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Boys' Life's, July 1924, with "The Bonhomme Richard Returns"
The Boy Scouts' Craig Kennedy, Harper & Brothers, 1925,
with "The Cruise of the Sea Scouts"
"WHERE are you, Dick? Are you all right?"
Ken Adams was rubbing his shoulder. The fingers of his other hand were clutching to steady himself on the planks under his sprawling body. His eyes vainly tried to penetrate the lime-laden darkness about him in the hold of the old schooner, Ella.
"I went to sleep in a bunk—and here I am—out—too!"
Dick Ward replied with the nervous, half-frightened laugh of a boy who realizes an impending unknown danger and is trying to bluff it.
"Where's your Uncle Craig, Ken?" "How about Captain Brower?" "Is Joe Gloom down here?" "Maybe Mr. Jameson can tell!"
The schooner was pitching furiously now. There was intense excitement among the score of boys who had been suddenly waked up. The hold, dimly lighted by one single ship's lantern, seemed darker and more fearsome than ever as the shadows, dim dusky formless shadows of the boys, wavered with the wild pitching of the boat.
Suddenly the hatch opened slowly, carefully. A thin streak of light, even if it were only from a pocket flash, was a welcome sight to the boys. They watched the space widen with the sliding back of the hatch. Peering down now was Craig Kennedy.
"Anybody hurt, Ken?"
"Oh, a few bruises. Some of us were thrown out of the bunks. What's the matter, Uncle Craig?"
"Did we strike an iceberg?" This was from Gus Lobo with a vague idea of the perils of the sea. It was greeted with a laugh in the hot, stuffy hold.
"Did we run into another boat, or something? We're not sinking, are we?" piped in David Jardine.
Craig's voice and manner were reassuring though grave and serious. "Keep your heads, scouts. You'll need them. Here's a chance for every boy of you to show what's in him. We're in the midst of one of the worst summer squalls I've ever seen on the Sound. It came up faster than even Captain Brower counted on."
"Hear it rain! And the waves! Look, the water's even running in down the ladder from the hatch!"
OUTSIDE, the wind was howling through the rigging, angry
defiance at the patched and mildewed sails, reefed down so that
the mainmast was little more than a bare stick, while the
foresail had been taken in altogether and the jib was bellying
out with the wind like a huge fat man.
Captain Brower, Joe Banks, Craig and I had had to work fast. Just a few minutes before the storm broke, and some time after the boys had gone down to the hold to sleep, we four had been peering out at the expanse of Block Island Sound. The Captain had eyed us with a warning.
"I'm no croaker, Mr. Kennedy. But when the sea is velvet—like purty dark green velvet—I begins to look for trouble!"
I had looked up at the sky overhead. There were a few stars shining directly over us. But in the northwest there was a suspicious blackness. None of us, except possibly the captain, had suspected the rapidity with which the storm approached—until it broke and we were in the midst of it.
The Ella heeled over to the starboard. I was fearful of what was happening among the boys in the hold. But our safety depended on giving immediate attention to the canvas the Ella was still carrying in our effort by night sailing to make the leg from Fisher's Island to Nantucket.
IT was the early part of July. Ken Adams had been so
enthusiastic over the Sea Scout Camp at Nonowantuc, on the north
shore of Long Island, that both Craig and I had been anxious to
join in and help the scoutmaster, Joe Banks, get settled.
Pitching the tents, odd bits of carpentry and painting, all sorts
of labors had occupied us for some days. Then there had been the
hustle of getting the old schooner, chartered for the summer, in
readiness for the first cruise up in New England.
The Ella was really an old oyster schooner, with a "kicker," a heavy-duty marine engine that wasn't anything for speed but could be depended on to carry her along nicely in a calm.
The hold was where the oysters had been carried. Liberal baths of lime and carbolic, water and elbow grease had cleansed it until it smelled at least as clean as the operating room of a hospital. Temporary bunks had been built down there, though some of the boys preferred sleeping on the deck wrapped up in their blankets, with almost anything as an improvised pillow. There were also some hammocks. But the decks and the hammocks out in the air were only for use when we were anchored in port. On this night all had been ordered below to sleep. Lime and oysters could not dampen enthusiasm, however.
