HOW THE SERAPIS STRUCK HER FLAG
John Paul Jones, a dark, slender figure, paced calmly to and fro upon
his quarter-deck.
“You may fire, Mr. Dale,” he said composedly.
Dale passed the word; the gunners applied their matches and the whole
broadside of the Richard hurled destruction at the grim Englishman.
From that moment the night was ablaze; broadside answered broadside
with echoing fury; the men at the guns, stripped to the waist, with
hard set mouths and scowling brows, charged, rammed and fired like
clockwork. Men standing behind screens, drenched with water, handed
out charges of powder to boys who darted up and down the ladders like
monkeys, passing the explosive to the guns.
Every man was belted with cutlass and pistol; stands of grape and round
shot, and boarding-pikes stood about. Grappling irons and boarding
nettings were ready for instant use in case the ships should touch.
Aloft the yards of the Richard swarmed with marines, muskets in hand;
another large body of the sea-soldiery were also upon the poop and
forecastle. These were Frenchmen; they were under the command of a
colonel and, for the most part, were good marksmen.
The rending thunder of the cannonade never halted for a moment. Ethan
Carlyle and Longsword worked an after gun like furies; their bare
bodies, in the light of the battle lanterns, were black with the grime
of the guns; from beneath their sweat-matted shocks of hair their eyes
glowed like coals.
The Countess of Scarborough at the beginning of the fight had not dared
to fire into the Richard for fear of injuring the Serapis; but as the
battle grew older she began to seek a position from which she might
venture to take part.
Ethan noted this, for the moonlight showed them the ship’s actions; he
said to Longsword,
“There goes the other one; hot work, Shamus.”
“The Pallas is going to meet her, faith,” cried the dragoon as that
vessel suddenly darted into the blaze of the guns and made for the
second Englishman.
“No fear of the Alliance doing anything of the kind,” said Ethan,
darting a fierce glance toward that splendid but silent frigate as
she rose and fell to the seas, off in the moonlight. “If I were the
commander of this squadron I’d hang that fellow Landais from his own
yard arm as soon as this action was over!”
The main deck batteries were working famously but soon Dale rushed up
from below with news of disaster.
“Three of the long eighteens on the starboard side have exploded, sir,”
he reported to Captain Jones. “Most of their crews have been killed or
injured.”
The firm mouth of the chief tightened; then he replied:
“Abandon those other eighteens upon the port side. I have always
suspected the quality of those pieces, and feared that something like
this might happen.”
This order was carried out. From that time on all the heavy guns of the
Richard were out of action; to win she must depend upon her lighter
ones alone.
For some time Pearson had been trying to get his vessel under the stern
of the American ship; Jones prevented this by masterly seamanship. But
the Richard answered her helm slowly, while the swift Serapis moved
like a hawk. At length the Englishman secured the coveted position
and the American’s deck was raked murderously by whole broadsides and
showers of musketry. Some of the heavy shot went through and through
the Richard’s rotten timbers; great holes were blown in her that gaped
like windows.
The marines fore and aft were killed in crowds; and at length the
French colonel in charge of them withdrew what few remained to safer
positions. In spite of the sand which had been thrown about, the decks
of the converted Indiaman were slippery with blood; the killed lay upon
every side, and the horrid, hopeless cries of the wounded were dreadful
to hear. The guns of the Richard were useless while the Serapis held
her present position; the only damage that the Americans were doing was
by the small arms’ fire from the top.
With his deck reeling beneath him, and the very frame of his crazy old
ship almost rent asunder by the shocks of her own guns, the dauntless
commander of the Bon Homme Richard sprang along his shot-swept rail
into that sleet of death. He had seen the desperate efforts of Ethan
Carlyle and Longsword to drag a gun to a position from which it could
be brought to bear upon the enemy, and now lent his aid in placing it.
“Warm work, sir!” panted the Irish dragoon.
“Ay,” answered the commander grimly, as he sighted the gun, “and ’twill
be hotter still before we are done.”
“They don’t seem to be hulling us with their lower battery as they
did some time ago,” said Ethan, who had noted this remarkable fact.
Although the ships were within pistol shot of one another and the big
guns of the Serapis roared incessantly they seemed to be doing no
damage.
“The reason is simple enough,” said the captain coolly, as he took the
blazing match from Longsword’s hand. “Dale reports that they have shot
six port holes into one on both sides and their balls are passing
clear through us without striking.”
