Soon a gun from the after-battery of the Frenchman was fired. This was followed shortly by all the guns that would bear. Some of the shots crashed into the hull of the “Constellation,” and one of them killed several men. The division-officers glanced appealingly to Truxton, in the hope of the order to fire; but he merely held up his hand. Again the broadside came, and men seemed to be falling everywhere. The strain below and aloft was terrific. But the officers stood steadily, with a word of encouragement here and there, and the men did not flinch.
THE “CONSTELLATION” AND THE “VENGEANCE”
At last the “Constellation” came abreast the after-ports of the Frenchman, and Truxton, throwing her off a little, so that all his broadside would bear in a diagonal direction, loudly shouted the order to fire.
The telling broadside was delivered, and the battle was on in earnest. To those aloft the crash of the long eighteens into the hull of the enemy at every other downward roll of the “Constellation” showed how well the American gunners had learned to shoot, while the short bark of the cannonades and the shrieks in the brief pauses from the decks of the Frenchman told of the terrible effects of the fire among the enemy. The guns of the Frenchman were well served and rapidly fired, but they were aiming on the upward roll of the sea, and their shots went high. Several balls from the smaller pieces had lodged in the foremast and mainmast, and one had struck just below the futtock-band of the maintop, where Jarvis was, and sent the splinters flying up and all about him. Yard-arm to yard-arm they sailed for three long, bloody hours, until the firing of the Frenchman gradually slackened and then stopped almost altogether. The Americans had suffered less on the decks than aloft, and Jarvis’s topmen were employed most of the time in splicing and re-reeving gear. The discharge of the “Constellation’s” broadside-guns did not diminish for a moment, and so fast was the firing that many of the guns became overheated, and the men had to crawl out of the exposed ports to draw up buckets of water to cool them.
At about midnight Truxton managed to draw ahead of his adversary in the smoke, and, taking a raking position, sent in such a broadside that the Frenchman was silenced completely.
Jarvis and the men in the maintop had little time to use their muskets. Several long shots had struck the mast, and almost every shroud and backstay had been carried away. As the “Constellation” bore down upon her adversary to deal her the death-blow, the mast began swaying frightfully. There was a cry from the men at Jarvis’s side, and the marines and topmen began dropping through the lubber’s-hole, swinging themselves down the sides of the swaying mast by whatever gear they could lay their hands to.
Jarvis did not move. One of the older seamen took him by the shoulder and urged him to go below. The mast was going, he said, and it meant certain death to stay aloft.
Little Jarvis smiled at him. “This is my post of duty,” he replied, “and I am going to stay here until ordered below.”
At this moment a terrific crackling was heard, and the old man-o’-warsman went over the edge of the top. All the strain was on one or two of the shrouds, and, just as he reached the deck, with a tremendous crash the great mast went over the side.