True Blue Part 5

The British ships were cleared for action, and stood towards the enemy.

When the French perceived them, they also got under weigh and stood to sea, their line being formed as the ships drew from under the land. It was a fine sight to see the two fleets thus approaching each other in battle array. The hearts of the British tars warmed at it--their courage rose.

"We must have Billy up and show it to him!" exclaimed Paul Pringle to Peter Ogle. "Here, boy, you just run below and tell Sam Smatch to come up with the child. The Monsieurs won't begin to open fire yet, and it will do his heart good to see the sight--that it will."

Sam in a short time appeared with Billy in his arms on the forecastle.

"You don't want to keep a baby up here while de enemy is firing at us, Paul?" said Sam, with his teeth giving signs of an inclination to chatter.

"No fear, Sam," answered Paul with a quizzical look at the black.

"We'll take care that no harm comes to you and the baby."

He called him the baby; but little True Blue was now able to understand much that was said to him, while he could talk in a fashion of his own.

Though his sentences were not very long, his friends understood well enough what he meant to say; and, judging by their shouts of laughter, it might be supposed that his remarks were witty in the extreme.

Paul now lifted him up in his arms, and pointed to the French fleet.

"See here, Billy," said he, "look out there at the Monsieurs. You must learn to drub them some day, mind you, if we don't do it just now. You knows what I mean?"

"Ay, ay," answered Billy, doubling his little fists; "Billy fight en'y-- fight Fen!"

The sentiment was received with the loudest applause by the crew. On the Captain inquiring what had occurred, "It's little Billy True Blue, sir, standing up and a-swearin' as how he'll drub the Frenchmen," was the answer.

Even Captain Penrose at such a moment, which must be awful to all thinking men when about to engage in deadly combat with an enemy, could not help smiling at the account, however much he might be inclined to doubt the correctness of the a.s.sertion.

"Let him get a little bigger before we try his metal," he replied.

"Take him below at once. We are nearing the enemy's line, and shall soon have their shot come rattling aboard us."

The day had drawn on before the two hostile fleets could approach each other; but the rear ships, from want of wind, were far astern when the _Princessa_, _Shrewsbury_, _Intrepid_, and _Montague_, leading, followed closely by the _Terrible_ and _Ajax_, got into action and bore the whole fire of the van and centre of the French fleet. Right gallantly did the English tars stand to their guns; and seldom have they had more need of their boasted courage. Round-shot and chain-shot and langridge came showering thickly down upon them. The English line was to windward, and might easily have got out of the fight; but this the Captains disdained to do, though anxiously looking for the a.s.sistance of their friends.

The wind more than once shifted, and each time that it did so, it enabled the French to bring more of their ships down on the English centre, especially on the _Terrible_. She looked like some n.o.ble monster brought to bay. Although with one opponent abeam, and two others on her bows, and another on her quarter, pouring their shot in upon her, not a man flinched from his gun. Numbers fell, killed or wounded, but their places were instantly supplied by their shipmates.

Several guns were dismounted, but others were got over from the opposite side, and fought with the most determined spirit. The brave old Captain walked the quarterdeck as coolly as if no enemy was in sight, casting an eye aloft every now and then, to a.s.sure himself that the flag, which he had resolved should fly to the last, was still untouched.

Paul Pringle was one of the quartermasters at the helm. Several shipmates and friends had fallen around him. He saw the enemy's shot striking the ship's sides between wind and water, and he could not help feeling the very perilous position in which the old ship was placed. In spite, however, of the tumult, the death and havoc which raged around him, his thoughts turned anxiously towards his little charge down in the distant hold. "Well, if the Captain goes, and I go, and we all go who have charge of him, there is One above who will look after him and tend him better than we can," he said more than once to himself. "Still I wish he were safe out of this. For myself, I'd as lief go down with my colours flying as strike them; but that would be hard for him, and yet the old ship seems very uneasy. Heaven watch over him and protect him!"

