Four months slip by; it is April, and the idle _Ranger_ rides in the
harbor of Brest. Morose, sore with inactivity, Captain Paul Jones seeks
out Doctor Franklin at the philosopher’s house in Passy.
“This lying by rusts me,” Captain Paul Jones is saying as he and Doctor
Franklin have a turn in the garden. The latter likes the thin French
sunshine, and gets as much of it as he may. “Yes, it rusts me--fills me
with despair!”
“What would you do, then?” asks Doctor Franklin, his coarse, shrewd face
quickening into interest. “Have you a cruise mapped out?”
“Now I thought, if you’ve no objections, I’d just poke the _Ranger_‘s
nose into the Irish Sea, and take a look at Whitehaven. You know I was
born by the Solway, and the coast I speak of is an old acquaintance.”
“I see no objection, Captain, save the smallness of your ship.”
“That is easily answered; for I give you my word, Doctor, the little
_Ranger_ can sail round any English ship on the home station. I shall be
safe, no fear; for what I can’t whip I can run from.”
“Have you spoken to my brother commissioners?”
Doctor Franklin looks up, a grim, expectant twinkle in his gray eyes.
Captain Paul Jones cracks his fingers in angry impatience.
“Forgive me, Doctor, if I’m frank to the frontiers of rudeness. Of what
avail to speak to Mr. Dean, who is asleep? Of what avail to speak to
Mr. Lee, who surrounds himself with British spies like that creature
Thornton, his private secretary? I ask you plain questions, Doctor, for
I know you to be a practical man.”
The philosopher grins knowingly.
“Please do not speak of British spies to Commissioner Lee, Captain
Jones. My task in France is enough difficult as it stands.”
“And on that account, Doctor, and on that alone, I have so far refrained
from saying aught to Mr. Lee. But I tell you I misdoubt the man. His
fellow Thornton I know to be in daily communication with the English
admiralty! he clinks English gold in his pockets as the wage of his
treason. This, were there no one save myself to consider, I should say
in the face of Arthur Lee; ay! for that matter in the face of all the
Lees that ever hailed from Virginia. I tell you this, Doctor, for your
own guidance.” Then, following a pause: “Not that it sets politely with
my years to go cautioning one so much my superior in age, wisdom and
experience.”
The philosopher glances up from the violets.
“Possibly, Captain Jones, I have already given myself that caution.
However, concerning your proposed cruise: I shall leave all to
your judgment. Certainly, our warships, as you say, were meant for
battle-work, and not to waste their lives junketing about French ports.”
“One thing, doctor,” observes Captain Paul Jones, at parting: “Tell your
fellow commissioners that I’ve cleared for the west coast of Ireland,
with a purpose to go north-about around the British islands. If you let
them hear I’m off for Whitehaven, I give you my honor that, with the
spy Thornton selling my blood to the English admiralty, I shall have the
whole British fleet at my heels before I reach St. George’s Channel.”
Captain Paul Jones, in command of the _Ranger_, drops in at Whitehaven.
With twenty-nine of his lads he goes ashore of a dripping morning, pens
up the sleepy garrisons of the two forts, and spikes their guns. Then,
having spikes to spare, he makes useless a shore battery, while the
ballad-mongering Midshipman Hill, with six men, chases inland one
hundred coast guardsmen and militia.
Captain Paul Jones, waxing industrious, attempts to burn the shipping
which crowds the tidal basin at Whitehaven. In these fire-lighting
efforts he succeeds to the extent of five ships; after which he rows
out to the _Ranger_. Thereupon the people and militia, who crowd the
terror-smitten hills round about, come down into their town again.
Captain Paul Jones crosses now to the north shore of the Solway for
a morning call upon the Earl of Selkirk. He schemes to capture that
patrician, and trade him back to the English for certain good American
sailors whom they hold as prisoners. The plan falls through, since
the noble earl is not at home. In lieu, the _Ranger_‘s crew take unto
themselves the Selkirk plate, which Captain Paul Jones subsequently buys
from them, paying the ransom from his own purse, and returns with his
compliments gallantly expressed in a letter to the earl.
