Richard Dale was rigid, ears strained. Suddenly, all the musket fire from Serapis stuttered to a halt. Only sporadic shots from Richard’s mast-tops continued. Then they both heard it again, loud and clear.
CHAPTER 7
“Quarter! Do you hear me? Quarter!”
Paul Jones stood up to his full height, brushing away strands of chestnut hair from his smudged face.
“Do you ask for quarter?” he called back, pushing to the bulwark for a view of the English decks. Musket fire broke out from the English marines when they sighted the American officer.
“CEASE FIRE!” Captain Pearson bellowed. “I have asked for quarter! CEASE FIRE!”
The shooting stopped. Paul Jones could see the red-jacketed marines throwing down their weapons. Muskets, pistols, cutlasses, hangars, and pikes clattered to the deck. The beaten men clustered into groups where they had fought, sullen, shoulders slumped in defeat. The commodore surveyed them, his cheeks drawn, steely eyed, but he broke into a weary smile when his crew began to cheer. Voices rose from every corner of Bonhomme Richard, hoarse with victory. Paul Jones peered aloft where arms waved from the mast crosstrees. Even the prisoners at the pumps stopped, slumped against the winch handles to massage drained muscles while their overseers moved to the rail.
Paul Jones quelled the wild laughter that threatened to bubble up in his throat, nodding when Richard Dale came to stand with him. When he spoke, his tone was formal but with an underlying humor.
“Mr. Dale, would you kindly go aboard and take possession?”
Dale could not suppress his grin. He drew himself to attention, then saluted, a grubby, cheeky-faced farmer. “With the commodore’s permission?”
Jones answered his smile briefly. “When you have taken command, escort the English captain to me here, then organize the prisoners into fire control parties. If we can’t hold back the water, at least we can douse the flames. And have all the wounded attended to by Surgeon Brooke.”
Lt. Dale took a detail of French marines and American sailors over the bulwark onto the foc’sle of Serapis. They worked aft in formation, collecting prisoners as they went. Surrounded by the remainder of his officers, Captain Pearson waited on the quarterdeck. Lt. Dale approached the ladder, mounting it slowly under the wary gaze of the Englishmen. Pearson ignored him, staring instead at the ragged bunch of prisoners who had been his men. They had fought long and hard and deserved better than to be herded like animals by the French marines. He could not help feeling he had betrayed them, although he had surrendered to save their lives. But for a flaw in his character or better judgment, they could have been the victors, not the defeated.
“Sir, I have orders to escort you on board the ship alongside.”
Captain Pearson pursed his lips as he met Richard Dale’s eyes. So young, he thought. Most of them boys, hardly men. This one had the look of a plowman with his ruddy face. If ill-organized yeomen could achieve what these had in their battered old East Indiaman, then what heights would the Americans eventually scale when properly equipped?
“Sir?”
“Yes,” Pearson said absently, “I heard you. Very well.” He turned and walked to the staff where the ensign was nailed. With his own hands he wrenched it away from the wood, leaving scraps of cloth still attached to the embedded nails. He about-faced and held out the symbol of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy. Dale took the tattered flag, rubbing the heavy cotton between his fingers.
“If you please, sir.”
A marine fell in on either side of the Englishman. The captain looked at the deck then gave his first lieutenant a sad smile. “Carry on, Mr. Wright.” Slowly, he straightened his back and began to walk.
Paul Jones had put on his uniform jacket over his blackened shirt and cursorily tidied his hair. The two commanders looked each other over. Each had heard the other’s voice during the battle but neither had seen his opponent.
“Sir, this is Captain Pearson of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy,” Lt. Dale offered. “Captain Pearson, may I introduce Commodore John Paul Jones of the American Navy.”
Pearson said nothing. Slowly, he unfastened his sword scabbard then offered it as a token of surrender. Paul Jones accepted it solemnly, weighing it in his hands. He raised his head to speak, only to be interrupted by a crack like a clap of thunder from HMS Serapis. All eyes swiveled to the English warship. Her mainmast, punished by so many charges from the commodore’s own nine-pounder, split like a thunderstruck oak. Groaning, it toppled slowly. Yards swung loose then crashed to the deck. Braces and shrouds were entangled. The mizzenmast, too, shivered like an aspen in the wind, before its topmast splintered away. The whole mess collapsed overboard into the North Sea. A ravel of rigging trailed after. When the dust and the sea settled, the commodore turned his attention back to Captain Pearson.
