Part 20 (1/2)
Then, as the advancing pirates wavered and hesitated, in astonishment at my unexpected action, I continued:
”Fernandez, and you others, I call upon you to throw down your arms and surrender, in order to prevent the further sacrifice of life. You can do no good by persevering further in this futile attack, for we are the masters of the situation, and we can shoot down every man of you before it will be possible for you to reach the spot where I stand. To push on will simply mean--”
_Crack_! One of the pirates, crouching behind another, had coolly levelled his musket and taken a pot shot at me, the bullet pa.s.sing through my hat and searing my skull like a white-hot wire, so that I toppled over with the shock and fell back into the arms of one of my men. The yell of savage joy raised by the pirates at the sight of my fall was echoed by my own men as they sprang to their feet, intending to leap over the low parapet and charge down upon the advancing foe to avenge me. But I was not really hurt, and, shaking off the grip of the man who held me, I cried out in time to stay them, adjuring them, by all that they held dear, to stand fast where they were, and finish the fight in the battery itself. And splendidly they obeyed me, although they might well have been excused had they ignored my command; for the firing of that musket-shot served as the signal for a general fusillade on both sides, in the course of which four of our men fell. But ours was the commanding position, and by the time that the pirates had emptied their muskets and pistols at us we had brought them to a standstill, with more than half their number down. After that there was no possibility of further restraining our lads, nor, indeed, was there any need. We, therefore, poured out over the low earthwork and down the few yards of slope that still intervened between us and the enemy, and the next moment were engaged in a hand-to-hand, life-and-death conflict, neither side expecting or giving quarter. For the few seconds that it lasted it was warm work, the pirates fighting desperately--since they knew that, if taken alive, the halter awaited them--and then, in the s.p.a.ce of a minute it was all over. The last of our foes was down--as well as a few more men on our own side--and we who remained unhurt stood gasping for breath, and mopping our perspiring brows as we glared hungrily about us for more foes to conquer. But there were none; and presently pulling ourselves together, we gathered up our own wounded and carried them to such shade as could be found, where the surgeon's mate, who formed one of our company, at once got to work upon them, attending to their hurts.
Meanwhile the ensign was hoisted as a signal to the felucca to return to the harbour; and then such of us as could be spared went out to disarm the wounded pirates and afterwards afford them such relief as lay in our power, while others again gleaned the weapons and ammunition of the fallen, recognising that they might possibly be useful in our fight with the crew of the _Tiburon_ later on.
Then, having made all arrangements for the conduct of the work on the islet during the next few hours, I took the two largest boats that had survived the pa.s.sage across the waters of the Cove, and with a dozen men, armed to the teeth, under the leaders.h.i.+p of myself and the boatswain, pulled away to the settlement, to see how matters stood in that direction. As I had antic.i.p.ated, there was not a man left in the place--not even a boy above fourteen years of age; every male above that age had been detailed to take part in the attempt to capture the islet, which Fernandez had fully recognised to be the key of the entire position. And now, of the hundred and fifty who had taken part in the disastrous attempt, every one was either slain, or lay wounded in our hands.
While I was taking stock generally of the situation, so to speak, and making my further plans, the boatswain, a.s.sisted by the seamen whom we had brought ash.o.r.e with us, made a careful and systematic search of every building in the place, removing every weapon, everything that could be used as such, and all ammunition, and transferring them to the two boats prior to our return to the islet. There were not many weapons, and not a very great quant.i.ty of ammunition; but there was more than we could conveniently stow in the boats. We, therefore, took a portion of it out to about the middle of the bay and there threw it overboard, returning for the remainder and conveying it to the islet.
The most important result of our visit to the sh.o.r.e, however, consisted in the information, freely given me by one of the women, that, so far as she had been able to gather from the conversation of the men, the _Tiburon_ and her crew might be expected to arrive in the Cove at any moment.
