When they returned on board the Bon Homme Richard and reported to Paul Jones, he heard them through patiently. De Chamillard then declared that he believed Landais was crazy—that his language and countenance were wild and his conduct utterly irrational. To this Captain Cottineau disagreed. He was furiously angry with Landais, and thought him treacherous. Between these opposing views Paul Jones concluded to wait and have a personal interview with Landais. Within a few hours, however, the wind rose to a terrible gale, and the Alliance again disappeared, not to be seen until she made her appearance in a manner as unlooked for as usual.
Some days of alternate storm and fog followed. Paul Jones knew that he was off the Scottish coast, but not until the evening of the 13th of September was it clear enough for him to see the blue line of the Cheviot Hills in the distance.
Being in want of provisions and water, Paul Jones in the middle of the night sent an armed boat to bring off some sheep and oxen that were seen near the shore. Lieutenant Dale was in charge of the boat, and had with him money to pay for the cattle and sheep. This he did, allowing the owners a generous amount. He managed to extract a good deal of information from the peasantry, who told him of the capture of Mr. Lunt’s boat, and that the nature of the expedition was well known, as well as the fact that Paul Jones was in command, and that no less than eleven men-of-war were scouring the seas for the audacious Bon Homme Richard.
Upon their return to the ship Lieutenant Dale reported to the commodore. When he spoke of the eleven British captains, each one of whom was eagerly in search of the honor of capturing Paul Jones, a faint smile passed over the somewhat sad face of the commodore. England, the mistress of the seas, put forth all her strength and skill against this bold intruder into her very strongholds. But he was not to become her captive, but her continued defiance.
The coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland were in an uproar by this time. Signal fires blazed on every hill, and expresses were sent to London announcing the danger. But Paul Jones knew he was in no danger from the shore, and he trusted to himself to take care of his ship at sea. Never since the days of the sea kings had any seaman so struck terror into his enemies as Paul Jones.
On the 14th of September Commodore Jones sent for the captains of the Pallas and Vengeance, and confided to them a plan he had for laying the city of Edinburgh under a contribution of two hundred thousand pounds, besides capturing an armed ship of twenty guns and three fine cutters that lay in Leith roads.
“The ships lie in a state of perfect indolence and security,” he said, “which will prove their ruin.”
The French captains were not at first equal to this bold project. During one whole night, while the squadron lay off the Frith of Forth, did Paul Jones argue with them, and at last their consent was won.
When it was submitted to the younger officers, all received it with ardor.
“If these captains had but the dash and enterprise of their juniors anything could be attempted,” remarked Paul Jones to Lieutenant Dale. Dale shrugged his shoulders.
“The French have lost more ships through prudence than the British through rashness,” was his significant answer.
Paul Jones then made every preparation for the descent. De Chamillard, who had proved himself a brave and resolute man, was to take the terms of capitulation and ransom to the magistrates of Edinburgh. One half hour exactly was to be given them to provide two hundred thousand pounds or its equivalent. The gallant young Dale was to command the landing party.
The Frith of Forth was then entered, and on the 15th of September the ships were seen distinctly beating up the Frith. The alarm was general among the inhabitants, who knew the mighty name of Paul Jones, and who prepared as well as they could to meet him. Batteries were erected, and the citizens were served with arms from Edinburgh Castle. A little boy, ten years old, who was in Edinburgh then, well remembered the alarm and commotion, and often spoke of it afterward. This was Walter Scott.
One man, however—a member of Parliament—took it into his head that the Bon Homme Richard was a British cruiser, whose mission was to destroy the daring American. He therefore sent a boat with a messenger, asking that some powder and shot be sent him so that he might defend himself against the notorious Paul Jones. The commodore received the messenger politely on the quarter-deck, with several officers around him.
“Tell your master,” he said, “that I send the powder very cheerfully—Mr. Dale, will you have a barrel hoisted out?—and regret that I have no shot suitable for this powder.” As the powder was of no use without the shot the member of Parliament was no better off with it than without it. Nevertheless, the messenger did not have wit enough to see that he was being gulled, and accepted the barrel very thankfully. The men on deck, who saw through the ruse, grinned broadly while they were very zealous in getting the powder over the side. Bill Green, however, who had been talking with the men in the boat, touched his cap and spoke aside to Paul Jones:
“If you please, sir, that ’ere duck-legged chap, he’s a pilot, sir.”
“I am glad you told me,” answered Paul Jones: and, approaching the man, he said carelessly: “My fine fellow, I shall be on and off this coast looking for Paul Jones for some days, and I shall want a pilot, so I think I shall have to keep you.”
“All right, sir,” answered the man, touching his cap; and, calling out to his mates in the boat, he cried: “Tell Ailsa I have got a job of piloting, and she need not expect me till she sees me.”
