The first thing to be done on board the Bon Homme Richard was to attempt
to check the fire. The ceilings had caught, and were burning slowly but
determinedly. The fire having got within a few inches of the powder
magazine, Paul Jones ordered all the powder brought up on deck. There
were more than a hundred prisoners on the Bon Homme Richard before the
fight, and the men taken from the Serapis brought the number up to over
five hundred. Those who were not disabled were put to work at the pumps,
where they toiled with the desperate energy of men struggling for their
lives. Paul Jones himself escorted Captain Pearson to the cabin, saying:
“I beg that you will make yourself as comfortable as circumstances will
admit. You will have the consolation of knowing that no man ever made a
better defense of his ship.”
Captain Pearson bowed, and answered:
“Your conduct is most generous—” and hesitated, as if to express
surprise at such good treatment.
“You will find, I hope, that all American officers are generous in
victory; and should we have the misfortune to be forced to haul down our
colors, I trust that we would show the fortitude of the brave who are
unfortunate,” said Paul Jones, with dignity—and, with a low bow, he
retired from the cabin, leaving Captain Pearson alone.
As soon as the commodore returned to the deck he ordered the lashings to
be cut, as the ships continued to catch fire from each other, and there
was great danger to the powder on both.
“And both ships must be saved, my lads!” cried he to the men, who were
working like Trojans to save the Serapis from the flames.
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the men heartily.
As soon as they were free, the Bon Homme Richard drifted rapidly off.
The Serapis was hailed and ordered to follow.
On board the Serapis Dale was in command. Exhausted by his five hours of
work and fighting, he sat down on a dismounted gun near the binnacle.
The reaction had come. A profound sadness seized him, and he could
almost have wept when he saw the destruction around him. But nothing
made him forget his duty for a moment. As soon as the ships parted he
ordered the wreck of the mainmast to be cleared away, the headyards
braced aback, and the helm put hard down. This was promptly done, but
still the ship did not pay off. Imagining that her steering gear was cut
to pieces, he ordered it examined, but, to his surprise, found it
uninjured. Puzzled by so strange a state of things, Dale jumped from his
seat, only to fall his length upon the deck. Bill Green ran to him and
helped him up; but Dale could not stand upon his feet.
“And natural you can’t, sir, seein’ as your ankle is wounded,” said
Bill.
“Is it?” answered Dale, faintly. “I did not know until this moment I was
hurt.”
Just then the pilot boat containing Lieutenant Lunt and sixteen men
hailed the ship alongside.
“For Heaven’s sake, Lunt, come aboard!” cried Dale; “your services are
needed here.”
As Lunt came over the side the sailing master of the Serapis appeared,
and, going up to Dale, said:
“Sir, the ship can’t pay off, because she has an anchor under foot.”
This was the anchor dropped by Captain Pearson when the ships first
fouled. The cable was cut, and the ship instantly answered the helm. She
was much cut up aloft, but her hull was sound, and she had no water in
her. Preparations were at once made to repair her. A jury mast was
rigged in place of the mainmast, and new sails were bent instead of
those that had been torn to pieces by hand grenades exploded in her
rigging.
The night was now far spent. The moon, that had shone so brilliantly
during the fury of the battle, now hung low in the misty night sky that
glimmered with a pale and waning light. A white fog was creeping slowly
in from the Atlantic, and a fitful wind ruffled the black and
phosphorescent water.
The first thing to be attended to, while the carpenters were at work
upon the crippled Serapis and the almost wrecked Bon Homme Richard, was
the care of the wounded and the burial of the dead. As there was great
doubt whether the Bon Homme Richard could be kept afloat until daylight,
no wounded were removed from the Serapis, where the British surgeons
attended to them. Her dead also were buried from her deck, one of the
British lieutenants reading the service of the Established Church, in an
agitated voice. On board the Bon Homme Richard, Paul Jones, as he always
did, read the Psalms for the dead over the brave men who had fallen
around him. Everything was done quickly, but with proper reverence, for,
no matter how much encompassed by danger Paul Jones was, he never forgot
to give fitting burial to the departed brave. Like all men of feeling
heart and deep imagination, Paul Jones, after the inspiration of battle
and the glory of victory, always felt a keen distress at the ruin and
desolation it wrought. The sight of the gallant men cold in death, that
lay in rows upon the reeking deck of the Bon Homme Richard, covered by
the flag whose honor they had so gloriously maintained, wrung his heart
and filled his eyes with tears. And this man, who had dared death from
battle, fire, and water rather than strike his flag, faltered and almost
wept as he read the solemn words of the Psalmist before the dead were
laid at rest in the ocean.
