Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would carry the weight and drag of the sails. To mend the matter, Jonathan was coming up hand over hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of canvass; it was clear that escape was next to impossible.

“Clear away the larboard guns!” I absolutely jumped off the deck with astonishment—who could have spoken it? It appeared such downright madness to show fight under the very muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half of whose broadside was sufficient to sink us. It was the captain, however, and there was nothing for it but to obey.

In an instant, the creaking and screaming of the carronade slides, the rattling of the carriage of the long twelve-pounder amidships, the thumping and punching of handspikes, and the dancing and jumping of jack himself, were heard through the whistling of the breeze, as the guns were being shotted and run out. In a few seconds all was still again, but the rushing sound of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising gale amongst the rigging.

The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses buckled round their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, and many with nothing but their trowsers on.

“Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him. I will yaw the ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right into his bows. Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to the wind.” As she came round, blaze went our carronades and long-gun in succession, with goodwill and good aim, and down came his foretop-sail on the cap, with all the superincumbent spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away. The men instinctively cheered. “That will do; now knock off, my boys, and let us run for it. Keep her away again; make all sail.”

Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but just as we were getting before the wind, he yawed, and let drive his whole broadside; and fearfully did it transmogrify us. Half an hour before we were as gay a little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of 120 as fine fellows as ever manned a British man-of-war. The iron-shower sped—ten of the hundred and twenty never saw the sun rise again; seventeen more were wounded, three mortally; we had eight shot between wind and water, our maintop-mast shot away as clean as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut to pieces. Another broadside succeeded; but by this time we had bore up thanks to the loss of our after sail, we could do nothing else; and what was better luck still, whilst the loss of our maintop-mast paid the brig off on the one hand, the loss of head-sail in the frigate brought her as quickly to the wind on the other; thus most of her shot fell astern of us; and, before she could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and carried her maintop-mast overboard.

This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were; and as the night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend. With breathless anxiety did we carry on through that night, expecting every lurch to send our remaining topmast by the board; but the weather moderated, and next morning the sun shone on our bloodstained decks, at anchor off the entrance to St George’s harbour.

I was the mate of the watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp, well-defined apertures, made by the 24-pound shot from the long guns, with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32-pound carronades; but the men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood an water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I turned away, when Mr Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of a favourite, came up to me—“Mr Cringle, the Captain has sent for you; poor Mr Johnstone is fast going, he wants to see you.”

I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried below after the frigate’s second broadside; but the excitement of a boy, who had seldom smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me on deck the whole night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for him, until the old gunner spoke.

I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a sight that quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grapeshot had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his bloody hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed, except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive contraction and distension of his nostrils.