This man proved to be of great service in piloting the vessel; for, even after her character was discovered, he was forced to direct her, as his own life, as much as that of anybody’s on the ship, depended upon her safety.
The Bon Homme Richard, with her two consorts, the Pallas and the Vengeance, continued working to windward up the Frith until Sunday, the 17th of September, a gusty autumn morning. Then they were almost within cannon shot of the town. The boats were hoisted out, De Chamillard with his soldiers were ready, and Dale, the youngest lieutenant on board, but the one most after Paul Jones’s own heart, was just about to step over the side. The wind had been fresh since the dawn of day, but suddenly a black and furious squall was seen upon the water ahead of them. The men were ordered in from the boats to assist in shortening sail, which was barely done before the squall struck them. The gale increasing fearfully, the boats were hoisted in, and the vessels were obliged to bear up before the wind in order to save their spars. The gale continuing, they were driven out of the Frith, and had to seek the open sea for safety.
Toward night the wind moderated. The North Sea was full of merchant ships, and the Bon Homme Richard, as well as the Pallas, cruised back and forth, taking and sinking a number of colliers. This, however, was not the sort of enterprise that suited Paul Jones’s daring spirit. He proposed several adventurous plans to the French captains, but could not win their co-operation. They were brave men, but more prudent than enterprising, and they had not the personal knowledge of Paul Jones’s powers and resource to take the risks he proposed. There was a large fleet of merchant ships lying in the Humber, which Paul Jones wished to entice into the open roads. The Bon Homme Richard went off before the wind, and returned wearing British colors, hoping that a certain ship which carried a pendant at her masthead was a ship of war, and would fight. This ship, though, kept to the windward and near dangerous shoals, so that the Bon Homme Richard could not approach with safety.
In order to learn some news of what was being done in the way of preparations to meet him, Paul Jones boldly hoisted a signal for a pilot. Two pilot boats, supposing the Bon Homme Richard to be a British cruiser, responded. There was great eagerness between the pilot boats as to which should be taken on board. Lieutenant Dale, under Paul Jones’s orders, took them both on board, in order to learn everything possible about the state of affairs along the coast. Presently Paul Jones, in his undress uniform, which greatly resembled the British uniform, except that he wore a Scotch bonnet of blue cloth bound with gold, strolled along the deck, and, seeing young Dale in conversation with the pilots, joined him.
“Have you heard anything of Paul Jones and his ship, my good man?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” responded both pilots in a breath, and one of them continued:
“That ’ere ship yonder,” pointing to the vessel wearing a pendant, and which was still near the entrance to the Humber River, “she is a armed merchantman—”
“And,” broke in the other, anxious to contribute his quota, “there’s a king’s frigate layin’ at anchor up the river, a-waitin’ for news o’ that impudent rebel ship o’ Paul Jones’s to take her and sink her. I piloted the frigate in, and they’ve give us a private signal for all ships while the rebel ship is in these waters.”
“That signal would be useful to us,” remarked Paul Jones, smiling in spite of himself. “We have not been in port since early in August, and we might get in trouble through not knowing the signal.”
The pilots, still supposing the Bon Homme Richard to be a British ship, gave the signal. Having got all he wanted out of them, Paul Jones dismissed them with money, saying that as there was already a frigate in the river he would continue to cruise outside. As the pilots went over the side, Bill Green bawled at them:
“Thankee for that ’ere private signal!” And a roar of laughter from the foks’l showed the sailors’ appreciation of the joke. But the pilots went off well satisfied with their fee and perfectly unsuspicious.
As soon as the pilot boat was out of sight, Bill Green, under Dale’s orders, hoisted the private signal, and lay near the mouth of the river. The armed vessel came a little way down the stream, but something aroused her suspicions, and she put back hastily. The entrance to the Humber being very difficult and dangerous, Paul Jones concluded not to attempt it, but to cruise around Flamborough Head, in the hope of rejoining his consorts, the Pallas and the Vengeance, and also with the hope of intercepting the Baltic fleet, which was due about that time.
This was the night of the 22d of September, the turning point in the career of Paul Jones, and it was one of the most miserable nights he had ever spent in all his adventurous life. The time of his cruise was now up, and upon joining the other two ships it would be his duty to proceed to the Texel, after a fruitless and inglorious expedition. After having endured all the agony of hope deferred, of suspense and almost of despair for fifteen months, he had at last got to sea in a miserable old hulk that was only a travesty on the fair frigate that he had hoped to command. He had lost one of his best officers and twenty-three of his men. More than half his squadron had deserted him, and he had been humiliated by the insubordination of a French captain that he could not properly punish without incurring the displeasure of the only ally that his distressed and struggling country could claim. He had taken a few prizes, most of which had been lost by caprice or folly, and he was now about to return to bear all the shame of failure, for to Paul Jones’s lofty and comprehensive mind the lack of brilliant success was failure.
