“Stand by with those grappling irons!” shouts Commodore Paul Jones.
Lieutenant Mayrant throws the grapples with a seaman’s accuracy; they catch, as he means they shall, in the mizzen backstays of the Englishman. But the ships have too much way on. The Richard forges ahead; the Serapis, every sail flattened, backs free; the lines part. Before Lieutenant Mayrant can take his jolly boarders over the Richard’s bows, the ships have swung apart, and fifty feet of open water yawn between them.
The Serapis falls to leeward; at the end of the next five minutes both ships are back in their old positions, with their broadside guns—or what are left of them—at that furious work of hammer and tongs.
At this crashing business of broadsiding, the Richard has no chance, and Commodore Paul Jones—a smile on his dauntless lips, eyes bright and glancing like those of a child with a new toy—stands well aware of it. He must board the Englishman, or he is lost. As showing what Captain Pearson’s eighteen-pounders can do, the Richard’s starboard battery—being the one in action—shows nine of its twelve-pounders dismounted from their carriages; while, of the one hundred and forty-three officers and men who belong with the main gun-deck battery under Lieutenant Dale, eighty-seven lie dead and wounded. The gun-deck itself, a-litter with dismounted guns and shot-smashed carriages and tackle, is slippery with blood, and choked by a red clutter of dead and wounded sailors.
Commodore Paul Jones turns to his orderly,
Jack Downes. “Present my compliments to Lieutenant Dale,” says lie, “and ask him to step aft.”
Bloody, powder-grimed, Lieutenant Dale responds.
“Dick,” observes Commodore Paul Jones, “he’s too heavy for us. We must close with him; we must get hold of him. Bring what men you have to the spar-deck, and serve out the small arms for boarding.”
The breeze veers to the west, and freshens up a bit. This helps the Richard sooner than it does the Serapis; Commodore Paul Jones, having advantage of it, wears and makes directly for his enemy. This move, like a stroke of genius, brings him within one hundred feet of the Serapis, directly between it and the wind. It is his purpose to blanket the enemy, and steal the breeze from him. He succeeds; the Serapis loses way.
It is now the turn of Commodore Paul Jones to go across his enemy’s forefoot, and retort upon the Serapis that manouvre which Captain Pearson attempted against the Richard. But with this difference: Captain Pearson’s purpose was to rake; Commodore Paul Jones’ purpose is to board; for he lias now no guns wherewith to rake.