answered I mournfully. "I suppose we could compel him to haul down his
colours, by pegging away at him with our long gun, as he is fairly in
our power now; but, naturally, he would seize any opportunity that might
present itself to effect a recapture. At the same time it seems a
thousand pities to leave him now that we have given him such a terrible
mauling. Why not keep pounding away at him a little longer? Perhaps we
may yet hit upon some plan by which to secure possession; and only think
of what a feather it would be in our caps if we could but capture a fine
frigate like that, and take her into port!"
"That is very true," answered the skipper, and I could see that my
reference to the credit of such an exploit had touched him in a weak
spot. "Well," he continued, "we will not give up yet awhile. The
frigate is unmanageable at present, and will continue so until they can
get some sort of a jury-mast rigged for'ard; so we will fill on the
schooner, and make a stretch to windward until we can get into a raking
position, then drop down upon mounseer, and see what we can do with him.
But it is a risky business; a lucky shot may cripple us at any moment,
and we should then be done for. However, `nothing venture, nothing
have!' so fill your topsail, Mr Bowen, and we will make a bid for
glory, although that is not our business."
This decision was received with enthusiasm by the men, who at once went
to work with hearty good-will to execute the orders that the skipper now
rapidly issued. We filled upon the schooner, and reached away to the
northward and eastward on an easy bowline, keeping just beyond reach of
the frigate's guns, and making play diligently all the time with our own
long eighteen, aiming for the stump of the foremast, so as to embarrass
the Frenchmen as much as possible in any attempt that they might make to
rig up a jury spar. But the French captain was game to the backbone,
and, helpless as he was to retaliate upon us, omitted no effort to
extricate himself from the difficulties by which he was surrounded.
What would he not have given, at that moment, for a single gun powerful
enough to have reached us? As it was, he fired at us at frequent
intervals, for the apparent purpose of ascertaining whether we had
inadvertently ventured within range; and I noticed that every shot fell
further away from us. I could not at first comprehend this, as our own
shot continued to strike every time; but at length I thought I had hit
upon an explanation of the mystery, which I mentioned to Captain Winter.
My belief was that the French captain was gradually reducing his
charges of powder, in the hope that, by so doing, he would tempt us to
draw nearer, under the impression that we were well out of range, when,
perhaps, by a well-directed broadside, with a full powder charge, he
might succeed in unrigging us; when our capture, by means of his boats,
would be an easy matter. We were not, however, to be so easily tempted.
At length, by dint of great exertion, and probably at the cost of many
men, the Frenchmen succeeded in cutting adrift the wreck of their
foremast; when, by furling all the canvas upon their mizzen-mast, they
managed to once more get the frigate before the wind and heading in for
the land. And now came our opportunity, for we were by this time dead
to windward of our antagonist; and no sooner was she before the wind
than we, too, kept away, gradually closing with her, and keeping our
long gun playing upon her until there was a hole in her stern big enough
to have driven a coach through. As soon as we were near enough she
opened fire upon us with her two stern-chasers; and at the very first
fire both shots came in through our bows and raked us fore and aft,
killing one man and wounding three others with the splinters that were
sent flying about our ears. Finding that we had approached her too
closely, we immediately hauled our wind, and began to sail to-and-fro
athwart her stern, keeping up a brisk fire upon her with our long gun,
and raking her at every shot. This went on for about a quarter of an
hour, during which she repeatedly returned our fire, but without effect;
and then a lucky shot from us cut her main-yard in two in the slings,
and she was once more helpless, broaching-to, and lying with her bows
well up to the wind. This reduced to nothing her hopes of escape by
running in under the land and anchoring within the shelter of the guns
of a battery; and after receiving three or four more shots from us, she
actually hauled down her colours and surrendered, to the unmitigated
delight of our lads, who cheered themselves hoarse over their victory.
