Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea Part 36

Broadside after broadside rolled and shrieked from ship to ship, as the air was filled with flying bits of iron.

_Crash! Crash! Crash!_

Travelling very slowly, for the wind was little more than sufficient to give them steering-way in the tide, the two antagonists drifted along for twenty minutes, at cable length (600 to 900 feet--about the distance of the 220 yard dash). But suddenly--_Boom!_ an explosion sounded in the gun-room of the _Good Richard_. Two of her eighteen-pounders had blown up back of the trunnions; many of the crew lay dead and dying, the after part of the main gun-deck was shattered like a reed: Senior Midshipman and Acting Lieutenant John Mayrant--who had command of this battery--was severely wounded in the head by a fragment of one of the exploded sh.e.l.ls, and was scorched by the blast of flame.

"Abandon your guns!" shouted First Lieutenant Dale, "and report with your remaining men to the main-deck battery!"

"All right!" answered Mayrant, as he bound a white kerchief around his bleeding head. "I'll be with you just as soon as I give them one more shot."

This he endeavored to do, but not a gun could be touched off. "The old sixteen-pounders that formed the battery of the lower gun-deck, did no service whatever, except firing eight shots in all," writes John Paul Jones. "Two out of three of them burst at the first fire, killing almost all the men who were stationed to manage them."

The gunnery of the _Good Richard_ was excellent. Though her battery was one-third lighter than that of the _Serapis_; though her gun-crews were composed--to a great extent--of French volunteers, who had never been at sea before--in quickness and rapidity of fire, the sh.e.l.ls from the American fell just as accurately as did those from the Britisher; pointed and gauged by regular, trained English men-of-war seamen. The roar of belching cannon was deafening. The superior weight and energy of the British shot began to tell decisively against the sputtering twelve-pounders of the _Richard_, in spite of the fact that they were being served with quickness and precision. As the two battling sea-monsters drifted slowly along, a pall of sulphurous smoke hung over their black hulls, like a sheet of escaping steam. They were drawing nearer and nearer to each other.

It was now about a quarter to eight. Wounded and dying littered the decks of both Britisher and American, but the fight was to the death.

"Luff! Luff!" cried Captain Pearson, as the _Richard_ began to forge near him. "Luff! Luff! and let fly with all guns at the water-line.

Sink the Yankee Pirate!"

But Paul Jones was intent upon grappling with his adversary. Quickly jerking the tiller to one side, he shoved the _Richard_ into the wind and endeavored to run her--bows on--into the side of his opponent. The _Serapis_ paid off, her stern swung to, and, before she could gather way, the _Richard_'s jib-boom shot over her larboard quarter and into the mizzen rigging.

Jones was delighted.

"Throw out the grappling hooks!" cried he, in shrill tones. "Hold tight to the Britisher and be prepared to board!"

In an instant, many clawing irons spun out into the mizzen stays of the _Serapis_; but, though they caught, the lines holding them soon parted. The _Serapis_ fell off and the _Richard_ lurched ahead.

Neither had been able to bring her broadsides to bear.

"We can't beat her by broadsiding," cried Jones. "We've _got_ to board!"

_Crash! Crash! Crash!_

Again the cannon made the splinters fly. Again the two game-c.o.c.ks spat at each other like angry cats, but, the fire from the _Richard_ was far weaker than before.

Commodore Jones walked hastily to the gun-deck.

"d.i.c.k," said he to Lieutenant Dale, "this fellow's metal is too heavy for us at this business. He is hammering us all to pieces. We must close with him! We must get hold of him! Be prepared at any moment to abandon this place and bring what men you have left on the spar-deck--and give them the small arms for boarding when you come up."

Lieutenant Dale saluted.

"All right!" cried he. "I'll be with you in a jiffy, Commodore."

As Jones walked hastily to the main deck--the Lieutenant ran to the store-room and dealt out cutla.s.ses, pistols and pikes, to the eager men. The deck was red with blood.

The worst carnage of all was at "number two" gun of the forward, starboard division. From the first broadside until the quarter-deck was abandoned, nineteen different men were on this gun, and, at this time, only one of the original crew remained. It was the little Indian, Antony Jeremiah; or, as his mates called him, "Red Cherry."

"Let me join you," he cried, as he saw Mayrant's boarding party.