As Paul said this to himself, a shot came flying from the ship on the _Terrible's_ quarter. Suddenly Paul was torn from his hold of the wheel, and, with two other men, was seen struggling on the other side of the deck. Captain Penrose had at that moment faced aft and seen what had occurred.

"Paul Pringle gone!" he said sadly to himself. "A better seaman never died fighting for his country."

Scarcely had the well-merited eulogium pa.s.sed his lips, than, from among the mangled forms of his shipmates, and covered from head to foot with their still warm blood, up sprang Paul himself, and with a bound returned to the wheel, the spokes of which he grasped firmly, singing out with stentorian voice and a prolonged cadence, "Steady!" as he pa.s.sed them rapidly round.

The man who had been ordered to take his place stopped when he saw him, with a look of amazement, uncertain whether it was his ghost or not.

"It's myself, Jack," said he; "but it was a near touch and go, and for some moments never did I expect to be on my legs again, let me tell you, lad."

Still hotter and hotter grew the fight; but the firing sent down the little air that there had been, and it fell so that no more of the British ships could get up to the support of those engaged. Still the van and centre bravely supported the unequal fight. The carpenter came and reported to the Captain that he had sounded the well, and that the water was gaining rapidly on the ship.

"Man the pumps, then, Mr Chips, and try and clear her," was the answer.

Some men were at once told off for that purpose, ill as they could be spared from the guns, and sent below.

Scarcely had they set to work when a shot came in, carrying off the heads of several of them; another shortly followed and destroyed the pumps. Mr Chips and the survivors, with some of his crew whom he collected, strenuously exerted themselves to repair the damage; but it was a long time before they could get the pumps to work.

All this time little Billy remained with Sam in the hold. Billy, it must be confessed, began to cry at the din and uproar, for he could not make out what it all meant; and the teeth of the poor black, who knew too well, began to chatter in right earnest, and his heart to quake. It was, in truth, a very trying time for Sam. He had a lantern with him, but it gave a very dim, uncertain light; and from the crashing just above his head, and the rushing sound close to his ear, he knew that the shots were finding their way in between wind and water, and that the latter element was gaining a rapid entrance into the ship. Every now and then the splinters, and occasionally also a shot, which fell through the hatchways, showed him that death was being dealt rapidly around just above him; and he dared not therefore move, as he wished to do, to the orlop-deck, into which the shot of an enemy does not often find its way.

Then, again, the sound of the water washing about below his feet alarmed him. He began to antic.i.p.ate the most dreadful of fates.

"De poor little Billy and I will be drowned down here in dis dark hole, and no one come to look for us. What me do? Oh dear! oh dear! Poor little Billy!"

Then he wrung his hands bitterly, while Billy stood between his knees, looking up inquiringly into his face, and wondering what made him so unhappy. Then Billy cried himself, not exactly knowing why. Then he stopped and endeavoured, as far as his knowledge of language would carry him, to ask Sam what was the matter.

"No ask, Billy--no ask," answered Sam, shaking his head mournfully. "De old ship very ill--hear how she groan and cry!"

Indeed, the sounds which reached their ears were very appalling. The ship herself groaned and moaned as the water rushed through her, and the pent-up air made its escape, and the bulkheads creaked loudly, and then from above came the saddest shrieks and cries. They were from the c.o.c.kpit, where the poor mangled fellows who had been brought below were placed under the hands of the surgeons. Besides all this, there was the unceasing roar and reverberation of the guns, shaking the ship's sides as if they were about to fall to pieces; while there was the rattle of shot, and the crash and tearing of planks, and the rending asunder of stout timber.

In time Billy got accustomed to the sounds, and did not seem to connect them with any especial danger to himself and his friends. Not so poor Sam, who grew more and more alarmed, and not without reason; for although he was unable to ascertain how the battle itself might terminate, he saw too evidently that unless it was shortly brought to an end, and the crew were able to exert themselves in keeping her afloat, the ship would go down with all on board still fighting on her decks.

Anxiously he waited. There seemed to be no cessation of firing. Then, taking Billy in his arms, he exclaimed, "Better be shot than stay and drown here!" and rushed frantically up the hatchway ladders.