A spirit of fierce unrest seemed to possess him as he walked the quarter-deck of the Bon Homme Richard while the twilight fell on that September evening. The darkness came on fast, and with it a fresh but fickle wind. The moon was near its full, and as it rose from the water it cast a pale and spectral glare over the vast expanse of the North Sea. Clouds were scudding wildly across the sky, and occasionally the moon was obscured for long periods. It was one of those ghastly nights when misfortune and sorrow and disappointment seem to brood over the universe.
The Bon Homme Richard was under easy canvas, and the crew were sitting around the foks’l after their day’s work was done, listening to yarns and songs. Presently, in the stillness of the September night, Paul Jones heard Bill Green’s rich voice singing. Scarcely knowing why he did it, so heavy was the weight upon his heart, Paul Jones walked quietly along the deck, and, leaning over the rail, unobserved by the men, he listened to the song. It was sad enough, and the air had a melancholy beauty in it that went to his very soul. It struck him with the deadly chill of a presentiment. The men, too, listened with a subdued and silent attention. This was the song:
Call the watch! Call the watch!Ho! the starboard watch, ahoy!Have you heardHow a noble ship, so trim, like our own, my hearties, here,All scudding ’fore the gale, disappearedWhen yon southern billows rolled o’er their bed so green and clear?Hold the reel! Keep her full! Hold the reel!How she flew athwart the spray, as, shipmates, we do now,Till her twice a hundred fearless hearts of steelFelt the whirlwind lift its waters aft and plunge her downward bow!Bear a hand!
Call the watch! Call the watch!
Ho! the starboard watch, ahoy!Have you heard
How a noble ship, so trim, like our own, my hearties, here,
All scudding ’fore the gale, disappeared
When yon southern billows rolled o’er their bed so green and clear?
Hold the reel! Keep her full! Hold the reel!
How she flew athwart the spray, as, shipmates, we do now,
Till her twice a hundred fearless hearts of steel
Felt the whirlwind lift its waters aft and plunge her downward bow!
Bear a hand!
Strike to’gallants! Mind your helm! Jump aloft!’Twas such a night as this, my lads, a rakish bark was drowned,When demons foul, that whisper seamen oft,Scooped a tomb amid the flashing surge that never shall be found.Square the yards! A double reef! Hark! the blast!Oh, fiercely has it fallen on the war-ship of the brave!When its tempest fury stretched the stately mastAll along the foamy sides, as they shouted on the wave.Bear a hand!
Strike to’gallants! Mind your helm! Jump aloft!
’Twas such a night as this, my lads, a rakish bark was drowned,
When demons foul, that whisper seamen oft,
Scooped a tomb amid the flashing surge that never shall be found.
Square the yards! A double reef! Hark! the blast!
Oh, fiercely has it fallen on the war-ship of the brave!
When its tempest fury stretched the stately mast
All along the foamy sides, as they shouted on the wave.
Bear a hand!
Call the watch! Call the watch!Ho! the larboard watch, ahoy!Have you heardHow a vessel, gay and taut, on the mountains of the seaWent below, with all her warlike crew aboard—They who battled for the happy, boys, and perished for the free?Clew, clew up, fore and aft! Keep her away!How the vulture bird of death, in its black and viewless form,Hovered sure o’er the clamors of his prey,While through all their dripping shrouds yells the spirit of the storm.Bear a hand!
Call the watch! Call the watch!
Ho! the larboard watch, ahoy!Have you heard
How a vessel, gay and taut, on the mountains of the sea
Went below, with all her warlike crew aboard—
They who battled for the happy, boys, and perished for the free?
Clew, clew up, fore and aft! Keep her away!
How the vulture bird of death, in its black and viewless form,
Hovered sure o’er the clamors of his prey,
While through all their dripping shrouds yells the spirit of the storm.
Bear a hand!
Now, out reefs! Brace the yard! Lively there!Oh, no more to homeward breeze shall her swelling bosom spread;But Love’s expectant eye bids DespairSet her raven watch eternal o’er the wreck in ocean’s bed!Board your tacks! Cheerly, boys!But for themTheir last evening gun is fired—their gales are over blown!O’er their smoking deck no starry flag shall stream;They’ll sail no more—they’ll fight no more—for their gallant ship’s gone down!Bear a hand!
Now, out reefs! Brace the yard! Lively there!
Oh, no more to homeward breeze shall her swelling bosom spread;
But Love’s expectant eye bids Despair
Set her raven watch eternal o’er the wreck in ocean’s bed!
Board your tacks! Cheerly, boys!But for them
Their last evening gun is fired—their gales are over blown!