From the Solway, the little _Ranger_ stands west by north across the
Irish Sea. Off Carrickfergus she finds the _Drake_, an English sloop
of war that is two long nines the better than the _Ranger_ in her
broadsides, and thirty-one men stronger in her crew. To save trouble,
the _Ranger_ is hove to off the mouth of Belfast Lough, and waits for
the _Drake_ to come out. This the English ship does slowly and with
difficulty, being on the wrong side of wind and tide.
“The sun is no more than an hour high,”
The Story of Paul Jones suggests Lieutenant Wallingford wistfully.
“Shouldn’t we go to meet them, sir?”
Captain Paul Jones shakes his head.
“We’ve better water here,” says he. “Besides, the moon will be big;
we’ll fight them by the light of the moon.”
Slowly, reluctantly, the _Drake_ forges within hail. She is in doubt
about the _Ranger_.
“What ship is that?” cries the _Drake_.
Captain Paul Jones puts his speaking-trumpet to his lips.
“The American ship _Ranger_,” he replies. “Come on; we’re waiting for
you.”
Without further parley, broadside answers broadside and the battle is
on.
Both ships head north, the _Ranger_ having the weather-gage. This last
gives Captain Paul Jones the nautical upperhand. In ship-fighting, the
weather-gage is equivalent to an underhold in wrestling.
There is a swell on, and the two ships roll heavily. They shape their
course side by side, keeping within musket-reach of each other. The
breeze is on the starboard quarter, and a little faster than the ships.
By this good luck, the smoke of the broadsides is sent drifting ahead,
and the line of sight between the ships kept free. On they crawl,
broadside talking to broadside; only the Americans are smarter with
their guns, and fire three to the _Drake_‘s two.
Twilight now invests the scene in gray, as the sun sinks behind the
close, dark Irish headlands to the west. Night, cloudless and serene,
comes down; the round, full moon shines out, and its mild rays mingle
and merge with the angry glare of the battle-lanterns. Captain Paul
Jones from his narrow quarterdeck watches the Drake through his night
glass.
“Good! Very good!” he murmurs, as the _Drake_‘s foremast is splintered
by a round shot. Then, to the Salem man who has the wheel: “Bring us a
little closer, Mr. Sargent; a little closer in, if you please.”
Captain Paul Jones again rivets his glass upon the _Drake_. An
exclamation escapes him. It comes upon him that his gunners are having
advantage of the roll of the ships, and time their broadsides so as to
catch the _Drake_ as, reeling to port, she brings up her starboard
side. By this plausible manouvre, those sagacious ones who train the
_Ranger_‘s guns are sending shot after shot through and through
the _Drake_, between wind and water, half of them indeed below the
water-line. Captain Paul Jones, through his glass, makes out the
black round shot-holes; they show as thick as cloves in the rind of a
Christmas ham.
“Why!” he exclaims, “this doesn’t match my book! I must put a stopper on
such work.”
Shutting up his glass, Captain Paul Jones leaps from the after
flush-deck down among his sailors. Drunk with blood, grimed of powder,
naked to the waist, the black glory of battle in their hearts, they
merrily work their guns. It is as he beheld from the after-deck. The
_Ranger_ rolls to port as the _Drake_, all dripping, is fetching up her
starboard side.
“Fire!” cries the master-gunner, and “Fire!” runs the word along the
battery.
The long nines respond with flame and bellow!
Then they race crashingly inboard with the recoil, and are caught by the
breeching tackle. With that the smoky work is all to do over again.
The brawny sailor men--from Nantucket, from Martha’s Vineyard, from
Sag Harbor, from New London and Barnstable and Salem and Boston and
Portsmouth they are--shirtless and shoeless, barefoot and stripped to
the belts, ply sponge and rammer. Again each black-throated gun is ready
with a stomachful of solid shot.
“Show ‘em your teeth, mates!”
The guns rattle forward on their carriages. The quick port-tires
stand ready, blowing their matches. There is a brief pause, as the
master-gunner waits for that fatal downward roll to port which offers
and opens the _Drake_‘s starboard side almost to the keel.
“Ah! I see, Mr. Starbuck,” begins Captain Paul Jones sweetly, addressing
the master-gunner. “Your effort is to hull the enemy.”
“Fire!” cries the master-gunner, for just then the _Ranger_ is reeling
down to port, while the _Drake_ is coming up to starboard, and he must
not waste the opportunity.