Seizing a cutla.s.s and dirk, he stood beside the cl.u.s.ter of men, eager and keen to have a chance at the enemy. A soul of fire was that of the little savage--and now he had a splendid opportunity to indulge in the natural blood-thirst of his race, for an Indian loves a good fight, particularly when he is upon the winning side.

The vessels swung on slowly--the fire from the _Serapis_ still strong and accurate; the sputtering volleys from the _Richard_ growing weaker and weaker. Only three of the nine-pounders on the starboard quarter-deck were serviceable; the entire gun-deck battery was silent and abandoned.

"We have him," cheerfully cried Captain Pearson to one of his aides.

"But, h.e.l.lo"--he continued, "what sail is that?"

As he spoke the _Alliance_ came bounding across the waves, headed for the two combatants, and looking as if she were to speedily close the struggle.

"The fight is at an end," said Jones, jubilantly.

Imagine his astonishment, chagrin, and mortification! Instead of pounding the English vessel, the French ally discharged a broadside full into the stern of the _Richard_, ran off to the northward, close hauled, and soon was beyond gun-shot.

"Coward!" shouted John Paul, shaking his fist at the retreating ally.

"I'll get even with you for this if it takes me twenty years!"

No wonder he was angered, for, with his main battery completely silenced, his ship beginning to sink, nearly half his crew disabled, his wheel shot away, and his consort firing into him, there remained but one chance of victory for John Paul Jones: to foul the enemy and board her.

Luckily a spare tiller had been fitted to the rudder stem of the _Richard_ below the main tiller--before leaving port--because of the fear that the wheel would be disabled. The foresight of the Commodore had effected this; and now--by means of this extra steering-gear--the battered warrior-ship was enabled to make one, last, desperate lunge for victory. It was touch and go with John Paul Jones.

"I could distinctly hear his voice amid the crashing of musketry,"

says a seaman. "He was cheering on the French marines in their own tongue, uttering such imprecations upon the enemy as I have never before or since heard in French, or any other language. He exhorted them to take good aim, pointed out the object of their fire, and frequently took their loaded muskets from their hands in order to shoot them himself. In fact, towards the very last, he had about him a group of half a dozen marines who did nothing but load their firelocks and hand them to the Commodore; who fired them from his own shoulder, standing on the quarter-deck rail by the main topmast backstay."

Luck now came to the disabled _Richard_. A fortunate puff of wind struck and filled her sails, shooting her alongside of the growling _Serapis_, and to windward. The canvas of the Britisher flapped uselessly against her spars. She was blanketed and lost steering-way.

In a moment the jib-boom of the English vessel ran over the p.o.o.p-deck of the American ship. It was seized, grappled by a turn of small hawsers, and made fast to the mizzen-mast.

"She's ours!" cried John Paul Jones. "Seize that anchor and splice it down hard!"

As he spoke, the fluke of the starboard anchor of the _Serapis_ hooked in the mizzen chains. It was lashed fast, and the _Richard_ had been saved.

_Rattle! Rattle! Crash!_ sounded the muskets of the French marines.

The English tried to cut their anchor chains and get free, but all who attempted to sever these hawsers were struck dead by the accurate b.a.l.l.s from the marksmen on the p.o.o.p-deck and round-house of the _Richard_.

"I demand your surrender!" shouted Pearson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From an old print.

"THEY SWARMED INTO THE FORECASTLE AMIDST FIERCE CHEERS."]

"Surrender?" cried John Paul Jones. "Why, I am just beginning to fight!"

Then he turned to John Mayrant, who stood ready to rush across the hammock-nettings into the waist of the enemy's ship. Twenty-seven sailors were nearby, each with a cutla.s.s and two ship's pistols.

"Board 'em!" he cried.

Over the rail went the seamen--monkey-wise--over the rail, John Mayrant leading with a dirk in his teeth, like a Bermuda pirate. They swarmed into the forecastle amidst fierce cheers, the rattle of musketry, and the hiss of flames. Just at the moment that John Mayrant's feet struck the enemy's deck, a sailor thrust a boarding-pike through the fleshy part of his right thigh. _Crack!_ a pistol spat at him, and he fell prostrate.

"Remember Portsea jail! Remember Portsea jail!" cried the dauntless raider, rushing down into the forecastle with his wild, yelping sailors. Pearson stood there; crest-fallen--abashed.

Seizing the ensign-halyards of the _Serapis_, as the raging torrent of seamen rolled towards him, the brave English sea-captain hauled the flag of his ship to the deck.

The _Richard_ had won!