Captain Brower, I may say, came from a family of Long Island sea captains. Tall, lean, big-boned, capable of backing an argument conclusively with two hard fists, he was a man who not only expected obedience; he got it. Yet he was scrupulously honest and fair in his dealings with the world. He never asked anyone to do a thing he had not done himself at some time. His face was weather-beaten a warm red from sun and wind. Crowning his deeply wrinkled brow was a luxuriant growth of iron gray hair. When he thought deeply he had a habit of pushing back his cap and running his fingers through his hair. And although his lips were in a straight line, there was a twinkle in his blue eyes.
As for Joe Banks, the scoutmaster, he was as clean a specimen of manhood as I ever saw. Sun-browned shoulders and arms knotted with muscle were the ideal of every boy in the camp. Clean living and clear thinking had made Joe Banks. The boys loved him not only for his athletic attainments, but he commanded their respect for his intellect and judgment. He knew how to manage them. He had a sense of humor, too, only sometimes it seemed a trifle grim, but that is often like life itself. He had a very clear conception of the consequences of doing a thing wrong. They might sometimes call him Joe "Gloom." But he was their pal, their hero when it came to tight places.
IT was the night of the third of July that the Ella ran
into, or rather was overtaken by, the storm.
Slickers, ponchos, sou'wester hats, all sorts of things were dug out of the darkness. Banks was everywhere in the hold, now, seeing that every boy was supplied with his life belt in case of emergency. On deck, Captain Brower, clinging for dear life to anything for support, was looking after the boats, seeing that they were ready to be got over the side quickly, if the worst came.
The boys were now in little silent groups. There was no laughter, only subdued remarks now and then. Everybody was waiting—waiting for what?
There was that thrill of silence that makes the heart beat fast, that makes one think of all the weak and ignoble things he has done, overshadowing the good. The things of which we are ashamed have a surprising persistence in the mind as one approaches a zero hour.
"Cap and Joe Gloom aren't saying much," I caught Ken's whisper to Dick. "But I just heard Cap tell Uncle Craig we were already blown far off our course—out in the ocean!"
"Gosh! What would my folks say?" Dick spoke bravely enough to Ken who was lashing some boxes that had acquired a habit of shifting with each nose dive of the staunch little schooner as she plunged ahead.
At each successive roller that the Ella was now meeting we could feel the resounding thud as the boat plunged from the last frothy wave into the lacy crest of another on-coming mountain of water. It was not exactly reassuring. Even the boys had sensed how we were trying to keep up their morale.
"I don't know what my folks'd say—but I know what I'd say if I was with 'em, now!"
Sleep was out of the question. Still the gale blew, never abating for a moment its intensity.
Ken was trying to keep up his spirits, with something of the grimness of Joe "Gloom's" humor. Craig, in the hold, had asked him why he didn't climb into one of the empty hammocks down there, swinging with the motion of the schooner.
"I'm so busy waiting for the worst that I'd be disappointed if I should shut my eyes and miss any of it!"
The discipline of the boys was wonderful. They were all eager to help and the intelligent help that was given promised a remarkable cruise if only we could get safely through this gale.
"Where are we now?" asked Ken of Captain Brower on one of his visits below.
The captain, who had been looking at the timbers and caulking, did not reply at first. He tried to camouflage his silence as defective hearing in the wind and thudding of the waves as the bow plunged into them.
"She's blown out to sea some, hasn't she?" persisted Ken.
Still no answer.
There was a moment's lull.
"Are we in Block Island Sound yet?"
"No.... Out in the Atlantic!"
"You didn't expect to do that tonight, did you?"
Again the Captain did not hear.
"Are you worried about it, Captain?" cut in David, timorously.
"No!" Captain Brower's answer was a growl that sounded in defiance, far above the elements.
The next moment came a crash and an ominous rumble on the deck overhead—and a call from Craig above the wind.
Captain Brower leaped up the ladder followed by Ken and myself and the boys as fast as they could crowd. I expected at least to see the mainmast down or the bowsprit torn loose.
