The Saintly Buccaneer (26 page)

“Weel, now, that’s a man o’ war speakin’—but I doot ye’ll get the chance. Look, she’s tackin’ now. Ye’ll not get more than five or six shots at her, I’m thinkin’.”

“One is all it takes. I’ve put a double charge in the gun, and a single shot. Ought to be in range in a few minutes.”

“One hole in her wouldn’t do it, though,” Angus surmised, shaking his head. “Even if ye hit her with two or three o’ them six-pound shot, they could plug the holes and pump the hull dry before we could catch up with ’em.”

“That’s right enough,” Hawke agreed. “But you just ask that God of yours to let me place one shot where I want it—and then we’ll see.”

Every member of the
Neptune
’s crew was on deck, the gun crews gathered about their weapons, all watching the progress of the enemy ship.

“Do ye think the wind’s going to hold?” asked Angus. “Looks like the sun’s swallowing it.”

“Can’t say, but if we can get in a good shot, we’ll have a chance of coming up to her. Ready to fire,” he ordered, and there was a long moment as he waited for the slow roll of the ship. At the extreme point when the bow was lifted free from the white foam, he yelled, “Fire!”

The gun exploded almost before his words died, and the gun was driven backward, coming to an abrupt halt as she hit the end of her harness. All eyes tried to trace the flight of the ball, but under the force of the double charge, no one could spot it.

“Didn’t see the ball hit,” Angus said, but Hawke was yelling at the crew, who were toiling like demons.

“Load your powder!”

The cartridge slid down the barrel.

“Rammers—first wads!”

The wad was rammed down on top of the cartridge.

“Load roundshot!”

The ball rang and rumbled its way down the barrel.

“Second wads!”

The rammer damped the wad hard onto the ball.

“Run out the gun!”

The men clapped on to the side tackles and ran the gun down the slight slope of the deck, hauling it hard up against the ship’s side, the black-painted muzzle jutting out over the green water.

“Handspikemen—train hard forward!”

The crowbar dug in and levered, inching the gun rapidly around until the muzzle was pointing as far forward as possible.

“Adjust your quoins—minimum depression!”

The gun muzzle rose as the wedge slipped into place. The gun captain, in this case the burly Dion Sullivan, crouched over his flintlock, waiting for the final order.

“Fire!”

The lanyard jerked, the spark flew, the muzzle belched flame and smoke and thunder, and the gun hurled backward, brought up sharply by the breechings.

This time Angus thought he caught a glimpse of a thin black line against the sky, and then he shouted, “Close miss! Too long by half a cable.”

Hawke cried out the commands and the next shot was seen by all, falling too far by a cable.

“Ye’re overshooting!” Angus yelled. “Lower the gun.”

“Mind your praying! I’ll take care of this gun!” There was a flaming light of battle in Hawke’s eyes, and he once again cried out “Fire!” The thunder of the gun had not died away before a cry went up from the crew.

“You got her main mast!” Angus screamed and did a war dance on the deck. “Hit her again!”

Sure enough, the mainsail of
The Gallant Lady
was
snapped off as if sheared by an invisible axe halfway up. The mainsail and the royals fell directly against the foremast, tearing down the top gallants and bringing a mass of wreckage down onto the deck.

“We’ve got a chance now!” Captain Rommey had come to stand close to the stern gun, and his eyes were alight with pleasure. “Good work, Mr. Hawke. I’ll mention this in my dispatches.”

“Thank you, Captain. Keep up firing, of course?”

“Of course. If you can keep up the pressure, we’ll be close enough to swing about and give her a broadside—that’ll take care of her!”

But that was not accomplished so easily. The crew of the privateer cleared the deck quickly; and even stripped of part of her sails, she was able to keep her distance from the
Neptune.

Slowly the two ships moved through the water, and the first success of the warship was not repeated. The
Lady
presented a small target, and even though the six-pound shot came close, no more hits were repeated.

Angus was watching the fleeing ship through the brass telescope, and he cried out, “She’s got stern chasers—look like eighteen-pounders to me! I think we’re in for it!”

He had no sooner spoken than clouds of smoke rose from the stern of the
Lady,
and then they heard the roar of the stern chasers. Instantly there was a terrific crash midship, and Hawke looked around to see a section of the ship disappear. Bodies and parts of them splintered through the air. Lattimore received the full impact and lay still on the deck.