As each body fell swiftly and silently overboard a heavy blow seemed
struck upon the heart of Paul Jones. The officers and men crowded the
deck, standing with uncovered heads, while a little way off the Serapis
loomed up in the fast rising mist, and from her side a frequent dull
splash showed that the same solemn ceremony was taking place upon her
decks.
At last it was over. The men with a sudden alacrity folded up the flags,
quickly carried the grewsome planks and canvas below, and the
boatswain’s pipe sounded cheerily calling the men to work.
The reaction from the burial of the dead at such a time is always great,
and the officers and men vie in their quick rebound to cheerfulness.
Paul Jones felt this instant and magnetic change. Ten minutes from the
time that the last sad ceremonies were over he walked the deck with his
usual graceful and alert step, ordering, overlooking, and encouraging
everybody.
Meanwhile a boat had pulled off from the Serapis, and when Paul Jones,
who had gone below for a moment to see how the carpenters were getting
on, came upon deck, Dale was being helped over the side. Paul Jones went
immediately up to him. Dale leaned heavily upon a sailor, and Paul Jones
at once saw that his favorite lieutenant was lame.
“My lieutenant, you are wounded!” he cried; and Dale, at hearing the
very words he had addressed to the commodore, smiled faintly.
“Yes, sir,” he answered; “I did not know it until a little while ago. I
don’t know when I was hurt, or how, but I was forced to give up the
command to Mr. Lunt and return to you. But how is your wound?”
“It is nothing—nothing!” cried Paul Jones, but really, although his
wound in the head was not dangerous, he had lost much blood, and only
his indomitable will kept him upon his feet.
Wretched indeed was the plight of the brave Bon Homme Richard.
Immortalized she was, but she had given her life for her victory. So
desperate was her condition between decks that many of the sailors,
regarding her as a floating coffin, sprang overboard and swam to the
still stanch Serapis, and to the Alliance, that now appeared off the
weather quarter of the gallant ship she had so treacherously deserted.
It was now nearly daylight, but the fog enveloped everything, and the
eye could scarcely penetrate a hundred yards. A wind still blew
fitfully, driving the fog hither and thither, but as fast as it was
drifted landward another great fog bank would come rolling sullenly in
from the open Atlantic. It deadened the sounds of the saw and the hammer
and the constant creaking of the pumps as the men toiled at them. Once
it almost lifted. It was just at sunrise, and a great golden lance
seemed to penetrate it straight from heaven. Like magic, the white mist
parted, the sky, the sea, and the air were suddenly flooded with a
rose-pink glow, and the fair and lovely light shone full upon the lithe
figure of Paul Jones as he stood on the poop with his face turned to the
east. His arms were folded, and his inscrutable dark eyes, full of a
strange rapture, were uplifted to the sky. Glory was the breath of his
life, and here was glory enough for a lifetime, as he saw his own
shattered ship, and the Serapis conquered but still majestic.
For five minutes he stood motionless. He was recalling the same hour the
day before, and now his proudest wish was fulfilled. Alone and
single-handed he had beaten an enemy at least twice as strong as
himself. He had made the name of the American navy respected from
thenceforward, and his far-seeing mind realized the mighty effect of his
victory. After a while he roused himself from his reverie, which was a
sort of exaltation, and swept the horizon with his glass. Not a sail was
in sight where twenty-four hours before they had whitened the seas
around him. The very name of Paul Jones had frightened them into harbor.
