Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

  “Eh, what be that?” quoth Obed,—”that be none of our ditties, I guess— who is singing below there?”

  “We be all on deck, sir,” responded Paul.

  “It can’t be the spy, eh?—sure enough it must be he, and no one else; the heat and choke must have made him mad.”

  “We shall soon see,” said Paul, as he removed the skylight, and looked down into the cabin.

  Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little short-sighted pigs’ eyes, into which, in my pot valiancy, I immediately chucked half a tumbler of very strong grog, and under cover of it attempted to bolt through the skuttle, and thereby gain the deck; but Paul, with his shoulder-of-mutton fist, gave me a very unceremonious rebuff, and down I dropped again.

  “You makes yourself at home, I sees, and be hanged to you,” said Obed, laying the emphasis on the last word, pronouncing it “yoo-oo” in two syllables.

  “I do, indeed, and be d——d to yoo-oo,” I replied; “and why should I not? the visit was not volunteered, you know; so come down, you long-legged Yankee smuggling scoundrel, or I’ll blow your bloody buccaneering craft out of the water like the peel of an onion. You see I have got the magazine scuttle up, and there are the barrels of powder, and here is the candle, so—”

  Obed laughed like the beginning of the bray of the jackass before he swings off into his “heehaw, heehaw.”

  “Smash my eyes, man, but them barrels be full of pimento, all but that one with the red mark, and that be crackers fresh and sharp from the Brandywine mills.”

  “Well, well, gunpowder or pimento, I’ll set fire to it if you don’t be civil.”

  “Why, I will be civil; you are a curious chap, a brave slip, to carry it so, with no friend near; so, civil I will be.”

  He unlocked the companion hatch, and came down to the cabin, doubling his long limbs up like foot-rules, to suit the low roof.

  “Free and easy, my man,” continued the captain, as he entered. “Well, I forgive you—we are quits now—and if we were not beyond the island craft, I would put you ashore, but I can’t stand back now.”

  “Why, may I ask?”

  “Simply, because one of your men-of-war schooners an’t more than hull down astarn of me at this moment; she is working up in shore, and has not chased me as yet; indeed she may save herself the trouble, for ne’er a schooner in your blasted service has any chance with the tidy little Wave.”

  I was by no means sure of this.

  “Well, Master Obediah, it may turn up as you say—and in a light wind I know you will either sail or sweep away from any one of them; but, to be on the square with you, if it comes on to blow, that same hooker, which I take to be his Britannic Majesty’s schooner Gleam, will, from his greater beam and superior length, outcarry and forereach on you—ay, and weather on you too, hand over hand; so this is my compact—if he nails you, you will require a friend at court, and I will stand that friend; if you escape—and I will not interfere either by advice or otherwise, either to get you taken or to get you clear—will you promise to put me on board of the first English merchant vessel we fall in with, or, at the longest, to land me at St Jago de Cuba, and I will promise you, on my honour, notwithstanding all that has been said or done, that I will never hereafter inform against you, or in any way get you into trouble if I can help it. Is it done? Will you give me your hand upon it?”

  Obed did not hesitate a moment; he clenched my hand, and squeezed it till the blood nearly spouted from my finger-ends. One might conceive of Norwegian bears greeting each other after this fashion, but I trust no Christian will ever, in time coming, subject my digits to a similar species of torture.

  “Agreed, my boy; I have promised, and you may depend on me. Smuggler though I be, and somewhat worse on occasion mayhap, I never breaks my word.”

  There was an earnestness about the poor fellow in which I thought there could be no deception, and from that moment we were on what I may call a very friendly footing for a prisoner and his jailer.

  “Well, now, I believe you, so let us have a glass of grog, and—”

  Here the mate sang out, “Captain, come on deck, if you please; quickly, sir, quickly.”

  By this time it had begun to breeze up again, and as the wind rose, I could see the spirits of the crew fell, as if conscious they had no chance if it freshened. When we went on deck, Paul was still peering through the telescope.

  “The schooner has tacked, sir.” A dead silence; then giving the glass a swing, and driving the joints into each other with such vehemence as if he would have broken them in pieces, he exclaimed, “She is after us, so sure as I ben’t a niger.”

  “No! Is she though?” eagerly inquired the captain, as he tried at length seized the spy-glass, twisting and turning it about and about, as he tried to hit his own very peculiar focus. At length he took a long, breathless look, while the eyes of the whole crew, some fifteen hands or so, were riveted upon him with the most intense anxiety.

  “What a gaff-topsail she has got—my eye!—and a ringtail with more cloths in it than our squaresail—and the breeze comes down stronger and stronger!”

  All this while I looked out equally excited, but with a very different interest. “Come, this will do,” thought I; “she is after us; and if old Dick Gasket brings that fiery sea-breeze he has now along with him, we shall puzzle the smuggler, for all his long start.”

  “There’s a gun, sir,” cried Paul, trembling from head to foot. “Sure enough,” said the skipper; “and it must be a signal. And there go three flags at the fore. She must, I’ll bet a hundred dollars, have taken our tidy little Wave for the admiral’s tender that was lying in Morant Bay.”

