"Another gun, sir, but not so loud this time. I think it was a lighter
piece than the last."
It was nearly five minutes before the next report was made, so I
concluded that it must be a running fight--a chase, in fact--which was
going forward.
An interval of perhaps a minute passed, when I distinctly caught the
sound of a faint _boom_! and at the same moment the hail came down:
"Another gun, sir--a heavier one than the last; and sail ho! three
points on the weather bow."
"That will do," I replied; "you need not report the firing any further,
but keep a sharp lookout for another sail. What is the one in sight
like?"
"I can hardly tell at this distance, sir; the heads of her royals are
only just showing above the horizon, but they don't appear to be of any
great size."
Some four minutes later a second sail was reported, as I had expected;
the lookout now expressing an opinion that the new-comer was probably a
frigate, whilst the smaller craft, the leader in the race, was either a
ship-sloop or a brig. My other midshipman, a lad named Boyne, was now
on deck, having relieved Marchmont at noon, and this youngster, who had
taken the precaution to bring his telescope on deck with him, now
started forward and, with the agility of a monkey, soon placed himself
alongside the lookout. He immediately raised the telescope to his eye,
but we were by this time jumping into a short but lumpy sea, which made
the motion aloft very considerable; moreover, the position was not one
very favourable for observation, so he was rather a long time bringing
his glass to bear. At length, however, with the assistance of the
lookout, he managed to get both craft, one after the other, into his
field of vision, and after a good long look he reported:
"We are raising the strangers very fast, sir; I can see the royals and
half-way down the topgallant-sails of both. They are running dead
before the wind, with royal studding-sails set on both sides; the
leading ship is a brig, apparently British, and the one in chase seems
to be a frigate."
"Thank you, Mr Boyne," I replied. "Just stay there a little longer, if
you please; keep your eye on the strangers and report anything
noteworthy which you may see."
"Ay, ay, sir!" was the answer, and to work the lad again went with his
telescope most industriously.
We could now hear the firing quite distinctly on deck, but of course
were unable to see anything, though we expected to catch the gleam of
canvas on the horizon very shortly.
Presently young Boyne hailed again:
"The big fellow is overhauling the little one very fast, sir!"
"No doubt. How does the frigate bear now, Mr Boyne?"
"About three points on our weather bow, sir."
"Thank you! Keep her away a point,"--to the helmsman. "Mr Pottle,
take a small pull upon the weather-braces, if you please, and give her
another foot or two of the main sheet."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Pottle. "Lay aft here, you sea-dogs, and check
the weather-braces. Royal-yard there! hold on tight, we are going to
take a pull upon the weather-braces. Are you all ready there? Now
then, lads, steady, not too much; you've rather overdone it. Ease off
an inch or two of that royal-brace; haul taut to leeward, well there,
belay! Lee to'gallant-brace haul taut; topsail and fore-braces, well
there, belay of all. Forecastle there! ease up that flying-jib sheet.
What do you mean, you know-nothings, by flattening the sail like that?
So, that's better, belay!" And so the old fellow went on, making the
round of the decks and trimming every sail until it drew to the utmost
advantage.
At length, as the schooner rose upon the crest of a sea, the gleam of
the sun upon white canvas was caught for a moment and instantly reported
by a dozen eager voices from the forecastle. It then bore two and a
half points good upon the weather bow. I again hailed the royal-yard:
"Royal-yard there! can you make out how the strangers are steering, Mr
Boyne? We are heading north-east and by north."
"Ay, ay, sir; if that is the case the vessels ahead are steering about
west-south-west."
"That will do, Mr Boyne; you may come down, sir! Clear for action, Mr
Pottle, if you please, and then let the crew go to quarters."
"Ay, ay, sir. Clear for action, Mr Fidd!"
"_Twee, twee, twee-e-e, tweetle, weetle, tee, tee, tee-e_!" piped the
boatswain, following up his shrill music with the hoarse bellow of:
"All hands clear for action. Now then, old stew-pan,"--to the
cook--"dowse your galley-fire, my hearty, and stow away all your best
chiney down in the run. Tumble up there, you bull-dogs, tumble up!"
