“Morning, sir. I thought you’d better have a look.” He gestured down the ladder.
“Morning Carpenter,” Paul Jones replied, squeezing past and descending until water lapped within inches of his shoes. Grabbing an overhead beam he leaned out from the ladder for a better view. For’ard, the mainmast foot was submerged, and aft he was unable to see the mizzenmast step for a layer of murky water where flotsam milled disconsolately. That had to mean the bilges were under at least eight feet. “How deep is it?”
The carpenter fingered a damp sounding rod that lay against the steps. “Ten feet and two inches. And it’s gaining.”
“How fast?”
“Five inches in the last hour.” He studied the commodore’s stony expression. “The pumps can’t keep up, sir. We had number four going for a couple of hours but it broke down again. It’s beyond repair.”
“Then the others will have to pump harder.”
The carpenter shook his head. “If we get under way, the slightest squall or heavy sea will tear her apart.”
Paul Jones’s eyes were hard. “You’re saying she’s lost?”
The carpenter scowled before pursing his lips to blow a smoke ring that crumbled into thin air. He watched it disintegrate then looked steadily at the glowering commodore. “She’s a good ship, sir, but before God and Providence, I don’t think working every man in the squadron at the pumps would keep her afloat.”
“You say, you say.”
Withdrawing his pipe, the craftsman pressed his lips into a thin line as he studied the officer. “That’s my opinion, sir. For what it’s worth.”
Paul Jones nodded grimly. “Yes, for what it’s worth.” He looked back at the gaining water. Nobody liked to be told the ship they had come to love was sinking. When he faced the carpenter again, his eyes searched the man’s face. “Just do your best. Keep pumping until I give the order to stop. She’s served me well, and by God, if I can I’ll save her.”
***
Paul Jones had to admit he had been stubborn. As he returned from inspecting Serapis in the late afternoon, sitting in the stern sheets of his barge, he studied Bonhomme Richard’s trim as they neared. She was settling slowly. The carpenter had been right. The pumps were losing ground. From the sea she looked even worse than when aboard. What was worse was knowing her exterior damage was nothing compared to her shattered interior. The whole appearance of the warship was one of dejection. She had given him everything the previous night and now it seemed her spirit had called enough and departed. Her hull, listing to port, was pockmarked by English cannon shot. Gun ports hung crookedly like house shutters after a West Indian hurricane. She carried little rigging and few spars on which to hang canvas if he could find any left undamaged. Great ragged gaps had been hewn in her bulwarks by ball, grape, and chain, through which he could see lines toiling at the pumps.
He experienced a great sense of loss. Only after months of searching had he found her, painstakingly fitted her out, even begging cannon. His officers hand chosen, he had then scavenged for crew and foraged for supplies, constantly battling for the money to finance it all. Now, after his long-awaited victory, he could not deny she had amply repaid his efforts. He had come to think of her as alive. The way she heeled angrily when the helm was put hard over, or her fickle handling in a cross sea. Her coquettish manner when she entered port, skittish and strutting like a vain woman, or how she joyously spread her sails like fluttering wings to fly over the wave tops at the prospect of a chase. Perhaps, he reflected, it was better to let her go with dignity and grace…
The barge bumped against the hull by the main chains. He peered up at her looming above. He could almost hear her groan, pleading earnestly for compassion. He perceived her fatigue, her readiness to surrender and slide under the black sea. With a start he realized his barge crew were watching, oars ported, waiting for him to alight. He kept them waiting no longer.
Midshipman Mayrant welcomed him aboard. He answered the boy’s salute then waited for the bos’n’s pipes to fade before he leaned forward. “Mr. Mayrant, send the carpenter to me. I’m going below to see the surgeon.”
Below decks, the companionways were still lined with casualties waiting for treatment. As he passed he offered one or two a hopeful smile when they turned sheep eyes upward. Leaving a trail of murmurs behind, he entered the gun compartment that had been taken over as a makeshift surgery to accommodate the overwhelming demand for Dr. Brooke’s services.
