Paul Jones

by Molly Elliot Seawell

At the first discharge two of the guns burst.

In an instant both ships were enveloped in smoke and utter darkness. By this time the Bon Homme Richard’s bow was just across the forefoot of the Serapis. In order to keep the wind and to deaden her way, the Bon Homme Richard’s topsails were backed, and she passed slowly ahead of the Serapis, taking the wind out of her sails. The Serapis was a short ship, and answered her helm beautifully, in contrast to the lumbering Bon Homme Richard. As soon as the wind reached him again, Captain Pearson, keeping his luff, came up on the weather quarter of the Bon Homme Richard, fairly taking the wind out of the American ship’s sails in turn. The Serapis let fly her starboard batteries, and the Bon Homme Richard replied with her port batteries; but at the very first discharge of the six eighteen-pound guns on the Bon Homme Richard, the pieces being old and defective, two of them burst with a terrific concussion, tearing out the main deck above them and killing nearly all of the guns’ crews that served them. As soon as the shock subsided, although the shrieks and groans of the wounded still resounded, Paul Jones ran to the companion ladder and saw Dale, with a pale but undaunted face, standing on the shattered gun deck, surrounded by wounded men and the awful débris of the exploded guns. Most of the ship’s lanterns had been put out by the concussion, and there was only a dim light that struggled with the darkness. The moonlight streamed in through the portholes clouded by the smoke from the Serapis’s guns, which thundered incessantly, hulling the Bon Homme Richard at every round.

“Two of the guns are gone, sir,” Dale said coolly, “and some of our brave boys. But we will fight the other four guns as long as they will hold together.”

“You are a man after my own heart!” cried Paul Jones, “and every gun on this ship will be fought as long as they will hold together; and if we go down, it will be with our ensign flying.”

In the midst of the smoke and confusion Dale then saw Danny Dixon running about picking up a row of cartridges that he had just laid down for the use of the guns, and which a stray spark might have ignited.

“Right for you, boy!” cried Dale; and then, turning to the men at the other four eighteen-pounders, he ordered the guns examined. Two of them were cracked from the muzzle down. This was a terrible blow to the Bon Homme Richard, as the loss of this battery would leave only thirty-two twelve-pound guns to fight fifty eighteen-pounders; for, although the Serapis was classed as a forty-four, she really carried fifty guns.

“Mr. Dale, I’ve got a good crew here as ain’t afeerd o’ nothin’,” said one of the gun captains, seeing that Dale hesitated to give the order to load and fire, “and I’ll resk it with these ’ere two eighteens.”

An instant later both of them were fired, and, as soon as the smoke drifted off, Dale, speechless with dismay, pointed to the two guns. Both of them were defective, and there was no possibility of firing them again; the only wonder had been that they had not exploded as the first two did.

The gun captain, sent by Dale, went up to the commodore on deck, where he stood calmly giving orders that were distinctly heard above the uproar, and manœuvring his ship with the same coolness as if he were working her into a friendly roadstead.