Captain Tracy and Norah at home—A letter from Gerald—His adventures—A cruise off Hispaniola—Engagement with a French squadron—The enemy put to flight—Death of a young midshipman—Return to Port Royal—A second cruise, and capture of several rich merchantmen—Gerald in command of the Flora—His steward Peter—More tidings of the pirates—The Champion sent with despatches to the Leeward Islands—Joins the Buckingham in attacking a fort at Martinico—Generous conduct of Captain Tyrrell—Peter’s narrative—His capture by pirates, and escape.
Norah and her father had for many months been living an uneventful life in their pretty little cottage near Waterford. She was his constant companion; indeed, she never ventured out without him. Things had come to a pretty pass, as he observed, when a young lady couldn’t take a walk by herself without the risk of being carried off by a party of filibustering squireens, quite as bad in their way as the picarooning rascals in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main, who had often in days of yore given him so much anxiety—not that they ever had caught him, for he was too much on his guard, though he had been chased well-nigh a score of times; and he intended to be on his guard now, and, as he hoped, with the same success.
This state of things, therefore, did not much concern him, as he was glad of Norah’s society, and was always as ready to walk with her as she was with him. Their walks, indeed, seldom extended much beyond Waterford, or the often-trod road to Widow Massey’s house. Norah never passed many days without paying her a visit. They were now looking forward to receiving news of Owen, or indeed, as they hoped, seeing him himself, as the Ouzel Galley, unless detained longer than was expected, would some time since have commenced her homeward voyage. A letter had come from Gerald saying that he had just seen her on her way round to Montego Bay, and giving an account of himself and what he had seen and done up to that time. He promised to write a longer letter when he had more to say. A couple of months or more after the arrival of Gerald’s first letter another was received from him.
“Dear sister Norah,” it ran, “I promised to spin you a long yarn, so here goes, and I hope that you’ll get it some day. I told you in my last that I had seen the Ouzel Galley under way from Montego Bay, and I suppose Owen has long before this delivered all the messages I sent by him; and if not, I dare say he will before long, if he hasn’t forgotten them. No matter; they were not very important, so you needn’t scold him for his negligence.
“I forget if I told you that, while our ship was undergoing repairs in dock at Port Royal, Lieutenant Foley, Molly—I mean Lord Mountstephen—with Nat Kiddle and me, and about twenty of our hands, were turned over to the Augusta, 60-gun ship, commanded by Captain Forrest; and immediately afterwards were ordered to proceed to sea, accompanied by two other ships under his orders, the Edinburgh, of sixty-four guns, Captain Langdon, and the Dreadnought, of sixty guns, Captain Morris Suckling. We soon found that we were to cruise off Cape François, on the north coast of Saint Domingo, to watch a French squadron under Commodore De Kearsaint, who was collecting a large number of merchantmen which he was to convoy from that port to Europe. The admiral had been informed that the French had only three line-of-battle ships, which, although somewhat larger than we were, he knew very well that we should thrash if we could come up with them. We gained intelligence, however, from a French despatch vessel which we captured, that the enemy’s squadron had lately been increased by four other ships, one of which, by-the-by, was a ship of ours—the Greenwich—of fifty guns, captured a few months ago, when commanded by Captain Roddam, off this very island. He had nothing to be ashamed of, for with his single ship he bravely faced five sail of the line and several frigates, and wasn’t taken till he had lost all chance of escaping except by going to the bottom. Thus, you see, the French had seven ships to our three, and we heard besides that they had been strongly manned by volunteers from the garrison and merchant vessels, and made sure that they should either drive us away or capture us.
“Notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy, we were not to be put to flight, but kept our ground as if no Frenchmen were in the neighbourhood. We had been for some days cruising off the cape, always near enough to keep the port in sight, so that no vessel could steal out without our knowing it, when early in the morning the Dreadnought, which was inshore of us, made the signal that the enemy was in sight, and before noon we could see the whole French squadron standing out in line towards us, the wind being about north-east—if you get the chart, father will explain matters to you. We were to windward of them, keeping close together, though not so close as the Frenchmen, who seemed very anxious to be backing up each other. Our captain now made the signal for the other two captains to come on board the Augusta. As soon as they stepped on the quarter-deck, Captain Forrest, after shaking hands, said, ‘Well, gentlemen, you see the Frenchmen are come out to engage us.’ On which Captain Suckling quickly replied, ‘I think it would be a pity to disappoint them.’ ‘And what do you say?’ asked our captain, turning to Captain Langdon. ‘I heartily agree with Captain Suckling,’ was the answer. ‘If we disable them, we shall do good service by preventing them from convoying the merchant vessels, and maybe we shall take one or two of them. Of one thing I feel very sure, that they won’t take us.’
“The three captains being agreed, the other two went back to their ships, and we hoisted the signal to make all sail and to close the enemy. The Dreadnought led in our line; the Intrepide, the French commodore’s ship, led in that of the enemy, followed by the Greenwich. The wind was light, and it seemed to me that we should never get into action. Though I’ve seen a good deal of fighting on a small scale, yet this affair was likely to prove more serious than any I had yet engaged in. I was stationed on the main-deck, and the scene was very different to what I had been accustomed to on board the Champion where we’ve no deck above us and can see everything that is going forward. Here, it was only by looking through a port that I could get a glimpse of the enemy’s ships, as they stood on in a long line, one closely following the other—so closely, indeed, that the leading ship had the jibboom end of the one next her in line almost over her taffrail. Molly, Kiddle, and I had charge of the guns manned by the Champion’s people. We reminded them that they must show what they were made of, and maintain the honour of the little ship; they one and all answered that they would; and they looked as if they intended to keep to their word, as they stood with their shirts off, handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and belts round their waists, ready to fire as soon as the order should be given. In a line behind where we stood were the powder-boys seated on their tubs, cracking jokes, and seeming altogether to forget that we should have, in a few minutes, showers of round shot rattling about our ears. Though we used to call Mountstephen Molly, he didn’t look a bit like a Molly now, for he walked the deck as calm and composed as if nothing particular was going to happen. I asked him what o’clock it was. He said, ‘Twenty minutes past three.’ Just then the Dreadnought opened her fire on the French commodore; and didn’t Captain Suckling pound him—knocking away in a few minutes several of his spars, and so wounding his rigging that he fell on board the Greenwich, which, as I said, was close astern of him. As the Dreadnought stood on, we got up, and the word to fire was passed along our decks; and you may be sure we quickly obeyed it, blazing away at the two French ships already foul of each other, when they drove down upon the third astern, and there all three lay, unable to get clear one of the other.
“The French had a 64 and a 44 gun ship, besides two 32-gun frigates, which were able to manoeuvre, and these, as you may suppose, did not remain quiet while the Augusta and Edinburgh were blazing away at the three ships, which still lay jammed together. It made the fight, however, more equal than it would otherwise have been. Their shot came on board us pretty thickly, and not a few of our men were struck down. Among them was our first lieutenant, who raised his hand for a moment, and then fell back, dead. Soon afterwards I saw poor Mountstephen fall; I ran to help him, when I found that one of his legs had been shot away and the other fearfully injured. I ordered a couple of men to carry him below; I should have liked to go with him, poor fellow, but I couldn’t leave the deck. I had returned to my station, when I found myself suddenly splashed all over with what I thought was water, though it was rather warm.
“‘What, Paddy Tracy, are you wounded?’ I heard Nat Kiddle sing out.
“‘Not that I know of,’ I answered; ‘I don’t feel like it.’ Then I saw what had happened—a man standing close to me had been cut right in two by a round shot, which came through the port, wounding a couple of men besides.