“Hold him, for God’s sake!” the surgeon shouted as his patient thrashed about on the blood-drenched table. “Here, take these.” He handed a dripping bone saw and the remains of a leg away. The orderlies at the operating table wore blanched faces. Paul Jones looked on while the harassed doctor cleaned up the amputation, tying ligatures at the ends of the arteries before using a needle and black thread to blanket-stitch flaps of skin folded across the stump. Finally, he splashed brandy over the wound as antiseptic before leaving an orderly to bandage up. He stepped back, hands on hips, his leather apron shining with fresh blood. “Another peg-leg sailor. Take him away. What’s next?” He drooped with exhaustion, wiping a wrist across his forehead. His other hand impatiently gestured the orderlies to hurry.
“Good afternoon, Surgeon.”
Brooke’s head turned slowly, red-rimmed eyes grim. “Afternoon it may be, Commodore, but good it certainly isn’t.”
Paul Jones ignored the sarcasm. “How many have you seen?”
“More than I care to remember. Occupational hazard. Nothing to do for months, then everybody comes at once. What else can I expect?” His gaze wandered beyond Paul Jones’s shoulder. “It appears you are heavily in demand too.”
Gingerly stepping across the bloody floor, the carpenter entered the compartment. Pipe clenched between his teeth, he looked neither right nor left, gaze firmly fixed on the commodore like an ostrich shutting out whatever he did not want to see. Behind him, two orderlies carried in another patient, supporting him until the operating table was sluiced down.
“How do we stand?” Paul Jones asked, eyes flickering to the table where the groaning man was laid before his blood-sodden shirt was torn away.
The carpenter shook his head. “It’s no better than this morning, sir. Worse, in fact. Nearly another three feet in the bilges.”
“No hope?”
“I would say…” He was interrupted by the crunching of bone. Visibly wincing, he drew a deep breath. “She’ll perhaps stay afloat another two days if no more of the pumps break down, and if there’s prisoners to work them, and if we get no weather. If…well, after that I couldn’t say.” He shrugged.
“If we lose a pump?”
His eyebrows raised. He sucked on his dead pipe for reassurance then pulled it free. “If we lose one pump, perhaps tomorrow morning. If we lose two then she won’t last the night.”
A strangled scream broke from the table. Paul Jones ignored it while the carpenter fought to keep his eyes from straying.
“Only one arm! Jesus Christ! What will I do?…Only one arm!”
The surgeon snapped back. “Thank God for one. You’ll live. Another two inches to starboard and you’d have been tossed over the side. Remember that when you curse me for a butcher. Here, bandage him up.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” Jones commented. “Keep the pumps going through the night. I need time to transfer the wounded to the other ships. Keep her afloat till then.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Very good. Carry on.”
As the carpenter left, the surgeon moved away from the table. “All the pieces I’ve cut away. I could have built a hundred men from them.”
“I’m going to transfer all the wounded onto the English ship.”
The doctor’s eyes turned on him, piercing. “I’m not finished yet. There are men who may die if they are not attended to as soon as possible.”
“They may drown before then. She’s going down.”
Brooke blinked, lips clamped together.
<
br /> Paul Jones continued. “At least you’ll have help. The English surgeon can share the burden. Working about you’ll be able to get some rest. Don’t argue. You haven’t slept for two days. Any longer and you’ll be no help to any of them.” He glanced around the makeshift surgery with its crude instruments. “As soon as they’re all off, I’m abandoning ship.”
***
“Who can pull an oar?” the midshipman asked, walking along the pump line, peering into prisoners’ faces. They stared dully back. “I’m not talking for the good of my health!” the midshipman barked, voice as high as a petulant child. He gritted his teeth, adjusting his sling to make his arm more comfortable. “I say again, who can pull an oar?” Three men stumbled out of the line. Midshipman Mayrant waved an arm in dismissal as he turned away. “Belay that.” The volunteers looked fit for nothing. His eyes rummaged among the other prisoners, most of them sprawled asleep in any available space. He selected a likely candidate to prod with his shoe. The waking prisoner shrugged away sleep, pushing against Thomas Berry as he did so.
