A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SWORD-FISH AND THE WHALE.
Now again we had changed our course, and were going before the wind directly to the westward. The breeze was light, and better for a small vessel than for a heavy, deep-laden man-of-war, and we might have run away in safety if we chose. That something was up, however, that meant adventure no one could help seeing.
Orders were given, without any bawling or shouting, to get down the top-gallant masts on deck. The crew worked like ants. (I loved them for the way they went about it.) The yards were lowered to the deck as quickly as if they were clothes-poles in a drying-yard. I had never seen anything done so neatly and with such despatch. Our headway decreased, of course, as we lost the use of our upper sails.
Mr. Spencer, who was aloft, reported to the deck: "We're hidden now, Captain Temple," he said. "She might pass within a quarter of a mile of us and never see us."
Purposely I had stepped close to him as he spoke to the Captain, and the latter's reply was as astonishing to me as it apparently startled the officer. Temple was eagerness in every line of his face. He struck his right fist into the palm of his left.
"The closer the better," he exclaimed. Then he turned. "What are the soundings?" he inquired of the bow-legged man who had hastened up. (I have forgotten to state that we had been heaving the lead for the last half-hour.)
"Six fathoms, sir, and shoaling; here it is, sir."
"Prepare to lower away the long-boat, Mr. Bullard," the skipper ordered, after a glance at the lead. "Mount the forward swivel in her, pick a crew, take a boat's compass, and make off due west. Mr. Spencer, you will take command of her. A word with you."
Every one looked at the Captain in astonishment, but no one asked a question or put in a word. As I was one of the crew of the long boat, I helped to get her ready and swing her overboard. The swivel was lashed on the forward gratings, and half a dozen muskets were handed down to her, and we shoved off. Mr. Spencer was pale and nervous. As we left the brig's side we saw that her helm had been put hard down, and that she once more was headed north. There was just enough wind to move her slowly through the water. In three minutes she was lost to sight.
We had been resting on our oars, and now Mr. Spencer spoke for the first time.
"Make no noise," he said. "Pull slowly, straight ahead."
We gave way, trying our best to silence the thumping in the row-locks. So light was the breeze that we could have kept apace of a vessel's sailing. For ten minutes we rowed on, and then we stopped again, and Spencer spoke.'
"Load that swivel and get ready with those muskets," he ordered.
I heard him mutter something in which I caught the words "tomfoolery" and "nonsense," and I looked back over my shoulder. A half-dozen perplexed-looking marines were grouped in the bow, and three sailors were ramming home a charge in the swivel.
"Lads," said Mr. Spencer, "it's Captain Temple's orders to fire into that frigate and get away, if we can. It all depends upon yourselves and the way this boat is handled whether we are blown out of the water, or cut to pieces, or escape with whole skins. I want no talking in the boat."
The man beside me on the thwart pulled his shirt over his head, and several others did likewise. They sat there bare from the waist up, and their torsos looked like those of the men in some of the old engravings in the handsome books I had read at Marshwood.
We were pulling slowly ahead now, and for fully a quarter of an hour we rowed without a break. Then Mr. Spencer called for oars, and we drifted a long time.
"Listen!" said one of the men in the bow, suddenly. He was bending over, with his hand making a hollow back of his ear. Half of the crew did likewise. For a minute I could hear nothing. Then I detected a groaning sound and a ripple of the water. It was the noise of a vessel's sailing.
"I can see her, sir," the bowman said in a hoarse whisper. "She's not five cable-lengths away."
The Lieutenant rose to his feet, and I could see that his hand was trembling as he fumbled in the breast of his jacket. He pulled a boatswain's whistle out and put it to his lips. But before he blew he spoke calmly.
"Bring that gun to bear on her," he said.
"Blow her out of water," spoke up the man beside me, with a chuckle.
What utter foolishness it seemed to me even then (and of a truth it probably was that anyhow) to attack a frigate in a long-boat armed with six muskets and a broadside that you could carry in the crown of your hat! But no one seemed to flinch.
"Give way softly," whispered Mr. Spencer, taking the tiller himself from the cockswain. Then, without warning, the silver pipe shrilled out, and he bawled at the top of his voice, as if he were commanding a ship's crew, instead of a handful of mystified seamen in a cockle-shell: "All hands on deck there, and lively! There's a vessel here astern of us! Port your helm!" He answered this order himself with an, "Ay, ay, sir," and leaning forward shouted, "Fire!"
