Chapter Seventeen.
The true character of the Jean Bart becomes manifest.
At this moment Pierre, who turned out to be the boatswain of the ship, accompanied by the three other men, one of whom carried a length of ratline in his hand, came clattering down the companion ladder, and entered the cabin.
“Now, monsieur,” continued Renouf to me, “will you go on deck and do your duty, or shall these men drag you there and compel you to do it by seizing you up to the gangway and flogging you into obedience?”
“I will obey your orders, Captain Renouf,” said I, “since you leave no alternative but that of being flogged, which I do not choose to submit to. But—”
“Well, but what?” sneered Renouf.
“Nothing at present,” answered I, suddenly realising the absurdity as well as the imprudence of continuing to threaten while in so utterly helpless a condition.
“Aha, Monsieur Braggadocio!” answered Renouf; “so you are coming to your senses already, are you? It is well. Now you are beginning to exhibit a glimmer of common sense, which I hope will increase with reflection, and if it does I doubt not that we shall get on well enough together after all; especially as you will find that there is plenty of prize-money to be earned on board this ship. Now go forward and tell your mates that you have accepted service under me, and persuade them to do the same. I hope, for your sake, that you will have no trouble in so persuading them.”
“I go, sir,” replied I; “but I tell you, now, in the presence of these men, that I obey you under protest, and only because I do not choose to submit to the indignity of compulsion by mere superior brute force.”
And so saying I turned and left the cabin, being escorted to the deck by Pierre and his three myrmidons.
I went right forward into the forecastle and, finding my fellow-survivors there, told them all that had passed in the cabin, at which they expressed the utmost indignation; Dumaresq being as loud as the loudest of my companions in his denunciation of Renouf’s conduct. I let them finish their growl, and then said:
“Well, lads, I have told you exactly what this fellow Renouf said, and how he acted. It is now for you to act, each according to what seems best to him; for although I have been ordered to persuade you to follow my example, I shall do nothing of the sort. Each man must act according to his own judgment, just as I did. It did not suit me to submit to the indignity of being flogged, and I therefore accepted the only alternative that was left to me, namely, to consent to serve aboard this ship. But I did so with several mental reservations, the nature of which I will communicate to you at some more convenient time.”
As I said this, my gaze involuntarily turned in Dumaresq’s direction. The poor fellow flushed up painfully and said:
“I hope, my dear Bowen, you have no suspicion that I will betray to this rascal—whom I blush to acknowledge as a fellow-countrymen—anything that you may choose to say in my presence. Believe me, I fully appreciate all the difficulties of your position, and can well understand that you have felt yourself compelled to yield to circumstances which you found it impossible to control. But give me credit for believing that your surrender was not the base, unconditional surrender of a coward who preferred to turn traitor to his country rather than submit to a flogging. If I have read your character aright—and God knows I have been associated with you under circumstances that ought to have given me some insight into it—you have yielded to this man Renouf for some ulterior purpose of your own, which you intend to communicate to your comrades at the first fitting opportunity. Now, so far as I am concerned, I have not the same reasons that you have for objecting to take service in this ship, and I shall therefore volunteer. But I want you to understand that the accident of our happening to belong to two nations, at present unhappily at war with each other, is wholly insufficient to lessen in the slightest degree the personal friendship I entertain for you and these good fellows here, your fellow-countrymen. I am your and their friend now and for ever; and I want to make it plain to you that, short of absolute treachery to my country, you may count upon me to stand by you through thick and thin. You hesitate, and very rightly, too, to speak of your plans before me. It would be no advantage to you, and it might be embarrassing to me, were you to discuss them in my presence; but I have so little sympathy with Captain Renouf in his high-handed method of dealing with you that, were I to accidentally become acquainted with any portion of your intentions, I should feel quite justified in remaining silent about them. If the fellow is foolish enough to compel you to serve him against your will, he need feel no surprise at your taking an early opportunity to free yourselves from so galling a yoke. And now, in order that I may not be a restraint upon you, I will relieve you of my presence by going aft and volunteering. But believe and trust in my friendship always, even should circumstances assume such a character as to suggest a doubt of it.”
