2016년 7월 5일 화요일

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.

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