Part 12 (2/2)

”N-o,” I returned dubiously; ”I don't suppose they will--if they can help it. But that is our only chance, all the same, and we must bend all our energies to accomplish it. And there is no particular reason why we should not, so far as I can see, unless of course we are unfortunate enough to have a spar or two knocked away. Good shooting is what is going to decide this fight, Henderson; and we must hope that ours will be better than theirs.”

”Ay,” agreed the gunner, ”there's no harm in hopin' that; but--” He shook his head, and spat vigorously over the side by way of expressing the doubts that were worrying him.

As it turned out, his doubts and apprehensions were by no means without foundation, for when our antagonist arrived within range of her long 32--I was not mistaken as to that matter--she hauled her wind, and opened fire upon us with it, making very excellent practice, too; although it was not until she had fired six shots at us that any of them actually came near enough to do us any damage, and then the shot only pa.s.sed through our foresail, making a neat hole in the canvas, but doing no further mischief. Her previous attempts, however, had come close enough to us to prove that she had at least one excellent gunner on board her, for every one of the shot fell within two or three fathoms of us at the utmost; and when a man shoots so well at long range he is bound to score a few hits, sooner or later. And this was precisely what Henderson and I most feared; for so long as the pirates chose to play the game of long bowls they might blaze away at us at their leisure, and in perfect safety, their 32-pound shot flying over and over us at a distance far beyond the range of our 9-pounders.

What we now had to do was to shorten the distance between ourselves and our antagonist as quickly as possible, and bring her within reach of our guns before we sustained any very serious damage from her long gun, if fortune would so far favour us; and I thought that possibly I might here be able to make one of the _Wasp's_ peculiarities very useful. This peculiarity consisted in the fact--which we had by this time had many opportunities of observing--that, in smooth water, such as then prevailed, the little vessel would, if properly handled, shoot quite an extraordinary distance to windward while in stays; and I had it in my mind to utilise this peculiarity now by making a series of very short boards, getting good way upon her, and then easing her helm very gently down, allowing her to shoot the maximum possible distance to windward every time that we hove about. I mentioned the idea to Henderson, but he had not very much faith in it; his idea being that of most old salts, that the best way to work to windward was to break tacks as seldom as possible; he agreed, however, that it might perhaps be worth while to make the experiment and see what the result would be. We accordingly put my plan into practice, with such good effect that half-an-hour later we had actually succeeded in working up near enough to the pirate to bring her within range of our own guns. But meanwhile she had been most a.s.siduously pegging away at us, in the first instance with her long gun only, but latterly with her 12-pounders--of which she mounted seven in each battery--as well, and we had by no means come off scathless, having been hulled three times, and losing two men killed and five wounded before a single shot of ours had reached her, though our spars had thus far escaped, and our rigging had not suffered to any very serious extent.

With our arrival within range of our own guns, however, matters began to be a little more lively; we were fortunate enough to have some half-a-dozen very excellent shots among us, and these men now began to make play, each man being evidently anxious to win for himself the proud distinction of being the champion shot of the s.h.i.+p, with the result that daylight began to show here and there through the pirate schooner's canvas, severed ropes streamed out from the spars, and the splinters began to fly on board her. Then a particularly lucky shot struck her main-masthead fair, just above the nip of her lower rigging, and the next moment down came her main-topmast, with its huge gaff-topsail, while the peak of her mainsail drooped until the gaff hung almost up and down.

”Hurrah, lads!” I cried exultantly; ”now we have her. See how she pays off! She is bound to come to leeward now; she cannot help herself.

Down helm, Mr Willoughby, and let her go round. Stand by to give her our starboard broadside as we cross her bows. Slap it right into the eyes of her--Phew! that's a nasty one,” as a shot from her 32-pounder came along, smas.h.i.+ng right through both our quarter-boats, cutting their keels clean in half, tearing a great gap in the bottom planking of each, filling the air in the immediate neighbourhood with splinters, and whizzing so close past my head that the wind of it whipped my hat off and overboard.