And now came the delicate question of taking possession. We fully
realised that it was only the superior power of our long eighteen that
had enabled us to accomplish the astonishing feat of compelling a
frigate of thirty-six guns to haul down her colours to a schooner
mounting less than a third of that armament; and we felt that our only
chance of securing peaceable possession of our prize, now that she had
surrendered, was to maintain the advantage conferred upon us by this
superiority. It was, therefore, at length decided that I should go on
board the prize with forty men to take possession, while the schooner
remained hove-to out of range of the frigate's guns, but near enough to
open fire again with the long gun, should we meet with any difficulty
from the French crew. My instructions were, to go on board, secure the
crew, and then fire three blank cartridges in quick succession as a
signal that I had obtained possession; upon which the schooner was to
close and render me all possible assistance.
CHAPTER SIX.
WE ARE COMPELLED TO ABANDON OUR PREY.
We lowered our two cutters and the gig, and then, picking out my forty
men, and arming them with a cutlass and a brace of pistols apiece, I
shoved off to take possession of our prize. There was a rather nasty,
short, choppy sea running; but, fortunately, we were to windward, and
only had to run down before it. As we neared the frigate it became
increasingly apparent to us that she was an exceedingly fine and
handsome ship; her tonnage, according to my estimate, being not far
short of nine hundred tons. She had been knocked about a good deal more
severely than I had anticipated; and as we drew still nearer I was
astonished to perceive that some of her scuppers were running blood.
It took us about half an hour to pull down to her; and when we went
alongside, under her lee, we met with no opposition whatever in
boarding, somewhat to my surprise, I must confess, for, as a matter of
fact, I did not believe that they had really surrendered, the hauling
down of their colours being, in my opinion, only a ruse to get us within
reach of their guns. In this, however, as it turned out, I was
mistaken, and did the commanding officer an injustice.
We clambered up the frigate's lofty side without let or hindrance; and
when I sprang, sword in hand, down upon her deck, I was met by a mere
lad, his beardless face deadly pale, his head bound up in a blood-sodden
bandage, and his right arm hanging helpless--and broken--by his side.
With his left hand he tendered to me his sword, in silence, and then,
turning away, burst into tears.
And as I looked around me I could well understand the cause of the poor
young fellow's emotion. It was not only that this fine, handsome ship--
brand-new, as it turned out, and only commissioned a few days
previously--was a perfect wreck aloft, but the dead and wounded were
lying about her decks, especially in the vicinity of the stump of the
foremast, in heaps. Her bulwarks were shot through and through; her
wheel was smashed to pieces; and there were long scorings fore-and-aft
her decks, showing the paths that our eighteen-pound shot had ploughed
up in their destructive passage. But even this was not the worst of it;
for when I turned to the young officer and tried to soothe him by the
utterance of some platitude having reference to "the fortune of war", he
informed me that, although he had that morning been the ship's junior
lieutenant, he was now the senior surviving officer; the captain and the
other lieutenants being among the killed.
"And to think," he ejaculated bitterly, "that we should have been
compelled to strike to such an insignificant craft as that!" pointing to
the schooner. "But," he added, "you did not fight fair; you never gave
us a chance. Had you but once fairly come within range of our guns we
would have blown you out of the water!"
"Precisely!" I agreed; "we were well aware of that, monsieur, and,
therefore, we preferred to fight you at a respectful distance. And
now," I continued, "as I have relieved you of your command, let me beg
you to lose no time in going below to the surgeon to get your hurts
attended to; I am sure that France can ill afford to lose so brave a man
as yourself."
The poor fellow smiled wanly at my clumsy compliment, and with a bow
turned away to follow my suggestion; while I went to work to get the
prisoners disarmed and secured below. This was managed without
difficulty; the French appearing to be too utterly downcast and broken-
spirited to dream of resisting us after having hauled down their
colours; and I was not surprised at this when I shortly afterwards
learned that, out of a crew numbering two hundred and eighty-four, she
had lost no less than seven officers and sixty-three men killed, and
eighty-eight officers and men wounded. It was astonishing; the more so
when I came to reflect that all this loss and damage had been inflicted
by one gun! But then it was to be remembered that the unfortunate
frigate had been under the fire of that one gun for close upon five
hours; the dusk of the short winter's day closing down upon us shortly
after we had boarded our prize--the name of which, by the way, was the
_Musette_.
