Part 6 (1/2)
”That is true enough, sir. Then in half an hour we shall be ready to sail again.”
The major was rowed to the Sea-horse. ”We may as well transfer the men at once,” he said. ”We have had a very narrow escape of it, Captain, and there is no doubt that we owe our safety entirely to the sharpness of that young ensign. We should have been sunk or taken if he had not suggested our manning the lugger in the first place, and of pretending that the s.h.i.+p had been captured by French privateers in the second.”
”You are right, Major. Another half-hour and the craft would have foundered under us; and the frigate would certainly have captured the Sea-horse and one of the prizes if the Frenchman had not, as he thought, seen two privateers at work emptying our hold. He is a sharp young fellow, that.”
”That he is,” the major agreed. ”He has been brought up with the regiment, and has always been up to pranks of all kinds; but he has used his wits to good purpose this time, and I have no doubt will turn out an excellent officer.”
Before sail was made the major summoned the officers on board the Sea-horse. The troops from the lugger and brig were drawn up on deck, and the major, standing on the p.o.o.p, said in a voice that could be heard from end to end of the s.h.i.+p:
”Officers and men, we have had a narrow escape from a French prison, and as it is possible that before we arrive at our destination we may fall in with an enemy again and not be so lucky, I think it right to take this occasion at once of thanking Mr. O' Connor, before you all, in my own name, and in yours, for to his intelligence and quickness of wit it is entirely due that we escaped being captured when the brig was pounding us with its shot, without our being able to make any return, and it was certain that in a short time we should have had to haul down our flag or be sunk. It was he who suggested that we should take possession of the lugger, and with her guns drive off the brig. As the result of that suggestion this craft was saved from being sunk, and the brig was also captured.
”In the second place, when that French frigate was bearing down upon us and our capture seemed certain, it was he who suggested to me, that by hoisting the French flag and appearing to be engaged in transferring the cargo of the s.h.i.+p to the privateers, we might throw dust into the eyes of the Frenchmen. As you saw, the ruse succeeded perfectly. I therefore, Mr. O'Connor, thank you most heartily in my own name, and in that of your fellow-officers, also in the name of the four hundred men of the regiment, and of the s.h.i.+p's company, for the manner in which you have, by your quickness and good sense, saved us all from a French prison, and saved his Majesty from the loss of the wing of a fine regiment.”
As he concluded the men broke into loud cheering, and the officers gathered around Terence and thanked and congratulated him most heartily on the service that he had rendered them.
”You are a broth of a boy, Terence,” Captain O'Grady said. ”I knew that it was in you all along. I would not give a bra.s.s farthing for a lad who had not a spice of divil-ment in him. It shows that he has got his wits about him, and that when he steddys down he will be hard to bate.”
Terence was so much overpowered at the praise he had received that, beyond protesting that it was quite undeserved, he had no reply to make to the congratulations that he received from the captain. O'Driscol, seeing that he was on the verge of breaking down, at once called upon him to take his place in the boat, and rowed with him to the lugger.
A few minutes later all sail was set on the Sea-horse, and with her yards braced tautly aft she laid her course south, close-hauled; a fresh breeze was now blowing, and she ploughed her way through the water at a rate that almost justified O'Grady's panegyrics upon her. In another three days she entered the port of Vigo, where the convoy was to rendezvous, and all were glad to find that the whole fleet were still there. On anchoring, the major went on board the Dauphin, which had brought the headquarters, and the other wing of the regiment. He was heartily greeted by the colonel.
”We were getting very uneasy about you, Harrison,” he said. ”The last s.h.i.+p of the convoy came in three days ago, and we began to fear that you must have been either dismasted or sunk in the gale. I saw the senior naval officer this morning, and he said that if you did not come in during the day he would send a frigate out in search of you; but I could see by his manner that he thought it most likely that you had gone down. So you may imagine how pleased we were when we made out your number, though we could not for the life of us make out what those two craft flying the English colours over the French, that came in after you, were. But of course they had nothing to do with you. I suppose they were two privateers that had been captured by one of our frigates, and sent in here with prize crews to refit before going home. They have both of them been knocked about a bit.”