"Down, Sam--down! Is the boy mad?" exclaimed several who saw him.

"You'll be having little Billy hit if you don't take care, Sam."

"No, Sam not mad; but de ship is sinking!" he cried out. "De ship is sinking, I say!"

These sounds very soon reached the ears of the Captain.

"Then we'll sink with her, my boys!" he exclaimed; "for strike that glorious flag of ours while I'm alive, I will not. Fight to the last, my lads, say I; and let us show the boasting Frenchmen what they are to expect from every ship they attack before they can hope to take her."

The officers and men who stood near echoed the sentiment, and from gun to gun along the decks it flew, till the whole ship's company broke forth into one loud enthusiastic cheer.

Probably the Frenchmen heard it; but they continued firing with effect, till suddenly their helms were put up, and, their rigging being in far better condition than that of the English, away they stood before the wind towards the mouth of the Chesapeake; and as the shades of night were rapidly closing down on the world of waters, they were soon hid from sight. The English seamen, as they receded into obscurity, looked at the enemy with hatred and contempt. Forbidden by the Admiral to follow, and in truth unable to do so, they felt like chained mastiffs bearded in their kennels by a pack of yelping hounds, who have carried off their bones and pretty severely handled them at the same time. It must be confessed, indeed, that although the French could not claim a victory, they decidedly had the best of it in the fight, their ships having suffered much less than those of the English.

The Count de Gra.s.se, in the _Ville de Paris_, commanded, and he gained his object of landing a body of troops to a.s.sist the Americans, which contributed so much to their success over Lord Cornwallis.

Once more the British ships were left alone, the enemy having, to all appearance, vanished into thin air. The reports brought from time to time to Captain Penrose were truly disheartening. With many men killed, and still greater numbers wounded, and the rest pretty well knocked up with their exertions, it was difficult work to keep the pumps going, by which alone the ship could be saved from going down. There was to be no slumber or rest for any one during all that night; and the Captain and officers could only feel thankful that a gale did not spring up, or that the enemy did not come out and have a brush with them.

When morning broke, the signal for the fleet to get more to windward and to repair damages was flying at the masthead of the flagship. The order was obeyed, and all the day was spent in plugging shot-holes, and in bending new sails or mending rent ones, and in reeving fresh running rigging. Captain Penrose, with an excusable feeling, could not bring himself to reveal the condition of the old _Terrible_ to the Admiral.

"If we must go down, let us first get alongside the enemy, and then, yardarm to yardarm, let us both go down together, or carry her by boarding, and win a new ship for ourselves!" he exclaimed while talking the matter over with his officers.

The idea was approved of by all of them, and they all expressed a hope that the opportunity might be allowed them of carrying it into execution. As was intended, it was repeated to the men, and soon pa.s.sed along the decks, all joining heartily in the wish that, they might thus have the chance of punishing the enemy.

"But what is to be done with little Billy True Blue?" inquired Sam Smatch. "He can't board with the rest, I guess."

"No, Sam; but we will have a bodyguard for him," observed Peter Ogle.

"When Paul Pringle comes for'ard, we'll ax him what he says to it. When we board and drive the Frenchmen before us, the bodyguard, with Billy in the middle, must follow closely after; and then, d'ye see, we shall win a prize, take care of Billy, and lick the Frenchmen all under one."

When Paul Pringle heard of the plan, he highly approved of it, at the same time that he put the question, "Who's to take care of Billy, mates, and form this same bodyguard you speak of?"

Now, of course, everybody would wish to do the fighting part, and to be among the first on board the enemy's ship. Who would form the bodyguard? That was a poser. Of course Sam Smatch would be one; but then by himself he would not be of much use, as his wooden leg might chance to stick in a hole and stop his progress. At last they agreed to refer the matter to the Captain, and to get him to tell off a body of men for that purpose.

Paul Pringle was selected to be the bearer of the message. Hat in hand, he stood before his Captain.