  “Blarney,” thought I; “tidy as your little Wave is, she won’t deceive old Dick—he is not the man to take a herring for a horse; she must be making signals to some man-of-war in sight.”

  “A strange sail right ahead,” sang out three men from forward all at once.

  “Didn’t I say so?”—I had only thought so. “Come, Master Obediah, it thickens now; you’re in for it,” said I.

  But he was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw everything depending on his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his mind that they must be taken.

  “Jezebel Brandywine, you are but a widowed old lady, I calculate. I shall never see the broad, smooth Chesapeake again—no more peach brandy for Paul;” and, folding his arms, he set himself doggedly down on the low taffrail.

  Little did I think at the time how fearfully the poor fellow’s foreboding was so soon to be fulfilled.

  “There again,” said I, “a second puff to windward.” This was another signal-gun, I knew; and I went forward to where the captain was reconnoitring the sail ahead through the glass. “Let me see,” said I, “and I will be honest with you, and tell you if I know her.”

  He handed me the glass at once, and the instant I saw the top of her courses above the water, I was sure, from the red cross in her foresail, that she was the Firebrand, the very corvette to which I was appointed. She was so well to windward, that I considered it next to impossible that we should weather her; but Obediah seemed determined to try it. After seeing his little vessel snug under mainsail, foresail, and jib, which was as much as she could stagger under, and everything right and tight, and all clear to make more sail should the breeze lull, he ordered the men below, and took the helm himself. What queer animals sailors are! We were rising the corvette fast; and on going aft again from the bows, where I had been looking at her, I cast my eye down the hatchway into the men’s berth, and there were the whole crew at breakfast, laughing and joking, and enjoying themselves as heartily, apparently—nay, I verily believe in reality—as if they had been in a yacht on a cruise of pleasure, in place of having one enemy nearly within gunshot astern, and another trying to cut them off ahead.

  A
t this moment the schooner in chase luffed up in the wind, and I noticed the foot of the foresail lift. “You’ll have it now, friend Obed; there’s at you in earnest.” While I spoke, a column of thick white smoke spouted over the bows of the Gleam, about twenty yards dead to windward, and then blew back again amongst the sails and rigging as if a gauze veil had for an instant been thrown over the little vessel, rolling off down the wind in whirling eddies, growing thinner and thinner, until it disappeared altogether. I heard the report this time, and the shot fell close alongside of us.

  “A good mark with that apple,” coolly observed the captain; “the Long Tom must be a tearer, to pitch its mouthful of iron this length.”

  Another succeeded; and if I had been still pinned up in the companion, there would have been no log now, for it went crash through into the hold.

  “Go it, my boys,” shouted I; “a few more as well aimed, and heigh for the Firebrand’s gun-room!”

  At the mention of the Firebrand I thought Obed started, but he soon recovered himself, and looking at me with all the apparent composure in the world, he smiled as he said, “Not so fast, lieutenant; you and I have not drank our last glass of swizzle yet, I guess. If I can but weather that chap ahead, I don’t fear the schooner.”

  The corvette had by this time answered the signal from the Gleam, and had hauled his wind also, so that I did not conceive it possible that the Wave could scrape clear, without coming tinder his broadside. “You won’t try it, Obed, surely?”

  “Answer me this, and I’ll tell you,” rejoined he. “Does that corvette now carry long 18’s or 32-pound carronades?”

  “She carries 32-pound carronades.”

  “Then you’ll not sling your cot in her gunroom this cruise.”

  All this time the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib-boom bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing-rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly qualities, the heavy cross sea, as she drove into it, headed her off bodily, and she could not prevent the Gleam from creeping up on her weather-quarter where she peppered away from her long 24-pounder, throwing the shot over and over us.

  To tack, therefore, would have been to run into the lion’s mouth, and to bear up was equally hopeless, as the corvette, going free, would have chased her under water; the only chance remaining was to stand on, and trust to the breeze taking off, and try to weather the ship, now about three miles distant on our lee bow, braced sharp up on the opposite tack, and evidently quite aware of our game.

  As the corvette and the Wave neared each other, he threw a shot at us from the boat gun on his topgallant forecastle, as if to ascertain beyond all doubt the extent of our insanity, and whether we were serious in our attempt to weather him and escape.

  Obed held right on his course, like grim Death. Another bullet whistled over our mastheads, and, with the aid of the glass, I could see, by the twinkling of feet, and here and there a busy peering face through the ports, that the crew were at quarters fore and aft, while fourteen marines or so were all ready rigged on the poop, and the nettings were bristling through the whole length of the ship, with fifty or sixty small-arm men.

  All this I took care to communicate to Obediah. “I say, my good friend, I see little to laugh at in all this. If you do go to windward of him at all, which I greatly doubt, you will have to cross his fore-foot within pistol-shot at the farthest, and then you will have to rasp along his whole broadside of great and small, and they are right well prepared and ready for you, that I can tell you; the skipper of that ship has had some hedication, I guess, in the war on your coast, for he seems up to your tricks, and I don’t doubt but he will tip you the stem, if need be, with as little compunction as I would kill a cockroach, devil confound the whole breed! There—I see his marines and small-arm men handling their firelocks, as thick as sparrows under the lee of a hedge in a snowstorm, and the people are training the bull-dogs fore and aft. Why, this is downright stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an egg-shell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed foolhardiness.”