By the time that I and my party got back to the islet the day was well advanced, the felucca had returned to the Cove and was now anch.o.r.ed inside the islet, close to its southern sh.o.r.e, and the surgeon, although still busy among the wounded pirates, had doctored up the whole of our own wounded and made them comfortable. As might have been expected from the peculiar character of the engagement and the enormous advantage of position which we enjoyed, our casualties were singularly light, consisting only of five killed and nine wounded. But in the case of the pirates there was a very different story to tell. I had ascertained, while ash.o.r.e, that they left the settlement one hundred and fifty strong; and now all that remained of them amounted to just thirty-seven wounded, of whom at least one quarter would probably succ.u.mb to their hurts. Those thirty-seven I caused to be put into the boats, as soon as they had, been attended to, and conveyed to the settlement, where I turned them over to the care of the women folk, who, I thought, would probably be able to give them more attention and better nursing than we could hope to afford. The next day, at the urgent request of several of the women, I also caused our own wounded to be taken ash.o.r.e, where, under the supervision of the surgeon, they were taken in hand and most tenderly cared for. The dead--both our own and as many as we could find belonging to the pirates--were hastily sewn up in canvas, weighted, and launched overboard from the felucca, which was taken well out to sea for the purpose.
It was about three bells in the forenoon watch, on the fifth day after the attack upon the islet, that two sail were sighted by the lookout, standing in toward the Cove; and half-an-hour later I was able to identify one of them as the infamous _Tiburon_, while the other was a large craft, apparently British, judging by her build and the cut of her canvas; doubtless a capture.
We had long ago made every possible preparation to give the pirate schooner a warm reception upon her arrival, going even to the length of surrounding our battery with a parapet and masking the latter by covering it with sods of growing gra.s.s. We had now, therefore, nothing to do but patiently to await the arrival of the enemy, confident that he would sail right into the Cove, unsuspectingly, and never get so much as a hint of our presence until we should open fire upon him.
As we had planned so matters turned out; the two vessels entered the Cove together and simultaneously came to an anchor, the big craft--upon the stern of which we descried the words Berwick Castle: Bristol-- anchoring about a cable's length east of the schooner and, very fortunately for those chiefly concerned, well out of our line of fire.
We waited until we saw the anchors of both vessels splash into the placid waters of the Cove, and heard the rumble of their cables as they smoked out through the hawse-pipes; then, while the gunners brought the four 68-pounders, loaded with round shot and grape, to bear upon the crowded deck of the pirate schooner, another party raised a rough flagstaff, to which a British ensign had been nailed, and dropped its heel into a socket already prepared for it. Even then it was nearly a minute before our presence was discovered by the pirates, who were at that moment busily clewing-up and hauling down their canvas preparatory to stowing it. But the boatswain, the gunner, and I all had our telescopes focussed upon the schooner, keenly watching every movement on board her, and it was not long before I recognised upon her quarter-deck, issuing orders and generally carrying himself with an air of authority, the handsome rascal who, during the fight between the _Tiburon_ and the _Wasp_, had hailed us asking whether we had struck.
Almost on the instant of recognising him I saw a man run up to him, excitedly say something to him, and point toward the islet. The handsome rascal--who was without doubt the pirate captain, Manuel Garcia himself--stood, stared amazed for a few seconds at the islet, and then made a dash for the companion, from which he withdrew a telescope, which he levelled in our direction. For perhaps a quarter of a minute he kept the tube steadily pointed toward us; then with a gesture of mad ferocity he dashed the instrument to the deck, and, seizing his speaking-trumpet, placed it to his lips. The effect was an instant stoppage of the operation of clewing-up and hauling down aboard the _Tiburon_, while every eye in her was, as by one impulse, directed toward the islet. But the pause endured only for a s.p.a.ce of a few seconds, just long enough to enable the gazers to identify the flag flying on the islet as the British ensign, thereupon everybody seemed to be galvanised into instant, breathless activity again. Now, however, the former processes were reversed; the men who were already half-way aloft, intent upon furling the canvas, started to return to the deck, others sprang to the sheets and halliards and began to sheet home and hoist away as if for their lives, and, in short, it was evident that the pirates contemplated getting under way again and attempting to escape out to sea.