It was no very long job to prepare the schooner for action, and in
twenty minutes everything was ready--the magazine opened, powder and
shot passed up on deck, the guns cast loose and loaded, the pikes cut
adrift from the main-boom, arms served out to the crew, and every man at
his appointed station. By this time the lower yards of the brig had
risen level with the horizon, whilst the upper half of the frigate's
topsails could be seen from the deck. The firing, meanwhile, had gone
on pretty deliberately, and it was now possible to see from our deck,
with the aid of a telescope, that the sails of both pursuer and pursued
were suffering pretty extensively from the effects of the cannonade. It
was evident that each was firing high, the frigate trying to wing the
brig and so arrest her flight, whilst the brig was equally anxious to
maim her big antagonist's spars, by which means only could she hope to
effect her escape. So far the brig appeared to be getting rather the
best of it, for though her canvas showed the daylight through it in
several places, her spars and running gear still remained uninjured, and
every sail was drawing to the utmost advantage, whilst the frigate had
lost her fore royal-mast, which, with its sail, was hanging down over
the topgallant-sail and topsail, and the main-topmast studding-sail tack
was cut and the sail streaming out loose and flapping furiously in the
wind; these little casualties being sufficient to enable the brig to
hold her own, for the time being at least, in the unequal race. To
encourage the plucky little vessel, by showing her that help was at
hand, we now fired a gun and hoisted our colours, allowing the ensign to
stream as far out to leeward as possible, in the act of running it up to
the gaff-end, in order that those on board her might catch a glimpse of
it before it was hidden by our canvas. Approaching each other as we
were, nearly end on, we rose each other very rapidly; and at length we
in the _Dolphin_ had the satisfaction of seeing the frigate, the vessel
most distant from us, fairly hull-up. She had by this time cleared away
the wreck of her fore royal-mast, had spliced her studding-sail tack,
and was in the very act of setting the sail again when the brig's two
stern-chasers spoke out simultaneously, and next moment down toppled the
frigate's fore and main-topgallant-masts with all attached, the
topgallant studding-sail booms snapping off like carrots at the same
time, and there the noble craft was in a pretty mess. A ringing cheer,
which those on board the brig might almost have heard, went up from our
lads at this sight, followed by a hoarse murmur of:
"Lookout! now Johnny Crapeau has lost his temper, and the brig is going
to get _loco_ in 'arnest!" as the frigate put her helm down and fired
her whole broadside at the flying craft. There was not so very much
damage done, after all, so far as the brig was concerned. Her peak-
halliards were cut and she temporarily lost the use of her main trysail,
and we could see a rope's-end or two streaming out here and there in the
wind; but that was all, excepting that her canvas showed a few extra
eyelet-holes. With the frigate, however, it was different; by yielding
to his feeling of exasperation, as he had, her skipper had been betrayed
into a very unseamanlike act, in luffing his ship with all her studding-
sails upon her, and the result was that he lost the remainder of his
booms in an instant, and found himself in a worse pickle than ever.
By this time the brig had passed far enough to leeward of us to be able
to clearly distinguish the colour of our bunting; and seeing also that
we were indisputably holding our luff so as to close with the frigate,
she accepted us as a friend, notwithstanding our decidedly rakish
appearance, and at once coolly began to shorten sail, evidently now
determined, with our aid, to try conclusions with her big antagonist.
It was about time for us to do the same; we accordingly clewed up and
furled our royal and topgallant-sail, hauled down and stowed the gaff-
topsail and main-topmast staysail, brailed in the foresail, and triced
up the tack of the mainsail; which left the schooner in condition to be
worked by less than a dozen hands. By the time that this had been
accomplished, the running gear hauled taut, rope's-ends coiled down, and
everything made ship-shape on board us, we had arrived within a distance
of something like two miles of the frigate, at which juncture she fired
a shot at us from her bow gun, possibly as a hint to us not to interfere
with her. The shot fell short several yards.
"Umph!" remarked Woodford from his post at the helm, "nothing very
terrific about that! A twelve-pounder, apparently, and a shockingly
poor aim. Our thirty-two will make the Johnnies open their eyes with
astonishment, I expect."
"Yes," said I; "we ought to be able to reach her from here, so I'll let
`Long Tom' return their compliment. Forward, there! are you ready with
the pivot gun?"
"All ready, sir," was the reply.
"Then just give the frigate a taste of your quality. We will keep away
a couple of points so that you may have a fair chance; and see if you
can't make the shot tell."
"Ay, ay, sir; if I don't make the splinters fly you may stop my grog for
the next month," answered Collins, the captain of the gun, who happened
to be a bit of a favourite with me, and was a trifle free in his
language in consequence.
The gun was carefully levelled; and, when they were all ready, Woodford
gently put the helm up; the schooner gradually fell off from the wind,
and presently there was a deafening explosion, accompanied by a jarring
concussion which shook the schooner from stem to stern; and as the smoke
drove away to leeward we saw a jet of spray a dozen feet high shoot into
the air as the ball struck the crest of a wave, and in another instant a
white patch of naked wood appeared exactly in the centre of a port-sill,
showing where the shot had hulled the frigate.
"Good! if that hasn't crippled one of their guns I'm a Dutchman,"
ejaculated Woodford, letting the schooner come up "full and by" once
more.