As he fired the gun a man sprang upon deck and saluted. It was Richard
Dale.
“We are leaking badly, sir,” he said. “They have struck us repeatedly
below the water line, and the surgeon has been forced to clear the
cock-pit of all the wounded.”
“Have you manned the pumps?”
“Yes, sir.”
Paul Jones gave a quick command. A number of guns were dragged to
positions from which they could play upon the British ship. Their roar
was growing in volume and steadiness, when suddenly the supply of
powder ceased to be handed through the hatches.
Richard Dale and Ethan Carlyle, at Jones’ command, plunged below to
learn the cause of this.
“Ammunition for the main deck,” roared Dale in a voice to be heard
above the Englishman’s guns.
The warrant officer in charge of the magazine stood at its locked door,
a pistol in his hand, and when Dale and Ethan seized him roughly he
said:
“There was nothing else to do but lock the door, sir. The news came
that the ship was sinking and the quartermaster released all the
prisoners so that they might have a chance for their lives. See, the
deck below here is crowded with them.”
As Dale and Ethan looked they saw the truth of this; the gun deck
was thronged with desperate looking men who greatly out-numbered the
Richard’s crew, and they were huddling together, apparently for a rush
to the main deck for an attempt to take the ship. The quick wit of
Dale was equal to this new and novel danger. He leaped toward them and
shouted in a voice that all could hear:
“Men, the ship is sinking!”
The faces of the great throng of released prisoners blanched; then Dale
continued:
“You have one chance for your lives; to the pumps, or you are all dead
men!”
With eager haste the British seamen sprang to obey; if they had known
it, they could now have crawled through the ports of the Richard into
the Serapis, for Captain Jones, by a masterly stroke of seamanship, had
at length placed his vessel alongside the Englishman, and locked their
yards together. But fate would have it that British brawn should keep
the Richard afloat while her crew strove against their countrymen. As
Ethan and Dale regained the main deck, the ammunition once more began
to come through the hatches; but the guns were still silent.
All this time the Serapis had been pouring death into the huge,
helpless hulk of the American. The Richard was a wreck--shattered,
reeling and all but sinking. Her crew had deserted her main deck, her
dead lay about in heaps. The moonlight, streaming down upon the scene
showed the slight figure of John Paul Jones as he worked desperately at
a dismounted gun, almost alone, but with a determination to win that
only death could destroy. Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, astonished
at the Richard’s silence, now shouted:
“Have you struck?”
Jones lifted his head and his answer rang proudly above the din of the
battle.
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
There was something in this answer that gave renewed courage to the
American seamen; they manned their pieces once more; a steady fire
from the tops slackened the gunnery of the Serapis, perceptibly; then a
sudden flare showed the latter to be on fire, and her gun crews rushed
to extinguish the blaze.
In the meantime the Pallas had engaged the Countess of Scarborough,
and after a brisk action had forced her to strike. The Alliance now
advanced, and to the astonishment of all she poured a broadside into
the Richard.
“She’s been taken by the British!” gasped Longsword.
“It’s that mad Frenchman, Landais,” cried Richard Dale, in a fury.
“See, the signal is set,” pointing to the lights on the Richard’s side.
“He cannot have mistaken us for the enemy.”
The Alliance managed to dismount some guns and do the Richard
considerable other damage before she silenced her fire, and hauled off
once more.
The fire from the Richard’s top had succeeded in clearing the Serapis
above board; but her heavy guns on the lower deck were still pounding
away in a most murderous fashion. The heavy lashings that Captain
Jones had brought into use when the Richard’s bow touched the Serapis
some time before were all that saved the former; had the Englishman
managed to get free and been able to haul away, she could have sunk the
American at her leisure.
Under these conditions the battle continued to rage; hour after hour
passed and still the bulldog Briton and the dauntless Yankee grappled
in their death struggle, the red flare of the guns blazing paths of
fire along the still waters of the sea. The pumps were still at work
and the prisoners labored in relays; but the Richard sank lower and
still lower in the water. Captain Jones was pounding away with two guns
at the masts of the Serapis thinking to cripple her in this way and
then secure a position in which he could rake her with his main deck
battery. As this was proceeding Longsword plucked Dale by the sleeve.
“Look there, on the main top.”