So saying, he grasped the hand I offered him, wrung it heartily, and sprang up the ladder to the deck.
As soon as he was gone I translated to my four fellow-prisoners what he had said, and we then resumed our discussion of the situation. I told my companions that although I had consented to serve on board the Jean Bart, nothing should induce me to take up arms against my fellow-countrymen; that, on the contrary, if we should chance to fall in with a British ship, I was fully determined, by every means in my power, to frustrate Renouf’s intentions, and to hamper and obstruct him in every possible way, and at all hazards; and that, if they felt disposed to accept service with a similar determination, it would be strange if five resolute, determined men like ourselves could not do something very material toward assisting in the capture of the schooner, and the safe lodgment of Monsieur Renouf aboard a British hulk. The men seemed to look at the matter in pretty much the same light that I did. They recognised, as I did, that Renouf was an unscrupulous rascal, likely to hesitate at little or nothing to gain his own headstrong will; they realised the utter futility of attempting to resist him, backed as he was by his whole crew; and, finally, they made up their minds to follow my example, recognising me as their actual leader, and heartily pledging themselves to be ready to act upon my initiative at a moment’s notice, and to obey me to the death whenever a suitable opportunity should arise to translate our somewhat vague plans into action.
Having arrived at this understanding, I went aft and informed Captain Renouf that my comrades had consented, like myself under protest, to serve on board the Jean Bart; whereupon he ironically congratulated me upon my success—at which, nevertheless, I could see he was very much pleased—and gave orders that we were forthwith to be enrolled in the port watch, under his brother. We went on duty within the hour, were all placed in the same mess, and slept that night in that portion of the ’tween-decks devoted to the accommodation of the crew.
I was called upon to perform the duty of an able seaman; and ere long it became apparent that, having gained his way with us Englishmen, Renouf was now desirous to render our service as pleasant as possible to us. We were called upon only to do such work as is usually allotted to the highest grade of seamen before the mast, and in many ways trifling but none the less acceptable indulgences were shown to us. One of our duties was, of course, to take our regular trick at the wheel, and in this way I soon discovered that we were heading for West Indian waters.
It was on the fifth day after our submission to Renouf that, just after breakfast, a sail was made out from the mast-head, and the schooner’s course was at once altered with the object of intercepting the strange ship, which was steering north. I was full of hope that the craft would turn out to be British, in which case there would almost certainly be a fight, and an opportunity would be afforded me of paying off part of the debt that I owed to Monsieur Renouf. But as the two craft neared each other, and the stranger’s sails, and finally her hull, rose above the horizon, I was disappointed to discover that she was evidently a foreigner; and at length, in response to an exhibition of the French colours at the schooner’s peak, she hoisted the Spanish ensign. Renouf, however, continued to bear down upon her; and presently the Spaniard, evidently growing alarmed at the menacing behaviour of the schooner, put up her helm and bore away before the wind, with the unmistakable intention of avoiding us if possible.
But a cart-horse might as well hope to gallop away from a thorough-bred racer as that ship to outsail the Jean Bart. The stranger was clearly a big, lumbering merchantman, built for the purpose of stowing the greatest possible amount of cargo in a hull of her dimensions. She had no pretensions whatever to speed, while the schooner was, as I have elsewhere said, exceptionally fast; it was not wonderful, therefore, that we rapidly overhauled her without an effort.
It was my impression that, as the Spaniard was probably homeward-bound from that part of the world toward which we were steering, Renouf was anxious to speak her and obtain what information he could with regard to the state of affairs generally in that quarter; and I was therefore not surprised at his persistent pursuit of the ship. But when later on in the day we had closed her to within gun-shot distance, and he began to fire into her, I certainly thought he was again carrying things with rather a high hand, and that, if he was not careful, he would probably get himself into serious trouble over the affair. Still it was no business of mine. The Spaniards, like the French, were at war with us, and if they chose to make war upon each other also it was not for me to object; on the contrary, any action calculated to produce a feeling of ill-will between the two nations could not fail to be of advantage to Great Britain. I therefore felt no qualms of conscience whatever when called upon to take my station at one of the guns, and did my duty with hearty good-will.