Having secured our prisoners, I fired the three blank cartridges agreed
upon as a signal, when the _Dolphin_ ran down and sent the end of a
hawser aboard for the purpose of taking us in tow. She also put very
nearly her whole crew aboard, retaining merely enough hands to work her,
in order that we might have as much strength as possible for the purpose
of rigging up jury-masts.
We had been in tow of the schooner but half an hour when Captain Winter
came aboard in a boat to say that we were rather too heavy for him to
manage, the breeze having been steadily freshening all day and raising a
sea that caused the schooner to strain to an alarming extent with so
heavy a craft as the frigate hanging on to her. We therefore went to
work to get some sail upon the prize forthwith, and, having routed out a
main-staysail, we set it. We found that, in the strong breeze then
blowing, even this small amount of canvas was sufficient to place the
frigate under command; we therefore cast off from the _Dolphin_, and
that craft thereupon shortened sail to her boom-foresail and fore-
staysail, so that she might not run away from us. But even under that
short canvas she was able to sail round and round us.
During the whole of that night we stood to the northward and eastward;
and all night long, too, we were hard at work, watch and watch, getting
up jury spars; the result of our labours being that, by daybreak next
morning, we had got a very serviceable jury foremast in place, enabling
us to set a fore-staysail, and also a main-topsail in place of a
foresail. With this head sail we were also enabled to give the frigate
her close-reefed mizzen-topsail and spanker; with which canvas we began
to move through the water at quite a respectable pace--that is to say
about four knots per hour. This, however, was not all; for the
carpenter had been hard at work all through the night preparing a jury
fore-topmast and jib-boom; while we had got a spare main-yard swung
aloft and slung; by mid-day, therefore, we were enabled to set a fore-
topsail, jib, and mainsail, which further increased our speed. By four
bells in the afternoon watch the island of Jersey was in sight, broad
upon our lee bow, some six miles distant; and at eight bells we tacked
ship, being anxious not to draw too close in with the French coast in
our then disabled condition.
As the sun went down that night the weather manifested a tendency to
improve, and by midnight the wind had softened down to a gentle breeze
that barely gave us steerage-way through the water. Finally it died
away altogether, and when the sun rose next morning, clear and bright,
the _Dolphin_ and ourselves were boxing the compass, not half a cable's
length apart. This in itself was rather provoking, as we were
exceedingly anxious to get our prize into port, and off our hands; but
the delay was as nothing compared with the disagreeable circumstance
that there were three exceedingly suspicious-looking sails in sight,
about ten miles to the westward of us, apparently consorts, for we could
see a good deal of signalling going on between them, of which we could
make nothing.
They were a ship, a brig, and a large lugger, and the cut of their
canvas left us little room to doubt that they were French. Of course it
was quite possible that they might all three be perfectly harmless
merchantmen, but there was a certain smart, knowing look about them
eminently suggestive of the privateersman, and if that was their
character there could be no doubt whatever that we should find them very
objectionable and dangerous neighbours immediately that a breeze
happened to spring up. So little did Captain Winter like their
appearance that, immediately after breakfast--the calm seeming likely to
continue for some few hours--he ordered his own gig to be lowered, and
went away in her to get a nearer look at them. There was not much
danger in this course, as the gig was a beautifully light, splendidly
modelled, fast-pulling boat, exactly suited for such a service, and not
in the least likely to be overtaken by any boat such as either of the
three vessels in sight might be expected to carry. I did not,
therefore, greatly concern myself with the skipper's movements, but gave
my whole attention to the getting of additional jury spars aloft, in
order that, if possible, the frigate might be brought into something
like fighting order by the time that the breeze should come.