  I had made several pauses in my address, expecting an answer, but Obed was mute as a stone. At length I took the glass from my eye, and turned round to look at him, startled by his silence.

  I might have heard of such things, but I had never before seen the working of the spirit so forcibly and fearfully demonstrated by the aspect of the outward man. With the exception of myself, he was the only man on deck, as before mentioned, and by this time he was squatted down on it, with his long legs and thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open skylight. The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all; his complexion, usually sallow and sunburnt, was now ghastly and blue, like that of the corpse of a drowned man; the muscles of the neck, and the flesh of the cheeks and chin were rigid and fixed, and shrunk into one-half of their usual compass; the lips were so compressed that they had almost entirely disappeared, and all that marked his mouth was a black line; the nostrils were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead was shrivelled into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, as if done with a crimping instrument; while over his eyes, or rather his eye, for he kept one closed as if it had been hermetically sealed, he had lashed with half-a-dozen turns of spun-yarn a wooden socket, like the butt-end of an opera glass, fitted with some sort of magnifier, through which he peered out ahead most intensely, stooping down, and stretching his long bare neck to its utmost reach, that he might see under the foot of the foresail.

  I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came through the head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very next instant a bushel of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32-pound carronade, was crashed in on us amidships. I flung down the glass, and dived through the companion into the cabin—I am not ashamed to own it; and any man who would undervalue my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, or infernal effect of a discharge of grape. Round shot in broadsides is a joke to it; musketry is a joke to it; but only conjure up in your imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of well-grown plums, to the number of from sixty to one hundred and twenty, taking effect within a circle, not above ten feet in diameter, and that all this time there was neither honour nor glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I fancy I may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement.

  I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up the planks of the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well down into the run, so as to be as much out of harm’s way as they could manage; but there was neither fear nor flinching amongst them; and although totally devoid of all gasconade—on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could do in their situation, to keep out of harm’s way, or at least to lessen the danger—there they sat, silent, and cool, and determined. “I shall never undervalue an American as an enemy again,” thought I. I lay down on the side of the little vessel, now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of Paul Brandywine, in a position that commanded a view of Obed’s face through the small scuttle. Ten minutes might have elapsed—a tearing crash—and a rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones had been thrown from aloft on it.

  “That’s through the mainmast, I expect,” quoth Paul.

  I looked from him to the captain; a black thick stream of blood was trickling down behind his ear. Paul had noticed it also.

  “You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see; give me the helm now, Captain;” and, crushed down as the poor fellow appeared to
be under some fearful and mysterious consciousness of impending danger, he nevertheless addressed himself to take his captain’s place.

  “Hold your blasted tongue”—was the polite rejoinder.

  “I say, captain,” shouted your humble servant, “you may as well eat peas with a pitchfork, as try to weather him. You are hooked, man, flounder as you will. Old Nick can’t shake you clear—so I won’t stand this any longer;” and, making a spring; I jammed myself through the skylight, until I sat on the deck, looking aft and confronting him, and there we were, stuck up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cherries on one stalk, I have often laughed at the figure we must have cut, but at the time there was that going on that would have made Comus himself look grave. I had at length fairly aroused the sleeping devil within him.

  “Look out, there, lieutenant—look out there,”—and he pointed with his sinister claw down to leeward. I did so—whew!—what a sight for poor Master Thomas Cringle! “You are booked for an outside place,—Master Tommy,” thought I to myself—for there was the corvette in very truth—she had just tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within musket-shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with the green, hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, and washing up in foam, like snow-flakes, through the midship ports, far aft on the quarterdeck, to the glorification of Jack, who never minds a wet jacket so long as he witnesses the discomfiture of his ally Peter Pipeclay. The press of canvass she was carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear as glass, and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water throughout her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, surmounted by a milk-white streak, broken at regular intervals into eleven goodly ports, from which the British cannon, ugly customers at the best, were grinning, tompion out, open-mouthed at us; and above all, the clean, well-stowed white hammocks filled the nettings, from taffrail to cat-head—oh! that I had been in one of them, snug on the berth deck! Aloft, a cloud of white sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say good-by to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow-wands (as if the devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was preparing fiddlesticks to play a spring with, on the cracking and straining weather shrouds and backstays), and tearing her sharp wedge-like bows out of the bowels of the long swell, until the cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were hove clean out of the sea, into which she would descend again with a roaring plunge, burying everything up to the hause-holes, and driving the brine into mist, over the fore-top, like vapour from a waterfall, through which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on her bows flashed back the sunbeams in momentary rainbows. We were so near, that I could with the naked eye distinctly see the faces of the men. There were at least 150 determined fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands, wherever they could be posted to most advantage.