We were ordered to join Sir John Jervis’ fleet in the Mediterranean without the loss of a day, and, when the tide served at nine o’clock that night, Sir Peter Hawkshaw was ready for it. The officers, who knew Sir Peter’s capacity for picking up his anchors at short notice, were generally prepared, and were but little surprised at the sudden departure of the ship. The men, however, are never prepared to go, and the ship was besieged, from the time she showed the blue peter until she set her topsails, by the usual crowd of bumboat women, sailors’ wives, tavern-keepers, shop-dealers, and all the people with whom Jack trades, and who are loath to part with him for reasons of love or money. Although all of the stores were on board, there were market supplies to get, and the midshipmen were in the boats constantly until the last boat was hoisted in, just as the music called the men to the capstan bars. It was a brilliant moonlight night, a good breeze was blowing, and the Ajax got under way with an unusual spread of sail. As we passed out the narrow entrance into the roads, the wind freshened and the great ship took her majestic way through the fleet, a mountain of canvas showing from rail to truck. The first few days I was overcome, as it were, with my new life and its duties. Two other midshipmen, junior to myself, had joined, so I was no longer the exclusive butt of the cockpit. We spent most of our spare time expressing the greatest longing for a meeting with the French, although for my own part, even while I was bragging the most, I felt a sickness at the heart when I imagined a round shot entering my vitals. Giles Vernon was still the dearest object of my admiration and affections—always excepting that divinely beautiful Lady Arabella. But this was rather the admiration of a glowworm for a star. I had no one else to love except Giles, and even a midshipman must love something.
I did not much trouble myself about that meeting, so far in the future, between Giles and Overton. Youth has no future, as it has no past.
Naturally, I did not see much of my great-uncle, the admiral. He was a very strict disciplinarian, probably because he was used to discipline at home, and busied himself more with the conduct of the ship than the captain liked. The other midshipmen alleged that there was no love lost between Captain Guilford and the admiral, and the captain had been heard to say that having an admiral on board was like having a mother-in-law in the house. Nevertheless, Sir Peter was a fine seaman, and the gun-room joke was that he knew how to command, from having learned how to obey under Lady Hawkshaw’s iron rule.
One day the admiral’s steward brought me a message. The admiral’s compliments, and would I dine in the great cabin at five o’clock that day?
I was frightened out of a year’s growth by the invitation, but of course I responded that I should be most happy. This, like my professed anxiety to meet the French, was a great lie. At five o’clock I presented myself, trembling in every limb. The first thing I noted in the cabin was a large portrait of Lady Hawkshaw as a young woman. She must have been very handsome.
Sir Peter gave me two fingers, and turning to the steward, said, “Soup.”
Soup was brought. We were mostly out of fresh vegetables then, and it was pea-soup, such as we had in the cockpit. Sir Peter grumbled a little at it, and it was soon removed and a leg of pork brought on; a pig had been killed that day.
“Aha!” sniffed Sir Peter delightedly. “This is fine. Nephew, you have no pig in the gun-room to-day.”
Which was true; and Sir Peter helped me liberally, and proceeded to do the same by himself. The steward, however, said respectfully,—
“Excuse me, Sir Peter, but in the interview I had the honor to have with Lady Hawkshaw before sailing, sir, she particularly desired me to request you not to eat pork, as it always disagreed with you.”
“Wh-wh-what!” roared Sir Peter.
“I am only repeating Lady Hawkshaw’s message, sir,” humbly responded the man; but I thought I saw, under all his humility, a sly kind of defiance. Sir Peter had no fear of either round, grape, or double-headed shot, and was indifferent to musketry fire. Likewise, it was commonly said of him in the service that if he were ordered to attack hell itself, he would stand on until his jib caught fire; but neither time nor distance weakened the authority over him of Lady Hawkshaw.
Sir Peter glared at the steward and then at the leg of pork, and, suddenly jumping up, seized the dish and threw it, pork and all, out of the stern window. As I had secured my portion, I could view this with equanimity.