”I will tell you about them directly, Colonel; it is rather a long story. We have had a narrow squeak of it. We got through the storm pretty well, but we had a bad time of it afterwards, and we owe it entirely to young O'Connor that we are not, all of us, in a prison at Brest at present.”
”You don't say so! Wait a moment, I will call his father here; he will be glad to hear that the young scamp has behaved well. I may as well call them all up; they will like to hear the story.”
Turning to the group of officers who were standing on the quarter-deck a short distance away, waiting to hear the news when the major had given his report, he said: ”You may as well come now and hear Major Harrison's story; it will save his telling it twice. You will be glad to hear, O'Connor, that Terence has been distinguis.h.i.+ng himself in some way, though I know not yet in what; the major says that if it had not been for him the whole wing of the regiment would have now been in a French prison.”
”Terence was always good at getting out of sc.r.a.pes, Colonel, though I don't say he was not equally good in getting into them; but I am glad to hear that this time he has done something useful.”
The major then gave a full account of their adventure with the privateers, and of the subsequent escape from the French frigate.
”Faith, O'Connor,” the colonel said, warmly, holding out his hand to him, ”I congratulate you most heartily, which is more than I ever thought to do on Terence's account. I had some misgivings when I recommended him for a commission, but I may congratulate myself as well as you that I did so. I was sure the lad had plenty in him, but I was afraid that it was more likely to come out the wrong way than the right; and now it turns out that he has saved half the regiment, for there is no doubt from what Harrison says that he has done so.”
”Thank you, Colonel; I am glad indeed that the boy has done credit to your kindness. It was a mighty bad sc.r.a.pe this time, and he got out of it well.”
”Of course, Major, you will give a full report in writing of this, and will send it in to Sir Arthur; he arrived this morning. I will go on board the flag-s.h.i.+p at once and report as to the prizes. Who they belong to I have not the least idea. I never heard of a transport capturing a couple of privateers before; but, I suppose, as she is taken up for the king's service and the prizes were captured by his Majesty's troops, they will rank as if taken by the navy, that is, a certain amount of their value will go to the admiral. Anyhow, the bulk of it will go, I should think, to the troops--the crew and officers of the s.h.i.+p, of course, sharing.”
”It won't come to much a head, Colonel, anyhow. You see, they were both empty, and there is simply the value of the s.h.i.+ps themselves, which I don't suppose would fetch above five or six hundred apiece.”
”Still, the thing must be done in a regular way, and I must leave it in the admiral's hands. I will take your boat, Major, and go to him at once. You will find pen and ink in my cabin, and I should be glad if you would write your report by the time that I return; then I will go off at once to Sir Arthur.”
”I have it already written, Colonel,” the major said, producing the doc.u.ment.
”That looks to me rather long, Harrison, and busy as Sir Arthur must be, he might not take the trouble to read it. I wish you would write out another, as concise as you can make it, of the actual affair, saying at the end that you beg to report especially the conduct of Ensign O'Connor, to whose suggestions the escape of the s.h.i.+p both from the privateers and French frigate were due. I will hand that in as the official report, and with it the other, saying that it gives further details of the affair. Of course, with them I must give in an official letter from myself, inclosing your two reports. But first I will go and see the admiral.”
In a little over half an hour he returned. ”The admiral knows no more than I do whether the navy have anything to do with the prizes or not. Being so small in value he does not want to trouble himself about it. He says that the matter would entail no end of correspondence and bother, and that the crafts might rot at their anchors before the matter was decided. He thinks the best thing that I can do will be to sell the two vessels for what they will fetch, and divide the money according to prize rules, and say nothing about it. In that way there is not likely ever to be any question about it, while if the Admiralty and Horse Guards once get into a correspondence over the matter, there is no saying what bother I might have; and that he should advise me, if I do not adopt that plan, to simply scuttle them both, and report that they have sunk. Now I will just write my official letter and take it to head-quarters.”
In two hours he was back again.