Scarborough Fair (24 page)

“Soon be out, Jackie boy!” his cousin Billy shouted, a wild grin cracking his face. “Sounds like one of our frigates has come to teach this pirate a lesson!”

Jackie turned his gaze toward his cousin.

“We rule the waves and don't you forget it,” Billy went on. “Our navy'll make mincemeat out these Yankees.”

“If they don't sink us first,” commented the dour Scot.

“Best place for this bucket,” Billy retorted.

The Scot was unmoved. “If this bucket goes down, laddie, we'll go with it.” He lifted his hands to remind them of their chained wrists. “You'll not be thinking they'll send a smith down to break these off if she goes down, are you?”

Billy glared at him, the truth sinking in. Overhead, another salvo of cannon fire silenced any reply.

***

On the quarterdeck Commodore John Paul Jones paced back and forth. The power of the Englishman's first broadside had surprised him. The man-o'-war's hull was shrouded with smoke as gunners loosed their charges. The explosion below decks on
Richard
during the second broadside had surprised him too. He had not expected the Englishman to find a vulnerable spot so quickly. That they had was obvious from the ragged salvos now coming from the main gun deck below.

Without Landais and
Alliance
or Cottineau's
Pallas
, it seemed the English firepower and accuracy would make short work of
Bonhomme Richard
. As well as the damage below decks, they had already lost some spars and rigging. The only hope was to fight a close action.

“Back the fore and main topsails,” he commanded. Long minutes passed, the Englishman blazing broadside after broadside before
Richard
fell astern, safe for the present from the long English guns. With an eye on the filling topsails, Paul Jones judged the right moment. “Weather the helm! Hard over!” he called, anxious she would respond.

As the lazy wind began to push
Richard
, she paid off to starboard across the tall stern of
Serapis
. “Rake as you come to bear!” the commodore called down through the smoke. The unfired port battery, shotted and ready, discharged one after another in a staccato pattern, the deck shivering with the recoils. Splintering wood and screams could be heard over the water in the aftermath, time for only one salvo before the guns were unsighted. Within seconds,
Richard
's port side smashed amidships against the starboard quarter of
Serapis
's transom.

The deck officers were quick to see the commodore's plan. They rushed to the bulwarks to supervise the placing of a boarding plank, rallying the men close by. Callused hands flung the baton across. An officer sprang onto it, waving a pistol in one hand, a short sword in the other.

Paul Jones, both hands on the rail, could see the officer's mouth working, arm urging boarders forward. With only enough contact between the two ships for one plank, the English were waiting. Before he had taken three steps, the American was cut down. His pistol and sword dropped into the abyss between the hulls as he crumpled off the plank. His place was filled immediately, marine following marine. Support was given by the men in the mast tops who pouring down small arms fire on the English. A swivel gun crashed, spraying death onto
Serapis
's deck, but where the dead and injured fell, their places were taken as though by sorcery. The French marines were shot off the plank as fast as they put feet on the wood. The odd man who succeeded in reaching the English deck was hacked to pieces. Paul Jones could almost hear the English officers laughing at him. When twenty men's lives had been wasted he saw it was futile.

“Belay the assault! We'll sheer off!”

***

As
Bonhomme Richard
fell away, Captain Pearson took the initiative. From his position on the quarterdeck of HMS
Serapis
, he had personally directed his crew as they repelled boarders, content to leave the gangplank in place as long as necessary. While the Americans kept coming, his men could shoot them off with little risk. But as soon as the enemy abandoned their attempt, Pearson saw his chance.

“Helm hard a-port!” he shouted,
Serapis
eating her fill of the meager wind. She swung but could not muster enough headway to overhaul and cross
Richard
's bows. He cursed, all too aware the American had seen his intention, the old East Indiaman dogging his stern. His marines lined the taffrail, loosing ripples of musket fire toward
Richard
's nearing jibboom.

“He's going to ram us,” Lt. Wright said in astonishment, aiming and firing his own pistol. The report was followed by the crash of twin swivels mounted by the lanterns. Seconds later,
Serapis
still swinging to starboard,
Richard
's bowsprit plowed into their bulwarks like a raging bull, bodily lifting cannon from their trucks and tossing them across the deck. Captain Pearson lost sight of the Stars and Stripes in the confusion, thinking Paul Jones had hauled his colors down, the universal signal of surrender. Squinting through the smoke, he pushed forward to the rail, two marines moving aside. He held up his speaking trumpet and called through a lull in the musket fire.

“Paul Jones! Has your ship struck!”

On the quarterdeck Paul Jones laughed heartily, boosting the morale of the marines who stood in a protective circle about him.

“Struck?” he shouted back. “I have not yet begun to fight!”

While the men on the weather deck cheered his courage, the commodore considered his next move. He had to get
Richard
clear before the swivel gunners in the enemy's stern could inflict more damage. With his own ship pointing directly at the Englishman, swivels in the mast tops were unable to bear because of
Richard
's rigging and sails.

“Back topsails,” he ordered, speculating on the Englishman's next move when
Richard
eased off. The answer came soon. As the bowsprit wrenched free,
Serapis
began to wear to port, turning on her heel to run westerly.

“Pardon, sir?” Midshipman Mayrant asked.

Jones frowned. “What, boy? No, I didn't say anything. You see what he wants me to do? He wants me to wear ship so he can use his broadsides on me again. Very well, I shall. Pass the order.”

It was Mayrant's turn to frown. “Sir?”

“Don't question me! Pass the order!”