“I accept your surrender.” He handed back the sword. “You have fought gallantly, sir, and I hope your king will give you a better ship.”
Pearson’s face was haggard, set to disguise his self disgust and shame. Only his eyes betrayed the lie of pride written on his face. The American felt for him, imagining their positions reversed. “You cost me the Baltic fleet, sir,” Jones stated, a compliment.
A glimmer of small triumph flared quickly in the Englishman’s eyes. A moment later, it had died away. “And you, sir, cost me my command.”
Jones ignored the retort, wondering which of them had lost the most. “Would you care to accompany me below to my cabin?” He switched his gaze to Lt. Dale who had witnessed the exchange. “I would like a report on HMS Serapis’s condition, and of Richard’s too. At your convenience. Carry on, Mr. Dale.” His tone implied he wanted it as quickly as possible.
Dale saluted. “Very good, sir.”
***
Lt. Dale remained on deck for a few minutes after the two senior officers disappeared below. Without the urgency necessary under fire, his gaze skittered over the two men-o’-war, still grappled together. He walked slowly down to the main deck where a water butt was lashed to the foot of the mainmast. Miraculously, the dipper still hung from a nail. He scooped it full and drank deeply. When his thirst was slaked he pulled out his handkerchief, dampening it to wipe his face and hands. Refreshed, he wondered where to begin his task. Every hatch, hold, and compartment of both vessels had to be examined. He trusted only his own eyes and the carpenter’s for accurate assessment.
Dead and dying lay everywhere. While the deck pumps sloshed and fire fighters formed bucket chains, burial parties cleared the decks. Here and there a man thought dead would suddenly moan, then be carried to wait in line for the surgeon’s expertise. Doses of grog were issued before shattered limbs were sawn off and dumped in a bin to the accompaniment of screams. Those with flesh wounds were washed and bound. Many were deaf, others blinded. Men with chest and stomach wounds were made comfortable while they waited for death. They knew instinctively release would only be brought by the grim reaper, so they waited stoically for his arrival. The time for fear had gone, but for many the battle still raged inside tortured minds. Broadsides thundered back and forth in fragile mental corridors, every footstep of reality a pistol shot, every shadow an advancing enemy, every shaft of light a gunpowder explosion. Their eyes were shiftless, forever seeking an imaginary foe. For them the battle would never end, a nightmare never to be banished by the coming of day, each moment relived time and time again.
When the lieutenant completed his survey he returned to Bonhomme Richard. On his first knock he was admitted to Paul Jones’s cabin. Inside, Captain Pearson sat stiffly opposite the commodore, the desk neutral ground between them. Half filled wine glasses stood next to crumb-covered plates, all that was left of biscuits the steward had managed to find. Although the cabin was a shambles, the two officers held their bearing as though seated in the grandest royal court in Europe.
“Yes?”
Dale glanced hesitantly at the English captain, but Paul Jones gestured his presence was immaterial. “Well, Mr. Dale?”
The lieutenant sighed, at a loss where to begin. None of the news was good. “HMS Serapis has lost most of her spars, sails, and rigging. Her foremast still stands and part of the mizzen. She is sound structurally, but looks a lot worse than she is. Most of the damage is superficial and can be repaired under way.”
Jones’s eyes flashed. “And Richard?”
Dale shook his head. “Captain Pearson’s eighteen-pounders took a heavy toll.” As he spoke he glanced about the stern cabin, examining timber joints and planking. “Our rudder is held on by only one pintle and the stern frame is nearly shot away. From the mainmast aft the lower deck timbers will not hold without much work. The quarterdeck is ready to collapse over the gunroom. The worst is that we are holed below the waterline and the pumps are losing ground. The men are working as hard as possible, but the water is still gaining.”
“Have you a head count of the prisoners?”