Confusion reigned, but Langley ran to the scene, and soon had the wounded carried below. Almost at once, another large shell struck the superstructure of the small cabin containing storage just below the poop deck. No one was hurt, but Angus yelled, “We can’t stand up to that kind of pounding! She’s got good gunners, sir! She can pound us to pieces with those long eighteens!”

“I thought we had her—but you may be right, Burns.”

“We’ll take that ship! As long as we can fire this gun, I won’t quit!” Captain Rommey was startled, for Hawke’s face was blazing with anger.

“We can’t risk our ship, Hawke!”

“Hell loves a quitter, sir!” Hawke shot back, a fierce light in his eyes. “We came to destroy this ship, sir! Isn’t that what the admiral said? I say we do it! Let’s show those Yankees what Englishmen can stand!”

Rommey stared at him, then smiled and nodded, “I stand rebuked. Continue firing, Mr. Hawke.”

For two hours the duel continued, the breeze tantalizing the British. It rose and fell, and the shots from the
Lady
fell, too, sending shrapnel whirring through the air. Bresington, a huge Swede, was crossing the deck of the
Neptune
when one of the shots exploded on the side of the ship, driving a splinter the size of his arm through his back, knocking him forward and killing him instantly.

There were other casualties, and the crew stayed away from the deck unless compelled by orders. By some miracle, none of the shots hit the bow chaser, and all the crew were awed by the way Hawke stood there giving commands as calmly as if he were in a living room at home. More than once he heard the
whizz
of a shot close to his ear, and he was amazed to see the crew fall flat. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Get back to your guns. I’m ashamed of you!”

“The man has no more nerves than a brass statue,” Rommey muttered to Burns. “I think he lost his fear the same way he lost his memory.”

Ten minutes later a shell did strike one of the crew, a tall Cornishman named Wells. He was bringing up a round shot when a missile from the
Lady
hit him with such force that he fell to his death without a sound.

The crew flinched, and Hawke saw them ready to bolt. He knew at once that if they left, he’d never get a crew to stand exposed to the stern chaser. He spotted Captain Baxter immaculately dressed in his red uniform, and cried out,
“Captain Baxter! Take the name of the next man who dies without permission!”

The crew stared at him unbelievingly, and then Sullivan laughed wryly. “Sink me! That’s a good one!” Then the rest of the crew joined him, and they got off another shot as the body of Wells was carried away and the deck was covered with sand to soak up the blood.

“That’s the way the good ones are,” Rommey commented as he watched. “They can rise to any crisis and the men know they’re not afraid. All the great fighters have been like that. I think you’ve seen the birth of a legend, Mr. Burns—Look! Got his rudder!”

Burns looked and saw the rudder of the
Lady
dangling by a cable, and the ship veered helplessly to one side. “We’ve got her, sir! She can’t get away now.”

Hawke came charging down the deck, pulled up before the captain and demanded, “Permission to fire broadside, sir!”

“Permission granted,” Rommey answered. “I’ll have the ship put about, and if she doesn’t lower her colors, sweep her decks with the carronades. We can take her as a prize, I think. Have the guns loaded with chain.”

“Aye, sir!”

Angus looked at the reeling ship, and said, “She’d better surrender. I hate to think of what a broadside with chain will do to those on that deck.”

“It’s their option, Mr. Burns. If I had God’s ear as you do, I think I’d ask Him to give that captain enough sense to surrender!”

****

Ever since the main mast had fallen, the crew of the
Lady
had been hard put to avoid panic. Captain Alden had shown no fear, and it helped the crew to see the old man standing straight and tall on the deck as unconcerned as if he were in his own garden at home. Dan Greene looked up from where
he labored over his guns long enough to say with a grin, “Well, Captain, we’re in a fight!”

“Blast the suckers out of the water, Daniel!” Alden cried. He shook his fist at the
Neptune
and shouted, “Come on, you blasted cowards.”

Dan shook his head later and remarked, “Captain, I wouldn’t say they’re cowards exactly. They’re standing up to our fire better than most. But unless they get more of our sail, we’ll make it. Once it’s dark, we can shake them off. Maybe we can get a little more sail on, do you reckon? Every yard helps.”

