Yankee Ships and Yankee Sailors: Tales of 1812 Part 12

"Who are you and what are you doing here? Answer."

"The _Cigalle_ of Havre. I try to get into the harbor here."

There came a laugh from the direction of the strange vessel. "Strange sort of weather for a Frenchman to be sailing in, sir," some one observed. "More than likely one of the Yankees trying to get out."

That was exactly what Captain Symington was trying to do, but the collision with the stranger had carried away his port cathead, and with it the anchor had gone to the bottom. By the effect of this unfortunate accident, and the force of the tide, which was now against her, the _Rattler's_ head was swung around again, and before anything could prevent it, she once more went afoul of the big vessel, whose decks towered higher than her cross-trees. There she hung, under the other's lee, while the English commander, sometimes in French and sometimes in English, was cursing Symington for a clumsy Frenchman and threatening to send a shot on board of him.

It was daylight almost and the wind was freshening. Clearer and clearer the outlines of the great vessel could be seen.

She was an English seventy-four, that, trying to make the harbor, had been headed off by darkness and had anch.o.r.ed in the roads.

In ten minutes after the breeze began to blow, the air was free from mist. There was no use in trying to indulge in any deception now. The character of the small vessel had been discovered by the big one. A crowd of laughing officers lined the rail, and on her gallery appeared a number of ladies bound most probably for the new court of the new King. The wind was off sh.o.r.e. From the shrilling of whistles and babbling of orders it was seen that the battle-s.h.i.+p was getting under way. A man in gold lace leaned out over the rail and said in an off-hand manner:--

"On board the Yankee there! Keep under our lee and return to the harbor, or we'll sink you instantly; play no tricks, if you value your safety. Mark you that."

Why it was that the Englishman did not drop a boat and put a prize crew on board the _Rattler_, it might be hard to guess. Symington feared that this would happen, and, although he gave no answer to the imperious order, he set about obeying it with every evidence of haste and alacrity.

But such clumsy work had never been seen before on board a Yankee privateer. Often in naval actions in the old sailing days, when orders were blared through a speaking-trumpet, and not given by little electric bells and signals, as now we have them, the "rule of contrary"

was pa.s.sed in order to deceive the enemy who might overhear and thus antic.i.p.ate.

"Hard a port" meant "hard a starboard." A vessel that was supposed to be on the point of luffing would bear away, sheets flying.

Now, on board the _Rattler_, although no such order had been pa.s.sed, the men had understood well enough the whispered word. It is a well-known fact that the fore-and-aft rig was best understood in America, where it had really been brought to perfection. The English, after they had captured a vessel of the _Rattler's_ cla.s.s, never succeeded in getting the same sailing qualities out of her, and the upshot of it was that they generally changed her rigging and cut down her masts and sail plan. But no crew was ever clumsier than was the privateer's on this occasion. They tumbled over one another, they got the halliards twisted, they pretended to be breaking their backs in getting in the anchor when they were not lifting a pound, and all the time the First Mate was running hither and thither like the busy man at the circus, chattering a jargon made up of sc.r.a.ps of Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish, while above all the confusion, Captain Symington's explosive French adjectives rang out like snaps of a whip.

There had not been the least doubt in the English officers' minds a moment since that the little vessel they were looking down upon was an American; but now they were somewhat puzzled, and the whole scene was so laughable that very soon the taffrail was lined again with a t.i.ttering crowd, who discussed, in very audible tones, their varying opinions.

But lazily the great s.h.i.+p was swinging about with a great creaking of yards and flapping of sails. Soon she was moving through the water. A few minutes later and the _Rattler_ was in her wake, and Captain Symington, who certainly did not look French, despite his wonderful vocabulary, made a proud and elaborate bow, and lifted his great beaver hat to the ladies who were now on the quarter-deck enjoying the sight.

But if the English officers had been puzzled at first and amused afterwards, there was one person on board H.M.S. _Ajax_ who had enjoyed the same sensations in a more intensified fas.h.i.+on. He was looking out of one of the stern ports on the lower gun-deck. A short, thickset man, who did not belong to the battle-s.h.i.+p's company, for he was a prisoner.

It was Captain Edgar, and it was the _Ajax_ that had picked up the _Siren_ in a sinking condition after she had sustained the fusillade of two nights previously. But every foot the _Rattler_ sailed brought her further into the harbor and lessened the ultimate chances for escape.

But that there was a plan in Captain Symington's mind, Edgar did not doubt. He knew that the _Rattler_ was as handy as a whip, and he kept his eyes open for any sudden development. He did not have to wait long; there came an unexpected s.h.i.+ft of the wind more to the southward just as the _Ajax_ was slowly heaving about to go off on the other tack. It caught her all aback; the great sails clattered, and her headway stopped. She had missed stays.

It is no laughing matter for a big s.h.i.+p to have this happen to her when approaching a harbor or nearing shallow water. At once the boatswain's whistle began piping away; orders were shouted, and there was trouble below and aloft.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She came about like a peg-top."]

But what happened to the clumsily handled craft astern? She was immediately under the port galleries, within half a cable's length, doddering along under foresail and mainsail. At the first sign of what had occurred to the battle-s.h.i.+p there ensued a transformation scene.

Have you ever seen an unwilling dog accompanying its master on a walk?

how he sneaks close at the heels, watching his chance when the attention is not directed to him? How suddenly he turns tail, and after a few cautious movements that bring him beyond the reach of stick or arm, he breaks into a run at full speed, disdaining call or whistle, and puts back for home? That is exactly what the _Rattler_ did.