But soon the fog descended again, and Paul Jones devoted himself to one
intense and long-continued effort to save the smoldering, leaking, but
glorious Bon Homme Richard. It was his ardent wish to save his ship, the
eloquent witness of his prowess, and to that work he turned with almost
superhuman energy. The dim morning wore on. The men were mostly below,
fighting the leaks and the fire, and the decks were comparatively
deserted, when Paul Jones, still on the poop, caught sight of Danny
Dixon running aft as hard as he could clip it.
“Hold on!” cried Paul Jones. “There is work for everybody on this ship.
Why are you idle?”
“I ain’t idle, sir,” answered Danny, touching his cap. “The flag as was
most shot to pieces is hangin’ astern now, under water; and I thought,
sir, as you wouldn’t want to lose that ’ere flag, I’d git it out o’ the
water for the honor o’ the ship, sir.”
“You are right; go and get it,” answered Paul Jones, smiling.
Danny disappeared astern, and presently came up dripping. But he had the
torn flag, and was wringing it out as he came along.
“Here she is, sir,” said he, as Paul Jones took it; “and here’s a little
rag o’ it, sir, that I hopes you’ll let me keep in my ditty box.”
He showed a scrap a few inches square that he had torn from the
shattered flagstaff.
“Yes, you may,” replied Paul Jones. “That is in place of the shirt you
took off and gave for a gunwad. I see you have another.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Danny, who had on a shirt about twice too big for
him. “Mr. Green, he flung it to me jist now. I dunno where he got it
from.”
As the hours passed on the terrible situation of the Bon Homme Richard
became plainer. She was literally cut to pieces between decks, from her
spar deck to the water line, and there was not planking enough in the
whole squadron to patch her up. The wind also began to rise, and Paul
Jones, remembering that where eleven British cruisers had been searching
for him the day before, knew that probably fifty would be after him by
sundown, and that he must make his way toward the Texel as quickly as
possible.
About ten o’clock in the morning the fire was at last out, and Paul
Jones called Captain Cottineau, with all the carpenters in the squadron,
on board, to consult with them as to the possibility of carrying his
ship into port, which he could scarcely bring himself to believe was
impossible. Captain Landais’s opinion was not asked, nor was he suffered
to come on board the Bon Homme Richard. The carpenters examined the ship
thoroughly, and all of them agreed that she could not possibly be made
to last more than a few hours. Such also was Captain Cottineau’s
opinion. When it was communicated to Paul Jones, this man, so insensible
to fear, yet felt the loss of his ship so deeply that tears dropped from
his eyes; but he realized that the ship was now in a hopeless condition,
and that while he might risk his own life further, he could not risk
those of the brave men under him. When once his mind was made up to the
cruel necessity he acted with characteristic promptness. Immediately all
the boats were pressed into service transferring the wounded to the
captured Serapis. There was but little worth saving on the Bon Homme
Richard, and the Serapis was full of stores of all sorts. It took the
whole day and the following night to place the wounded and the prisoners
on the Serapis and to repair damages. Even to the last, Paul Jones could
not utterly abandon the hope of saving the old ship, made forever
glorious in that short September night. He left an officer on board and
a gang of men, who were directed to work the pumps as long as possible.
The boats were in waiting in order to take them off if the water gained
on them too fast. An American ensign was hoisted, and the officer was
directed to leave it flying. About nine o’clock Paul Jones, from the
quarter-deck of the Serapis, saw the signal made for the boats—the Bon
Homme Richard was sinking. The men were taken off, and Paul Jones
watched her last moments as one watches by the deathbed of one’s best
beloved. She sank lower and lower in the water after she was left, while
her ensign fluttered bravely in the wandering breeze. At last, about ten
o’clock, as Paul Jones watched her agonizingly through his glass, he saw
her give a lurch forward. She went down head foremost, and the last
thing seen of her as she settled into her ocean grave was the mizzen
to’gallant mast, and the flag at the peak.
“Good-by, brave ship!” cried Paul Jones with a deep sob, as the waters
closed over the ship of immortal memory.