"Very good indeed, Collins," I shouted. "Load again, my fine fellow, as
quickly as possible. Sail trimmers, ready about! Mr Boyne, see that
the muzzles of your larboard broadside guns are well elevated, and fire
as they are brought to bear. Take steady aim, lads, and do not throw
away a single shot if you can help it. Ha! he is going to rake us!
Down with your helm, Woodford. Helm's a-lee! Ease up your jib-sheets,
forward, there! Round in upon the main-sheet, smartly, men. Let draw
the fore-sheet; braces let go and haul!"
The schooner--what a beauty she was!--worked like a top, and was round
on the other tack, presenting her broadside to the frigate, when the
latter launched the whole contents of her larboard battery at us.
Almost at the same moment we fired the four eighteens in our larboard
battery at her; and then, before we had time to note the damage done, if
any, her shot came screaming about our ears. There was a crash on board
the schooner, but only one; it was caused by a shot passing through our
weather bulwarks and striking a ring-bolt in the deck, after which it
bounded high in the air and went overboard to leeward. There were a
couple of holes in our beautiful mainsail, and one in the flying-jib;
but beyond that we were uninjured. One of the men in the larboard
battery had his cheek slightly lacerated by a splinter, but with that
trifling exception none of us were any the worse. The frigate, however,
did not escape quite so easily. When we again looked at her it was seen
that we had knocked away her jib-boom close to the cap, and had cut away
her flying-jib halliards and stay, with the result that the sail was
towing under her forefoot; her fore-topsail tye had also been cut, and
the yard was down on the cap, rendering their plight worse than ever.
This loss of head sail occurring at a moment when, having partially
luffed to fire at us, the wind was well on her starboard quarter, the
frigate now showed symptoms of flying up into the wind altogether; and
although it was evident, from the sluggish way in which she did so, that
the tendency was being strongly counteracted by her helm, I soon saw
that her crew were powerless, and that fly into the wind she _would_, in
spite of them.
"Ready about again, lads!" cried I. "Now, Mr Marchmont, it is your
turn. By the time that we are fairly round the frigate's stern will be
turned directly toward you, offering an excellent mark. Let us see how
many of your shot you can send in through her cabin windows, will you?"
"Ay, ay, sir, we'll do our best," answered the lad, in high glee; and
then I saw him pass rapidly from one captain of a gun to another, and
heard him mention distinctly, in his excitement, something about
"bottles of grog."
The men grinned, turned their quids, hitched up the waistbands of their
breeches; squinted along the sights of their guns; looked at the
frigate, as though measuring her distance, and then adjusted the
elevation of their pieces with evidently the nicest judgment and the
very best of intentions.
Watching the frigate carefully, the helm was put down at just the right
moment; and as our topsail swept round and was braced
up--_bang_!--_bang_!--_bang_!--_bang_! roared our eighteens, away
skipped the shot, and crash went all four of them slap into the stern of
the disabled Frenchman, playing the very mischief with the gilt-ginger-
bread work with which that part of the ship was profusely decorated. A
rattling broadside from the brig now drew our attention to her, and we
saw that she was standing toward us, close-hauled on the larboard tack,
under topsails and topgallant-sails; and that she also had taken
advantage of the frigate's helpless situation to rake her most
handsomely.
The Frenchman, meanwhile, having got himself into what Courtenay would
have termed "the centre of a hobble," was very busily doing his best to
get out of it again--and in a very seamanlike way, too, notwithstanding
his former mistake--by clewing up and furling everything abaft his
mainmast and so trimming his yards as to cause the frigate to gather
stern-way and gradually pay off again. This, however, was a work of
some little time, hampered as the ship was with wreck forward; and
before it was done we had passed to windward of her, receiving in so
doing the fire of but seven of her sixteen larboard broadside guns, to
which we replied effectively with our starboard battery. Having reached
far enough to weather her on our next tack we went about, and, crossing
her bows, fired our larboard battery and our thirty-two pounder into her
again, raking her severely and, best of all, bringing her fore-topmast
down by the run. She had by this time paid off sufficiently to have
gathered head-way, and her crew actually managed to get her before the
wind; but it was only for a few minutes, she soon broached to again; and
being by this time almost entirely bereft of head sail--her foresail
alone remaining--there she hung, in the wind's eye, helpless, and
practically at our mercy. The _Dolphin_ was at once placed in an
advantageous position on the frigate's starboard bow, and kept there by
her topsail being laid aback, whilst the brig took up a corresponding
position on the enemy's starboard quarter; and we then both opened a
raking fire upon her so effectually that ten minutes later she hauled
down her colours and surrendered.