The long nines roar cheerfully, spouting fire and smoke. Then comes that
crashing inboard leap, to be caught up short by the tackle. Again the
sponges; again the rammers; with the busy shot-handlers working in
between. And all the while the little powder monkeys, lads of eleven and
twelve, go pattering to and fro, with cartridges from the magazines.
“Why, yes, sir!” responds the master-gunner, now finding time to reply
to the comment of Captain Paul Jones; “as you says, we’re trying to hull
her, sir.”
Captain Paul Jones makes out three new holes below the Brake’s
plankslieer, the hopeful harvest of that last broadside.
“May I ask,” demands Captain Paul Jones, who as a mere first effect of
battle never fails of a rippling amiability, “may I ask, Mr. Starbuck,
your design in thus aiming below the water-line?”
“Saving you presence, Captain, we designs to sink the bitch.”
“Precisely! That is what I surmised! To a quick seaman like yourself,
Mr. Starbuck, a word will do. I don’t want her sunk, d’ye see! I want to
bring her into France as an object-lesson, and show the Frenchmen what
Americans can do. Under the circumstances, Mr. Starbnck, I shall be
obliged if you let her hull alone. It will take Mr. Hitchburn, our
carpenter, a week as it is “--this comes off reproachfully--“to stop the
holes you’ve already made. And so, Mr. Starbnck, from now on comb her
decks and cut her up in the spars as much as ever you like; but please
keep off her hull.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” says the master-gunner, saluting. Then: “Pass the word
that we’re to leave her hull alone. Cap’n has set his heart on catching
her alive.”
With that the plan of attack finds reversal, the _Ranger_ firing as she
comes up to port and when only a narrow streak of the Drake’s starboard
beam is visible above the waves.
Captain Paul Jones remains among the sailors, canvassing in a gratified
way the results of this change. While thus engaged, port-fire Anthony
Jeremiah grins up at him, meanwhile blowing his match to keep it
lighted.
“You enjoy yourself, I see, Jerry,” remarks Captain Paul Jones, who,
as observed, is never so affable as when guns are crashing, blood is
flowing, and splinters flying.
“Me like to hear the big guns talk, Captain,” responds the Indian. “It
gives Jerry a good heart.”
Captain Paul Jones again swings his glass on the Drake. He is just in
time to see her fore and main topsail-yards come down onto the caps by
the run. The last broadside does that. In an instant, he is running aft.
“Down with your helm, Mr. Sargent!” he roars. “Pull her down for every
ounce that’s in you, man!”
Quartermaster Sargent, thus encouraged, climbs the wheel like a
squirrel; the _Ranger_‘s topsails shiver; then, yielding to her helm,
she slowly luffs across the helpless stern of the Drake.
“Aboard with those sta’board tacks!” shouts Captain Paul Jones. Then,
turning again to the wheelman: “Steady, Mr. Sargent; keep her full!”
There is a skurry across the _Ranger_‘s decks, as the men rush from the
port to the starboard battery.
“Stand by, Mr. Starbuck,” calls ont Captain Paul Jones, “to rake her as
we cross her stern.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” returns the master-gunner. “She shall have it for’ard and
aft, as my old gran’am shells peas cods!”
“Steady, Mr. Sargent!” and again Captain Paul Jones cautions the alert
wheelman. “Keep her as she is!”
The guns are swung, and depressed so as to tear the poor _Drake_ open
from stern-post to cutwater at one discharge. The _Ranger_ gathers head;
slowly she makes ready to cross her enemy’s stern so close that one
might chuck a biscuit aboard. It is a moment fraught of life and death
for the unhappy _Drake_.
With her captain and first officer already dead, the situation proves
beyond the second officer, on whom the responsibility of fighting or
surrendering the ship devolves. His sullen British soul gives way; and
he strikes his colors just in time to avoid that raking fire which would
else have snuffed him off the face of the sea.
“Out-fought, out-manoeuvred, and out-sailed!” exclaims Captain Paul
Jones.
Lieutenant Hall, flushed of combat, comes up.
“We have beaten them, Captain!” exults Lieutenant Hall.
“We’ve done more than that, Mr. Hall,” responds Captain Paul Jones. “We
have defeated an aphorism, and made a precedent. For the first time in
the history of the sea, a lighter ship, with a smaller crew and a weaker
battery, has whipped an Englishman.”