A Pirate of the Caribbees

by Harry Collingwood

Bang! bang! bang! Our modest broadside of three six-pounders spoke out almost simultaneously. I did not see the shot strike anywhere, but almost immediately afterwards down came her maintopmast and the peak of her mainsail. Her main-masthead had been shot away, and the Dolores at least was safe; for the pirates, having lost their after-sail, would now be compelled to make a running fight of it before the wind, which would enable Christie to haul his wind and get out of danger. Our men raised a cheer at their lucky shot, and I, determined not to throw away the least advantage, gave orders to port the helm and bring the schooner to the wind on the starboard tack, so getting the weather-gage of the brigantine. As we rounded-to our antagonist fell off, the two craft thus presenting their larboard broadsides to each other; and, both being ready, we fired at precisely the same moment, the report of the two discharges being so absolutely coincident that I did not know the brigantine had fired until her shot came smashing in through our bulwarks, wounding five men and rendering one of our six-pounders useless by dismounting it. So close were we to each other by this time that before we could load again the brigantine had passed astern of us, and none of our guns would bear upon her or hers upon us. Her crew were doing their utmost to keep her close to the wind, but with the peak of her mainsail down she would not lay any higher than within about eight points; and I determined to take the utmost advantage of her comparatively helpless position while I might, for a lucky shot on her part might make her case ours at any moment. I therefore signed to the helmsman to put down his helm, and at the same moment gave the order—

“Ready about! helm’s a-lee!”

The nimble little schooner spun round upon her heel as smartly as a dancing girl, presenting her starboard broadside to the brigantine.

“Stand by your starboard broadside, and fire as your guns bear!” shouted I; and as we swept round almost square athwart our antagonist’s stern the six-pounders once more spoke out, one shot striking the stern of her fair amidships and smashing her wheel to pieces, while the other two took her in the larboard quarter at an angle that must have caused them to traverse very nearly three-quarters of the length of her deck before they passed out through her starboard bulwarks.

The brigantine, no longer under the control of her helm, fell off until she was running dead before the wind, when the pirates trimmed their yards square; and a moment later I saw a number of her hands in the fore rigging swarming aloft. The moment that her starboard broadside could be brought to bear upon us she fired; and the next moment our bowsprit and foretopmast both went, the former, with the flying-jib, towing under the bows, while the latter dangled to leeward by its rigging, with the royal towing in the water alongside. Our lads, having by this time reloaded the starboard guns, again fired, hulling the pirate, and then, by my orders, left their guns to clear away the wreck; for, encumbered as we now were, with the jib under the bows and the square canvas hanging over the side, the schooner was gradually coming-to, although her helm was hard a-weather.

This ended the fight, for when I next found time to look at the brigantine she had studding-sail booms rigged out on both sides and her people were busy getting the studding-sails upon her, while the straight wake that she was making showed that they had already contrived to rig up some temporary contrivance for steering her. Seeing this, I at once hove the schooner to, and went to work to repair damages; for, now that I had had the opportunity to discover the stuff of which Señor Morillo was made, it struck me as by no means improbable that the moment he had repaired his damages he would return and attack us afresh.

Altogether the fight had not lasted longer than some eight or ten minutes at the utmost, but during that short time we had lost two men, killed outright, while six—including myself—were wounded, four of them severely. Christie, recognising that his duty was to take care of the prize, had hauled his wind when we passed ahead of him, and was now about a mile to windward, with his maintopsail to the mast; but when he saw that the fight was over he filled away and came booming down to us, sweeping close athwart our stern and heaving-to close to leeward of us. As he bore down upon us I saw him in the mizzen rigging, speaking-trumpet in hand; and when he was within hailing distance he hailed to ask if he could be of any assistance, adding that one of the passengers professed to be a doctor and had chivalrously offered his services, should they be required. This was good news to me indeed, for, being a small craft, we carried no surgeon, and but for this proffered help our poor wounded lads would have been obliged to trust pretty much to chance and such unskilled help as we could have afforded them among ourselves. I hailed back, expressing my thanks for the offer, and at once sent away a boat for the medico, not caring that Christie should run the risk of sending away a boat’s crew out of his own scanty company.

