoever. Pearson would give up under some conditions, and those had at last arrived. That was the essential difference between the two men; it was radical.