There was Kennedy at the wheel. He could not leave it. Banks was trying frantically to hold back a huge water barrel on the deck. It had been lashed in a cradle. The cradle had shifted and the lashing torn loose. Banks seized an opportunity to lash the barrel again. I sprang over to him. But the two of us with the slippery footing of the deck were unable to hold it long enough. The next moment it had broken loose again.
Every time the boat rolled, the hogshead full of fresh water rolled with tremendous force first against the port rail, then across the deck against the starboard. It was likely sooner or later to tear away a rail, do some serious damage, perhaps, to the sides of the schooner herself.
Ken and Dick Ward were almost crushed by it, as Craig sought to swing the Ella so that the barrel would stay on one side or the other. I thought of the incident vividly described by Victor Hugo, when the great cannon broke loose on shipboard, crushing the crew like a juggernaut.
Ken had seized an iron pin wrenched from something about the capstan.
"Come on! Try it again!" panted Banks.
We got the hogshead against the starboard rail >again. I thought Ken's lever was a poor one to hold it in place.
"Hold it!" cried Ken eagerly.
He had no idea of using it as a lever. Instead, he was beating on the bung. With a few blows he smashed it out.
Again the barrel broke loose. But each time now that it rolled, water poured out of the broken bung.
We watched it. Ken's ingenuity and quick thought had made it just an empty hogshead. We wedged it back on its cradle and lashed it.
It seemed as though our battle with the barrel had been an omen.
That was the high point of the storm. By three o'clock it had abated so that one could see the clouds scudding over the firmament of stars. We put the boys now to bed again, perhaps to sleep....
BUT the first streaking of a glorious clear dawn in the East
brought voices below.
"Dick—are you awake yet?" It was Ken's voice. "Some Fourth of July! That thunder and lightning last night beat all the bombs and rockets I ever saw!"
There was only a sleepy grunt from Ken's nearest neighbor in the bunks. Ken was wide awake and wanted someone to talk to. But the worry and the strenuous exercise of the night before had made the boys dead tired.
Another sleepy grunt. With a laugh Ken looked at the other scouts asleep in the hold.
Up the ladder he mounted, lifted the hatch and peered about curiously. He felt a little disappointed, a sudden letting down in intensity of feeling. The hours of the storm were the hours he would always remember, thrill, and laugh over. To a boy there is a little disappointment mixed in the satisfaction of seeing a big fire put under control. A boy loves to watch a fire. There is a fascination about it. So with a storm at sea. He dreads it. But the thrill and excitement, the very doubt as to his own safety, kindle his imagination. Ken had just passed through one of his big moments. Now things were decidedly tame.
Over the wheel he saw Craig talking to the Captain. "Hello!" he called with a grin.
"What! You up already? Sea-sick?"
Captain Brower had a certain respect in his voice now when he talked to Ken. Ken's quickness and willingness the night before had left a lasting impression on the old salt. The sea demands obedience, service, quick thinking; takes toll of the shirker and the coward.
"No. I can't sleep. I expected so much trouble last night—and didn't get it—I rather feel up in the air."
Out over the clear blue of the morning sea after the storm we watched the sun lighting up the crests of the swells and deepening the blue shadows of the troughs.
"You wouldn't think it could get even as quiet as this so quickly," observed Ken. He was watching the swells coming on smoothly, only to dash in feathery spray on the bow. "You know, Uncle Craig, those swells make me think of myself. I start the day to do everything a good scout should do. I have a good start—just like that nice roller out there. Now watch it. Something goes wrong—and my good start is broken—just like that wave—see the other one spilling all over the first and breaking it up? That's the way it is with me. I make a dozen starts a day. I try mighty hard. But there's always something comes along—breaks it all up!"
"We're all that way, lad," remarked Captain Brower, his gaze far-away, out over the waters. "But the thing about you is you don't stop. You keep on starting."
THE Captain let Craig have the wheel. He had his powerful
binoculars in his hand as he faced the ocean, his body leaning
against the cabin of the schooner. On the cabin roof he rested
his elbows to steady his body in the motion of the boat as it
plunged its way ahead.