The next dish was spareribs. The steward said nothing, but Sir Peter let it pass with a groan. It seemed to me that everything appetizing in the dinner was passed by Sir Peter, in response to a peculiar kind of warning glance from the steward. This man, I heard afterward, had sailed with him many years, and was understood to be an emissary of Lady Hawkshaw’s.
We had, besides the pea-soup and roast pork, spareribs, potatoes, turnips, anchovy with sauce, and a custard. Sir Peter, however, dined off pea-soup and potatoes; but I observed that he was his own master as far as the decanters were concerned, and it occurred to me that he had made a trade with the steward, by which he was allowed this indulgence, as I noticed the man turned his back every time Sir Peter filled his glass.
Dinner being over, the cloth removed, and the steward gone, Sir Peter appeared to be in a somewhat better humor. His first remark was,—
“So you are fond of the play, sir?”
I replied that I had been but once.
“The time you went with Giles Vernon. If the coach had broken down between London and Portsmouth, we should have sailed without either one of you.”
I did not mention that the coach had upset, but merely said that we thought there was no danger of any detention, and that Giles Vernon was in no way responsible for my going to London, as he knew nothing about it until we met at the coach door.
He turned his back every time Sir Peter filled his glass.
I was revolving in my mind whether I could venture to ask of the welfare of the divine Arabella, and suddenly a direct inspiration came to me. I remarked—with blushes and tremors, I must admit,—
“How very like Lady Arabella Stormont must Lady Hawkshaw have been at her age! And Lady Arabella is a very beautiful young lady.”
Sir Peter grinned like a rat-trap at this awkward compliment, and remarked,—
“Yes, yes, Arabella is like my lady, except not half so handsome. Egad, when I married Lady Hawkshaw, I had to cut my way, literally with my sword, through the body-guard of gentlemen who wanted her. And as for her relations—well, she defied ’em, that’s all.”
I tried, with all the little art I possessed, to get some information concerning Arabella out of Sir Peter; but beyond telling me what I knew before,—that she was his great-niece on the other side of the house and first cousin to Daphne, and that her father, now dead, was a scamp and a pauper, in spite of being an earl,—he told me nothing. But even that seemed to show the great gulf between us. Would she, with her beauty and her title, condescend to a midshipman somewhat younger than herself, and penniless? I doubted it, though I was, in general, of a sanguine nature.
I found Sir Peter unbent as the decanters grew empty, although I would not for a moment imply that he was excessive in his drinking. Only, the mellow glow which pervades an English gentleman after a few glasses of good port enveloped him. He asked me if I was glad I had joined the service,—to which I could say yes with great sincerity; impressed upon me my good fortune in getting in a ship of the line in the beginning, and gave me some admirable advice. I left him with a feeling that I had a friend in that excellent seaman, honest gentleman, and odd fish, Admiral Sir Peter Hawkshaw.
When I went below, I told my messmates all that had occurred, rather exaggerating Sir Peter’s attentions to me, as midshipmen will. Then privately I confided to Giles Vernon. I told what little I had found out concerning the star of my soul, as I called Arabella, to which Giles responded by a long-drawn-out “Ph-ew!”
I implored him, if he knew any officer in the ship who would be likely to be acquainted with Lady Arabella, to pump him for me. This he promised; and the very next day, as I sat on a locker, studying my theorems, Giles came up.
“Dicky,” said he, “Mr. Buxton knows the divine Arabella. She has a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, and so has the dove-eyed little Daphne, all inherited from their granddad, a rich Bombay merchant. It seems that Lady Arabella’s mother bought a coronet with her money, and it turned out a poor bargain. However, the earl did not live long enough to ruin his father-in-law; and little Daphne’s parents, too, died young, so the old Bombay man left the girls his fortune, and made Sir Peter their guardian, and that means, of course, that Polly Hawkshaw is their guardian. Mr. Buxton says he would like to see the fortune-hunter who can rob Polly of those two damsels. For Polly says rank and lineage are not everything. She herself, you know, dates back to the Saxon Heptarchy, though she did marry the son of your drysalting great-grandfather. And she wants those girls to marry men; and what Polly says on that score is to be respected, considering that she married into a drysalting family to please herself, or to displease her relations, I don’t know which. I should say, though, if you are honest and deserving, and mind your book, and get a good word from the chaplain, you will probably one day be the husband of little Daphne, but not of Lady Arabella; no man shall marry her while I live, that you may be sure of; but when I marry her, you may be side-boy at my wedding.”