Close to the water a great shape could be seen. The little gun slap-banged, and almost jumped overboard with the recoil. The six muskets rang; and, animated more by the gesture of Mr. Spencer's hand than the word, we laid back on the oars. We took perhaps some forty strokes or more, when the Lieutenant called for us to cease, with a sound of a hiss betwixt his teeth. The huge shape was now astern of us on the port hand close too. We had rowed across her bow! Now so tense was every nerve, and at such a tension was my mind, that I remembered everything I heard and saw so that I can repeat it to a dot.
The shot and volley had been followed by a confused cry and a great to-do from the direction of the frigate. Now we could hear a confused jumble of accents, and above it the cries of a man's voice in agony, "Oh, oh, I'm killed!" it said distinctly. Then a voice commanded silence, and we could make out every word that passed.
"Can you see anything ahead there, you men forward?" asked a voice so close that it appeared to be directed towards us.
"No, sir; not a thing, sir!" was the answer. If anything, it sounded closer than the first.
Then cool and distinct we caught the following orders, as we sat there holding our breaths, and our hearts beating so loudly that we nearly rocked the boat.
"Ready about! Ready! Ready! Put your helm down, quartermaster."
"Helm's alee, sir."
"Haul taut! Mainsail, haul!" (An anxious waiting pause.) "Head braces! Haul well taut! Let go, and haul!"
So firmly were these words impressed upon me that I never had to learn afterwards the orders for tacking ship.
Now followed a rumbling sound and some shouts and orders, and then a crash and an explosion that ripped the fog and cut great gashes of red flame through the gray opaque wall.
"Gee!" said the man next to me, with a shiver, "if that had caught us, eh!"
"Good-by, Mary Ann!" said the man in front, looking back over his shoulder.
Mr. Spencer was leaning forward. "They think we're off there," he whispered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Lads, you did well."
Now all was silence again, and the frigate gathered headway to the north. We staid where we were.
But now, if I shall live to be a hundred, I can never get one sound from my ears. To the eastward, and beyond the English vessel, sounded the shrilling of a fife. The first bars of "Yankee Doodle" was the tune it played. I almost leaped up to my feet, but the music was soon ended, for a rattling swingeing crash followed a burst of blurred red flame. I could smell the smoke from the frigate's broadside that reached us now. But it was not she that spoke the second time.
"Kill-Devil's got the weather-gauge of her, by Moses!" said the sailor next to me, putting his arm about my neck and giving me a hug.
"Silence in the boat there," ordered Mr. Spencer, angrily.
A roaring crash and confusion of explosions followed. The men in the bow began to laugh hysterically, and even Mr. Spencer joined them.
"The Young Eagle's got under her quarter. She'll rip her hide," he laughed. "Hark! did you hear that? It's the long twelve. Don't cheer, you fools!"
It was well he had given this order, for the men were about to burst into a shout. One of them dropped his oar, and was roundly reprimanded for it. But now a multitude of sounds came from the direction of the fighting-vessels. Groans and orders, cries and firing, and above them all the comments from close about me, that in my ignorance I did not exactly understand.
"Old Johnny Bull's missed stays," roared Mr. Spencer, laughing. "It's the sword-fish and the whale. Stab her again, Captain Temple, stab her again!"
A distinct broadside was heard, and then a cheer, followed by a confused roaring, with high treble shrieks, like a countertenor's note in a chorus.
"Bleed, bleed, bleed," muttered the man next to me.
"That was our cheer," gurgled the cockswain, sawing to and fro in his narrow little box; but no sooner had he spoken than a crash louder and brighter colored than any of the rest ripped out.
"The frigate's broadside!" gasped Mr. Spencer.
All was silence now.
"Heaven help us, they've sunk her!" the Lieutenant said, hoarsely.
No sound for full five minutes.
Three or four shots now, and then silence again. It appeared to me that the fog had lessened. A fine drizzle was falling; and we could see the outlines of a vessel not a quarter of a mile away from us.
"Pull for your lives!" cried Mr. Spencer. "Pull for your lives!"
We gave way together, and the heavy boat was soon hitting up a good pace and burying her nose as she rose and fell on the seas. The Lieutenant took a glance at the small compass, and headed us toward the northwest.
"We're close to Long Island," he said. "I can't make out the Young Eagle at all. That ship's the Britisher."