“Can you pull an oar?” Mayrant demanded.
The prisoner merely glowered. Beside him, Tom Berry prized open his eyelids. When the officer’s gaze turned to him, he nodded, not trusting his voice. When the midshipman looked away, Berry took the opportunity to nudge Jackie Rudd awake. As he came up onto his elbows, Mayrant’s eyes fell on him.
“You too. You look a likely lad.” He passed on, searching sleeping faces.
“What’s going on?” Jackie asked, rubbing his eyes.
Tom Berry’s voice was a harsh whisper. “He wants men to crew a small boat. Wake Billy. This could be the chance we need.” He looked at the sun sloping toward the horizon. “Be night before long. Darkness could be our friend.”
Jackie’s eyes came into focus at last. Berry was right. A small boat and the cover of night could mean everything or nothing. He shook Billy.
“What? Let me sleep.”
Berry leaned over to poke a stiff finger in the Whitby man’s ribs. “Time enough to sleep when you’re dead, lad. Get your wits about you. Open your eyes and ears and shut up.”
CHAPTER 8
“It’ll be daylight soon,” Jackie said to nobody. Seated on the starboard side of the ship’s boat as it nudged HMS Serapis’s hull, he did not have to port his oar. He could let it trail in the water, resting his arms across the handle. Slowly his head sank onto his wrists. The agonies his body had suffered through the long hours at the pumps had been reawakened. Every muscle and tendon screamed. Rowing! And it had all been Tom Berry’s idea. So much for that. At least manning the pumps there had been rest periods. No so rowing. The only break was when the wounded were being loaded or unloaded. They had labored from twilight into the night and now it was almost dawn.
Back and forward. And with each journey from Bonhomme Richard to the captured Serapis, the boat was filled with groaning men. The stench of festering wounds invaded even the bluntest sense of smell, hard to endure on a stomach that had seen only meager rations and sips of water.
Now he rested as best he could, drawing the cold salt breeze deep into his lungs. What he would have given for a quiet corner to sleep, and he would have sold his soul for a straw pallet and the luxury of a blanket. Fighting away sleep’s beckoning arms, he glanced up at Billy who was doing his best to lean on his upright oar, eyes closed. Across the boat Tom Berry was watching everyone, cat eyes restless. He saw Jackie turn so he made a face, one eye threatening a sly wink. One of the wounded passed between them, being helped to the specially rigged accommodation ladder. His head was swathed in bandages that bore a spreading crimson stain. It seemed half his head had been shot away. Jackie had seen so many of them by then, he felt nothing, not even pity. He turned away. Off the starboard quarter a small flotilla of ships’ boats were pulling steadily toward him, each crammed with wounded.
In the stern sheets, one of the two armed American sailors muttered. “I’m going to be sick if we do this much longer. Never did like small boats. I don’t mind when we’re making way, but when we’re not I’m queasy.”
His partner looked away. “It’s just the swell.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t care. I just feel bad.”
Jackie moved his head slightly so he could see the complaining sailor. He made a mental note then heard a scuffle of oars as the boat in front pushed off to return to Bonhomme Richard for its next fragile cargo. From their position the American flagship was only a cluster of riding lights. A thin veil of mist lay on the sea, showing signs of thickening.
When the last of the wounded had been half hauled, half carried up on deck, the midshipman clambered down the ladder and came between the oarsmen to take his seat by the tiller. As he settled, the sick sailor turned a jaundiced eye on him.
“What now, sir?”
Mayrant nursed his sling-bound arm. “The wounded are nearly accounted for. Now we go back to ferry the prisoners. When they’re all brought over, Bonhomme Richard will go down with nobody at her pumps. Serapis is the flagship now.” He inspected the sailor’s face. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I think I’m going to be sick…sir.”
A glimmer of a smile passed the midshipman’s lips. “A seasick sailor? Well, you’ll just have to be sick. There’s plenty more work before this job’s over.”
Jackie’s eyes met Tom Berry’s for a second, then he glanced at Billy who nodded he had heard. If they were going to make a move, it had better be soon, before Bonhomme Richard was abandoned and they were imprisoned on Serapis instead.