I thought this speech very cruel of Giles Vernon, and believed that he did not know what true love was, else he could not so trifle with my feelings, although there was an echo of earnestness in his intimation that he would kill any man who aspired to marry Lady Arabella.
We were three weeks in the Bay of Biscay, thrashing to windward under topgallant-sails, and expecting daily and hourly to run across a Frenchman. We were hoping for it, because we found the Ajax to be a very weatherly ship and fast for her class; and both Captain Guilford and Sir Peter, who had sailed in her before, knew exactly how to handle her. And we were to have our wish. For, one evening toward sunset, we sighted a French ship of the line off our beam; and by the time we had made her out, a light French frigate was coming down the wind, and in an hour we were at it hammer and tongs with both of them.
The Frenchmen thought they had us. We heard afterward that a prize crew was already told off to take us into Corunna, but no man or boy on the Ajax dreamed of giving up the ship.
The Ajax was cleared for action in eleven minutes; and, with four ensigns flying, we headed for the ship of the line, which was waiting for us, with her topsails shivering. The Ajax had been lately coppered, and, with all sail to royals set, legged it at a lively gait, in spite of the heavy sea, which occasionally caused our lower-deck guns to roll their noses in the water. As we wallowed toward the ship of the line, which was the Indomptable, the frigate, the Xantippe, was manœuvering for a position on our starboard quarter to rake us. Seeing this, the Ajax came up a little into the wind, which brought our broadside to bear directly on the Xantippe, and she hedged off a little.
The steadiness, coolness, and precision with which the ship was handled astonished my young mind. I knew very well that if we were defeated, Sir Peter Hawkshaw would stand no show of leniency, for there was no doubt that, owing to our new copper, we could easily have outsailed the Frenchmen; but Sir Peter preferred to outfight them, even against desperate odds.
The officers and men had entire confidence in Sir Peter and in the ship, and went into action with the heartiest good-will imaginable. The people were amused by two powder monkeys coming to blows in the magazine passage over which one would be entitled to the larger share of prize-money. The gaiety of the men was contagious. Every man’s face wore a grin; and when the word was given to take in the royals, and send down the yards, furl all staysails and the flying jib, they literally rushed into the rigging with an “Aye, aye, sir,” that seemed to shake the deck.
The admiral, who had been on the bridge, left it and went below. Presently he came up. He was in his best uniform, with a gold-hilted sword, his order of the Bath on his breast, and he wore a cocked hat. As he passed me, Mr. Buxton, who was stepping along briskly, said,—
“Pardon me, Sir Peter, but a French musket wants no better target than a cocked hat.”
“Sir,” replied Sir Peter, “I have always fought in a cocked hat and silk stockings, as becomes a gentleman; and I shall always fight in a cocked hat and silk stockings, damme!”
Mr. Buxton passed on, laughing.
Now, I had taken the opportunity, after we had sighted the Frenchman, to run below and put on my newest uniform, with silk stockings, and to get out several cambric pocket handkerchiefs; and I had also scented myself liberally with some attar of rose, which I had bought in Portsmouth. Sir Peter, putting his fingers to his nose, sniffed the attar of rose, and, speedily identifying me, he surveyed me calmly all over, while I blushed and found myself unable to stand still under his searching gaze. When he spoke, however, it was in words of praise.
“Nephew, you have the right idea. It is a holiday when we meet the enemy, and officers should dress accordingly.”
