Part 4 (2/2)
”I will bring you two of them,” he said, smiling.
Stewart sailed to the southward, in the hope of falling in with some vessels in the India trade. For two months, in spite of their fitness, the men were daily exercised in all weathers at evolutions with the sails and great guns, and part of the day was given to cutla.s.s-work and pistol-practice. No emergency drill was overlooked, and from reefing topsails to sending up spare spars or setting stu'n-sails they moved like the co-ordinated parts of a great machine. But one prize having been taken, however, Stewart set his course for the coast of Europe, to seek the lion, like Paul Jones, on his own cruising ground.
On February 18, 1815, just two months after leaving Boston, the ”Const.i.tution,” being then near the Portuguese coast, sighted a large sail, and immediately squared away in pursuit. But hardly were they set on their new course before another sail hove up to leeward, and Stewart quickly made down for her. Overhauling her shortly, she was discovered to be the British merchant s.h.i.+p ”Susan,” which he seized as a prize and sent back to Boston. Meanwhile the other sail, which afterwards proved to be the ”Elizabeth,” 74, had disappeared.
The following day the ”Const.i.tution” was holding a course to the southward from the coast of Spain toward Madeira. A group of her officers stood upon her quarter-deck, watching the scud flying to leeward. They were rather a discontented lot. They had been to sea two months, and beyond a few merchant prizes they had nothing to show for their cruise. It was not like the luck of ”Old Ironsides.” What they craved was action to put a confirmatory test to the metal they were so sure of. The fo'c's'le was grumbling, too; and the men who had been in her when she fought the ”Guerriere” and the ”Java” could no longer in safety boast of the glory of those combats.
Had they but known it, the ”Elizabeth,” 74, and the ”Tiber,” 38, in command of Captain Dacres, who had lost the ”Guerriere,” were but a few hours astern of them; and the ”Leander,” 50, the ”Newcastle,” 50, and the ”Acasta,” 40, whom they had so skilfully eluded at Boston, were das.h.i.+ng along from the westward in pursuit. The seas to the eastward, too, were swarming with other frigates (in couples), who were seeking her no less anxiously than she was seeking them.
Stewart was not so easily disheartened as his officers. He knew that the ”Const.i.tution” was in the very midst of the s.h.i.+ps of the enemy. Had he not known it he would not have been there. He came on deck during the afternoon in a high good humor. He was a believer in presentiments, and said, jovially,--
”The luck of the 'Const.i.tution' isn't going to fail her this time, gentlemen. I a.s.sure you that before the sun rises and sets again you will be engaged in battle with the enemy, and it will not be with a single s.h.i.+p.”
The morning of the next day dawned thick and cloudy. Though well to the southward, the air was cold and damp. The wind was blowing sharply from the northeast, and the choppy seas sent their gray crests pettishly or angrily upward, where they split into foam and were carried down to mingle with the blur of the fog to leeward. Occasionally, in the wind-squalls, the rain pattered like hail against the bellying canvas and ran down into the lee-clews, where it was caught as it fell and whipped out into the sea beyond.
Two or three officers paced the quarter-deck, looking now and then aloft or to windward to see if the weather were clearing. Saving these, the fellows at the wheel, and the watch on deck, all hands were below on the gun-deck, polis.h.i.+ng their arms or loitering in the warmth near the galley, where the cooks were preparing the mid-day meal.
During the morning watch, Stewart, for some reason which he was unable to give, save an unaccountable impulse, changed the course and sent the s.h.i.+p down sixty miles to the southwest. Shortly after noon the fog fell lower, and so thinned out at the mast-head that the lookout on the topsail-yard could soon see along its upper surface. At about one o'clock the welcome sound of ”Sail, ho!” came echoing down through the open hatchways. While ordinarily the sighting of a sail so near the coast has no great significance, Stewart's prediction of a battle had aroused the men to a fever of impatience; and when they knew that a large sail, apparently a frigate, had been raised and that the fog was lifting, the watch below dropped their kits and tools and tumbled up on deck to have a glimpse of the stranger. Here and there wider rifts appeared in the fog-banks, and the mids.h.i.+pman of the watch, who climbed with a gla.s.s into the foretop, soon made her out to be a frigate bearing about two points on the port-bow.
Stewart came up from below and immediately crowded on top-gallant-sails and royals in pursuit. Before long the weather had cleared, so that they could make out the horizon to windward, and from the deck could dimly discern the hazy ma.s.s of the chase as she hung on the lee-bow, apparently motionless. In less than an hour the man at the mast-head reported another sail ahead of the first one, and noted that signals were being exchanged between them.
It was now almost a certainty that the vessels were those of the enemy.
Forward the men were slapping one another on the back, and rough jokes and laughter resounded from the gun-deck, where the boys and stewards were clearing away the mess-dishes and stowing away all gear, in preparation for a possible action. On the quarter-deck wagers were freely offered on the character of the vessels, which looked to be frigates of 50 and 38.
Stewart glanced aloft at the straining spars and smiled confidently.
