Commodore Junk

“Hurrah!” shouted the men, as they saw the long vessel alter her course a little.

“She surrenders,” said Humphrey to himself; and in the brief moments that followed he saw himself returning to England in triumph, his task done, and beautiful, fashionable Lady Jenny Wildersey welcoming him with open arms.

It was a puff of fancy, dissipated like the puff of smoke which came from the schooner’s bows; while, in company with the report that rumbled heavily away, came a round shot skipping over the calm surface of the sea, not forward like the summons to heave-to of the king’s ship, but straight at her hull, and so well-aimed that it tore through the starboard bulwark amidships and passed just in front of the mainmast, which it almost grazed.

“The insolent!” exclaimed Humphrey, turning purple with rage. “How dare he!”

As he spoke he raised his spy-glass to his eye, for something could be seen fluttering up the side of the great main-sail, and directly after a large black flag was wafted out by the breeze in defiance of a ship-of-war double the schooner’s size, and heavily armed, as well as manned by a picked and disciplined crew.

“Very good, Commodore!” cried Humphrey, with a smile. “You can’t escape us now. Gentlemen, the ball has opened. Down with her spars, my lads. Never mind her hull; we want that to take back to Falmouth, from whence she shall sail next time with a different rig.”

The men cheered and the firing commenced, when, to the annoyance of the captain, the wind dropped entirely, a dead calm ensued; night was coming on rapidly, as it descends in the tropic lands, and he had either to try and silence the schooner at long range, or man the boats and take her by boarding, a plan from which he shrank, knowing, as he did, that it could only be successful at a terrible cost of life, and this he dreaded for the sake of his men.

The sloop crept a little nearer in one of the puffs of wind that came from time to time, and the firing went on, Humphrey and his officers being astounded at the ability with which the schooner’s guns were served and the accuracy of their aim.

“No wonder that they’ve carried all before them among the merchantmen,” muttered Humphrey, as a shot came crashing into them, and three men were carried below disabled by splinters.

As he spoke he looked anxiously round, to make sure that the schooner would not be able to pass them in the approaching darkness, and then, feeling more and more that men who could serve their guns so well would be terrible adversaries in a case of boarding, and determined to spare his men till the schooner was disabled, he kept up the artillery duel till the only guide for laying their guns was the flash of the enemy’s pieces when some shot was fired.

By this time the fire of the buccaneers had proved so effective that the sloop’s bulwarks were shattered and her decks were slippery with blood, while her captain was fuming with rage at the unfortunate aim of his men; for, though the schooner had evidently been hit again and again, she seemed to have escaped the vital injury that a shot would have produced in one of her spars.

All at once, just as the darkness had become complete, the firing of the schooner ceased; and to have continued that on board of the sloop would have been wasting shot.

“Man the launch and jolly-boat!” said the captain sharply, and their crews waited with intense excitement the orders to go and board the schooner, a faint groan of disappointment arising as the men heard the instructions given to the two lieutenants to patrol on either side of the sloop, and be ready to attack and board only if the buccaneer should attempt to steal off in the darkness and escape.

The night wore on, with every one on the qui vive. Two more boats were ready waiting to push off and help in the attack on whichever side the schooner should attempt to escape; while, in the event, of an attack, the other patrolling boat was to come back to the sloop.

But hour after hour passed and no rushing of water was heard, no dip of long sweep, or creak of the great oar in the rowlock was heard; neither was a light seen; and the silence observed by the schooner was so profound that Humphrey, as he paced the deck, felt certain at last that she must have escaped; and, now that it was too late, he bitterly repented not attempting to capture the dangerous foe by a bold attack.

“She’s gone,” he groaned, “and I’ve lost my chance!”

He paced the deck in bitter disappointment, as he felt that he had let a prize slip through his fingers; and, as he waited, the night glided slowly by, till, slowly and tardily, the first signs of day appeared, and with a cry of joy Humphrey Armstrong ordered the signal of recall to be run up, for there, just as she had been last seen when night fell, lay the long, dark schooner, but without a man visible on board.

In a few minutes the two boats were alongside, and Humphrey gazed longingly at the prize he felt ready to give half his life to reach.

What should he do? Attempt to board her now that his four boats lay armed and ready for the fray?

The temptation was too great, and the order was given: the four boats to attack at once, the men receiving the command with a tremendous cheer, and their oars took the water at once; while, compelled by his position to remain on board, the captain feverishly watched the progress of his boats in the growing light, and frowned and stamped the deck in his anger as he saw the crews were exhausting themselves in a race to see which should first reach the silent, forbidding looking schooner.

He shouted to them to keep together, but they were beyond the reach of his voice, and matters seemed hopeless from the way in which they struggled, when a combined attack was requisite for success.

Then all at once the launch remained steady, and the smaller boats went off to right and left. Another minute and all were advancing together, so as to board in four different parts of the ship at once.

Humphrey Armstrong’s eyes flashed, his lips parted, and his breast heaved as he watched his men dash on with a faintly heard cheer; but there was no response, not a moving figure could be seen on board the schooner, and it was plain that she had been deserted during the night.

“Curse him for an eel!” cried the captain, fiercely, as he felt that he was about to capture a vessel and leave her cunning commander to man another, and carry on his marauding as of old; but he had hardly uttered his angry denunciation when his four boats raced up to the schooner, and in a moment she seemed alive with men.

Almost before the English captain could realise the fact, great pieces of iron, probably the schooner’s ballast, were thrown over into the boats, two of which were crushed through like so much paper, and the men as they sank left struggling in the water.