We were busy pointing a new main-topmast when the boatswain, who was in
the top, hailed the deck to say that the lugger and brig had rigged out
their sweeps, and were heading in our direction, while the ship had
lowered her boats and sent them ahead to tow. I went up into the
mizzen-topmast cross-trees, taking my glass with me, and soon discovered
that the report was only too correct; for when I reached my perch all
three craft were heading straight for us, the lugger churning up the
water with her sweeps and coming along at quite a smart pace, the brig
following close behind, and the ship, in tow of her own boats, bringing
up the rear. This effectually disposed of the theory that they might
possibly be merchantmen; they were far too heavily-manned to be anything
but privateers or men-o'-war, and it was perfectly clear that they were
fully bent upon paying us a visit.
It afterwards appeared that Captain Winter did not suspect this new
development until some time after the strangers had got into motion;
then, observing that all three vessels kept their heads persistently
pointed in our direction, and that he appeared to be nearing them much
faster than at first, an inkling of the truth dawned upon him, and he
ordered his crew to pull easy, that they might reserve their strength
for a spurt in case of need. Nevertheless, he continued to pull toward
them until he had arrived within gun-shot of the lugger--the crew of
which at once opened fire upon him--when, having ascertained the force
of the squadron, he returned with all speed to us, having meanwhile made
up his mind how to act.
He discovered that the lugger mounted six six-pounders; the brig showed
five ports of a side, but the weight of her metal he could not
ascertain, since her guns were run in and her ports closed; and the ship
mounted sixteen guns, apparently nine-pounders. Now this was a force
altogether too strong for us to cope with, even had we not been hampered
with a prize to look after; for, unlike the case of the frigate, the
force was distributed among three vessels instead of being concentrated
on board of one only; and while Captain Winter was always ready to trust
something to the chapter of accidents, and to risk a good deal upon the
chance that a lucky shot might seriously disable a single antagonist, it
became a different matter altogether when there were three craft to
contend with. He, therefore, reluctantly came to the conclusion that
our prize must be sacrificed in order to ensure our own safety. He
therefore pulled straight to the _Dolphin_, and ordering the whole of
her boats to be lowered and manned, sent them alongside the frigate,
coming on board himself to superintend the operations upon which he had
decided.
His first act was to order the whole of the frigate's boats to be
stripped of their oars, rowlocks, and bottom-boards, and when this was
done they were lowered, and the prisoners, wounded as well as sound,
sent down into them; when, as soon as he had satisfied himself that the
whole of the Frenchmen were out of the ship, the frigate's boats were
towed about a mile away and cast adrift. Meanwhile, in obedience to
instructions, I had collected all the inflammable material that I could
lay hands upon, and had set the ship on fire in four places, with the
result that when the _Dolphin's_ boats returned alongside our prize to
take us off, she was well alight, with the smoke pouring in dense clouds
up through every opening in the deck. It took us but a short time to
leave her, and the moment that we were once more on board the schooner
the sweeps were manned and the vessel put upon a northerly course, this
direction having been chosen in consequence of the discovery that a
light air had sprung up and was coming down from the northward and
eastward, which would place us dead to windward of our formidable
antagonists by the time that it reached us.
At the moment when the _Dolphin_ began to move, the lugger was some
seven miles away, bearing due west, the brig being about half a mile
astern of her, and the ship perhaps a mile astern of the brig. Very
shortly afterwards the flames burst up through the frigate's main
hatchway, and half an hour later she was blazing from stem to stern; so
that, although we had lost her, there was no chance of her again falling
into the hands of the French.
The breeze was a long time in finding its way down to us; so long,
indeed, that after waiting a full half-hour, with the cat's-paws playing
upon the water within biscuit-toss of us, the helm was ported and the
schooner headed straight for the fringe of delicate blue that marked the
dividing line where the calm and the wind were contending together for
the mastery. This was reached in about a quarter of an hour, when,
after a feeble preliminary rustling, our canvas filled, the sweeps were
laid in, and we began to move through the water at a speed of some two
and a half knots per hour, heading up nearly due north, while the lugger
and the brig at the same time kept away, in the hope apparently of
intercepting us, and the ship despatched two of her boats to the rescue
of their helpless compatriots adrift in the frigate's boats.