Bonhomme
Richard
wore, swinging parallel to
Serapis
, but moving much slower than the agile English frigate. Paul Jones knew Pearson would have to back his sails to allow
Richard
to draw level, and it was for that moment he waited, watching the enemy rigging. It was as he foresaw.
Serapis
backed her topsails, checking her headway. The commodore smiled.

“We have him. Let her run!”

Richard
gathered way. When she drew level, her sails stole the Englishman's wind, Pearson's ship almost at a standstill. The American surged ahead. A staccato broadside chased them, but the commodore was grinning as they moved out of range.

“Helm hard a-weather!” he ordered. The quartermaster spun the wheel,
Bonhomme Richard
cutting across
Serapis
's bows. “Trim the braces!” he shouted, realizing they were not going to weather with enough sea room to rake the Englishman. He glanced at the rigging and saw some of the yards' braces had been shot away. He knew then the two ships would collide again. He had wanted it close, but not like this.

He cursed as
Serapis
's jibboom and bowsprit plunged into
Richard
's mizzen shrouds. For a moment he thought the rigging would be torn away and the mizzenmast would fall. It held, but
Richard
's momentum, spiked by the enemy's bowsprit, swung her so the two ships lay flank to flank, bows to stern. Still moving but unable to shake free,
Richard
's topsides crashed into the English man-o'-war, American cannon muzzles jammed tight against the still unopened gun ports of the Englishman's starboard battery.

As Paul Jones registered the fact Captain Pearson would now be unable to use his broadsides, Mayrant came back to his side from the head of the companion.

“Sir! She's hooked us on a fluke of her starboard anchor! We're held fast!”

Jones grinned. His mistake had turned to advantage. “Well done, lads! We've got her now! Throw on the grappling irons and stand by for boarding!” He strode to where one of the enemy's forestays had fallen across the quarterdeck during the collision. He grabbed and tied it to Richard's mizzenmast. “Make her fast, lads! She'll not run away now!” The men cheered him. He waved in acknowledgement, then turned to Stacey, the officer who had taken over duties as sailing master. Stacey grinned, dropping the line he had brought to lash the forestay.

“We'll show the English bastards now, eh sir?”

The commodore's smile froze, but amusement danced in his eyes. “Mr. Stacey, it's no time to be swearing. You may be in eternity within the next few minutes, and have to answer for it. Let us do our duty!”

***

Captain Pearson strode
Serapis
's quarterdeck in a fury. That accursed American in a decrepit old merchantman had outmaneuvered his brand new frigate. His rage was such he was oblivious of the musket balls hammering into the deck about him, fired from the foremast crosstrees of
Bonhomme
Richard
. His own marines knelt by the rail, loading and firing through a pall of powder smoke.

“Wright!” Pearson bellowed, hands clasped behind his back, head hunched bulldog-like between his shoulders.

“Sir?” First Lieutenant Wright answered, matching the captain pace for pace.

“What's happening down there?” He jerked his head at the weather deck, obscured by fallen rigging and smoke.

“They're throwing grapples, sir.”

“Cut them free and order the starboard battery to open fire. Hah, point-blank range. We'll blow that old wreck out of the water. And her insolent upstart of a commander with her.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but the gun ports on the starboard side are blocked by the American cannon.”

“Blow them off from the inside.”

Wright looked horrified. “But sir…”

Pearson ignored him. “When the guns are ready, order the crews clear but for the cannoneer. It's been done before, it can be done again. Well? Get on with it, man!”

As the English sailors rushed forward with axes to chop away the grapples, sharpshooters in
Richard
's mast-tops shot them down. It was revenge for the massacre during the earlier boarding attempt. When Lt. Wright returned with news that the gunners were preparing to blow the ports and that attempts to sever the grappling lines were failing, Captain Pearson changed tactics.

“Let go the forward port anchor. The wind and tide should pull the pirate clear. And when the guns come to bear he'll soon strike his colors.” He estimated they stood about three miles southeast of Flamborough Head, the white cliffs faint in the moonlight, and the tide was running strongly. If
Serapis
's anchor held fast to the seabed, the plan should work.

***

Paul Jones was unable to stand still, adrenaline racing through his bloodstream as he paced about the quarterdeck. His eyes raked the various scenes of battle unfolding before him. The nearly full moon had climbed above a bank of heavy cloud on the eastern horizon to throw its ghostly grin across
Bonhomme
Richard
as she swung with the tide, clinging to HMS
Serapis
like a limpet to a rock. Muzzle flashes, bright orange in the dark, drew a latticework of the entangled rigging.
Richard
's yards overhung the Englishman so far he could see his men sidling across on the safety ropes to fight hand to hand with the English sailors in the mast-tops.

He grinned when he saw his men win their skirmish, tossing their opponents out over the side before pouring down gunfire onto the deck below. They threw grenades, thunderous explosions littering the English deck with those too slow to flee. Fire flickered in a dozen places, powder igniting with dull whumphs and clouds of murky smoke.

Within minutes,
Serapis
's battery of ten-pounders on the weather deck was abandoned, murderous grapeshot flung by
Richard
's swivel guns at any English tar who thought to regain the deck.
Sparks
and smoke blossomed against the gray sails of both warships accompanied by the bark of muskets as sharpshooters beaded on selected targets.

Bonhomme Richard
winced and shuddered. If
Serapis
had temporarily lost her main deck battery, then the gun deck battery bore no loss lightly. The cannoneers had blown away the blocked ports and now loaded and fired as fast as shot could be rammed down the muzzles of the eighteen-pounders. Ball after ball smashed into
Richard
's shivering topsides, crunching the heavy timbers into wicked splinters that flew about 'tween decks like a rain of Zulu spears.