CHAPTER XV--THE “RICHARD” AND THE “SERAPIS

The ships are slowly closing, watchful as wrestlers striving for holds, the _Richard_ edging down with the wind, the _Serapis_ holding on.

“What ship is that?” hails Captain Pearson.

There is no reply.

“What ship is that?” comes the second hail.

The response is a storm of solid shot from the _Richard_‘s flaming broadside.

As the _Richard_ goes into action, Commodore Paul Jones swings his glass along the eastern horizon. The _Pallas_ is going down the wind, in hot pursuit of the _Countess of Scarboro_, yawing and firing its bow-chaser as it runs; while far out to sea lies the traitor Landais, sulking or skulking, it matters little which, his coward topsails just visible against the moonlit sky-line.

With the wind aft, the _Richard_ and the _Serapis_ head northwest, both on the port tack. The moon makes the scene as light as day; the sea is as evenly smooth as a ballroom floor. The _Richard_ goes over on the starboard tack, the _Serapis_ holding as she is; the ships approach each other, the _Richard_ keeping the weather-gage. For twenty minutes it is broadside and broadside as fast as men may handle sponge and rammer. As in the hour of the _Drake_ and _Ranger_, the Yankees show smarter with their guns.

When the battle begins, the _Richard_ has to its broadside three eighteen-pounders, as against the _Serapis_’ ten. With the first fire, two of the _Richard_‘s three explode, killing half the men that serve them, and tearing open the main gun-deck immediately above. Lieutenant Mayrant, who has command in the gunroom where the three eighteens are mounted, reports the disaster to Commodore Paul Jones. The latter receives the news beamingly, as though it were the enemies’ eighteen-pounders, and not his own, that have been put out of action.

“Then we have only the twelve-pounders and the long nines to fight him with,” says Commodore Paul Jones. “It is now a thirty-two-gun ship against a forty-four. We shall beat him; and the honor will be the greater.” Then, observing Lieutenant Mayrant to be severely wounded in the head, he becomes concerned for that young gentleman. “Better go below to Brooks,” says he, “and have your wounds dressed.”

“I must get square for Portsea jail first,” replies Lieutenant Mayrant, who is of those exchanged ones enlisted at Nantes.

Lieutenant Dale, forward with the twelve-pounders, comes aft to ask about the exploded eight guns.

“They were rotten when the Frenchmen sold them to us,” says Lieutenant Dale bitterly.

“Ay!” responds Commodore Paul Jones. “I’d give half the prize money I shall get from yonder ship to have those Frenchmen here.” Meanwhile the _Serapis_--not yet a prize--is fiercely belching flame and smoke, while her shot tear the vitals out of the _Richard_.

The ships have been fighting half an hour--rough broadside work; the _Richard_ with its lighter metal has had the worst of the barter. They have sailed, or rather drifted, a mile and a half, edging closer to one another as they forge slowly to the north and west.

The _Serapis_, being the livelier ship, has fore-reached on the _Richard_, and Captain Pearson sees the chance to luff across the latter’s bows. Having torn the _Richard_ open with a raking broadside, Captain Pearson will then go clear around the Yankee, put the _Serapis_ upon the starboard tack, and claim in his turn the weather-gage. It is a brilliant thought, and Captain Pearson pulls down his helm to execute it. Already he sees victory in his fingers. He is radiant; it will make him a Knight Commander of the Bath.

While Captain Pearson is manoeuvring for that title, the hot broadside dispute proceeds with unflagging fury. Only the _Richard_ is beginning to bleed and gasp; those ten eighteen-pounders of the _Serapis_ overmaster its weaker batteries. Also, by this time they are doubly weak; for more than half of the _Richard_‘s twelve-pounders have been dismounted, and the balance are so jammed with wreckage and splinters as to forbid them being worked. Lieutenant Dale reports the crippled condition of the _Richard_‘s broadside to Commodore Paul Jones, where the latter stands on the after-deck, in personal command of the French marines, whose captain has crept below with a hurt knee.

“We have but three effective twelve-pounders left,” says Lieutenant Dale.

“Three?” retorts Commodore Paul Jones, cheerfully. “Now, well-aimed and low, Dick, much good damage may be worked with three twelve-pounders.”

Lieutenant Dale wipes the blood and sweat and powder-stains from his face, salutes, and goes back to his three guns; while Commodore Paul Jones, alive to the enemy’s new manouvre, takes the wheel from the quartermaster.

To check the ambitious Pearson in his efforts to luff across his forefoot, Commodore Paul Jones pays off the _Richard_‘s head a point. The check is not alone successful, but under the influence of that master hand, the _Richard_ all but gets the _Serapis_’ head into chancery.