By this time the nearer frigate bore down within the range of the gla.s.ses, and they could see that she was painted with double yellow lines, and apparently cut for fifty guns. As it afterwards appeared, she had a double gun-streak, false ports having been painted in her waist.
Lieutenant Ballard, who had been carefully examining her with his gla.s.ses, remarked to the captain, who stood at his elbow, that she must at least be a fifty-gun s.h.i.+p. Stewart, after a long look, suggested that she was too small to be a s.h.i.+p of that cla.s.s. ”However,” he continued, ”be this as it may, you know I have promised you a fight before the setting of to-morrow's sun; and if we do not take it, now that it is offered, we may not have another chance. We must flog them when we catch them, whether she has one gun-deck or two.”
Signals were now constantly interchanged between the vessels, and by three o'clock the ”Const.i.tution” had come so near that they were plainly made out to be two small frigates, or a frigate and a sloop-of-war, both close hauled on the starboard tack. The ”Const.i.tution,” having the windward gauge, now manuvred more carefully, and, hauling her sheets flat aft, pointed up so as to keep the advantage of position.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”NO 'DUTCH COURAGE' ON _THIS_ s.h.i.+P”]
As the vessels came nearer and an action became certain, the stewards came on deck with the grog-buckets, in accordance with the time-honored rule on men-of-war by which the liquor is served before a fight. Instructions had been given that, as the battle was to be with two s.h.i.+ps, a double portion of the drink should be served. But just as the stewards were about to ladle it out an old quartermaster rolled down from forward, and saying, ”We don't want any 'Dutch courage' on _this_ s.h.i.+p,” with a great kick sent the bucket and its contents flying into the scuppers.
About four o'clock the westernmost s.h.i.+p signalled her consort and bore down to leeward to join her. The ”Const.i.tution” now set her stu'n-sails and went bearing down after them at a strain that seemed to menace her spars. She was rapidly drawing up with them when, just as she got well within range of the long guns, there was a sharp crack far aloft and the royal-mast snapped off at the cap. It was a doubtful moment, for the Englishmen crowded on all sail to escape, and rapidly drew together, flinging out their English ensigns as though in triumph.
But they did not reckon on the superb seamans.h.i.+p of the ”Const.i.tution.” In a trice the men were aloft with their axes, the wreck was cleared away, new gear was rove, and in half an hour a new mast was aloft and another royal was spread to the breeze.
But the s.h.i.+ps had been enabled to close with each other, and Stewart had lost the opportunity of attacking them separately. They made one ineffectual effort to get the weather-gauge, but, finding that the ”Const.i.tution” outpointed them, they settled back in line of battle and cleared s.h.i.+p for action. Stewart immediately showed his colors and beat to quarters.
The fog had blown away and the sun had set behind a lowering bank of clouds. The wind still blew briskly, but the ”Const.i.tution” only pitched slightly, and offered a fairly steady platform for the guns, which were now trained upon the nearest vessel, but a few hundred yards broad off the port-bow. The darkness fell rapidly, and the moon came out from behind the fast-flying cloud-bank and silvered the winter twilight, gleaming fitfully on the restless water, a soft reproach upon the b.l.o.o.d.y work that was to follow.
At a few moments past six the long guns of the ”Const.i.tution's”
port-battery opened fire, and the battle was on. Both s.h.i.+ps responded quickly to the fire, and for fifteen minutes the firing was so rapid that there was not a second's pause between the reverberations. The English crews cheered loudly. But the gunners of the ”Const.i.tution” went on grimly with their work, sponging and loading as though at target-practice, content to hear the splintering of the timbers of the nearest vessel as the double-shotted thirty-twos went cras.h.i.+ng into her. Before long the smoke became so thick that the gunners could not see their adversaries; and Stewart, ordering the batteries to cease firing, drew ahead and ranged abeam of the foremost s.h.i.+p, with his port-battery reloaded and double-shotted. He waited until he was well alongside before giving the order to fire, when he delivered such a terrible hail of round-shot, grape, and canister that the enemy staggered and halted like an animal mortally wounded. For the moment her battery was entirely silenced, and during the lull they could hear the cries of the wounded as they were carried below to the c.o.c.kpit. The English cheered no longer. Another such a broadside might have finished her; but before Stewart could repeat it he saw that the other s.h.i.+p was luffing up so as to take a raking position under the stern of the ”Const.i.tution.”
Nowhere did the wonderful presence of mind of Stewart and the splendid seamans.h.i.+p of his crew show to better advantage than in the manuvre which followed. He quickly braced his main- and mizzen-topsails flat to the mast, let fly all forward, and actually backed down upon the other enemy, who, instead of being able to rake the ”Const.i.tution,” found her emerging from the smoke abreast his bows in a position to effectually rake _him_. The ”Const.i.tution's” guns by this time had all been reloaded, and a terrific fire swept fore and aft along the decks of the Englishman, tearing and splintering her decks and dismounting many of the guns of both batteries. So terrible was the blow that she faltered and fell off. Before she could recover from the first, another terrible broadside was poured into her.
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