Scarcely had the canvas of the _Ajax_ begun the ominous fluttering that showed the change of the wind's direction, than the privateer swung off to meet it.

Slowly at first and then with a rush she came about like a peg top.

Without an order being given, out broke the great foresail, the topsails dropped from the gaskets and were sheeted home, and with a lurch to leeward the _Rattler_ stretched out back over her course for the harbor entrance, setting her flying kites as she bowled along!

So busy was everybody on board the three-decker, who had troubles of her own to look after, that no one noticed the sudden manoeuvre of the privateer; no one except one of the ladies who happened to be the wife of the Admiral, for the _Ajax_ was a flags.h.i.+p. She, after a minute, succeeded in attracting the attention of one of the lieutenants, who with the rest had gone forward to the break of the p.o.o.p and was watching what was going on below and above him.

"The little s.h.i.+p," she inquired innocently, "where is she going?"

The officer turned and immediately had to beg the lady's pardon most abjectly, for he broke forth into an oath.

"Tricked, after all!" he exclaimed, grasping one of his companions by the arm and pointing.

But there was one other person who had noticed all these goings on. It was the prisoner on the lower spar-deck.

"You can soak me for a squilgee if that weren't neat," he chuckled, and then lifting his hands to his cheeks, he roared out something through the port.

The _Rattler's_ Captain, who was at the wheel, had jumped as if the _Ajax_ had suddenly whirled about and let fly a broadside at him, for he heard the words as plain as could be.

"Good-by, Captain Symington! Give my regards to all at home!"

He recognized his old friend Edgar's voice, and it gave him a thrill of pleasure to know that he was alive even if he was a prisoner.

The _Ajax_ was still in stays; but her commander found time to fire his battery of stern-chasers, the b.a.l.l.s whistling harmlessly past the _Rattler's_ stern, missing her widely. In reply to this Captain Symington again lifted his old beaver hat.

Far away to the leeward were the sails of the blockading squadron.

Attracted by the firing of the _Ajax_, they flew their little flags and crowded on their canvas. But by this time the _Rattler_ had doubled the point and was making out into the dancing waters of the Channel. And who was going to touch her where she had sea-room? As if anxious to have everything understood, Symington raised his ensign. The English captain, who had been forced to boxhaul his great vessel in order to avoid running on the shoals, cursed beneath his breath. One of the ladies turned to the Admiral's wife.

"I wonder why we did not start after her, Madame?" she asked.

"Oh, because we couldn't turn round quick enough, I suppose," she rejoined. Then turning to her spouse she asked:--

"Was not that it, Sir John?"

"Yes, my dear," responded the Admiral, grimly; "that was just it."

Down below, Captain Edgar had not yet recovered from his laughing fit; and when he and Captain Myron Symington met again, as they did many times afterwards, they used to laugh over it together.

THE NARRAGANSETT

"Twenty of those confounded Yankees give me more trouble than three decks full of Frenchmen," remarked Captain Brower of the prison-s.h.i.+p _Spartan_, one of the fleet of dismantled battle-s.h.i.+ps that thronged the harbor of Plymouth, England.

Lieutenant Barnard, commanding the neat little sloop of war _Sparrow_, then on the guard station, laughed.

"They are troublesome beggars, sure enough," he said; "but the funny thing is that they behave almost exactly the way our fellows do, or at least would under the same circ.u.mstances; that I verily believe."

"Well, such insolence and impudence I never saw in my life," returned Brower. "I shall be glad when I get rid of this last batch and will rest easy when they have been sent ash.o.r.e to Dartmoor. You should have seen the way they behaved about two weeks ago. Let me see, it was the evening of the fourth, I believe. In fact the whole day through they were at it--skylarking and speech-making and singing."

It was July, 1814. Many vessels in the government service of Great Britain, returning from America, or from the high seas, brought into Plymouth crews of American vessels, and not a few of the troops captured about the Lakes and on the Canadian frontier had been brought over also. They were usually kept on board one of the prison hulks for three or four months; sometimes it was a year or more before they were transferred to the military prisons, the largest of which was situated at Dartmoor, and the second in size at Stapleton, not far from the town of Gloucester. Although the prison-s.h.i.+ps and the prisons themselves were crowded with Frenchmen, the Yankees were three or four times as much trouble to control and to command. When they were not planning to escape, they were generally bothering the sentinels, drawing up pet.i.tions, or having some row or other, if only for the fun of turning out the guard.

"I wish somebody else had this position," grumbled Captain Brower, pouring out a gla.s.s of port. "I don't think that I was made for it.

When I am left alone, I am liable to become too lenient, and when I am angered, perhaps I may be too hasty.... At any rate, I wish some one else was here in my place.... I had to laugh the other day, though; you know old Bagwigge of the _Germanicus,_ here alongside, what a hot-tempered, testy old fellow he is? Well, the other day he was walking up and down his old quarter-deck, and about fourscore of my Yankee prisoners were up on deck for air and exercise. Suddenly they began singing. Now, I don't object to that; if they'd never do anything worse, I'd be happy. They've only cut four holes through different parts of this s.h.i.+p, and once well-nigh scuttled her; but never mind; to go on: Bagwigge, he walks to the side and shouts across to my vessel: 'Hi, there! you confounded Yankees! avast that everlasting row.' I didn't see that it was any of his business, as it was on my own s.h.i.+p; but the Yankees--I wish you had seen them, Barnard, upon my soul."

"What did they do? Slanged him, I suppose, terrible."