All that could be done was to rescue the drowning men; and as the two remaining boats were being overladen, and then made a desperate attack so as not to go back in disgrace, a furious fire of small-arms was poured from every port hole and from the schooner’s deck, till, unable to penetrate the stout boarding-netting triced up all around the vessel, cut at, shot at, and thrust back into their boats with boarding-pikes, the sloop’s two boats fell off, and began to slowly retrace their course.

The moment the way was clear Humphrey, who was almost beside himself with disappointment, begun pounding away at the buccaneer with his heavy guns; but instead of exciting a response he found that sails were being unfurled, and that, instead of the schooner being shut in, the bottom of the bay formed a kind of strait, and she was not in a cul de sac.

“She’ll escape us after all!” groaned Humphrey, as he ordered sail to be made, and the sloop began to forge ahead, firing rapidly the while, as the schooner began to leave her behind.

She was sailing right in, and before the sloop could follow there were the two boats to be picked up.

This was done, the removal of the wounded being deferred till the buccaneer was captured, and all the time a furious fire was kept up without effect, for the schooner seemed to sail right inland, and disappeared round a headland, the last they saw of the heavily-rigged vessel being when she careened over at right angles to the sloop and her shot-torn sails passed slowly behind the rocky bluff.

“Only into shelter!” cried Humphrey Armstrong, excitedly; and giving rapid orders, fresh sail was made, and men placed in the chains with leads to keep up communications as to the soundings, but always to announce deep water, the land seeming to rise up sheer from an enormous depth in the channel-like gulf they entered.

“She’s gone right through, sir, and will get away on the other side.”

The sloop sailed on, with the water deep as ever, and before long she rounded the head, to find the narrow channel had opened out into a beautiful lake-like bay with the dense primeval forest running right down to its shores.

But the greatest beauty of the scene to Humphrey Armstrong was the sight of the schooner lying right across his course a quarter of a mile away, and ready to concentrate her fire and rake the sloop from stem to stern.

“Curse him! no wonder he has had so long a career!” said Humphrey, stamping with rage as he watched the execution of his orders, and a well-directed fire was once more made to answer that of the buccaneer. “With such a ship, crew, and place of retreat, he might have gone on for years.”

The firing grew hotter than ever, and the schooner became enveloped in a cloud of smoke which elicited a burst of cheers from the sloop.

“She’s afire! she’s afire!” roared the men.

Humphrey’s triumph was now at hand. The scourge of the western seas was at his mercy, and shrinking from attempting to board so desperate an adversary for the sake of his crew, he gave orders to lay the sloop right alongside of the schooner, where he could cast grappling-irons, and then pour his fire down upon her deck.

The orders were rapidly executed, and the sloop bore down right for the smoke-enveloped schooner with little fear of being raked now, for the pirates had ceased firing, and could be dimly-seen through the reek hurrying to and fro.

“Shall we give her one more salvo, sir?” asked the first officer, coming up to where Humphrey stood, trying to pierce the smoke with his glass.

“No, poor wretches! they’re getting fire enough. I hope she will not blow up, for I’d give anything to take her home unhurt.”

There was a perfect rush of flame and smoke now from the schooner, and once more Humphrey’s men cheered and shook hands together, even the wounded in the excitement of their triumph taking up the cry, when, just in the height of the excitement, and when the sloop was within a hundred yards of the enemy, the men in the chains among the rest gazing hard at the rising smoke, the war vessel careened over in answer to her helm in the evolution which was to lay her side by side with the burning schooner, and then there was a tremendous jerk which threw nearly every one off his feet.

Then, shivering from head to heel, the sloop slowly surged back us if to gather force like a wave, and in obedience to the pressure upon her sails, struck again, literally leaping this time upon the keen-edged barrier of rocks under whose invisible shelter the schooner lay; and then, as a yell of horror rose from the men, the unfortunate ship remained fixed, her masts, sail laden, went over the side with a hideous crashing noise, and all was confusion, ruin, and despair.

The moments required to turn a stately, sail-crowded ship into a state of chaos are very few, and to Humphrey Armstrong’s agony, as well aided by his officers, he was trying to do something to ameliorate their position, he saw how thoroughly he had been led into a cunningly-designed trap. The schooner had been artfully manoeuvred to place her behind the dangerous rocks, and, what was more, a glance at her now showed her sailing away from a couple of boats moored beyond them; and in each of which were barrels of burning pitch sending up volumes of blackened smoke.

“A trap! a trap!” he cried, grinding his teeth. “Let her be, my lads,” he roared. “Prepare for boarders!”

The men sprang to their pikes and swords, while a couple of guns were freed from the wreck of cordage, and sail which the shock had brought down.

These guns had hardly been trained to bear upon the schooner from the deck of the helpless sloop when a deadly fire was opened by the former – a fire of so furious a character that the confusion was increased, and in spite of the efforts of captain and officers, the men shrank from working at the guns.

What followed was one terrible scene of despairing men striving for their lives against a foe of overpowering strength. The fierce fire of the schooner, as she came nearer and nearer, was feebly responded to, and in a short time the deck streamed with blood, as the shot came crashing through the bulwarks, sending showers of splinters to do deadly work with the hail of grape. There was no thought of capture now; no need of bidding the men attack: following the example of their officers, and one and all doggedly determined to sell their lives dearly, the men dragged gun after gun round as those they worked were disabled, and sent a shot in reply as often as they could.

With uniform torn and bedabbled with blood, face blackened with powder, and the red light of battle in his eyes, Humphrey Armstrong saw plainly enough that his case was hopeless, and that, with all her pomp of war and pride of discipline and strength, his sloop was prostrate before the buccaneer’s snaky craft, and in his agony of spirit and rage he determined to wait till the pirates boarded, as he could see they would before long, and then blow up the magazine and send them to eternity in their triumph over the British ship.

But it was to destroy his men as well, and he felt that this should be the pirates’ work when all was over.