O’er their smoking deck no starry flag shall stream;
They’ll sail no more—they’ll fight no more—for their gallant ship’s gone down!
Bear a hand!
A solemn silence followed as the last musical note died away on the waters. The waves and the lightly whistling wind had made a soft accompaniment for the sweet, sad music. Paul Jones listened to every word, and at the last “Bear a hand!” something like a groan burst from him. Hope had almost gone—despair was near to him. He stepped noiselessly from his place at the rail, and with bent head and folded arms began again to walk the quarter-deck. Dale, watching Paul Jones’s slight but sinewy figure as he walked up and down like a caged tiger, noticed the new expression on his face—an expression almost of hopelessness. Well might Paul Jones be hopeless, if this was to be the barren result of a cruise in which he had promised himself and those under him so much glory.
All the early hours of the night this ceaseless walk continued. It was Dale’s watch on deck, and he was relieved at midnight by Cutting Lunt, the only other sea lieutenant on the ship since Henry Lunt’s loss in the boat. Although not given to following the commodore unless invited, Dale looked after him wistfully as he went below. Once within the cabin, Paul Jones threw himself in a chair, and, resting his head on his hands, gave way to a silent paroxysm of despair. He knew not how long he sat in this agony of thought and feeling, but at last, raising his head, he saw his cabin boy, Danny Dixon, crouched in a corner, sound asleep. Although Danny’s orders were to leave the cabin and go to his hammock at ten o’clock, he was often found in the cabin at midnight, for which he always made the excuse that he had fallen asleep and did not know when it was six bells.
Something in the boy’s faithful and doglike attachment appealed to Paul Jones at this moment of supreme distress. “Poor little fellow!” he thought to himself, gazing at the boy’s sleeping figure. “There is one faithful soul who loves me, poor and unlettered and simple as he may be.”
He then rose, and, going forward, laid the boy’s head in a more comfortable position and threw a blanket over him.
“Let him rest; he will lie there until morning. And what would not I give for his sound and careless sleep!”
A few moments later a slight tap was heard at the cabin door, and Paul Jones himself opened it. There stood young Dale. His eyes dropped before the calm gaze of the commodore’s. He had come, led by an impulse of pity and veneration, but he knew not how to express it. In a moment or two Paul Jones spoke:
“Dale, I know why you have come. You feel for me in my misfortunes—for surely misfortune has followed this cruise. Know you, though, that while I want no man’s insulting pity, yours, which comes from the heart, is sweet to me.”
At this he laid his hand on the young lieutenant’s shoulder, and Dale, glancing up, his own eyes full of tears, saw that Paul Jones’s eyes were moist.
“I know, sir, better than anybody, the trials, the disadvantages, the insults you have been subject to. But there is not a man on this ship who does not believe in you and know that, if we have no captured ship of war to bring back with us, it is fate—not want of enterprise. But, commodore, I have a strange presentiment. I feel yet that within twenty-four hours we shall have some glorious event upon our hands. Something tells me that we are at a turning point, and that Fortune, which favors the brave, has yet a glorious reward for you.”
“May you be right!” answered Paul Jones, with a melancholy smile.
At daybreak on the morning of the memorable 23d of September Paul Jones appeared on the Bon Homme Richard’s deck. A short distance off lay the Pallas and the treacherous Alliance, which the Bon Homme Richard had chased during the latter part of the night, mistaking her for a British frigate.
All three ships were now off Flamborough Head. The day came clear and bright, with a gentle wind from the south. The delicate chill of the early dawn crept over the waters, and the eastern sky was aflame with yellow and pink and purple lights. A rosy mist enveloped the bold headland, and the waves that eagerly lapped it caught the crimson glow. The somber North Sea shimmered with a thousand hues, in the golden glory of the morning. Afar off, the castled height of Scarborough shone white in the radiant light, and the milky sails of fishing boats flecked the blue sea. There were no vessels in sight except the two French ships, for the name of Paul Jones kept the merchant fleets hugging the shore except under convoy. Something in the lovely scene inspired Paul Jones with renewed hope. As Dale went up and greeted him on the quarter-deck, Paul Jones said cheerfully: “Dale, I believe you are right. We have one more day before us, in which we may immortalize ourselves; therefore I take heart.”
The men were piped to breakfast at six o’clock, and just as they came on deck afterward a brigantine was observed, apparently hove to far to windward. Chase was given, and it was plain that she could not escape. About noon, however, as Paul Jones, with Dale by his side, was watching the pursuit of the brigantine, they happened to turn their eyes at the same moment toward the rocky promontory of Flamborough Head. Just weathering the headland, they saw a large, white ship, sailing beautifully, the wind filling her snowy canvas. There was nothing remarkable in her appearance, but something prophetic seemed to strike both Paul Jones and Dale. Their eyes met with a meaning look.