We had rowed but a few minutes longer when, as if by a miracle, the mist cleared away and the sun shone out. Clear and distinct a big vessel lay off to the eastward. The hated emblem of St. George flew at her peak.
"I thought as much," remarked Mr. Spencer to the cockswain. "She's grounded on the sand bank. That's what Temple counted on."
But hurrah! to the windward of the British vessel was a sight that gave us joy. There was the Young Eagle, eating up into the wind, with her jib-boom hanging, and one of her yards aslant. Somehow Temple had found time to get up his top-gallant masts again, for they were both in place. But now those on board the frigate had espied us; that was plain enough. She was not so large a vessel as she had first seemed, being of the smaller class, carrying probably not over thirty-two guns at the most. She was badly cut up from the effects of her encounter with the brig, however. Her foretopmast was gone, her mainyard was over the side, and all her running-gear in great confusion. If Captain Temple had been an officer of the regular navy he might have deserved cashiering for such a foolhardy bit of business as attacking a powerful vessel when he might have escaped. He was the only one on board the privateer, however, who had reckoned her at less than forty-four guns, and besides this, after his glance at the lead he knew where he was, and could have pricked his position to a certainty on the map. I know that now.
As Mr. Spencer had said, he surely must have counted on the proximity of the sand bar. If the frigate had been taking careful soundings, she would never have got on to it.
The fresh wind that had spoiled the fog was coming from the northward (I can recall no day in my seafaring life when it blew from so many different points as it had in the last ten hours). But I am wandering from the recital of what occurred, and now to pick it up again.
As I have stated, the frigate had seen us, and proof positive was not wanting, for a puff of smoke from one of the guns of her forward division leaped from her side, and the ball came spattering along toward us.
"Oh, shoot the shot!" laughed one of the bowmen. We were missed by fully a cable's length.
But the wind was against us, and with a good light to observe our progress I noticed that we were making slow headway. The long-boat was intended to be rowed by six oars of a side. Now, owing to the extra men that we carried, there was only room for ten men to do the pulling; and by some mistake the oars that we were wielding were not all of the same length, some of the cutter's having been put in by mistake. The weight of the swivel caused us to be well down by the head, moreover, and the cockswain had to mind his eye to keep headed straight. All idea, of course, of our getting back to the brig that day at least was done for, and to save ourselves we were making for the shore of Long Island, distant about three miles. But we were not out of range of the guns on the frigate, and consequently we were yet in danger.
"Come aft here, you men in the bow!" ordered Mr. Spencer. "She'll row better. Here, stir a foot!"
He looked back, and just as he did so there came another puff of smoke. I saw the ball smash into the top of a wave, strike the water again, and then, slightly deflected, it came right for us. I saw this first, and backed water, giving a shout of fear. The men in the bow gave a leap forward and tumbled in among us, sprawling over our heads and shoulders, and bruising shins and elbows.
If the shot had struck four inches lower we would have been sunk then and there. It caught the gunwale forward, just abreast of the grating on which the swivel was lashed. The poor fellow pulling the bow oar on that side gave a shriek and dropped his oar, clasping both hands about his head. I looked back and saw the blood trickling over his shoulders and through his fingers. A splinter had almost scalped him. We yawed about and shipped the top of a sea, and it looked like the end of matters, for we were out away to within eight inches of the water, and the bow badly stove and broken.
"Cast loose that gun and heave it overboard, two of you," roared Mr. Spencer. "The rest all aft. No! Steady! Debrin, you and Jones keep your place, and pull, do ye hear, pull."
I laid back with all my might, and so did the man next to me. The brave lad in the bow had recovered from the shock of his flesh-wound, and with another fellow cast off the lashings of the swivel and dumped it over the side. I can never forget the sight of that gory man working there with his broad naked back red from his head to his waist. As soon as it was finished he tumbled weakly across the thwart. The men in the stern-sheets were baling with their hands, and one was using Mr. Spencer's cocked hat with great effect, while Jones and I were giving way at top strength and keeping with a great effort the seas from broaching us. As the weight was now in the stern, we could ride, bar accidents, in half safety. And the oars were taken up again. The bowman bent over and tied up his wounded comrade's head with his neckerchief, and for this the other thanked him as he might for some slight courtesy. But a new terror threatened us.