In about ten minutes the boat returned, bringing in her a little, swarthy, burnt-up specimen of a Spaniard, and a most portentous-looking case of surgical instruments. But, although by no means handsome, Señor Pacheco soon proved himself to be both warm-hearted and skilful, ministering to the wounded with the utmost tenderness and with a touch as light and gentle as a woman’s. When he had attended to the others I requested him to oblige me so far as to bind up my shoulder afresh, which he at once did, informing me at the same time that it was an exceedingly ugly wound, and that I must be particularly careful lest gangrene should supervene, in which case, if my life could be saved at the expense of my arm, I should have reason to esteem myself exceptionally fortunate. He remained on board, chatting with me for about an hour, after he had coopered me up, and very kindly promised to visit me and his other patients again in the afternoon, if I would send a boat for him: but he declined my invitation to breakfast, upon the plea that he had already taken first breakfast, while it was still too early for the second. He was full of polite compliments and congratulations upon our having beaten off such a desperado as Morillo was known to be, and graphically described the consternation that had prevailed in the cabins of the Dolores when the brigantine was identified as the notorious Guerrilla.

Contrary to my expectations, and greatly to my relief, the pirates did not return to attack us; and as a measure of precaution,—in case the idea should occur to Morillo later on,—as soon as our damages were repaired I stood to the northward and westward all that day, shaping a fresh course for Morant Point at sunset that evening. The sun went down in a heavy bank of clouds that had been gathering on the western horizon all the afternoon and slowly working up against the wind,—an almost certain precursor of a thunderstorm,—and as the dusk closed down upon us the wind began to grow steadily lighter, until by the end of the first dog-watch the air was so scant as to barely give us steerage-way. The night closed down as dark as a wolf’s mouth—so dark, indeed, that, standing at the taffrail, I could only barely, and with the utmost difficulty, trace the position of the main rigging against the intense blackness of the sky. As for the Dolores, we lost sight of her altogether, and could only determine her position by the dim, uncertain haze of light that faintly streamed above her high bulwarks from the skylight of her saloon, or by the momentary gleam of a lantern passing along her decks and blinking intermittently through her open ports. This intense darkness lasted only about half an hour, however, when sheet-lightning began to flicker softly low down upon the western horizon, causing the image of the ship—now some two miles astern of us—to stand out for an instant like a cunningly wrought model in luminous bronze against the ebony blackness of the sky behind her.

With the setting-in of the lightning the last faint breathing of the wind died away altogether, leaving us and the Spaniard to box the compass in the midst of a glassy calm, the sweltering heat of which was but partially relieved by the flapping of our big mainsail as the schooner heaved languidly upon the low swell that came creeping down upon us from the north-east. The night seemed preternaturally still, the silence which enveloped us being so profound that the noises of the ship—the occasional heavy flap of her canvas, accompanied by a rain-like pattering of reef-points; the creak of the jaws of the mainboom or of the gaff overhead on the mast; the jerk of the mainsheet tautening out suddenly to the heave of the schooner; the kicking of the rudder, and the gurgling swirl of water about it and along the bends—only served to emphasise while they broke in upon it with an irritating harshness altogether disproportionate to their volume. So intense was the silence outside the ship that one seemed constrained to listen intently for some sound, some startling cry, to come floating across the glassy water to break it; and the suspense and anxiety of waiting, despite one’s better judgment, for such a sound, caused the discordant noises inboard to quickly become acutely distressing. At least such was my feeling at the time, a feeling that possibly may have grown out of the increasing smart of my wound, which was now giving me so much pain that I had little hope of getting any sleep that night, especially as the heat below was absolutely stifling.