The First-Lieutenant was not a man to be defeated. Wounded as he was,
he still resolved to persevere.
"Never say die, lads!" he shouted, as they were driven back. "Give them
a taste of our powder in return!"
On this, the boats poured a hot fire of musketoons and small-arms
through the brig's stern and quarter-ports. It told with tremendous
effect, for not a shot was now fired upon the boats.
"On, on, lads!" shouted the First-Lieutenant; and before the Frenchmen
could recover, the boats were hanging on to her quarters, and the crews
were climbing up on deck. The First-Lieutenant, in spite of his wooden
leg and wound, was among the foremost. My father, though also hit,
followed close behind the brave young mate--Harry Oliver. Scarcely had
they gained the brig's deck, however, ere the Frenchmen rallied and
opposed them with the most determined bravery. The English crew
climbing up one after the other, quickly gained possession of the whole
of the after part of the brig, not, however, without several being
killed and wounded, the Second-Lieutenant being among the former. He
was cut down, after being twice shot through the body. For a few
minutes a most bloody and tremendous conflict ensued. A Frenchman
thrust his pike through Mr Oliver's side, and another was following it
up with his sword, and would certainly have put an end to the young
officer, had not my father, just as he got an ugly prong in his side of
the same description, with one sweep of his cutlass brought the man to
the deck, never to move again. French crews can very seldom, if ever,
stand against English boarders. The bravest of the enemy were cut down,
or began to give way. My father, with Mr Oliver on one side and the
First-Lieutenant and Master on the other, with the men at their backs,
now made a clear path, strewing the decks with the bodies of those who
attempted to oppose them. The remainder of the enemy fled; some leaped
down the hatchways, others took shelter on the bowsprit and jib-boom,
and the more nimble sprang up the shrouds, where, as my father declared,
like so many monkeys, they hung chattering and asking for quarter.
"Of course, if they would but have been quiet and peaceable, we had no
wish to kill them," he used to say, "and glad enough we were when we
found ourselves in possession of the brig, just about five minutes from
the time we had first stepped on her decks. It was about the hardest
bit of work I ever was engaged in," he always averred. "We lost our
Second-Lieutenant, five seamen and three marines killed, three officers
and twenty-two men wounded. The Frenchman had a crew of one hundred and
sixty men and boys, out of whom there were no less than fourteen killed
and twenty wounded--pretty badly, too, for we were not apt to use our
cutlasses over gently, you may suppose.
"We had still plenty of work to do, for, though cowed for the moment,
the Frenchmen would not have made much ceremony in trying to turn the
tables again upon us. We had barely fifty men fit for work, and they
had still one hundred and twenty--considerable odds against us.
"Mr Schank, as soon as he saw that the deck was ours, directed one of
the officers to hurry down into the cabin and secure the private
signals, and ordered me, at the same time, to go with a couple of
marines to take charge of the magazine, for one never knows what
desperate fellows may do when they have lost their ship, and some mad
chap or other might have set fire to it, and blown us and themselves up
into the air. Such things have been done before now.
"The next thing we did was to carry the wounded below. Our own people
and the enemy's were treated alike. Poor fellows! How some of them did
groan when they were lifted up. Next, an order was given to heave the
dead overboard, `And look out, lads, that you don't send any with the
breath in their bodies to feed the sharks,' said the First-Lieutenant.
The caution did not come too soon. Two men, one of whom was Paddy
Brady, were about shoving a big Frenchman through a port, when the poor
fellow uttered a groan. `What is that you say, monsieur? Just speak
again. Are you alive or dead?' exclaimed Brady. No answer was
returned, and Paddy began to drag the dead body nearer the port. Again
a groan, considerably louder than the first was heard. `Arrah, now,'
said Paddy, `I wish you would just make up your mind whether it is
overboard you would wish to go, or be carried below. Speak, man; I ax
ye again for the last time: are ye alive or dead?'
"The Frenchman, maybe, might not have understood exactly what Brady was
saying, but he must have had a pretty horrible idea that he was about to
be sent overboard. This time he not only groaned, but uttered some
words, and endeavoured to drag himself along the deck. `Arrah, now,
that's like a dacent, sinsible man,' observed Pat. `Anyhow, you deserve
to have your hurts looked to, and so we will carry him below, Jim.'"
The truth was that the man had been only slightly wounded, and
afterwards stunned by a blow. Had he not come to himself at that
moment, his career would undoubtedly have been finished. Hands were now
sent aloft, the studden-sails hauled down, and the brig brought on a
wind. The sweeps, which had all this time remained run out, were taken
in-board, and the boats were veered astern.