“Sir,” said Dale, “that ship—that ship—”
“Is the first ship of the Baltic fleet,” replied Paul Jones in a low, intense voice. “I feel it, I know it; and there must be more than one war-ship giving convoy to the fleet.”
The next moment, though, it became necessary to order a boat out to capture the brigantine, which was now at their mercy. Sixteen of the best hands on board the Bon Homme Richard were told off for this duty, and put under the command of Lieutenant Lunt.
“Look out for my signals, Mr. Lunt,” were Paul Jones’s last orders, “for I expect to fight this day.”
Every eye on the Bon Homme Richard was fixed on the ship that had glided so beautifully around the promontory. Within ten minutes another sail, and another, appeared in the wake of the large ship, all rounding the point. Paul Jones, in a passion of suppressed excitement, seized Dale by the arm. “Look!” he cried. “It is the Baltic fleet! It is not less than forty sail, and their convoy, I have heard, is the Serapis frigate, commanded by Captain Pearson, and the sloop of war Countess of Scarborough. Ah, Dale, well may your presentiment come true! This is our day to fight! Call the bugler, set the signal for a general chase, and prepare for action; and we will fight at close quarters.”
Dale fairly rushed off to give the necessary orders. The men sprang into the rigging with cheers, and set the fore and main sail. As soon as they were at quarters, the men, two by two, gave nine cheers for Commodore Paul Jones. Paul Jones, with sparkling eyes, took off his cap and waved it.
Just then Bill Green ran across Danny Dixon, who was hanging over the side, gazing at the stately ships as they came swiftly around the point, like a flock of huge swans.
“I say, boy,” said Bill, “you’d better be gittin’ that sawdust and sprinklin’ the deck, to keep your spirits up—’cause I see flunk in your eye.”
“Well, Mr. Green,” answered Danny, who had a long score of practical jokes and chaff to pay off, “I’ll be careful and throw a plenty o’ sawdust around the wheel to soak up your blood in case you is welterin’ in gore, and I’ll be proud to take your last messages to your afflicted widder—”
“Go along with you!” bawled Bill, who was not pleased with these grewsome suggestions. “I ain’t got no afflicted widder, nor no afflicted wife neither, you billy-be-hanged imp! I don’t see what boys is made for no-how, excep’ to be tormentin’ and aggerawatin’! Maybe you ain’t heerd, youngster, that the British Government has put a price on your head, and the man that carries you, livin’ or dead, aboard a British ship, gits a pile o’ money?”
“W’y, that’s very kind and complimentary of the Britishers,” answered Danny, with a knowing grin. “That’s what they done for Cap’n Paul Jones, and I’m mighty proud to be rated with him.”
“Jest wait,” answered Bill, “till these ’ere guns gits to barkin’ and the spars begins to fly ’round like straws when you’re threshin’, and I’m a-thinkin’ you won’t be as brave as the cap’n.”
“’Tain’t nobody as brave as the cap’n,” answered Danny stoutly, “but I ain’t a-goin’ to flunk, Mr. Green, and I’m a-goin’ to give you a extry handful o’ sawdust for to drink up your blood when I begins to lay it on the deck.”
It seemed as if the ships that came around Flamborough Head were of an endless fleet. But as soon as they caught sight of the black hull of the Bon Homme Richard to windward of them, waiting in grim expectancy, with the American ensign flying and preparations for action going on, they gave her a wide berth. They also raised the alarm by firing guns, letting fly their to’gallant sheets, tacking together, and making as close inshore as they dared.
Meanwhile, the Bon Homme Richard had cleared for action, sent down her royal yards, the crew were beat to quarters, and signals were made to the other ships to form the line of battle. The Pallas, under the brave Cottineau, obeyed the signals with alacrity. The Vengeance was ordered to bring back the boat with Lunt and his men in it, and to enter the men on the unengaged side of the Bon Homme Richard if the action should be begun, and then the Vengeance was to attack the convoy. She, however, disobeyed all of these orders, and never came into action at all. The Alliance disregarded all orders and signals, and reconnoitered cautiously. Captain Landais shouted to the Pallas as she passed, that if the man-of-war which they knew must convoy such a fleet proved to be the Serapis, all they would have to do would be to run away!
It was now long past noon, and still the end of the line of merchant ships had not been reached. At last, as the forty-first vessel rounded the point and took refuge inshore, a beautiful white frigate with a smart sloop of war following her appeared. The men on the Bon Homme Richard had seen a boat putting off from the shore for the frigate, and they surmised correctly that it was to inform the British frigate that the American ship was commanded by Paul Jones. Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, was a brave man, and was delighted at a chance of a fair and square fight with the American commodore. As Paul Jones had instantly recognized the Serapis and knew her commander, each captain was perfectly well aware whom he was fighting.