Dale glanced upward, and saw Ethan Carlyle crawling out upon the yard.
He had a ship’s bucket filled to the top with hand grenades; from the
spar of the Richard he crept to that of the Serapis; when he reached
a position directly over the deck of the British ship he paused and
slung his bucket to the spar by a hook.
[Illustration: _HE BEGAN TO THROW THE GRENADES_]
Then he began to throw the grenades. There were but few men upon the
deck of the Englishman, as has been said before, the musketry fire
having driven most of them below; the grenades cleared these few away
like magic; and then Ethan began to throw his explosives into the
hatches. As fate would have it some loose powder upon the lower gun
deck of the Serapis caught, and an instant later a sheet of flame went
up, followed by the roar of a terrific explosion. A panic seized the
crew of the Englishman; they rushed upon the deck throwing down their
arms and crying for quarter.
Ethan came down the ratlines of the Serapis like a flash, just as
Richard Dale swung himself from a broken brace upon the quarter-deck,
and the English captain with his own hands hauled down his flag.
“Have you struck?” asked the gallant first officer of the Richard.
“I have,” answered Captain Pearson.
No sooner had the words been spoken than a man with a blood-stained
bandage swathed about his head sprang upon deck; he had a sword in his
hand and his fierce face was black with powder smoke and smeared with
blood.
“The officer below inquires if the enemy has surrendered,” he said to
Captain Pearson.
“Report to him that it is I who have surrendered,” returned Pearson,
bitterly.
“You!” exclaimed the man. “Why, in a few more broadsides they are ours.
A prisoner just crawled through a port and says that they are sinking.”
Captain Pearson cast a swift glance at the seamen of the Richard, who
were now leaping upon his deck; but he drooped his head with a groan
when he saw that he was powerless.
“The Serapis has struck,” said Dale to the man with the bandaged head.
“Pass the word below.”
“Very well, sir,” said the man.
Ethan was watching this man curiously, and when he turned to spring
below he found the young American confronting him with ready cutlass.
“Mr. Dale said pass the word,” said Ethan, sternly. “You need not
bother about going below in person.”
That it had been the man’s intention to tell his officer to continue
the fight was clear from the baffled look which he gave Ethan. The
latter then stepped close to him and continued in a low voice,
“And another thing--I would very much like to have the paper which you
took that night upon the by-road to London, Master Dirk Hatfield.”
At the sound of his name, the highwayman made a sudden forward leap and
cut desperately at Ethan; but the young American’s guard was up and
he caught the descending blade upon his own; then with a twist of the
wrist he disarmed his opponent and held his point at his throat.
By this time the decks of the Serapis swarmed with American seamen.
Longsword pinned the highwayman’s arms at his sides, while Ethan’s
eager hands sought out the much desired dispatch. At length he drew it
from an inner pocket and held it up with a cry of triumph.
John Paul Jones, who stood near, turned upon the boy as he heard the
cry.
“What have you there?” he asked.
“The dispatch,” exclaimed Ethan joyfully. “Here is the highwayman of
whom I spoke to you,” pointing to Hatfield, “and he still had it in his
possession.”
“Fortune still follows you,” cried Jones as he took the paper which the
lad held out to him.
“And misfortune seems to follow me,” spoke the knight of the road as
they led him away among the other prisoners. “There is ten thousand
pounds gone to pot.”
The crew of the Serapis was disarmed and imprisoned below. Then, as the
shattered Richard threatened to sink at any moment, the prisoners and
wounded were hastily distributed between the Pallas and the captured
Englishman; the American commander and his crew shifting to the latter
ship which, though badly crippled in the rigging, was still seaworthy.
The Richard’s own crew and some from the Pallas strove at the pumps to
keep out the inrushing water from the doomed vessel; but their efforts
were of no avail, and on the morning of the twenty-fifth their officers
called them away.
As the last man was going over the side into Lieutenant Dale’s boat,
Ethan Carlyle swarmed up the damaged shrouds of the American ship.
“Come back,” shouted Dale. “She is going down.”
But the boy continued upward till he reached the main top; then he drew
from beneath his arm a flag, and with a few rapid blows nailed it to
the mast. He had descended and clambered into the boat, which pulled
rapidly away, before the Richard gave her last heavy shuddering lurch;
then, with her battle flag streaming above her, she dipped grandly and
sank slowly beneath the waves.