Читать книгу With The Flag In The Channel - Barnes James - Страница 2

It was lucky that the water was smooth and that the Charming Peggy was on her best tack, otherwise the frigate that was now dropping fast astern would have overhauled her ere she had been well clear of the capes. The gun that the Englishman had fired had had a ring of disappointment in it, an admonition more of warning than of threat. Captain Conyngham, looking back over the low taffrail, waved his hand as he saw her haul her wind.

“Good-by to you, my petty tyrant,” he cried half aloud. “I hope I’ve seen the last of the likes of you.”

The crew, whose expressions had changed during the short chase from anxiety to hope, and from hope to satisfaction, looked up at the little quarter-deck where the captain was pacing to and fro with firm, springing steps. They were a motley lot, this crew, mostly American sailormen from Baltimore, a half-Spaniard from the West Indies, and two strong fellows who had about them the unmistakable marks of man-of-war’s-men. In all there were but fifteen, including the cook, a big, curly-haired Virginia negro with a rolling eye and a soft, high-pitched voice.

The young captain had been more than satisfied with the way they had jumped at his orders during the few exciting moments when it was a moot question whether he would be able to cross the frigate’s bows at a range beyond gunshot. He had just managed to do it and no more, but it had proved to his satisfaction that, given a smooth sea and a light wind, the Charming Peggy could outfoot any of her ponderous pursuers. He well knew that the dangerous time would soon come when in English home waters, and that there stratagem, as well as speed, would have to be resorted to if occasion demanded. He could scarcely hope to reach a Dutch or French port without some further adventure, and to tell the truth he was in a measure prepared for a certain form of it. On the forecastle rail were mounted two swivel guns, and amidships a short six-pounder. Not a formidable armament, to be sure, but sufficient, if at close range, with the element of surprise added, to account for any small merchant vessel that the Peggy might fall in with.

Still, in his sailing orders, nothing had been said about the taking of prizes. He had merely been ordered to get safely in to some Dutch port and bring out as soon as possible a miscellaneous cargo of such materials and supplies as merchants could dispose of most readily to the fighting branch of the revolted colonies.

All was plain sailing, with pleasant breezes, until at the end of the twenty-third day after leaving the capes. Then a storm sprang up with high winds, and the tumbling, rolling seas that mark the edge of the Bay of Biscay, and there the Charming Peggy proved to be a disappointment. Safe enough she was, but she butted and jumped and turned like a tub in a mill-race. She acted like a bewitched and bewildered creature, and in order to prevent having to run for it, Captain Conyngham had recourse to an expedient often used in vessels of light tonnage. He rigged out a sea-anchor, and for three days the observations showed that the Peggy’s position was about stationary. On the fourth day the weather cleared a bit, the wind shifted, and twenty-four hours’ good sailing to the northward brought her in sight of the English coast. The wind holding fair, she entered King George’s private channel with all light canvas flying, and everything seeming to promise well for the future. Numerous sail had been sighted on either hand, but Captain Conyngham kept well to the eastward, close in to the low-lying French coast. Clumsy fishing craft and trading vessels had been passed near at hand, but not a sign of a man-of-war, or anything to give the slightest concern as to the safety of the Charming Peggy. But late in the afternoon of the second day, after the clearing away of the storm, there appeared, bowling along, and holding such a course as would bring her soon within hailing distance, a jaunty single-masted vessel that needed no second glance to determine her class and quality.

Captain Conyngham knew her to be one of the fast king’s cutters long before he had looked at her through the glass, but he held his own course as if unconcerned, and now the expected resort to strategy was necessary. At his orders the Dutch flag had been shown, and the cutter, although coming nearer and nearer, showed apparently no signs of suspicion. The watch on deck lolled over the rail, glancing from the approaching vessel to their young skipper, who like themselves was leaning over the side puffing a cloud of smoke from a long clay pipe. Occasionally, however, he would give an order to the helmsman that was obeyed, and it was seen that almost imperceptibly the brig was edging up nearer the wind, and that the approaching cutter, that was sailing close hauled also, would pass astern of her.