Mr. Buxton, who was standing near, sneaked off a little. He had on an old coat, such as I had never seen him wear, and had removed his stock and tied a red silk handkerchief around his neck. He certainly did not look quite the gentleman. The Indomptable, being then about half a mile distant, bore up and fired a shot to windward, which was an invitation to come on and take a licking or give one. The Ajax was not misled into the rashness of coming on, with the Xantippe hanging on her quarter, but, luffing up suddenly,—for she answered her helm beautifully,—she brought the frigate directly under her guns; and that fetched the Indomptable as fast as she could trot. The Ajax opened the ball with one of her long twenty-fours, Sir Peter himself sighting and pointing the gun; and immediately after the whole broadside roared out. Had it struck the frigate full, it would have sent her to the bottom; but by hauling quickly by the wind, she only received about half the discharge. That, however, was terrible. Her mizzenmast was cut off, and hung over her side in a mass of torn rigging; her mainmast was wounded; and it was plain that our broadside had killed and wounded many men, and had dismounted several guns. Her wheel, however, was uninjured, and in an inconceivably short time the wreck of the mast had been cut away; and wearing, with the wind in her favor, she got into a raking position on our port quarter, and gave us a broadside that raked us from stern to stem.
The savage which dwells in man had made me perfectly indifferent to the loss of life on the French ship; but when a man dropped dead at my side, I fell into a passion of rage, and, I must honestly admit, of fear. My station was amidships, and I recalled, with a dreadful sinking of the heart, that it was commonly known as the slaughter-house, from the execution generally done there.
I looked down and saw the man’s blood soaking into the sand, with which the deck was plentifully strewed, and I, Richard Glyn, longed to desert my station and run below. But as I turned, I caught sight of Giles Vernon, a little distance away from me. He was smiling and waving his hat, and he cried out,—
“See, boys! the big ’un is coming to take her punishment! Huzza!”
The Indomptable had then approached to within a quarter of a mile, and as a heavy sea was kicked up by the wind, and all three of the ships were rolling extremely, she luffed up to deliver her broadside; and at that moment three thundering cheers broke from the nine hundred throats on the Ajax, and they were instantly answered by a cheer as great from the Frenchman. Owing to the sharp roll, most of the French shot went a little too high, just above the heads of the marines, who were drawn up in the waist of the ship. My paroxysm of fear still held me, but when I saw these men, with the one proud word “Gibraltar” written on their hats, standing steadily, as if at parade, in the midst of the hurricane of fire, the men as cool as their officers, shame seized me for my cowardice; from that on, I gradually mastered my alarms. I here mention a strange thing; as long as I was a coward at heart, I was also a villain; for if one single shot could have sent the Frenchman’s body to the sea and his soul to hell, I would have fired that shot. But when I was released from the nightmare of fear, a feeling of mercy stole into my soul. I began to feel for our brave enemy and to wish that we might capture him with as little loss as possible.
The cannonade now increased; but the wind, which is usually deadened, continued to rise, and both the heavy ships were almost rolling their yard-arms in the water. The Indomptable’s fire was exceedingly steady, but not well directed, while, after ten minutes of a close fire, it was seen that we were fast shooting her spars out of her. The frigate, much disabled by the loss of her mast, had fallen off to leeward, and never got close enough again to be of any assistance to her consort.
The Ajax’s people began to clamor to get alongside, and alongside we got. As we neared the Indomptable, occasionally yawing to prevent being raked, his metal began to tell, and we were much cut up aloft, besides having been hulled repeatedly; but we came on steadily. The man at the wheel had nearly all his clothes torn off him by a splinter, but with the spirit of a true seaman, he stood at his post unflinchingly, never letting go of the spokes for one moment. When we were within a couple of pistol-shot, the Frenchman opened a smart musketry fire. Sir Peter had left the bridge for a moment and was crossing the deck, when a ball went through his hat, knocking it off and tearing it to pieces. He stooped down, picked it up, and then called out to a powder boy who was passing.