Captain Pearson first prudently and gallantly secured his convoy by clawing off the land so that he was outside his ships, and then tacking inshore so as to be between them and the Bon Homme Richard. The Bon Homme Richard was now coming down under every sail that would draw. The Serapis was unmistakably ready to fight, but she stood out to sea, with the view of drawing the American ship under the guns of Scarborough Castle. But Paul Jones was too astute for her, and determined to wear ship, so as to head the Serapis off. By that time Bill Green was at the wheel, and a good breeze was blowing, enabling the ship to manœuvre easily. Dale was officer of the deck, and gave the orders, under Paul Jones’s direction, to steer straight for the British frigate, that was waiting for the Bon Homme Richard under short fighting canvas.
The whole afternoon had passed in the previous manœuvres, and the early twilight of September had come before the Bon Homme Richard had shortened sail, and the two ships were slowly but determinedly approaching each other for the mortal encounter. The moon had not yet risen, but the stars were lighted in the deep-blue sky of night, and in the west a faint opaline glow still lingered. On the chalky cliffs a moving black mass showed, where thousands of people had assembled to see the fight, and far in the distance the frowning masses of Scarborough Castle loomed up, with myriad lights showing like sparks in the purple twilight. The strong, white flame from the lighthouse at Flamborough Head flashed like a lance of fire over the dark ocean. The silent manœuvres of the white-winged ships, the stillness only broken by the orders given and the “Ay, ay, sir!” of the sailors, which echoed beautifully over the water, made the ships seem almost like a phantom fleet. The battle lanterns were lighted, and every preparation was made for a fight to the death. The Bon Homme Richard was short-handed not only for men but for officers, and Richard Dale was the only sea lieutenant Paul Jones had in the unequal fight before him. The men were stripped to their shirts, except Bill Green and a few others, Bill alleging that “’Twarn’t wuth while to take off a man’s jacket till he got warmed up with fightin’!” Danny Dixon, as usual, had discarded his jacket early in the day, and had made every preparation for a hand-to-hand fight, although, as he was only a powder monkey, it was not likely that he would have any fighting at all to do.
It was Danny’s place, though, with another boy, to sprinkle sawdust along the decks to keep them from becoming slippery with blood. As he got to the wheel, where Bill Green stood, he threw the sawdust around liberally, and, although he dared not address the quartermaster, he remarked in a sly whisper to the other boy:
“Mr. Green, him and me is pertickler friends, so I’m a-goin’ to give him a extry handful o’ sawdust to soak up his blood, that’ll likely be a foot deep round about here.”
“Drat the boy!” growled Bill under his breath.
It was now about seven o’clock in the evening, and the ships were steadily closing. Paul Jones, night glass in hand, walked the quarter-deck. The Alliance and the Vengeance lay off two miles to windward, perfectly inactive, and apparently meant to be mere spectators of the great fight on hand. Their indifference and disobedience to the signals infuriated the officers and men of the Bon Homme Richard, but Paul Jones took it with the utmost coolness and composure.
“Let them do as they like,” he said; “the greater glory ours if we win without them.”
Captain Cottineau, of the Pallas, on seeing the Bon Homme Richard change her course and wear, rashly concluded that the crew had mutinied, had killed the commodore, and were running away with the ship. It is a singular instance of the faith which his associates had in Paul Jones, that Captain Cottineau should have been convinced of Paul Jones’s death before the command of the ship could be taken from him.
The captain of the Pallas therefore hauled by the wind and tacked, laying his head off shore. He did not follow the Bon Homme Richard, until, seeing her begin the action, he knew that Paul Jones still lived and commanded.
The ships were now within two cables’ length of each other. Paul Jones then tacked, in order to cross the bow of the Serapis. At this moment he perceived a man, at the order of Captain Pearson, fastening the Union Jack to the mizzen peak.
“Look!” said Paul Jones to Dale, “they are nailing the flag to the mast. There is no need to nail mine, for the first man that dares to touch it will never breathe again.”
The Serapis was within pistol shot and to windward, and both ships were on the port tack. The Serapis hailed as follows:
“This is his Majesty’s ship Serapis, forty-four guns. What ship is that?”
Stacy, the acting sailing master, answered the hail after Paul Jones’s directions, who wished to get in a raking position on the bow of the Serapis.
“I can’t hear what you say,” was the reply through the trumpet.
“What ship is that?” was again called out from the Serapis. “Answer immediately, or I shall be under the necessity of firing into you.”
At this, Richard Dale, who commanded the gun deck, cried to his men, “Blow your matches, boys!” and in another instant the Bon Homme Richard thundered out her broadside. So promptly was this returned from the Serapis that both reports seemed almost simultaneous. The roar was tremendous, and echoed and re-echoed over the sea and from the chalky cliffs.