"We now stood in the direction we hoped to find the frigate, hoisting
two lights at the mast-head, firing guns, and burning blue lights to
show our position. It was an anxious time, however, and we had to keep
a very watchful eye on the Frenchmen. They evidently were hatching
mischief, for they must have known as well as we did that the frigate
was still a long way off, and that if they could overcome us they might
yet get away with their brig. She was called the `Loup' (the Wolf), and
a wolf she had proved herself among our merchantmen. I had been
relieved at my station at the magazine, when Pat Brady came up to me.
`Burton,' he said, `I wish you would just take a look at the wounded
prisoners. There is one of them whom I thought dead, and there he is,
sitting up and talking away as if there was nothing the matter with him.
I cannot understand his lingo, but, by the way he moves his arms about,
I think he means mischief!'
"I went below with Brady, and there, sure enough, was the man he had so
nearly thrown overboard, apparently very little the worse for his hurt,
and evidently, as it appeared to me, trying to persuade his countrymen
to do something or other which he had proposed. Sentries had been
placed over the other prisoners, of course, but desperate men might soon
have overpowered them, especially if the prisoners knew that there would
be a little diversion in their favour.
"Hurrying on deck, I reported what we had seen to Mr Schank, who
immediately ordered the man to be brought on deck, and as his wound was
dressed, there was no cruelty in that. He grumbled considerably; the
more so, probably, because his plan had been defeated.
"We continued every now and then sending up blue lights, keeping a very
watchful eye all the time on our prisoners. At length, far away on our
weather-beam, a bright light suddenly burst forth as if out of the dark
ocean. We tacked and stood towards it. However, as the wind was very
light, the Third-Lieutenant was sent off in the gig with an account of
our success. Two hours had still to pass away before we at length got
up to the frigate, and pretty well-pleased we were when the cheer which
our shipmates sent forth to congratulate us on our success reached our
ears." Such was the substance of my father's account, often
subsequently told.
I do not know whether the anxiety which Burton felt when she saw her
husband setting out on what she knew must be a dangerous expedition had
any peculiar effect on her, but certain it is, that while my father was
slashing away at the Frenchmen, and the bullets were flying about his
head, I was born into the world.
With regard to the prize, she was carried safely into Macao, in the
expectation that she would be fitted out as a cruiser, and that Mr
Schank would get the command of her. Her fate I shall have hereafter to
relate.
I meantime grew apace, and speedily cut out Quacko in the estimation of
our shipmates. He, however, had his friends and supporters; for some
months, at all events, he afforded them more amusement than I could do.
They could tease him and play him tricks, which my mother and Mrs King
took very good care they should not do to me. I had no lack of nurses
from the first, and highly honoured were those into whose hands my
mother ventured to commit me.
Mrs King had enough to do for some time after the action, in attending
both to my mother and the poor fellows who had been wounded, both
English and French, the latter receiving as much care from her gentle
hands as did our own people. The two chief rivals for the honour of
looking after me were my cousin, Pat Brady, and Toby Kiddle, boatswain's
mate. Although many of my old shipmates have passed away from my
memory, Toby Kiddle made an impression which was never erased. Nature
had not intended him for a topman, for though wonderfully muscular, his
figure was like a tun. His legs were short, and his arms were unusually
long. With them tucked akimbo, he could take up two of the heaviest men
in the ship, and run along the deck with them as lightly as he would
have done with a couple of young children. He had a generous, kind
heart, could tell a good story, and troll forth a ditty with any man;
and as to his bravery, where all were brave, I need scarcely mention it,
except to say that I do no not think anyone beat him at that.
Boatswain's mate though he was, Toby Kiddle had a heart as gentle as a
lamb's. He scarcely seemed cut out for the post, and yet there was a
rough crust over it which enabled him to do his duty, and when he had to
lay on with the cat, to shut his eyes, and to hit as hard as he was
ordered. And yet I always have pitied a kind-hearted boatswain's mate,
though he is not after all worse off than the captain and officers, who
have to stand by and see men punished. However, I will not say anything
about that matter just now. Time went on, and I grew bigger, and began
to chew beef and bacon with the rest of the ship's company becoming more
and more independent of my mother in every way. Yet I loved her, as
such a mother deserved to be loved. As I grew bigger I made more and
more friends. The Captain himself very frequently took notice of me,
and patted my head, which was beginning to get curls upon it, and often
gave me cakes and other Chinese manufactured delicacies which he had got
from the shore. Captain Cobb was a short man, and since he came out to
China had grown very round and stout. His face, as a boy, had been
probably pink and white, but it had now been burnt into a deep red
copper colour. His eyes, which were small, were bloodshot, with a
ferrety expression, and altogether his outward man was not attractive.