Alden went off to see about jury-rigging a jib, and Charity came to stand beside Dan. Surprised, he shouted, “Charity, get below!”

“No! I’ll stay here with you and Father.” She ignored him as he begged her to leave, and after he got off the next shot, she asked, “Are they going to get us, Dan?”

“I pray not.” He stared out across the water, then shook his head. “This is my fault. But I pray God will deliver us.”

“And there are men on that ship praying that God will put us in their hands.” She stared at him bitterly, bright anger in her eyes as she stormed, “I don’t understand your God, Dan. I never will!”

He stared at her unhappily, and she turned and stalked off. He wanted to run after her, to explain. For now that would have to wait. She was angry with him for getting them into the danger, and rightly so, but he had no thought of being taken.

It was only when the shot from the warship knocked the rudder off that he knew they were lost. He felt the shot hit; then when the ship heeled to starboard, he knew it was over.

He walked slowly toward where Alden was standing beside Hobbes, the ancient helmsman. “We’ve got to surrender, Captain Alden.”

“Surrender the
Lady?
Never!”

“No choice. Look, she’s swinging around to give us a broadside.”

Alden looked, but had no idea of what that meant. “Get to your guns, Daniel.”

Greene stared at him, amazement in his face. “Sir, we can’t stand a broadside from a frigate! Why, a ship of the line couldn’t stand that!”

Alden seemed dazed. He shook his head stubbornly. “We’ll fight her! Get to your guns!”

Dan saw that the old man had cracked. He turned and stated numbly, “I’ll lower our colors, Captain.”

He left the cabin and heard Alden shouting, but could not make out the words. Suddenly just as he approached the mast and was prepared to haul the colors down to indicate surrender, he was seized and thrown to the deck. He fought, but Olsen and three other husky members of the crew held him down. Olsen had never forgotten the whipping he’d taken, and now he laughed in delight as he pinioned Greene to the deck.

“Let me up, you fools!” Dan shouted. “They’ll blow us out of the water!”

But Olsen only laughed. “Let’s see how strong you are now, Mr. Greene!” he taunted.

Fear rose in Dan’s heart, for he knew that as soon as the frigate made her turn, she would throw enough metal at them to blow the
Lady
to bits.

But he could not free himself. He thought mostly of Charity, and struggled frantically to break the hold. Others were giving the orders to man the guns, and he caught a glimpse of the port deck, lined with gunners. It seemed that every hand was on deck, not knowing they were about to be hit with a hail of iron.

Some of the guns fired, but then he heard Laurence Conrad cry clearly, “Look out! She’s coming to bear!” He paused and then added, “For what we are about to receive—”

He never finished, for there was a terrific thunder of guns, and the
Lady
reeled under the blow. The air was full of sounds, and Greene knew as he lay powerless on the deck that the
whirring
noise was six-foot lengths of chain that swept the
deck of the ship like a scythe. The men who held him down were knocked off him as if with a giant fist, and as Dan sprang to his feet, he saw that Olsen had been cut almost in half.

A deadly silence followed, strange and eerie after the crash of the guns—and then the cries of the wounded and dying began. It tore against Dan’s nerves, but he hurdled the bodies that lay squirming on deck and ran for the cabin. The sides of it, he saw, had been blasted away, and he flung himself through the door in an agony of fear. He saw the mangled body of Hobbes huddled against the bulkhead, and in the middle of the deck William Alden lay holding on to his stomach. He had taken the wound that spilled his life, and he was staring at the wound with eyes that were already beginning to cloud.

“Father! Father!” Charity came flying through the door, falling beside the dying man, weeping and pulling at him. “Don’t die! Please don’t die!”

He lifted one hand, and the blood ran like a stream to the deck. Touching her hair, he waited until she lifted her head. When he spoke his voice was weak. “Daughter, you have been my joy—but now it’s time for me to leave. God will keep you—for I go to Him—I go to my Beloved!”

She shook in every joint, and her hands plucked at him. “Don’t leave me!” she cried.

His face was pale as death, but he took his other arm and threw it around her. Then the strength drained out of him, and he managed to say only, “I—will wait for you—your mother and I—we’ll be—”