The captain turned for an instant, from measuring the lessening distance between the two vessels, to see how the crew were taking it, for any untoward action now might attract the other’s attention. Captain Conyngham could not make up his mind at first as to whether she intended hailing him or not, and still in doubt, he spoke to the first mate, a lean New Englander, who sat on the edge of the cabin transom, smilingly addressing him.

“Mr. Jarvis, I wonder which of us speaks the best Dutch?” he half queried. “If that fellow yonder intends to hail us, we’ve got to get an answer ready. I’m pretty good on Spanish, and I can ‘parlez-vous’ after a fashion, but Dutch has been Dutch to me. We should have flown the Spanish flag, but it’s too late now, bad luck to it.”

“Wa-al,” the Yankee answered, “I’m thinkin’ if we just squeeze her the least bit more she’ll be at jus’ such a distance that y’u couldn’t make nothin’ out through a speakin’-trumpet, and Dutch is Dutch to most Englishmen anyhow.”

By this time the figures on board the approaching cutter could be plainly seen. On the quarter-deck there were two officers standing together, while forward the crew lay bunched together, sheltering, behind the low bulwarks, from the spray that dashed over her bows. Again Captain Conyngham looked at his own crew standing in the waist. Talking together were the two sailormen who had had the mark upon them of the royal service. One, Captain Conyngham had suspected from the very first of being a deserter from one of the English ships that had touched at an American port. His name – Higgins – also might have gone to strengthen his suspicion, and he had a little Devonshire twist in his speech. The other, a shorter man, with light blue eyes, was a compatriot of the young captain; he had a broad stretch of upper lip, and the strong brogue of the west coast.

Conyngham’s eye fell upon these two as they stood there and suddenly he started. They were whispering almost beneath their breath. Strange to say the supposed deserter showed no signs of the fear that the occasion might have demanded; yet he was a trifle nervous, for his fingers hitched at the lanyard of his clasp-knife.

“Higgins,” cried Captain Conyngham suddenly, “below with you and fetch me one of the broadaxes from the carpenter’s chest. And stay,” he said; “bring me up a dozen nails, two of each kind. Sort them out carefully and make no mistake about it.”

The man hesitated.

“Below with you there,” the captain repeated, half fiercely, “and no questions.”

Reluctantly the tall sailor went down the forward hatchway.

“McCarthy,” called Captain Conyngham again, “go to my cabin and tell the boy to send me up my trumpet, and stay below until I send for you.”

The other men had listened to these orders in some astonishment. Even the first mate had cast an inquiring glance at the captain, but had said nothing.

In a few minutes the boy appeared with the speaking-trumpet. Captain Conyngham took it and held it out of sight beneath his coat.

The position of the English cutter was now a little abaft the beam of the Charming Peggy, but she was dropping farther and farther astern with every foot of sailing.

Suddenly across the water there was a hail. “Heave to, I want to speak to you,” came plainly and distinctly.

The captain, after his sudden orders to the sailors, had resumed smoking. Now he took the long pipe from his mouth and leaning forward placed his hand behind his ear as if he had not understood.

Again the hail was repeated. This time the captain waved his hand denoting complete understanding. Then he turned as if he was giving some orders aloud to the crew, but instead he told the steersman to luff a little, and spoke quietly to the first mate:

“Two minutes more and we’ll be out of it, Mr. Jarvis,” he said; “she will never fire at us.”

The cutter still held on, and was by this time well astern. The officer who had hailed was standing with his companion expectantly leaning against the shrouds.

Conyngham whipped the trumpet from under his coat, as if it had just been handed him, and bellowed something back over the taffrail. Then he waved his hand cheerfully and went on smoking his pipe.

The two men on the English vessel were evidently perplexed. But the Charming Peggy, now having gone back to her course again, and having the weather-gage, was rapidly leaving. At last, as if her suspicion had been satisfied, the cutter wore, let go her sheets, and went off free to the southeast.

The men on the Charming Peggy were all in a broad grin, and Mr. Jarvis was almost hugging himself in sheer delight and relief.

“I thought you spoke no Dutch, sir,” he said, laughing. “What was it you said to him?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” was Conyngham’s rejoinder, “but I think it had some Irish in it.”