Being defeated in his luff, Captain Pearson next discovers that his brisk antagonist has put him in a dilemma. If he holds on, the _Richard_ will run him down; he can already see the great, black cutwater rearing itself on high, as though to crush him and cut him in two. If he pays off the head of the _Serapis_, and avoids being run down, the _Richard_ will still foul and grapple with him. Lieutenant Mayrant’s bandaged head shows above the _Richard_‘s hammock nettings, as, with grappling irons ready for throwing, he musters a party of boarders--cutlass and pistol and pike--to have them in hand the moment the ships crash together. That title of Knight Commander of the Bath, and the star and garter that go with it, do not look so near at hand. Also, the _Serapis_, at this closer range, begins to feel the musket-fire from the _Richard_‘s tops. One after another, three seamen are shot down at the wheel of the _Serapis_.

In this desperate emergency, Captain Pearson, good sailorman that he is, neither holds on nor pays off, but with everything thrown aback attempts to box-haul his ship. It may take the sticks out by the roots, but he must risk it. The chance is preferable to being either run down or boarded.

The _Serapis_ is a new ship, fresh from the yards, and her spars and cordage stand the strain. Captain Pearson backs himself slowly out of the trap. He grazes fate so closely that the _Richard_, answering some sudden occult movement of the helm, runs its bowsprit over the larboard quarter of the _Serapis_, into its mizzen rigging.

“Stand by with those grappling irons!” shouts Commodore Paul Jones.

Lieutenant Mayrant throws the grapples with a seaman’s accuracy; they catch, as he means they shall, in the mizzen backstays of the Englishman. But the ships have too much way on. The _Richard_ forges ahead; the _Serapis_, every sail flattened, backs free; the lines part. Before Lieutenant Mayrant can take his jolly boarders over the _Richard_‘s bows, the ships have swung apart, and fifty feet of open water yawn between them.

The _Serapis_ falls to leeward; at the end of the next five minutes both ships are back in their old positions, with their broadside guns--or what are left of them--at that furious work of hammer and tongs.

At this crashing business of broadsiding, the _Richard_ has no chance, and Commodore Paul Jones--a smile on his dauntless lips, eyes bright and glancing like those of a child with a new toy--stands well aware of it. He must board the Englishman, or he is lost. As showing what Captain Pearson’s eighteen-pounders can do, the _Richard_‘s starboard battery--being the one in action--shows nine of its twelve-pounders dismounted from their carriages; while, of the one hundred and forty-three officers and men who belong with the main gun-deck battery under Lieutenant Dale, eighty-seven lie dead and wounded. The gun-deck itself, a-litter with dismounted guns and shot-smashed carriages and tackle, is slippery with blood, and choked by a red clutter of dead and wounded sailors.

Commodore Paul Jones turns to his orderly,

Jack Downes. “Present my compliments to Lieutenant Dale,” says lie, “and ask him to step aft.”

Bloody, powder-grimed, Lieutenant Dale responds.

“Dick,” observes Commodore Paul Jones, “he’s too heavy for us. We must close with him; we must get hold of him. Bring what men you have to the spar-deck, and serve out the small arms for boarding.”

The breeze veers to the west, and freshens up a bit. This helps the _Richard_ sooner than it does the _Serapis_; Commodore Paul Jones, having advantage of it, wears and makes directly for his enemy. This move, like a stroke of genius, brings him within one hundred feet of the _Serapis_, directly between it and the wind. It is his purpose to blanket the enemy, and steal the breeze from him. He succeeds; the _Serapis_ loses way.

It is now the turn of Commodore Paul Jones to go across his enemy’s forefoot, and retort upon the _Serapis_ that manouvre which Captain Pearson attempted against the _Richard_. But with this difference: Captain Pearson’s purpose was to rake; Commodore Paul Jones’ purpose is to board; for he lias now no guns wherewith to rake.

The _Serapis_ is held as though in irons, canvas a-flap, by the blanket of the _Richard_‘s broad sails. Slowly yet surely, like the coming of a doom, the _Richard_ forges across the other’s head. The design of Commodore Paul Jones is to lay the _Serapis_ aboard, lash ship to ship, and sweep the Englishman’s decks with his boarders. These, armed to the teeth, as ready for the rush as so many hunting dogs, Lieutenant Mayrant is holding in the waist.

The _Richard_ is half its length across the bows of the _Serapis_--still helpless, sails a-droop! Suddenly, by a twist of the helm, Commodore Paul Jones broaches the _Richard_ to on the opposite tack, and doubles down on his prey. It is the beginning of the end. The jib-boom of the _Serapis_ runs in over the poop-deck of the _Richard_; a turn is instantly taken on it with a small hawser by Lieutenant Dale, who makes all fast to the _Richard_‘s mizzen-mast. The ships swing closer and closer together; at last the two rasp broadside against broadside, the _Richard_ still holding its way. As they grind along, the outboard fluke of the _Serapis_’ starboard anchor catches in the Richard’s mizzen-chains. First one, then another gives way; the third holds, and the ships lie together bow and stern. Commodore Paul Jones is over the side like a cat; the next moment he lashes the _Serapis_ to the _Richard_, and the death-hug is at hand.