Commodore Paul Jones 25

Commodore Paul Jones 25

The great guns had been cast loose and provided; having been run in

and loaded, they were run out and a turn taken with the training

tackles to hold them steady. The magazines had been opened, and the

gunner and his mates stationed inside the wetted woolen screen, which

minimized the danger of fire, to hand out charges of powder to the

lads called powder boys, or powder "monkeys," who, with their canvas

carrying boxes, were clustered about the hatches. The gun captains saw

that the guns were properly primed, and they looked carefully after

the slow matches used to discharge the pieces, keeping them lighted

and freely burning. In the iron racks provided were laid rows of round

shot, with here and there a stand of grape. Arm chests were opened and

cutlasses and pistols distributed, and the racks filled with boarding

pikes. Many of the officers discarded their hats and put on round

steel boarding caps with dropped cheek pieces. Swords were buckled on

and the priming of pistols carefully looked to. The men in many cases

stripped off their shirts and jackets, laid aside caps and shoes, and

slipped into their stations half naked, with only a pair of trousers

and their arms upon them. Division tubs filled with water were placed

conveniently at hand, and the decks were well sanded to prevent them

from becoming slippery with blood when the action began. The pumps

were overhauled and put in good condition, and hose led along the

decks in case of fire. The carpenter and his mates, well provided with

shot plugs to stop up possible holes, were stationed in the more

vulnerable parts of the ship. The boats were wrapped with canvas to

prevent splintering under heavy shot, and heavy nettings triced up

fore and aft as a protection against boarders. Preventer braces were

rove from the more important yardarms, the heavier yards were slung

with chains, and the principal rigging, including the backstays,

stoppered to minimize the danger in case they should be carried away

by shot. Grapnels, strong iron hooks securely fastened to the ends of

stout ropes or slender iron chains, were swung from every yardarm, and

laid along the bulwarks in case it became possible or desirable to

lash the ships together. Everything which would impede the working of

the guns or hinder the fighting of the men was either stowed below or

thrown overboard. Around the masts and at the braces the sail trimmers

were clustered, some of them armed with boarding axes or hatchets,

handy for cutting away wreckage. Aft on the quarter-deck and forward

on the forecastle large bodies of French marines were drawn up, musket

in hand.

 

The broad, old-fashioned tops of the Richard were filled with seamen

and marines, armed with muskets and having buckets full of small

grenades close at hand. Among these seamen were many of the more agile

and daring among the topmen--who from their stations in making and

taking in sail were designated as "light yardmen"--while the marines

stationed in the tops were selected for their skill as marksmen. The

main body of the crew was distributed at the battery of great guns on

the main deck, which were in charge of Richard Dale and a French

lieutenant colonel of infantry, named de Weibert. In the gloomy

recesses of the gun room, close to the water line, a little group of

men was told off to fight the heavy 18-pounders. Around the hatches

leading to the hold was stationed another body of seamen and marines

with the master at arms, all armed to the teeth, to guard the English

prisoners, whose number is variously stated from two to three hundred.

The relieving tackles to use in steering the ship in case the wheel

was carried away occupied the attention of another group.

 

Far below the water line in the dark depths of the ship--a bloody

place familiarly known as the cockpit--the surgeon and his mates

unconcernedly spread out the foreboding array of ghastly instruments

and appliances of the rude surgery of the rude period, in anticipation

of the demands certain to be made upon them. At the break of the poop

a veteran quartermaster and several assistants stood grasping the

great wheel of the ship with sturdy fingers. Little groups of men were

congregated on the quarter-deck and forecastle and in the gangways to

man the 9-pounders, which were to play so important a part in the

action. Jones himself, a quiet, composed little figure of slender

proportions, paced steadily to and fro athwart the ship, now eagerly

peering ahead as the shades of night descended, now casting a solemn

glance aloft at the swelling canvas softly rounded out into huge

curves in the gentle breeze. Ever and anon he threw a keen glance back

toward the Alliance. When his gaze fell upon her, the compression of

his lips and the fierceness of his look boded ill for Landais when he

had time to deal with him.

 

What must have been his thoughts in this momentous hour! One likes to

dwell upon him there and then; so alone and so undaunted on that old

deck in that gray twilight, resolutely proceeding to battle with a

ship which, now that it was in plain view, his practised eye easily

determined surpassed his own in every particular. At such a moment,

when every faculty of his mind naturally would be needed to fight his

own vessel, suggestions of treachery and disobedience and an utter

inability to tell what his cowardly and soon-to-be-proved traitorous

subordinate would do, made his situation indeed unbearable. But he

dismissed all these things from his mind. Confident in the justice of

his cause--in the approval of Heaven for that cause--and full of trust

in his own ability and personality, he put these things out of his

head and swept on. He was a figure to inspire confidence on the deck

of any ship. The men, who had perhaps as vivid an appreciation of

their situation and all its dangers as he had himself, looked to their

captain and took confidence in the quiet poise of the lithe figure at

the break of the poop, balancing itself so easily to the lumbering

roll of the great ship. The young midshipmen, his personal aides,

slightly withdrawn from close contact with him, respected his silence

as he paced to and fro.