The lugger, which was a very fine and evidently very fast vessel of her
class, was making desperate efforts to close with us, with such success
that at the end of another half-hour it became evident that, unless the
light and fickle breeze freshened somewhat in the interim, another
couple of hours would see her within gun-shot of us. This, however,
gave us no concern whatever, for we were far more than a match for her
alone, and although the brig also was doing her best, we were both
drawing away from her so steadily that we of the _Dolphin_ quite
reckoned upon being able in due time to fight and take the lugger before
her consort could come up to her assistance.
Six bells in the forenoon watch had just struck when the frigate blew up
with a dull, heavy boom, not nearly so loud as I had expected to hear,
but the concussion was terrific, causing the schooner to quiver to her
keel, while its effect upon the languid breeze was such as to completely
kill it for three or four minutes. At the end of that time it came
creeping stealthily along the water again, and about half an hour later
it reached the lugger, which immediately laid in her sweeps and hauled
close to the wind in pursuit of us. We were at this time under all
plain sail, to our royal and flying-jib, creeping along at a speed of
about four and a half knots, the lugger being about a point abaft our
lee beam and two miles distant from us, but looking up about half a
point higher than ourselves, in her eagerness to close with us. By noon
it had become apparent that we had the advantage in point of speed, so
that it lay with us to make good our escape, or not, as we pleased. We
had, however, lost one valuable prize, through the inopportune
appearance of the lugger and her consorts, and were by no means disposed
to go off empty-handed, if we could help it. We therefore quietly and
unostentatiously checked our sheets and weather braces just sufficiently
to permit the wind to all but spill out of our canvas, thus deadening
our way somewhat; and the men then went to dinner.
Our little ruse had its desired effect, the lugger having closed up to
within a mile by the time that the men were ready to turn to again; and
as the schooner had long ago been cleared for action, the galley fire
was now extinguished, and the crew went to the guns in readiness for the
coming struggle. At the same time our helm was eased up a trifle, and
we began to edge down upon our antagonist.
Just about this time the brig caught the first of the breeze, and at
once crowded sail in chase. It was therefore time for us to set about
our work in earnest, if we did not desire to have her to reckon with as
well as the lugger. Nevertheless, we still withheld our fire; the
skipper being determined not to begin until he could make short work of
it.
"Mr Bowen," said he to me, when we were within about half a mile of the
lugger, "I want to take that fellow with as little damage as possible to
his spars and rigging, because if they happen to be much cut up we may
find ourselves so seriously hampered as to have some difficulty in
getting away from the other two. Be good enough, therefore, to go round
the deck, and direct the men to aim with the utmost care at the ports,
so that our shot may sweep her decks and drive her men from their guns,
after which it will be an easy matter to run alongside and carry her
with a rush. I expect her people are already so tired with their long
spell at the sweeps that they will not have much stomach for a hand-to-
hand fight. Ha! there she opens fire! So it is time to show our
colours."
And he proceeded to bend on and hoist the ensign with his own hands,
while I turned away to carry out his instructions.
The single shot that the lugger had fired flew fair between our masts,
cutting our lee topsail brace. The damage, however, was repaired in
less than five minutes by a hand who sprang aloft and neatly spliced and
re-rove the brace. Meanwhile our lads had carefully levelled and
pointed their guns, and now only awaited the word to fire. This soon
came from the skipper, whereupon the five guns in our larboard broadside
rang out together, five neat holes in the lugger's bulwarks testifying
to the accuracy with which they had been aimed. The lugger almost
instantly replied with her starboard broadside, and again the shot went
humming over us, but this time without doing any damage. They probably
had no very keen desire to engage us single-handed, but were anxious to
cripple us and so give time for the brig to close to their support; but
in their anxiety to do this they had pointed their guns so high that the
shot had flown over us altogether.
Our lads were quite wide-awake enough to understand the importance of
making short work of the lugger. They therefore handled their guns very
smartly, giving the enemy two broadsides in exchange for their one, and
we were now close enough to observe that the second of these two
broadsides had dismounted one of the lugger's guns.