Two successive shots that had been fired at us during the confusion went wide, but now we saw that they were lowering away a great barge over the Englishman's side, and that the men were sliding down into her.
"Heigh! Look there! The Young Eagle's coming down to pick us up, lads," cried Mr. Spencer, turning about in response to a touch on his elbow from the cockswain. "Pull now, and get down to it!"
He headed the long-boat more to the westward, and we could see that the Young Eagle had repaired some of her damage, and had tacked in the direction we were going. She would have passed almost within range of the frigate, but all at once the latter vessel gained sternway (her top-sails had been aback for some few minutes), and she worked off the bar. Our hopes of rescue fell. Turning on her heel, she made out to meet our brig. Now we perceived that the frigate's sides were gashed, and two or three of her ports astern had been knocked into one big opening. But the barge was after us! Every man rowing in our boat could count her strokes. There was no use of making light of it! She was gaining at every jump, lifting high above the top of a sea, and now and again almost disappearing.
There were twelve good men behind those long white sweeps, and they rowed a light boat with speed in her. We were making for the shore now, and grunting with the weight we put into every backward swing. Mr. Spencer was talking to us after the fashion of a cockswain to a racing crew, calling out continually:
"Lift her, boys! That's the ticket! Pull altogether," and so forth.
My mouth grew so dry that I could not swallow, and I could feel my head roll backward and forward. Presently I began to row with my eyes shut, for it seemed an effort to keep my lids from falling. One of the men in the stern began to spatter us with water to refresh us, for the sun was blistering hot by this time. The Lieutenant stopped his cackling.
The stroke oars were being helped at their work by two men pushing as the rowers pulled. I caught a dim sight of this, and wished that some one could lay hold of my sweep with me, for my forearms pained, and I felt gone in the pit of my stomach. How long we rowed that way I do not know, but suddenly I was awakened, as it were, by hearing Mr. Spencer say:
"Lads, you have held your own. Keep at it!" Then in a lower tone he added, "Get ready with those muskets."
This speech had called me to my senses, and it was almost with a shock of surprise that I found myself keeping up the stroke. My eyes had been closed so long that the light dazzled me, and at first I could see nothing, but I felt better than I had before I closed them. And now to say something that is of interest. A refreshment often comes to a man whose muscles have apparently expended all their strength, and thus it was with me. I was working on my heart and nerves alone, on the very life of me, as it were, and to keep this up too long means ruin; that is its limitation. When my eyes could focus, what little breath I had almost checked.
There was the English barge not three hundred yards astern! A despairing look behind me, and I saw that the shore was yet a half-mile off. The sea was breaking in little rolls of white on every hand, and we were in shoal water that had a peculiar yellowish look. I noticed Mr. Spencer kicking off his boots.
I closed my eyes again, for the sweat stung them, and I felt a blackness coming over me. But just then the crack of a musket sounded in front of me. It was followed by another, and a little action began, for the English boat was answering. I was wide-awake once more now, but in a dream apparently. The marines would stand up and fire, and then squat down and load again. I could hear the English bullets sing past.
"Ouch!" exclaimed the cockswain, all at once, as if he had dropped something on his toe.
A ball had struck him on the fleshy part of the thigh, and he sat there rubbing it and talking in such a comical way that the man on the thwart next to me laughed outright in a hoarse, jarring fashion.
A BREAKING WAVE CATCHING US UNDER THE QUARTER WE ROLLED OVER FAIRLY.
We were in the surf by this time, and the British barge was half-pistol-shot away, when No. 5 on the starboard hand fell over in a faint; the cockswain got another ball, this time in the wrist, that caused him to let go the tiller, and a breaking wave catching us under the quarter, we rolled over fairly end for end with a clatter. When I came up, there was a tremendous seething and bubbling in my ears, and putting out my arm I managed to catch hold of the tiller-hooks of the overturned boat, and hung on with all my might.
"Help me!" cried a voice. I looked about, and saw the wounded seaman weakly swimming alongside. I extended my hand to him, and observed that eight or ten others were holding fast with straining fingers to the long-boat.
The English barge was backing in carefully and with skill. We were not a cable's length from shore, and making for it hand over hand, swimming with the ease of a porpoise, was Mr. Spencer. I knew it was he by the gleam of gold lace on his high collar. But the seaman had grasped me so tightly that I lost my hold, and there came to me the sense that I was drowning, and did not care at all.