“Including those captured earlier from merchantmen there are almost five hundred.”
“Work them in relays,” the commodore said flatly, “and have them form bucket lines from the holds.”
“Pardon me, sir, but the fire parties are using all the available buckets. They assure me the outbursts are under control, but it will be several hours before we can be certain the fires are out.” He paused. “She may sink before that happens.”
“We’ll see about that.” Turning away from the English captain who sat watching and listening, Paul Jones frowned. “Thank you for your report. I will remain on board here. You take command of Serapis. Jury-rig her, then stand off. Take whatever you need. Ask for volunteers among the prisoners, but give yourself a clear majority of men you can trust. I will reassess the situation at daybreak. If Bonhomme Richard can be saved, I’ll do my best to save her.”
***
The sun rose at ten minutes to six. The morning was gray, gloomy with fog that shrouded the two ships like gun smoke from the previous night reluctant to abandon the battleground. Fires were still burning on the warships, under control but not extinguished. Smoke imprisoned by the fog thickened the still air, clogging lungs that craved oxygen to feed aching muscles. The prisoners-of-war had worked through the night at Bonhomme Richard’s pumps, two hours on, two hours to rest. Petty officers walked among sleeping men, prodding and kicking, swinging knotted ropes to rouse them to their feet. Dreamers, they struggled upright, shambling to places at the pump bars. Each time they were called demanded more effort to obey.
Jackie Rudd was gray with fatigue, miserable with cold, and so hungry his stomach growled continuously, refusing to be quieted by sips of water. He stood with drooping head between sagging shoulders, his weathered fisherman’s hands raw with blisters. His feet had been wet for so long and numb with cold he was almost oblivious of the seawater spouting from the outlet onto them each time he completed the circle around the pump. He listened with only half an ear to the petty officer’s hoarse chanting. Jackie just pushed, then pushed again, and yet again until his existence was a sickening blur. All he wanted was to crawl away into a corner of the deck and be consumed by sleep.
“All right, rest. Change places. Come on, you lazy bastards,” the petty officer said wearily, walking away to kick awake the next shift to take their turn.
Gratefully, Jackie released the bar, arms dropping lead heavy to his sides as he trudged to a heap of cordage. When a man rose to take his turn at the pump, Jackie sank down in his place, the hemp at least dry. His eyelids slid out of control over his hazy vision. It seemed only moments before a hand was shaking his shoulder.
“Wake up, damn it.”
“Not already. Let me sleep…” He tried to curl away from the intruder.
“It’s me, Billy. Don’t you want to eat? I’ll have it then…”
Jackie pushed himself upright, heavy as a cannonball. “Eat? I’ll eat. Give it here.” Some hard ship’s biscuit was pushed into his hand. Eyelids gummed together, he shoved the food into his mouth. It tasted like sawdust on his swollen tongue. He gagged, spitting out crumbs, mumbling obscenities.
A voice he didn’t recognize spoke beside him. “What d’you expect, lad? Hot rabbit broth? Maybe a bit o’ prime bacon, eh?” Jackie wrestled his eyes into focus. The speaker was a sailor in a tattered striped jersey. A ragamuffin of a man, his head a shock of ginger curls. He threw a questioning glance at his cousin.
Billy caught it. “This here is Thomas Berry. He was on the English man-o’-war.”
“That I was,” the Englishman nodded before biting into his hardtack carefully, biscuit crunching between rotten teeth. “A sailor in the King’s Navy, that’s me. And press-ganged too. I was a fisherman like you and your oppo here. We heard ’em coming up the street one night so I dived out the cellar door of the alehouse and a brute of a tar laid me out cold with a belaying pin. I woke up in a cutter with ten other men, trussed up like a chicken on the way to market. And me with a fat-arsed wife waiting nice and warm in bed at home.”
“When was that?” Jackie asked, although he couldn’t have cared less.
“Nearly ten months since, and every sodding day a bastard. I’m from the west country, I am, or I’d steal a boat and row like hell for it.”
“So would I if I knew where we are,” Jackie added drowsily.
“That’s just it, lad,” Tom Berry said with a sly grin. “Your cousin here says you belong to Scarborough?”
