Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came through the head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very next instant a bushel of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32-pound carronade, was crashed in on us amidships. I flung down the glass, and dived through the companion into the cabin—I am not ashamed to own it; and any man who would undervalue my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, or infernal effect of a discharge of grape. Round shot in broadsides is a joke to it; musketry is a joke to it; but only conjure up in your imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of well-grown plums, to the number of from sixty to one hundred and twenty, taking effect within a circle, not above ten feet in diameter, and that all this time there was neither honour nor glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I fancy I may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement.

I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up the planks of the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well down into the run, so as to be as much out of harm’s way as they could manage, but there was neither fear nor flinching amongst them; and although totally devoid of all gasconade—on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could do in their situation, to keep out of harm’s way, or at least to lessen the danger—there they sat, silent, and cool, and determined. “I shall never undervalue an American as an enemy again,” thought I. I lay down on the side of the little vessel, now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of Paul Brandywine, in a position that commanded a view of Obed’s face through the small scuttle. Ten minutes might have elapsed—a tearing crash—and a rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones had been thrown from aloft on it.

“That’s through the mainmast, I expect,” quoth Paul.

I looked from him to the Captain; a black thick stream of blood was trickling down behind his ear. Paul had noticed it also.

“You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see; give me the helm now, Captain;” and, crushed down as the poor fellow appeared to be under some fearful and mysterious consciousness of impending danger, he nevertheless addressed himself to take his Captain’s place.

“Hold your blasted tongue”—was the polite rejoinder.

“I say, Captain,”—shouted your humble servant, “you may as well eat pease with a pitchfork, as try to weather him. You are hooked, man, flounder as you will. Old Nick can’t shake you clear—so I won’t stand this any longer;” and making a spring, I jammed myself through the skylight, until I sat on the deck, looking aft, and confronting him, and there we were, stuck up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cherries on one stalk. I have often laughed over the figure we must have cut, but at the time there was that going on that would have made Comus himself look grave. I had at length fairly aroused the sleeping devil within him.

“Look out there, Lieutenant—look out there,”—and he pointed with his sinister claw down to leeward. I did so—whew!—what a sight for poor Master Thomas Cringle! “You are booked for an outside place, Master Tommy,” thought I to myself—for there was the corvette in very truth—she had just tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within musket-shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with the green, hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, and washing up in foam, like snow flakes, through the mid-ship ports, far aft on the quarterdeck, to the glorification of jack, who never minds a wet jacket, so long as he witnesses the discomfiture of his ally, Peter Pipeclay. The press of canvass she was carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear as glass, and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water, throughout her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, surmounted by a milk-white streak, broken at regular intervals into eleven goodly ports, from which the British cannon, ugly customers at the best, were grinning, tompion out, open-mouthed at us; and above all, the clean, well-stowed white hammocks filled the nettings, from tafferel to cathead oh! that I had been in one of them, snug on the berth deck! Aloft, a cloud of white sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say goodby to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow-wands, as if the devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was preparing fiddlesticks to play a spring with, on the cracking and straining weather shrouds and backstays, and tearing her sharp wedge-like bows out of the bowels of the long swell, until the cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were hove clean out of the sea, into which she would descend again with a roaring plunge, burying every thing up to the hause-holes, and driving the brine into mist, over the fore-top, like vapour from a waterfall, through which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on her bows flashed back the sunbeams in momentary rainbows. We were so near, that I could with the naked eye distinctly see the faces of the men. There were at least 150 determined fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands, wherever they could be posted to most advantage.

There they were in groups about the ports, (I could even see the captains of the guns, examining the locks,) in their clean white frocks and trowsers, the officers of the ship, and the marines, clearly distinguishable by their blue or red jackets. I could discern the very sparkle of the epaulets.

High overhead, the red cross, that for a thousand years “has braved the battle and the breeze,” blew out strong from the peak, like a sheet of flickering white flame, or a thing instinct with life, struggling to tear away the ensign haulyards, and to escape high into the clouds; while, from the main-royal-masthead, the long white pennant streamed upwards into the azure heavens, like a ray of silver light. Oh! it was a sight “most beautiful to see,” as the old song hath it,——-but I confess I would have preferred that pleasure from t’other side of the hedge.