“All right!” the midshipman called. “Nearside oars! Fend off!” The wooden blades clattered against Serapis’s topsides before they were clear. “Starboard oars, trail. Port oars, pull!” The boat swung out, turning her bows toward Bonhomme Richard. “All oars, stroke!” Blades splashed in unison as the oarsmen resumed their work. “Come on! Pull! You’d think you’d been working all night!” Mayrant grinned, his own eyes dark ringed from lack of sleep.
Ease the oar out of the water. Swing it backward, arms straight, pushing, buttocks moving on the hard bench. Dip it, pull. Pain flashed like a tongue of lightning from the inside of Jackie’s wrist to his elbow. He let his breath go in a hiss, surprise confusing his timing.
“Watch out there, man!” Mayrant was quick to call. “I’ll have your name taken.”
Jackie looked over his shoulder to catch his stroke from the other crewmen. He slid into it easily while he gauged the distance to Bonhomme Richard. Halfway. Another few minutes before the next rest. As dawn’s gray light encroached on the remainder of the night, he could see the mist was growing more solid. The listing flagship’s riding lights bore fuzzy haloes and at the waterline the loading boats were barely visible.
The sound of retching brought his attention back to his own boat. The American sailor had both hands supporting his weight on the gunwale, his musket forgotten across his knees as he vomited into the sea. Both the midshipman and the other sailor were watching, amused by their comrade’s malady. Quickly, Jackie met Tom Berry’s eyes. The older man shook his head tersely, no, supported by a downward pushing motion of his hand; wait. The fact that Tom had even considered the moment as a possible one for action was enough to set Jackie’s nerves tingling. Exhaustion drained away, his toil at the oars nothing, motions automatic. From that second he was ready. A glance affirmed Billy was ready too.
Jackie forgot all the misery of his aches and the hunger gnawing at his belly. His vitals contained a flicker of flame ready to be fanned into a blaze. Information crowded his senses. Their position. The tide’s pull. The distance to Bonhomme Richard. The whisper of the breeze too feeble to disperse the growing fogbank. The hunched figure of the midshipman, wounded arm cradled against his chest. The set of the sailor’s shoulders as he hung over the side of the boat, dribbling vomit. The neglected musket. The other sailor, bored. The double bank of oarsmen, pulling stroke after stroke.
He was ready.
If a
minute had seemed like ten when manning the pump, now each minute seemed like an hour. His chest felt tight, caught in a band of iron that coiled around him in a spring waiting to be released. A pulse hammered in his temple. His throat was suddenly parched. He rolled his tongue across his teeth behind his top lip to damp his nervous grin. Soon.
Midshipman Mayrant glanced at the doubled-over sailor in distaste. “When we come alongside Richard you go on board while the prisoners are being transferred. Then you’ll only have the return journey to make later.”
“I’ll be all right,” the sailor mumbled, as if he had no such belief.
“No, I’ll get another man to replace you.” Mayrant turned to the other American. “It looks as though the nearside has a long queue waiting to load. We’ll go around the stern. Fog’s coming up strong. I’ll go aboard and get a lantern.” He twisted to look back. Serapis was lost to sight behind a solid gray wall. “If we get lost on the way back, a lantern’ll give them a chance to find us.”
They pulled so close to Bonhomme Richard they could see right inside her hull where English cannonballs had smashed through. Mist drifted like smoke over her rails, tumbling down her topsides in tendrils. They continued past the line of boats loading at the foot of the ladders before Mayrant called for the port oars to trail. The boat swung under Richard’s transom, the windows of the stern cabins like blind eyes staring at them.
“Besides,” the midshipman said, “I want to collect a few things of my…”
“Now!” Tom Berry ordered in a harsh whisper.
Before Jackie had digested the word, Tom launched himself forward. Landing square in front of the armed sailor, he swung a punch. The surprised American only had time to raise his arms in defense. The fist caught him above the ear. As he fell sideways into the midshipman, Tom seized the musket and brought it to bear.
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