At the first discharge two of the guns burst.
At the first discharge two of the guns burst.
In an instant both ships were enveloped in smoke and utter darkness. By this time the Bon Homme Richard’s bow was just across the forefoot of the Serapis. In order to keep the wind and to deaden her way, the Bon Homme Richard’s topsails were backed, and she passed slowly ahead of the Serapis, taking the wind out of her sails. The Serapis was a short ship, and answered her helm beautifully, in contrast to the lumbering Bon Homme Richard. As soon as the wind reached him again, Captain Pearson, keeping his luff, came up on the weather quarter of the Bon Homme Richard, fairly taking the wind out of the American ship’s sails in turn. The Serapis let fly her starboard batteries, and the Bon Homme Richard replied with her port batteries; but at the very first discharge of the six eighteen-pound guns on the Bon Homme Richard, the pieces being old and defective, two of them burst with a terrific concussion, tearing out the main deck above them and killing nearly all of the guns’ crews that served them. As soon as the shock subsided, although the shrieks and groans of the wounded still resounded, Paul Jones ran to the companion ladder and saw Dale, with a pale but undaunted face, standing on the shattered gun deck, surrounded by wounded men and the awfuldébrisof the exploded guns. Most of the ship’s lanterns had been put out by the concussion, and there was only a dim light that struggled with the darkness. The moonlight streamed in through the portholes clouded by the smoke from the Serapis’s guns, which thundered incessantly, hulling the Bon Homme Richard at every round.
“Two of the guns are gone, sir,” Dale said coolly, “and some of our brave boys. But we will fight the other four guns as long as they will hold together.”
“You are a man after my own heart!” cried Paul Jones, “and every gun on this ship will be fought as long as they will hold together; and if we go down, it will be with our ensign flying.”
In the midst of the smoke and confusion Dale then saw Danny Dixon running about picking up a row of cartridges that he had just laid down for the use of the guns, and which a stray spark might have ignited.
“Right for you, boy!” cried Dale; and then, turning to the men at the other four eighteen-pounders, he ordered the guns examined. Two of them were cracked from the muzzle down. This was a terrible blow to the Bon Homme Richard, as the loss of this battery would leave only thirty-two twelve-pound guns to fight fifty eighteen-pounders; for, although the Serapis was classed as a forty-four, she really carried fifty guns.
“Mr. Dale, I’ve got a good crew here as ain’t afeerd o’ nothin’,” said one of the gun captains, seeing that Dale hesitated to give the order to load and fire, “and I’ll resk it with these ’ere two eighteens.”
An instant later both of them were fired, and, as soon as the smoke drifted off, Dale, speechless with dismay, pointed to the two guns. Both of them were defective, and there was no possibility of firing them again; the only wonder had been that they had not exploded as the first two did.
The gun captain, sent by Dale, went up to the commodore on deck, where he stood calmly giving orders that were distinctly heard above the uproar, and manœuvring his ship with the same coolness as if he were working her into a friendly roadstead.
“Sir,” said the man, touching his cap, “Mr. Dale says as how not another shot can be fired from the eighteen-pounders. They is cracked from breech to muzzle.”
“I knew it,” answered Paul Jones; “the instant the firing stopped, I knew it was impossible to fire another shot, for Dale would never have given it up as long as he could work his guns. Tell Mr. Dale I think the enemy will soon silence the smaller guns, and that if the ship should catch fire—”
“She’s a-fire, sir, in a dozen places—”
“Or should leak badly—”
“The water, sir, is pourin’ in by the hogshead through the holes in the hull—”
“To fight both the fire and the water, and to keep her afloat as long as possible; and as long as she floats she shall be fought.”
The men on deck heard these gallant words, and a rousing cheer rang out over the furious din of the cannonade.
Just at that moment a new enemy appeared. The Countess of Scarborough, that had been gradually drawing within gunshot, delayed by the wind, which had become light and baffling, now suddenly loomed up in the faint moonlight on the lee bow of the Bon Homme Richard, and made her presence known by pouring a raking broadside into the American ship. But seeing, through the shattered sides of the ship, the blaze and smoke which Dale and his men were fighting as stubbornly as Paul Jones was fighting the British, and noticing that nearly every gun on the Bon Homme Richard was silenced, the sloop of war drew off, to let, as it was mistakenly thought, the Serapis finish up the unequal fight. The Alliance lay off, out of gunshot, a picture of beauty in the pale splendor of the night, but apparently without any intention of taking part in the fight. The Countess of Scarborough turned her attention toward the cowardly ship, which finally began to return the cannonade the Countess of Scarborough opened upon her. The Pallas, though, as if stung by the conduct of her consort, steered for the Countess of Scarborough, and engaged her with great spirit.