It was at this moment that the boatswain, who still had his gla.s.s focussed on the schooner, cried out:
”They're goin' to cut her cable, Mr Delamere! Look, sir, and you'll see a chap hurrying for'ard with an axe in his hand.”
”Is that so?” I exclaimed. ”Then bring Number 1 gun to bear on the schooner's forecastle and sweep it clear. Quick, before they can cut her adrift! It will never do to have her drifting all over the Cove.”
I was interrupted by the cras.h.i.+ng report of Number 1, which, with the others, had already been most carefully trained upon the schooner; and as the smoke blew away we saw the vessel's port bulwark, all about the cathead, thickly dotted with white marks where the shot had struck, while the forecastle, which had been crowded with men a moment before, was now clear; not so much as a single head showed above the rail.
”Give them the other three guns, as quick as you please; and keep up your fire, with grape only, until you receive further orders,” I cried.
And almost as the words left my lips the other three guns bellowed their terrible message, in response to which the men on the _Tiburon's_ deck seemed to shrink and disappear. But although a good many of them went down, enough were still left to enable them to man their port broadside of seven 12-pounders, as well as their long 32; and with astounding rapidity they brought the whole of these guns to bear upon the spot from which the jets of flame and smoke issued, marking the position of our guns, while they defiantly ran up the black flag to their main truck.
Now the action raged fast and furious, both sides loading and firing as rapidly as they could, although I continually exhorted our own gunners to give themselves plenty of time to take careful aim. The enemy quickly got our range to a nicety, and their shot came screaming about our ears and plumping into our earthen rampart in an almost continuous shower, blinding us with the dust and dirt that they threw up, and occasionally sending the splinters flying in all directions when the shot happened to strike a stone. Yet, marvellous to relate, although several of us were suffering from severe contusions caused by those flying splinters of rock, not one of us was, thus far, actually disabled, while, within ten minutes from the beginning of the firing, that of the schooner slackened perceptibly, showing plainly how severe was the punishment which we were inflicting upon her. This was further exemplified by the fact that presently a man was seen to be hailing the _Berwick Castle_, in response to which two boats were lowered, and, crowded with men, pulled over to the schooner. Thus reinforced, the _Tiburon's_ fire breezed up again for a few minutes; then it gradually slackened again; and finally, when the action had been in progress some twenty minutes, it died away altogether, the black flag being slowly and reluctantly hauled down, a minute later, in token of surrender.
”Cease firing, lads,” I cried; ”the schooner has struck. Now, while the guns' crews remain here, ready to open fire again, if need be, the rest of us will go aboard and take possession.” And, with a wild cheer, some thirty of us leaped the ruins of our parapet and dashed headlong down the steep slope to the little strip of beach where half-a-dozen boats were drawn partly up out of the water.
To pounce upon those boats, rush them afloat, and then tumble helter-skelter in over the gunwales was the work of seconds only; then, throwing out the oars, away we went for the pirate schooner, keeping well apart, in case of a treacherous resumption of firing on the part of the pirates. But nothing occurred, everything remained silent--almost ominously so--on board the schooner, one head only showing above the torn and splintered bulwarks--that of a man who, apparently wounded, clung to the main-topmast backstay, seeming to watch our approach. As we drew nearer that head gradually a.s.sumed a recognisable appearance in my eyes, until at length I felt convinced that it was that of Garcia himself. Suddenly, as I watched, the fellow disappeared, not as though he had sunk to the deck exhausted but rather as though he had gone elsewhere at a run, and with his disappearance a strong suspicion of some diabolical treachery on his part gripped me. I wrestled with it for a few seconds--until in fact we were within half-a-dozen fathoms of the schooner's side; then, influenced by some irresistible impulse, I sprang to my feet and shouted:
”Hold water all! we will go alongside the s.h.i.+p first, and see what is the state of things there. The schooner is safe; she cannot escape; but while we are aboard her who can tell what may be happening aboard the s.h.i.+p? Round with the boats, men, and pull alongside the Englishman!”