“What of it?”
“Well, laddo, that’s where we are. Off Flamborough Head a few miles. We can’t have drifted far in the night. Nowhere at all if that anchor we dropped held ground.”
“You sure?”
Billy snorted. “Course he’s sure. He was on the deck of Serapis there, not chained up below like us.”
Jackie came awake. Flamborough. Then, they were really but few miles from Scarborough. Home. After the last endless hours, the news seemed impossible.
“So you know the waters around here?” Tom asked, leaning close. “The tides at the Head look fierce. A man who didn’t know the waters could get carried out to sea or smashed to pieces on the rocks…”
“I know them all,” Jackie interrupted with a sneer, pride ruffling his feathers. “I have my own boat at Scarborough. I’ve fished all the way down to Kingston-Upon-Hull, and up past Whitby with our Billy here.”
“Then you’re my man. You and Billy.”
“What are you going to do?”
Tom Berry winked. “You wait and see.”
***
Paul Jones swilled his face with the lukewarm water the steward had brought. He dabbed his cheeks with a towel, peering into the mirror to inspect the line of his jaw for any stray whiskers. There were none. He folded the razor back into its ebony handle and placed it by the washbowl. How his man had produced a clean shirt he did not know, but he shrugged into it gratefully then donned his freshly brushed uniform jacket and hat. A last mouthful of tepid coffee remained in his cup, the silver pot empty. Eight hours of sleep had left him feeling almost human.
On the remains of his quarterdeck he recalled the entry he had written in his journal while the battle was still fresh, before he had succumbed to a drugged sleep: “…a person must have been an eyewitness to form a just idea of this tremendous scene of carnage, wreck, and ruin that everywhere appeared. Humanity cannot but recoil from the prospect of such finished terror, and lament that war should be capable of producing such fatal consequences…” He reconfirmed his thoughts looking down onto the weather deck, absently resting a hand on the nine-pounder he had aimed and fired so many times. Persistently, his thoughts were punctuated by a gravel voice calling time at the nearest pump. He turned away from the depressing sight of his battered ship to look seaward. Serapis stood off the starboard quarter. Dale had wasted no time setting her to rights. Through the drifting fog he could see the felled mainmast had been chopped free and figures were moving about on deck near the foremast and the remnant of the mizzen. It appeared Dale was organizing a jury-rig to enable Serapis to rea
ch an allied port where her masts and spars could be replaced.
Pleased with his lieutenant’s progress, he crossed to the port wing to stare into the fog where his squadron lay. Just the sight of them drifting in silence angered him. Cursed Frenchmen. Where had their courage been when he needed them, had ordered them to engage? If only they were men of the same caliber as Bonhomme Richard’s crew. He had Portuguese, English, and best of all, Americans. If the French had been in dire need of education, then by today they should know beyond doubt his capability. If not, they never would. Worst of all, while the others had done nothing, Pierre Landais in Alliance—and Jones scoffed at the irony of the name—had actually been a deadly hindrance, firing into Richard as he sailed gaily past. And where was Landais now? Fled from the battleground, and so he should. If he had been here now Jones would have boarded his ship and hung him from the yardarm. If it was the last thing he did, he would see Landais court-martialled and dismissed…
“Begging your pardon, sir?”
Paul Jones banished his ugly thoughts. The Frenchman’s day would come. “Well, Mayrant, and what have you been doing?”
The midshipman glanced down at his arm suspended in a sling. “Only a scratch, sir. A careless bayonet.”
The commodore smiled, wondering the truth of the matter. “Well?”
“The carpenter begs you to excuse his impertinence, but he would like you to come below. He says there is something you had better see for yourself.”
It could only be bad news. He nodded, glancing at the fog lying heavy on the sea before looking back at Mayrant. “Very well, lead on.”
***
The carpenter was stoking his pipe. He sat halfway down the companion ladder from the orlop deck into the after hold. He stood up when the midshipman brought the commodore past the main-jeer capstan to the hatchway. Puffing clouds of aromatic smoke, he leaned against a bulkhead. He saluted without removing his pipe, speaking through teeth clenched about the stem.
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