The wind was freshening fast, the cold was growing more intense, threat of snow was in the air. On the forecastle clustered the dark Canadians, half-naked and painted to the waist, joining musketry and Mohawk whoop to the din; La Salle and Grandville fought the lower-deck guns, young Bienville the upper tier after Chevalier de Ligondez was struck down. From every hand iron and lead were smashing into the devoted Pelican, until her decks were red with frozen blood as she tacked and wore, and the handlines were crimson-dripping streaks; yet ever she evaded the shoals. Fitzmaurice of Kerry tended a gun or knelt beside a dying man indifferently, and from the tall figure of Iberville shot swift and cool orders to Crawford, who helped swing the great rudder of the doomed ship. Doomed she was, as every man there knew ere the fight was an hour gone, yet in the furious exultancy of battle none cared.
Solid shot and grape and musketry they poured into her, and she gave back shot and grape and ball—but each time a little less swiftly, as her gunners died, and scurvy-smitten scarecrows staggered up from below to drag weakly at the guns. Foot by foot, it seemed, she was driven back, cornered and hemmed in, the three ships bearing around her like wolves around a stag at bay. Noon came and passed, but none thought of food. Crawford, following the anxious looks of Iberville, saw the storm-clouds sweeping blackly down, knew the wind was thickening, swung the helm grimly. Then, suddenly, from Iberville burst one shrill and frightful yell.
“Wear, Crawford, wear—for the love of the saints, wear——”
Crawford flung himself to help the St. Malo man at the helm. There upon them was bearing the Hampshire, driving full down the wind with obvious intent to ram and sink the battered Pelican. A huge ship was the Hampshire, a royal navy ship new and stoutly built, and Fletcher was on her quarterdeck. He had Iberville to reckon with, however, and he failed in his stroke, and Crawford saw him shaking his fist and cursing in furious rage as he lost the weather-gauge and was evaded.
With this, the two ships ran down the wind yard to yard, so close that boarders gathered in readiness, so close that bulwarks almost touched at every sea, so close that English and French answered curse with curse, grenade with grenade—while the great guns thundered in broadsides that left each ship rocking and reeling and staggering down the rolling seas. Fletcher would not be first to draw off, nor would Iberville; so the guns roared, and men died, until a last crashing broadside sent the Pelican up into the wind with half her rigging cut away and more than half the men in her waist mowed down by a storm of grape. In this moment she was theirs for the taking.
But there was none to take her.
Crawford, struck down by a splinter, was dragged to his feet by the shrill, terrible scream of dying men. He looked for the enemy ship, and saw only a welter of shattered masts and rigging; like a sounding whale she had plunged bodily, was gone all in an instant, down until she staggered upon the shallows and lay quiet with only her topmasts above water, and wounded men shrieking as they drowned.
“Hard over!” shouted Iberville, and leaped to the helm. “At them, Bienville—fire!”
Once more the guns crashed out, and now for the last time. As Iberville swooped upon her, the Hudson’s Bay reeled up into the wind and lowered flag and foresail. The Dering, not waiting to face the Frenchman alone, shook out her reefed sails and went scudding away through the whistling tempest for Fort Nelson and safety.
Iberville groaned as his gaze swept the red-frozen deck, while his ship bore down upon Nick Smithsend’s crippled frigate. Then he was at the helm, once more in action.