CHAPTER XXII
And now happened the incident which finally decided the battle. By Jones's orders, quantities of hand grenades, a small, highly combustible, and explosive shell, about the size of a large apple, had been placed in the tops. After the battle in mid-air by which the Americans had gained possession, he shouted out that they be used in accordance with his instructions. Fanning sent a man with a bucket of grenades out on the extreme end of the main-yard-arm. Wrapping his legs around the yard, he sat down, and leaning against the lift, deliberately threw his bomb-shells, one by one, down the open main hatchway of the Serapis. The powder boys of the latter ship had been bringing charges of powder for the various guns from the magazine; and as many of the guns had been put out of action by the American fire, the supply had been greater than the demand. A large pile had been carelessly allowed to accumulate upon the deck. One of the grenades carromed against the hatch combing, and fell into the centre of the charges.
There was a detonating crash, so loud, so terrific, that it actually seemed to blow even the roar of the battle into eternity. Twenty or thirty men were killed or badly wounded, many of them torn to atoms, by the explosion, and the rest of the men on the Englishman's deck were dazed and driven from their stations by the concussion. The clothes of many were actually ripped from their bodies, so that they stood naked and wondering, though they were otherwise unhurt. A long moment of ghastly silence succeeded this accident on the Serapis. Men everywhere paused with bated breath to wait the issue. The Serapis, dragging the Richard, reeled and rocked under the shock. It was a last catastrophe which broke the strength of Pearson's endurance and ended his resistance. He could fight no more. Was it the devil himself who commanded the other ship? The English captain sprang aft to the mizzenmast. A great English standard had been nailed to the timber of the spar. With his own hands he tore it down. The battle was over! At the same moment the mainmast of the Serapis undermined, and, eaten away in its heart by the gnawing attack of the quarter-deck guns of the Richard, came crashing down, a hopeless ruin, carrying some of the Americans into eternity as it fell.
"They have struck their flag!" cried Jones, who had sprung upon the rail at the moment of the explosion and had witnessed Pearson's action. "Cease firing!"
His voice rang through the ship with such a note of proud triumph as has rarely been heard within the fought over confines of the narrow seas.
"They have struck; the ship is ours!" ran from man to man among the Americans. Wild cheers broke into the night in an ever-increasing volume of sound.
"Send Mr. Dale to me," said Jones to young Brooks as the flag came down. The midshipman had been wounded, but still kept his station.
As Dale came running toward his captain, Jones cried,--
"Muster a boarding party and take charge of the prize; the fight is over!"
But no, the battle was not over. A few moments before, an English ship captain among the prisoners had succeeded in escaping through the rents in the shattered sides of the two ships and had told the plight of the Richard to the first lieutenant of the Serapis. With this information the men on the gun-deck had been rallied, and led by their officers had returned to their quarters and had resumed the battle. They, too, were heroes. Mayrant, who ran aft from the forecastle as he saw Pearson strike his flag, jumped on the rail by Jones's orders and followed Dale upon the deck of the English ship. Such was the confusion of the moment that as Mayrant leaped on the deck he was actually run through the thigh by a pike in the hand of a wounded British sailor. Pearson was standing alone as if dazed, on the quarter-deck of his ship, holding one clenched hand against his breast, with the other grasping his trailing flag. In his face was that look of defeat and despair which is the saddest aspect of baffled impotent humanity.
"Have you struck, sir?" cried Dale, stopping before the English captain.
"Yes," was the grim reply; his voice was a broken whisper indicating in the tones his mental agony.
"I am come to take possession."
"Very good, sir," said Pearson, bitterly, as before, and dropping the flag; then he reached for his sword.
Just at this moment, Pascoe, the first lieutenant of the Serapis, came bounding up the hatchway from the deck below.
"A few more broadsides, sir, and they are ours," he cried impetuously. "They are in a sinking--
"The ship has struck, sir, and you are my prisoner," interrupted Dale, quickly, seeing the necessity of promptitude.
"Struck! This ship! Your prisoner!" cried the astonished Englishman.
"Yes, sir. Your sword!" demanded Dale. The man hesitated.
"Disarm him!" cried the American. Two or three of the boarding parties closed around them.
"Sir," asked the lieutenant, turning to his captain, "is it true that we have struck?"
"Yes, sir," answered Pearson, hoarsely.
"My God!" cried Pascoe. There was a momentary silence.
"I have nothing more to say, sir," he added. "I will go below and call off the men," said the lieutenant, turning away.
"No, sir!" interrupted Dale. "You will accompany your captain on board our ship at once. Pass the word to cease firing. The ship has struck."
As the English captain and his first lieutenant stepped over the rail upon the high poop of the Richard, the roar of the guns died away, this time for good. Seizing a dangling rope they swung themselves inboard, and found themselves face to face with a little man in a tattered uniform, hatless, covered with dust and smoke, powder-stained and grimy with the soil of the battle. Blood spattering from a wound in his forehead had coagulated upon his cheek. He was a hideous-looking spectacle. The red firelight played luridly upon him. Nothing but the piercing black eyes which burned and gleamed out of his face in the darkness bespoke the high humanity of the man.
"Is it--" "Captain John Paul Jones, at your service, gentlemen."
"My sword," said Pearson, tendering it to him formally. "I regret," he added ungraciously, "at being compelled to strike to a man who has fought with a halter around his neck."
"Sir," said Jones, with a magnanimity as great as his valor, "you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt that your sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner. Mr. Brooks, escort these gentlemen to my cabin."
And which was the gentleman then?
The two ships were now cut adrift, Dale remaining on the Serapis to take command. He had sat down a moment for rest, and as he attempted to rise to his feet he fell to the deck, discovering only in that way that he had been severely wounded,--a thing which had escaped his notice in the heat of the action.
By the most heroic efforts of the prize crew on the Serapis and the remaining men on the Richard, the English prisoners were driven back into the hold, the flames subdued, and some semblance of order restored. Cottineau had captured the Pallas after an hour of good hard fighting, and the victory was entirely with the Americans. But it had been purchased at a fearful cost. There is no battle on land or sea in the world's history where the percentage of loss was greater than the battle between the Serapis and the Richard.
About seventy per cent on the Serapis and over fifty per cent on the Richard had been killed or wounded, and the Bon Homme Richard was in a sinking condition. She had been literally beaten to pieces. It was not safe to remain upon her decks. Consequently the prisoners and the wounded, groaning and crying in anguish, were removed to the Serapis. In the early morning of the day following, the brave ship which had earned undying immortality in her worn-out old age, because for three brief hours John Paul Jones and his men had battled upon her decks, sank forever beneath the sea. The great battle-flag under which she had fought had been reset, and fluttered above her as she went down.
The refitting of the prizes for the returning voyage was at once begun. To anticipate events, it is recorded that Captain Landais, the jealous and false-hearted Frenchman who had so treacherously manœuvred the Alliance, was subsequently court-martialled and dismissed from the service. He should have been hanged from her highest yard-arm.