He did not appear amused, however, and a moment or two later he stopped suddenly in the pacing that he had taken up again. With a stern look on his face he ordered that the two men he had told to go below should be sent up to him at once.

If the crew had been surprised at what they had just witnessed, they were soon to be more so. The two men appeared and, hat in hand, stood at the mast. Higgins carried in one hand a bundle of iron nails and in the other the ax, one side of which was flat like a hammer.

Captain Conyngham ordered him to step forward, and he handed the nails and ax to Mr. Jarvis, who stood wonderingly by his side.

“Higgins,” asked Captain Conyngham sternly, “do you know what I want these for?”

“No, sir.”

The man was pale, but over his face there flickered a smile of affected amusement or bravado.

“I’ll show you. – McCarthy, step up here.”

The two men stood before him.

“Now, Higgins,” said Conyngham sternly, “I’ll tell you what I wanted the nails and ax for. I wanted to nail the lies that you are going to tell me.”

The man began to protest feebly, and the captain stopped him.

“What were you saying just as that cutter came within hailing distance?”

“I was saying nothing, sir.”

“Lie number one; you were.”

The captain changed one of the nails from one hand into the other.

“You, McCarthy, what did you say to Higgins?”

“I said nothing, sir.”

“Lie number two.”

The captain looked from one to the other with his piercing eyes, and then, almost without a movement of preparation, his bare fists shot out to left and right, and the men dropped where they stood like knackered beeves.

It had all come so suddenly that the crew, at least those who had been watching, were held spellbound in astonishment. Even Mr. Jarvis looked frightened, and gazed at his superior officer, wondering if he had lost his senses.

“Here, pick these men up, some of you, and put them on their feet,” ordered Conyngham sternly.

Half dazed, the two men were propped against the railing.

“What are you doing aboard this vessel?”

“Sailing as honest seamen,” responded the Englishman, who had recovered his equilibrium in a measure, and in whose eyes glared a fierce light of mad hatred, as he returned Conyngham’s steadfast look.

“Lie number three. But we won’t go on. I’ll tell you what you said. When you saw that we were outpointing that cutter, you said that when she was near enough to hail, you would take your knife and cut away the sheets, and that McCarthy here would let go the jib-halyards, and that you would then – ” he paused suddenly. “Open your shirt,” he ordered.

The men’s faces were white and terrified. Higgins fumbled weakly at his breast and then, all at once, collapsed forward on the deck. He had fainted dead away.

Acting on Conyngham’s orders, Mr. Jarvis bent over the prostrate man and drew forth and displayed, to the astonished eyes of all, a small British Union Jack.

The crew fell to murmuring. Captain Conyngham was all smiles again. He waited until Higgins had been revived by a dash of cold water. Then he spoke to the two frightened and now trembling men.

“Your conduct shall be reported,” he said, “to Messrs. Lester and Flackman, secret agents of the British Crown. They should not employ such joltheads. Now below with these rascals. Put them in irons, Mr. Jarvis.”

In charge of the first mate and the boatswain, the two prisoners were marched below. The captain resumed his hurried pacing of the quarter-deck, and the crew suddenly jumped at his order to shorten sail, for the wind had increased and was blowing in unsteady puffs.

During the early hours of the night it blew half a gale, but died away in the early morning hours, and at daybreak the Peggy found herself jumping uneasily in the rough water with her sails flapping idly against the masts. All about her was a thick opaque white haze. One of the Channel mists had suddenly swept down from the north. It was almost impossible to see even the length of the deck.

The lookout forward, who had been peering over the bows, came stumbling aft to where the first mate, whose watch it was, stood by the wheel.

“There’s a vessel close off our bow, sir; listen, and you can hear her! She can’t be more than a pistol-shot away.”

In the stillness there could be heard the slow squeaking and creaking of blocks and yards, and even the faint tapping of the reef-points against the sails, as she rose and fell to the seas. Clearer and clearer it sounded every minute.

Slowly but surely the two ships were drifting together.

“Jump below and call the captain to the deck,” ordered Mr. Jarvis quietly.

It was evident the Charming Peggy was in for further adventures.