His uniforms, which had hung loosely on him when he left home, had been,
by the skill of the tailor, let out and out to meet the demands of his
increasing corpulency; but no art or skill could do more for them; and
as he was unwilling to procure others till those were worn out, he
looked, when walking the quarter-deck, very much as if he had on a
straight waistcoat.
Captain Cobb was not disregardful of his creature comforts, and in order
to supply himself with milk for breakfast and tea, he had shipped on
board, some time back, a she-goat, which fully answered his wishes.
Seamen will make pets of everything--monkeys, babies, lions, pigs,
bears, dogs, and cats. The goat had become a favourite, for she was a
handsome creature, and very tame, but it was chiefly in connection with
Quacko, who was soon taught to ride upon her. Quacko was certainly very
well aware that he must never venture upon the quarter-deck, and before,
therefore, he reached the sacred precincts on his daily rides, he always
managed to wheel the goat about and retrace his steps forward. Quacko
was a wonderfully sagacious monkey, and held his position in the good
opinion of the crew in spite of my rival claims. Had I been thrown
entirely upon their mercy as Quacko was, I might have completely cut him
out; but having my mother and Mrs King, with two or three select
friends to look after me, the remainder very naturally felt that they
had not so much interest in the matter. On one occasion, when I was
about three years old, the frigate was caught in a typhoon. I was safe
below in my poor mother's arms, but Quacko remained on deck to see what
was going forward. Nobody was thinking of him. The seamen, indeed, had
to hold on with might and main to secure their own lives. Some
preparation had been made, and fortunately it was so, for all the sails
still set were blown out of the bolt ropes. The frigate was hove on her
beam-ends. Where Quacko had come from nobody knew, when on a sudden he
was seen hanging to the slack end of a rope. In vain one of the topmen
made an attempt to grasp him. The rope swung away far over the foaming
sea. He swung back, but it was to strike the side apparently, for the
next instant the rope returned on board and no Quacko hanging to it.
The ship righted without having suffered much damage; indeed, the loss
of Quacko was our greatest misfortune.
After the sad event just mentioned, Quacko's friends made various
attempts to appropriate me; indeed, Mrs King and Toby Kiddle had, in
order to console them for their loss, to give me up to them
occasionally.
"Here, Toby, let's have the little chap and learn him to ride," said Tom
Trimmers, one of the topmen. "Why, Nanny will be forgetting how to
carry a human being as she has been accustomed to do, and you will soon
see what a capital horseman he will make, won't you, Ben?"
"Ay, ay," I answered, for though I could not say much I could say that,
and so Nanny was brought forth, and I was placed on her back, Toby,
however, remarking, that though some day I should have more sense than
the defunct Quacko ever had, yet at present, as I had no experience in
riding, he must decline allowing me to mount unless he held me up. "It
will be time when the little chap has had some practice to let him go
along by himself," he observed, looking round at our shipmates. "Now,
you don't know what would become of him, for Nanny is more than likely
to trot off on the quarter-deck and make herself disagreeable there, and
maybe pitch Master Benjy down the main hatchway. No, no, I will stand
by and hold him on till he is a bit older."
This resolution was certainly very prudent; but I very soon began to
complain of it, and to assert, by signs rather than by words, that I was
well able to take care of myself, and steer the goat as Quacko had done.
"And where is Quacko, Master Ben?" asked Toby, who understood me better
than anyone else. "He thought he could take care of himself, but he
could not do so, you see, nor can any of us, and that's my opinion. If
there was not one better able to take care of us than we are of
ourselves, we poor sea-going chaps would be in a bad way."
In spite, however, of Toby Kiddle, my other friends managed occasionally
to let me have my own way; and with great pride they looked on while I,
with the end of a mop stick in my hand, went galloping about the deck,
belabouring the goat's hinder quarters, very much after the fashion of
an Irishman riding a donkey at a race. The Sergeant of Marines, Julian
Killock was his name, on seeing the use I made of my weapon, took it
into his head to teach me the broadsword exercise, which I very soon
learnt. The Jollies now began to contemplate appropriating me to
themselves, and thus, as it may be supposed, made the Blue-jackets
somewhat jealous.
"No, no, Tom Sawyer," I remember hearing one of the latter observe, "you
shall not have little Ben to turn into a horse-marine on no account. He
is our'n and cut out for a blue-jacket, and a blue-jacket he will be
till the end of his days."
Still the Jollies were in no way disposed to give up their share of me,
to which they considered they had a right. I was very nearly the cause
of a serious dispute between the two Services. A compromise was at
length entered into by the suggestion of my father, who agreed that the
Jollies might teach me the sword and platoon exercise, while the
Blue-jackets might impart as much nautical knowledge as I was capable of
taking in.