“Go to my cabin, and in the upper drawer of the locker to the left of my bed-place, you will see two cocked hats; bring me the newest one. Hanged if I’ll not wear a decent hat, in spite of the Frenchman!”
And this man was ruled by his wife!
We hove to about a cable’s length from the Frenchman, and then the fight began in earnest. We were so near that every shot told. The Frenchman made great play with his main-deck battery, and our sails and rigging soon were so cut up, that when we came foul, a few minutes later, we were jammed fast; but nobody on either ship wished it otherwise. The Frenchman’s main-yard swung directly over our poop, and Captain Guilford himself made it fast to our mizzen rigging. The Frenchman, however, was not yet beaten at the guns, and the firing was so heavy on both sides that a pall of smoke enveloped both ships. This was to our advantage, for the frigate, having got some sail on the stump of her mizzenmast, now approached; but the wind drifted the smoke so between her and the two fighting ships, that she could not in the dim twilight plainly discern friend from foe, especially as both were painted black, and we swung together with the sea and wind. When the smoke drifted off, the gallant but unfortunate Xantippe found herself directly under our broadside. We gave her one round from our main battery, and she troubled us no more.
Of my own feelings, I can only say that I welcomed the return of my courage so rapturously, I felt capable of heroic things. Occasionally I recognized Sir Peter as he flitted past; he seemed everywhere at once, and I perceived that although Captain Guilford was technically fighting the ship, Sir Peter was by no means an idle spectator. My gun was on the engaged side all the time, and several of the guns on that side became disabled, and officers were wounded or killed; it brought Giles Vernon quite close to me. Through the smoke and the fast-falling darkness, lighted only by the red flash of the guns and the glare of the battle lanterns, I could see his face. He never lost his smile, and his ringing voice always led the cheering.
Presently, the Frenchman’s fire slackened, and then a dull, rumbling sound was heard in the depths of the Indomptable, followed by a roar and streams of light from the fore-hatch. The forward magazine had exploded, and it seemed in the awful crash and blaze as if all the masts and spars went skyward, with the rags of the sails, and a solemn hush and silence followed the explosion.
In another instant I heard Sir Peter’s sharp voice shouting,—
“Call all hands to board! Boatswain, cheer the men up with the pipe!”
And then the clear notes of the boatswain’s pipe floated out into the darkness, and with a yell the men gathered at the bulwarks. On the French ship they appeared to be dazed by the explosion, and we could see only a few officers running about and trying to collect the men.
In another instant I saw Mr. Buxton leap upon the hammock-netting, and about to spring, when a figure behind him seized him by the coattails, and, dragging him backward, he measured his length on the deck. The figure was Giles Vernon.
“After me,” he cried to the first lieutenant; and the next moment he made his spring, and landed, the first man on the Indomptable’s deck.
As soon as the ship was given up, we hauled up our courses and ran off a little, rove new braces, and made ready to capture the frigate, which, although badly cut up, showed no disposition to surrender, and stood gallantly by her consort. In half an hour we were ready to go into action again, if necessary, with another ship of the line.
We got within range,—the sea had gone down much,—and giving the Xantippe our broadside, brought down the tricolor which the Frenchmen had nailed to the stump of the mizzenmast. She proved to have on board near a million sterling, which, with the Indomptable, was the richest prize taken in for years preceding.
The admiral and captain got eleven thousand pounds sterling each. The senior officers received two thousand five hundred pounds sterling each. The juniors got two thousand pounds sterling, the midshipmen and petty officers one thousand five hundred pounds sterling, and every seaman got seven hundred pounds sterling, and the landsmen and boys four hundred pounds sterling in prize-money. And I say it with diffidence, we got much more in glory; for the two French ships were not only beaten, but beaten in the most seamanlike manner. Sir Peter ever after kept the anniversary as his day of glory, putting on the same uniform and cocked hat he had worn, and going to church, if on shore, with Lady Hawkshaw on his arm, and giving thanks in a loud voice.