De Chamillard had held the poop of the Bon Homme Richard with twenty marines, but after losing several of his men he was driven back step by step. Paul Jones watched the brave Frenchman; and if he felt agony at the defeat that threatened him on every hand he gave no sign of it, but said to De Chamillard, as he came up, grimed with powder, “See, the Pallas is making amends, like yourself, for the treachery of the Alliance.”
The slaughter on the decks of the Bon Homme Richard was frightful, and below she was both leaking and burning. Moreover, there were over a hundred prisoners on board, that might be liberated by the fire and the water. But Paul Jones had in young Dale a man like himself, and he felt sure that Dale was no more likely to lose heart than himself.
The steady and uninterrupted broadside of the Serapis had now silenced every gun on the Bon Homme Richard, except two small nine-pounders on the spar deck.
“But there’s another gun on the quarter-deck, my lads,” cried Paul Jones, “and she’s not so big we can’t haul her over.”
At this the men rallied with a cheer, and as quick as thought the gun was dragged across the deck, Paul Jones himself helping.
“Now we will make play on her mainmast, boys,” said he, and, pointing the gun himself, a shot whizzed out and struck the Serapis’s mainmast, fair and square. Her rigging had caught fire, and the masts, being painted white, were plainly visible against the background of fire and smoke.
“A good shot!” shouted the men.
The shot had not been large enough to shatter the great spar, but half a dozen others following caused it to weaken plainly.
And so, with three nine-pounders against the twenty great guns and thirty small ones of the Serapis, Paul Jones maintained the honor of the American flag, and gave no sign of surrender.
The American tops, though, were well served, and Paul Jones saw that the decks of the Serapis were being swept by the musketry fire of the Bon Homme Richard, which was but little injured aloft, although her hull was almost a wreck. He could see on the deck of the Serapis the tall figure of Captain Pearson, and, although men were falling at every moment around him, he seemed to possess a charmed life. Besides small arms, the Americans in the Bon Homme Richard’s tops had hand grenades, which they threw on the Serapis’s decks with unerring aim. But, although the decks were swept, the frigate’s batteries were uninjured, her hull was sound, and she worked beautifully in the light breeze that blew fitfully. Meaning, therefore, to rake the Bon Homme Richard, she worked slowly past, keeping her luff, intending to fall broadside off and cross the Bon Homme Richard’s forefoot. But there was not sea room enough, and the Serapis, answering her helm perfectly, came up to the wind again, to keep from fouling her adversary. This movement brought the ships in line, and, the Serapis losing headway, the Bon Homme Richard’s jib boom touched her; so the two ships lay for a minute in this singular position, where neither could fire a gun.
It was then about eight o’clock. The moon, which was rising, passed into a cloud, and a dense mass of sulphurous smoke enveloped both ships. Not a gun was fired for several minutes, and a strange and awful silence suddenly followed the frightful uproar of battle.
In the midst of the darkness and silence a voice shouted from the stern of the Serapis:
“Have you surrendered?”
To this Paul Jones made that answer which will always mark him as the bravest of the brave. With his ship aleak and afire in a dozen places, his guns silenced, his decks swept by uninjured batteries, his hull riddled, and a hundred mutinous prisoners ready to spring from below upon him, he called out in a dauntless voice:
“We haven’t begun to fight yet!”
A tremendous cheer burst from the Americans at this, and the Serapis perceived that she must destroy her enemy before she could conquer him. She therefore managed to swing clear of the Bon Homme Richard, determined to get in a raking position, either across the bow or the stern of the ship. Laying her foresail and fore-topsail aback, and keeping her helm down while she shivered her after sails, she attempted to wear short around on her heel. Seeing the Serapis coming down on him, the Bon Homme Richard drew ahead to lay athwart her. But in the darkness neither captain could see very well what he was doing, and both ships came foul, the jib boom of the Serapis passing in over the Bon Homme Richard’s poop and becoming entangled in the mizzen rigging.
As soon as Paul Jones saw the Serapis’s spar passing over the poop, he called to the acting sailing master:
“Mr. Stacy, fetch a hawser immediately, and get grappling irons!”
But as the jib boom of the Serapis touched the mizzen rigging of the Bon Homme Richard, Paul Jones himself, without waiting for the hawser, seizing the ropes that hung to the bowsprit, with his own hand lashed the two ships together. In another moment Stacy came running up with a hawser. In the midst of the uproar, the smoke, the flame, and the confusion, Stacy bungled with his work, and an oath burst from his lips.
“Don’t swear, Mr. Stacy,” said Paul Jones. “In another moment we may all be in eternity, and this is no time for blaspheming our Maker.”[4]