We continued firing at the Spaniard for about half an hour, in a very leisurely way, but with such deliberate aim that every shot struck her; and then, without firing a shot in return, the great hulking craft shortened sail and hove-to. Ten minutes later we, too, were hove-to within pistol-shot of the Spaniard’s weather quarter, and we then had an opportunity to learn, by the gilt lettering on her stern, that she was the Santa Theresa, of Cadiz. The Jean Bart’s three boats were at once lowered, and a party of about forty men, armed to the teeth, and led by Captain Renouf, his brother Gabriel, and young Dumaresq pushed off to take possession.
I thought this last a most extraordinary proceeding, France and Spain being then on friendly terms with each other; moreover, it at once disabused me of the impression that it was information only that Renouf was seeking. Still, it was no business of mine; and even had it been, that was certainly not the moment for me to interfere, surrounded as I was by some forty evil-looking ruffians, fully armed, and the schooner in charge of the second mate—the most evil-looking scoundrel of the lot, and, moreover, a man who had not attempted to conceal the fact that he intensely hated the very sight of us Englishmen.
The boats passed under the Spaniard’s stern, and a few minutes later Renouf appeared upon her poop with his sword drawn, and waved a signal to Danton the second mate; whereupon a man was sent aloft to our royal-yard, with instructions to keep a sharp look-out all round the horizon, and to at once report the appearance of any strange sail that might perchance heave in sight.
For close upon four hours the two craft remained thus hove-to, upon opposite tacks, gradually drifting further apart, except when Danton saw fit to fill upon the schooner from time to time for the purpose of again closing with the Spaniard, never nearing her, however, closer than half a mile to leeward; and during at least two hours of this time not a trace of life was to be discovered on board the bigger ship. At length, however, a slight movement became observable on board the Santa Theresa; and presently we saw that tackles were being got up on the main-topmast-stay and the lower yard-arms. The Spaniard’s boats were then hoisted out and lowered from the davits, until all of them appeared to be in the water, when the long-boat was hauled alongside to leeward, abreast the main hatchway; half a dozen men clambered down the side into her; and, after a short interval which was probably employed in taking off the hatches, it became apparent that they were hoisting cargo up out of the Santa Theresa’s hold, certain selected bales and packages of which were from time to time carefully lowered down into the long-boat; a sight which went far toward confirming certain dreadful suspicions that had been slowly taking shape within my mind from the moment when I had seen Renouf, with his drawn sword, upon the Spanish ship’s poop.
We now once more filled upon the schooner, and this time closed the bigger ship to leeward within less than a cable’s length, when we once more hove-to, on the same tack as our neighbour, and a powerful tackle was then got up on our lower yard-arm, and another on the triatic-stay.
By the time that these preparations were complete, the long-boat was loaded as deeply as was prudent, and she was at once cast off and taken in tow by four men in one of the schooner’s boats, the next largest of the Santa Theresa’s boats taking her place, for the reception of further cargo. The weather was at this time quite fine, with a very moderate breeze blowing, and so little swell running that it was not worth speaking about; yet the long-boat was no sooner fairly in tow than it became apparent that those in charge of her were in difficulties; and, but for the prompt measures taken by Danton, she would have missed the schooner altogether and gone wallowing away to leeward. With our assistance, however, she was got alongside, after a fashion, and brought to the schooner’s lee gangway, when it became apparent that those in charge of her were so helplessly drunk that they could hardly stand. Yet, somehow, they managed, with assistance, to clamber up our low side and reach the deck; when, as well as their drunken state would allow, they forthwith proceeded, in ribald language, to entertain their more sober shipmates with a tale of gross, wanton, cruel outrage, perpetrated on board the Spaniard, that made my blood boil with indignation, and caused me, thick-skinned sailor as I was, to blush at the thought that the perpetrators were, like myself, human. I noticed that Danton listened with greedy ears to the foul recital; and by and by, when the long-boat’s cargo had been roused out of her and struck down our main hatchway, he turned the schooner over to the carpenter, and, taking four fresh and sober hands with him, proceeded on board the Santa Theresa, leaving the four drunken ruffians behind.