The two craft were now not more than a short half-mile distant, and fast approaching each other, the pirate's loss of after-sail causing her to fall broad off and come foaming down toward us, despite obvious efforts to keep her to the wind, while we on our side were making the most desperate efforts to get to windward and thus secure the advantage of the weather-gage, which, in a sea-fight, often means so much. Conned by Willoughby, who was acting master, the lively little _Wasp_ swept round into the wind, fore-reaching magnificently in stays, and then paying smartly off on the starboard tack; and as she did so our three starboard pop-guns barked out, one after the other, and I saw the splinters fly white as the shot struck, close together, about half-way between her starboard hawse-pipe and her cathead, just at the precise moment when she was dead end-on to us. The shot must have raked her from end to end, and quite a small uproar of yells and shrieks that came floating down from her to us on the wings of the freshening breeze told us that they had wrought a very fair amount of execution on board her. But it was evident that her captain knew his business, for the next moment several hands sprang into her fore-rigging; her topsail, topgallantsail and royal were clewed up and furled with exemplary celerity; her jib was hauled down and stowed, and she was again brought to the wind, while half-a-dozen hands swarmed aloft to her mainmast-head to clear away the wreck of her topmast and to pa.s.s strops round the shattered stump, to hook the peak-halliard blocks to, and enable them to sway away the peak of the mainsail again. And all the while that this was doing they maintained their fire upon us with the most ferocious energy, and alas!

with very deplorable results to the little _Wasp_ and her crew, for we were by this time so close to each other that it was practically impossible for either side to miss; and now it was that her superior weight of metal began to tell.

Our casualties were by this time becoming serious, for we had already lost nine men killed outright, while every moment more wounded were being taken down into my cabin, where Saunders, the surgeon, was working like a n.i.g.g.e.r, affording temporary relief--he could do no more just then--to the injured. We were still devoting all our energies to the task of getting to windward of our antagonist, and firing at her as fast as our leaping guns could be loaded, in the endeavour to disable her, when they succeeded in bringing her again to the wind, and as she rounded-to they gave us their whole broadside of seven 12-pounders, with a shot from their long 32-pounder by way of make-weight. The result was absolutely disastrous, for as the iron shower hurtled about our ears there was a cras.h.i.+ng, tearing sound aloft, and away went both our masts over the side, the foremast shot away close to the deck, while the mainmast went about half-way up its length. Nor, bad as this was, was it all, for poor Willoughby, who was standing by my side, had the top of his skull literally shot away, and fell dead into my arms. The next moment the carpenter came to me with the report that we had been hit between wind and water by a 32-pound shot, and that the schooner was making water fast.

The pirates cheered with ferocious glee as they saw the plight to which they had reduced us, and their captain--a tall, handsome scoundrel, with a very Spanish-looking cast of countenance--had the impudence to leap up on the rail of his vessel and hail us, demanding to know whether we had struck!

”No!” I shouted back fiercely; ”and we never will to such a hang-dog, murderous set of scoundrels as man that schooner. Do your worst, you villains. You have the advantage of us this time, but when next we meet it will be my turn!”

”You crow loudly, young c.o.c.kerel,” retorted the pirate captain scornfully, ”but if your men are wise they will leave their guns and go below, for I swear to you that if they fire another shot I will sink you!”

”Sink us, then, and be hanged to you!” I yelled back in reply. Then in my exasperation I whipped a pistol out of my belt, and levelling it at him, pulled the trigger. But he did not mean to be shot if he could help it,--preferring, I suppose, to take the risk of being hanged later on,--and the moment that he saw what I would be at he sprang off his perch so hurriedly that he fell headlong to the deck, while our lads sent up a howl of savage derision.

”Put a charge of grape in on top of your round shot, lads,” I ordered, ”and blaze away as fast as you can load. The _Wasp_ has lost her wings, but her sting remains, and we'll make those scoundrels feel it yet before we have done with them!”

The men responded to this with a loud, fierce hurrah, and turned to their guns again as cheerfully as though they were still certain of victory, although there was probably not a man there who did not by that time realise that the chances were all against the gallant little schooner ever reaching port again.

The battle now raged with absolutely maniacal fury, the two schooners being by this time within biscuit-toss of each other, the pirate schooner lying on our weather-beam. The guns--so hot that they threatened to leap over the low rail into the sea--were loaded and fired as fast as the men could serve them, and, fighting at such close quarters, the carnage on both sides was frightful, the bulwarks of both vessels being practically shot away, and the guns and those who served them left absolutely defenceless. Our deck was like a shambles--there seemed to be more dead than living upon it--and the scuppers were all spouting blood, while the pirates were in scarcely better case, although it was now apparent that they had originally outnumbered us by something like three to one. How long the matter would have continued in this fas.h.i.+on it is impossible to say, but after we had thus been fighting almost hand to hand for about a quarter of an hour, during which the pirate schooner gradually drew ahead of us, a lucky shot from one of our guns brought down her mainmast, when she fell broad off, pa.s.sed across our bows, raking us severely as she went, and then drove rapidly away to leeward, her people having apparently at length come to the conclusion that they had had all that they wanted in the way of fighting.