But I was speaking of the goat. I was especially fond of mounting
Nanny's back, though she must have found me considerably heavier than
Quacko. However, as I never played her any tricks, which he constantly
had done, she had no objection to carry me. I consequently took my
daily ride round and round the deck, sweeping close round the mainmast
and forward again.
It is not surprising that people should lose their temper under such a
climate as our ship's company was doomed for so many years to endure.
One afternoon, just as the men had finished dinner, it being a dead
calm, the ocean like a sheet of molten lead, smooth as a mirror, the
sun's rays striking down with tremendous force on our decks, making the
pitch hiss and bubble, while one of the midshipmen was frizzling a piece
of beef on a metal plate, that he might declare when he got home,
without injuring his conscience, that it was usual to cook dinners by
the heat of the sun out in China, and the men lay about gasping for
breath, I was brought up by Pat Brady, that, as he said, I might enjoy a
breath of air, only there happened to be none at the moment, and while
I, the least important personage on board thus made my appearance on the
upper regions of our ocean world, so did the most important, the
Captain, come up to look about him, and whistle for a breeze. It did
not come however, although the Captain kept whistling and whistling away
till his cheeks must have ached. Nanny had been let out of her pen to
discuss the remains of an old straw hat, the other part of which had
been given her for her supper the previous evening, when it came into
Pat Brady's head to place me on her back; I, nothing loth, sung out for
my broadsword, with which I began forthwith to whack the hinder quarters
of my long-horned steed. Off she set, but instead of wheeling round the
mainmast, on she galloped along the forbidden district of the
quarter-deck. The Captain just at that moment, with a stamp of his
foot, vexed at his not getting the wished-for wind, turned round, when
Nanny and I, at a furious speed, dashed bolt against him; and the goat,
catching him between the legs by the impetus she had obtained, sent him
sprawling on the deck, and her horns catching in his coat-tails, he and
she and I all went rolling over together. There we lay, the Captain
spluttering and swearing incontinently, though scarcely able in his rage
to utter a word clearly, the goat tugging away to get again on her legs,
I all the time shrieking out lustily for help. The officers, who had
been pacing the other side of the deck, could scarcely for laughter come
to their chiefs assistance, nor could he, from the struggles of the
goat, get again on his legs, for each time he made the attempt the
terrified animal in her efforts to escape his fury once more pulled him
down. I however, had managed to roll out of the way, while my cries,
which did not cease, although I was clear of danger, caught the ears of
Toby Kiddle, who was coming along the main-deck. He sprang up the main
hatchway ladder, and rushing up seized me in his arms. Just then the
purser and surgeon managed to raise up the Captain; not, however, till
Nanny had almost torn off his coat-tails, and finding herself released
was scampering back to the fore-part of the ship. The Captain's whole
frame seemed bursting with indignation and rage. Just then his eye fell
on Toby Kiddle and me in his arms.
"Who did it? Who did it?" he exclaimed. "Who set them on? You did,
sirrah--you did. You shall have three dozen for your fun!"
"Please, sir, it was not me," answered Toby, "and it could not have been
the poor innocent child. It was the goat, sir. What put it into her
head to do it, is more than I can tell."
"Hang the goat!" exclaimed the Captain, who by this time had begun to
feel that his anger was not very dignified; and turning round he went
below to hide his annoyance, as well as to put on another coat, instead
of the nankeen garment which Nanny had destroyed.
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Kiddle, as he turned forward. "I will take care
the goat never plays such a trick again."
As Toby had always objected to my riding the goat, he now came
triumphantly forward among those who had placed me on her back, telling
them the orders he had received from the Captain.
"But the skipper will lose his milk if you hang his goat," observed one
of them.
"Arrah, now, I suppose he is thinking it is time to wean himself,"
observed Paddy Brady, who had been the chief cause of the accident.
"At all events, his orders must be obeyed," observed Kiddle, "and so,
mates, as it was an evident case of mutiny, we will run her up to the
yard-arm at sunset. To my mind, if the goat was got rid of, we should
have a quieter ship than we have now."
Fortunately, the preparations which the men were making for hanging the
goat were observed, and reported to the Captain.
"Really, I do believe I did say so," he answered to the
First-Lieutenant. "Just go and tell Kiddle and the rest, that, in
consideration of her general good conduct, I purpose reprieving her.
That will settle the matter, and show my leniency and consideration in
favourable colours."
Thus our worthy Captain was in the habit of arranging even more weighty
matters, by which mode of proceeding, in spite of his eccentricities, he
warmly attached the ship's company to him.