 

Presently another graceful active figure, belonging to the first

lieutenant of the ship, came running from below, walked rapidly along

the deck, sprang up the ladder, and stopped before the little captain,

whom he overtowered to a degree. He saluted gravely, and announced

that the Richard was clear, the men at quarters, and the ship was

ready for action. After a few moments of conversation Jones and Dale

descended to the lower deck and walked through the ship. A hearty word

of appreciation and encouragement here and there, as occasion

suggested, heartened and stimulated the reckless crew, until they had

almost risen to the captain's level. Presently he returned to the deck

alone. A few final directions, one last glance of approval at the

Pallas closing in on the Scarborough, one last regret, one last flush

of indignation as he looked toward the Alliance--a moment, and the

battle would be joined.

 

It was about seven o'clock in the evening. The harvest moon had long

since risen in the eastern sky, and was flooding the pallid sea with

its glorious radiance. On the western horizon the broad, bright beacon

of Flamborough Head was sending out its bright ray of yellow light

over the trembling water. With a night glass, clusters of people could

be seen upon the shore and upon the ships anchored under the guns of

Scarborough Castle, towering grim and black against the horizon. Ahead

was the white Serapis, calmly confident, lying broadside on, port

shutters triced up, lights streaming from every opening. She lay with

her topsails to the mast, gallantly waiting. Upon her, too, like

preparations for combat had been made. Along her decks the same

beating call to battle had rolled. Men who spake the same language,

who read the same Bible, who but a few years since had loved the same

flag, who had vied with each other in loyalty to a common king, now

made ready to hurl death and destruction at each other. Presently

sharp words of command rang out; there was a sudden bustle on the deck

of the English ship. The braces were manned, the yards swung, and the

Serapis slowly gathered way and gently forged ahead. Then all was

still once more on the serene English ship.

 

As the Richard drew nearer to the Serapis a deep silence settled over

the American ship. Even over the roughest and rudest among her crew

crept a feeling of awe at the terrible possibilities of the next few

moments. The magnitude of their task as they came nearer became more

apparent. Forced laughter died away; coarse words remained unspoken;

lips foreign to prayer formed words of belated and broken petition.

Thoughts went back to home: to sunny fields and vine-clad cottages in

France; to frontier huts in verdant clearings in America; to rude

houses in seaboard towns where the surf of the western ocean broke in

wild thunder upon the rocky shore. Pictures of wives, of children, of

mothers, of sweethearts, rose before the misted vision. Here and there

a younger man choked down a sob. The rude jests with which men

sometimes strive to disguise emotion fell unnoticed, or were sternly

reprehended by the older and more thoughtful. The fitful conversation

died away, and the silence was broken only by the soft sigh of the

wind through the top hamper, the gentle flap of the lighter sails as

the pitch of the ship threw the canvas back and forth, the soft splash

of the bluff bows through the water, the straining of the timbers, the

creak of the cordage through the blocks. Candle-filled battle lanterns

in long rows throughout the ship shed a dim radiance over the bodies

of the stalwart, half-naked, barefooted men. Here and there a brighter

flash told of moonlight reflected from some gleaming sword.

 

And the ships drew nearer--nearer. In a moment the dogs of war would

be loose. Presently a sound broke the silence, a hail from the English

ship. A man leaped up on her rail and a cry came faintly up through a

hollowed hand against the gentle breeze:

 

"What ship is that?"

 

The Richard had been kept skillfully end on to the Serapis, and the

commander of the latter ship had still some lingering doubts as to her

nationality. Measuring the distance between the two ships, Jones

quickly motioned to the watchful quartermaster beneath him. With eager

hands the men began, spoke by spoke, to shift the helm to starboard.

As the American ship began to swing to port it would be but a moment

before her broadside would be revealed and concealment at an end. That

precious moment, however, Jones would have. He sprang on the taffrail

to starboard, and, catching hold of the backstay, leaned far out and

called loudly:

 

"I do not understand you."

 

The Richard was swinging still more now. The English caught a glimpse

of a lighted port forward. From it a huge gun thrust its muzzle out

into the night. Quick and sharp came the hail once more:

 

"What ship is that? Answer at once or I fire!"

 

With what breathless silence the two ships listened for the reply!

 

The helm was hard over now, the quartermasters holding it down with

grim determination, sweat pouring from their foreheads, the ship

swinging broadside in to, and a little forward of, the Englishman.