The moment it became certain that the fight was over I sank down upon the breech of the nearest gun, mopped the blood and perspiration from my face, and tried to understand the scene of ruin and carnage that surrounded me; for, with the cessation of the turmoil and excitement of battle, everything seemed suddenly to a.s.sume the inconsequence and unreality of a dream. I could not quite realise that the shot-torn, blood-bespattered wreck over which my gaze wandered wonderingly was the erstwhile smart and dainty little schooner of which I had been so proud, or that those maimed and disfigured forms lying broadcast about the deck were really dead men; also, my head ached most consumedly, there was a loud buzzing in my ears, the silence--or rather the comparative silence that succeeded to the continuous, sharp explosions of the guns, the excited shouts of the men, and the cries of the wounded--seemed weird, uncanny, unnatural; for now there were no sounds save the wash of the water alongside, an intermittent groaning--cut into now and then by the sharp cry of a man under the hands of the surgeon--coming up through the smashed skylight, and the low murmur of the men speaking to each other from time to time where they had flung themselves down exhausted between the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight--the battle having lasted for over an hour--and I felt that I must bestir myself or I should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish.

I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a gla.s.s of water--the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been smashed to staves early in the fight--and then gave orders for the men to secure the guns. I also sent young Hinton down below to ascertain and bring me the particulars of our casualties.

Thus far we had all been much too strenuously engaged, and our attention too fully occupied, to take note of the weather; but now, as I glanced round at the lowering heavens and observed their threatening aspect, I bethought me that, fatigued though we all were, there still remained an abundance of work to be done in preparation for the storm that was evidently brewing. For the sky was now completely overcast with a pall of dense, livid, purplish, slate-coloured cloud that clearly portended a gale; the wind was coming in hot, fierce, intermittent puffs that scourged the sea into miniature foam-flecked waves for a few seconds at a time and then dropped almost to a calm again, and upon looking at the barometer I saw that the mercury had fallen almost half-an-inch since I had last looked at it shortly before the commencement of the fight. The Spaniard had vanished, and the pirate schooner was still running away to leeward.

Presently young Hinton, the mids.h.i.+pman whom I had sent below to ascertain the extent of our casualties, came up to me with a list in his hand which he had himself prepared, Saunders, the surgeon, being at that moment far too busy to spare time for the making up of returns; and from this list I learned the appalling news that, of our entire complement of fifty-eight, all told, we had lost no less than seventeen killed, and thirty-two more or less severely wounded, leaving only a poor paltry nine of us untouched, of whom I was one. Fortunately, of the thirty-two wounded only about half of them were hurt severely enough to be rendered totally unfit for duty; but that was bad enough in all conscience, with the s.h.i.+p dismantled and leaking, and something very like a gale threatening.

I had just finished the perusal of young Hinton's list when Henderson and the carpenter came up on deck, the former bringing with him the keys of the magazine, which he had secured, in accordance with an order which I had sent down below to him, while Mills was fresh from his examination of the s.h.i.+p's interior. His report was anything but rea.s.suring, for the news he brought was to the effect that we had been hulled no less than seventeen times, four of the shot that had hulled us being 32-pounders, one of which and two of the pirate's 12-pounders had struck us between wind and water. He added that he had plugged the holes as well as he could, but that there was nearly three feet of water in the hold, that the little s.h.i.+p was very severely strained, and that she was making water at the rate of nearly eight inches an hour!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE END OF THE WASP.

It was clear that in the face of such a report as that, and the threatening sky that frowned down upon us, it was not a moment in which to indulge in thoughts of rest, however loudly our poor aching bodies might clamour for it. There was much to be done to secure our own safety and that of our injured and helpless comrades, and very little time in which to do it; I therefore directed Pearce, the boatswain, to pipe all hands to splice the main-brace; and when this had been done the little band who were still capable of doing duty were divided into three parties--one of which, under Henderson, was stationed at the pumps, with orders to work at them until they sucked; while a second and much smaller party, under the leaders.h.i.+p and guidance of the carpenter, was given the task of temporarily securing the various openings in the deck against the possible influx of water--both the skylight and the companion having been completely wrecked by shot; the third party, under Pearce, the boatswain, devoting itself to the task of clearing away the wreck of the spars, and securing as much as possible of the wreckage in order that we might have the wherewithal to give the schooner a jury rig that would enable us to take her into port. The pirate schooner, meanwhile, had continued to run away to leeward upon a course that would carry her to the northern coast of Hayti in a few hours.

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