Shortly after the departure of the long-boat, one of the cutters came drifting down to us, loaded to her gunwale, and the four intoxicated scoundrels in charge of her amply verified the revolting story told by their predecessors, adding such details as abundantly confirmed my suspicions that the Jean Bart was no privateer, but an out-and-out pirate of the deepest dye. Their tale so inflamed the sober portion of our crew, who had remained on board the schooner, that at one moment it looked very much as though they were about to throw off all the trammels of discipline and obedience, and proceed forthwith on board the Spaniard, to participate in the saturnalia still in progress there; and it was only by the production of a lavish allowance of rum, and a promise from the carpenter that they should all have their turn on board the doomed ship, that they could be restrained from heaving the cutter’s cargo overboard—instead of hoisting it out and passing it down the hatchway,—seizing the boat, and proceeding on board the Spaniard en masse. As for me, it may be imagined what a raging fever of indignation and fury I was thrown into by what I had heard; and it was made all the more unendurable by the circumstance that I was utterly powerless to interfere. For what could I and my four fellow-countrymen say or do to restrain some eighty lawless ruffians animated by all the vilest and most evil passions that the human breast ever harboured? Absolutely nothing! not even though we should resolve to lay down our lives in the attempt. We might destroy some twenty or thirty of the Frenchmen, perhaps, before we ourselves went under, but that would in nowise serve the unhappy Spaniards, who would still be at the mercy of the ruthless survivors. A thousand schemes suggested themselves to me, but there was not a practical one among them all, not one that offered the remotest prospect of success; and, with a bitter execration at our helplessness, I was at length obliged to admit that things must take their course, so far as we were concerned. But, although helpless to intervene just then, I saw that there was a possibility of the Frenchmen’s excesses bringing retribution in their train. For every man who had thus far come from the Spanish ship had been almost helplessly drunk; and I saw no especial reason why the rest should not be in the same condition. And, if they were, what might not five resolute, reckless Englishmen be able to do?
I had observed that, when the carpenter found himself compelled to bribe what I may term the sober half of the schooner’s crew to remain aboard, by producing a quantity of rum, my four English shipmates exhibited no backwardness in accepting and swallowing the very liberal allowance that had been offered to them; I also accepted mine; and, upon the pretence of being thirsty and therefore desiring to add water to it, I took it aft to the scuttle-butt, deftly hove the spirit overboard, and filling the pannikin with water, drank the contents with the greatest apparent gusto. And now, as certain vague possibilities began to present themselves to my mind, I contrived to draw Hardy, Green, Anstey, and Sendell away from the crowd of excited, chattering Frenchmen that swarmed in the waist and around the hatchway; and, getting them down into the deserted forecastle, I briefly and rapidly explained to them all that I had discovered relative to the real character of the Jean Bart and her crew, as well as the nature of the doings aboard the Spanish ship; and, having thus wrought them up to a proper pitch of indignation, I unfolded to them my somewhat hazy plans, and inquired whether they were disposed to aid me in them. To my delight, I found that they were with me, heart and soul. They had never very greatly relished their compulsory service aboard the schooner, and now that they were made aware of her true character and that of her crew, they professed themselves ready and eager to do anything I might propose in order to escape the thraldom of a continuation of such service and companionship. Whereupon I bade them accept all the drink that might be offered them, but to religiously abstain from swallowing another drop of it, and to hold themselves in readiness to act under my leadership whenever I might deem that the favourable moment for such action had arrived.