He lowered the marine glasses and focused them more sharply. Suddenly he gave something between a grunt and a gasp. He straightened up, an incredulous, almost startled, expression on his face.
"What is it, Captain?" I asked as we all looked at a speck on the horizon.
Captain Brower made a motion for us to be silent. He looked again, more intently than before. Then he shoved the glasses into Ken's hands.
"You got good young eyes. What ye see?"
It was only a few seconds before Ken was peering also. I saw a puzzled look on his face, too.
"What ye see, lad?" Captain Brower was leaning over, hands on his knees, watching Ken.
Ken passed the glasses to Craig, rubbed his eyes vigorously as if he were afraid he was still asleep, dreaming, or his vision was faulty in some way.
"Captain, it looks like one of those old Revolutionary frigates I see in pictures in the school histories! Am I dreaming—or do I really see it?"
Captain Brower was running his hands through his iron gray hair. "I hope it be real, lad! I'm glad ye see it, too. I was thinkin' it might be my great-grandfather, Cap'n Lem Brower, of the first American navy—in one o' them frigates—come for me to jine him!" And the old Captain rubbed his furrowed, weather-beaten brow, thoughtfully.
Craig looked from the glasses to us, quickly. "No use wondering what it is, Captain. That ship is in distress! We have some work cut out for us this morning. I think she is leaking badly, too. She is listing already. What shall we do first, Captain?"
"Lay our course over toward her—overtake my grandfather's ghost! Folks say ye shouldn't follow a ghost ship. But it can't hurt us to have a look. Nary a ship like that have I ever see afloat and out of a book! But—thare she be! We'll get closer."
Ken ran to the hatchway. "Hey, fellows! Get out, quick. Come up! We're going to the rescue of a ship that's sinking. Hurry. You can see her by this time."
From the hold came voices, varied and discordant. It seemed only a minute before they were climbing up the ladder to the deck. There were more bare brown backs visible than shirts. One couldn't think of clothes when a ship was sinking.
"Who is it, Ken? Did you discover her?" It was some future financier who asked. "What'll we do with the salvage money?"
It would have been impossible to answer all the questions that were hurled at us. Craig, Banks and I set the boys to work. Everything was done to make the old Ella travel as fast as she had ever traveled before. She was given all her sail and the Captain even had the kicker working.
It was not long before we could plainly see that we were overtaking the ship. No longer was she a speck. She was a real ship—an old one, it is true, but real.
There was what looked like a comparatively high hull, with fine lines. Her bowsprit was long and at a high angle. She had three masts, square-rigged. There was an unbelievable amount of rigging for these days. Yet there was not a yard of canvas spread on her. Following with the eye along the hull could be distinguished now what looked like a row of old-fashioned gun ports.
"There's an old American flag on her!" exclaimed Ken, with the glass. "Thirteen stripes—and thirteen stars!"
Above all there was every indication that the ship was in distress of some kind.
"Mr. Kennedy," muttered Captain Brower, "I can't think things are right! We oughtn't to be seeing things like that today. A frigate on the Fourth of July may have been all right in 1776—but now—I don't like it!" The honest old face of the Captain was genuinely worried and harassed. "It's the rule of the sea, though, boys. When ye see a ship in distress, give a hand, though the devil himself be on it to squeeze yer fingers!"
Little David was plainly frightened as he listened to this bit of sea lore. "This is some cruise! We almost couldn't stand on our pins last night in that storm. Now we are running to rescue a phantom ship! I think it's your fault, Ken Adams! Things always happen when you are about!"
He said it much as if Ken had been some kind of Jonah. In the old days maybe he would have advocated casting Ken to the leviathan. It didn't impress the others.
"Hooray for Ken, then! Keep aboard, Ken, old scout! I'm for things happening!" Dick Ward's cheer was answered by all the rest.
EVERY moment as we came nearer we could make her out better.
We could make out the yard-arms for the courses, or lowest,
sails, those which were usually hauled up in action, the
topsails, and the topgallant sails. The lighter sails overhead
were usually also furled in action. All were furled now. Then we
could make out where were the jibs and spankers.
"Why," I exclaimed, at my turn at the glasses, "that main, or gun deck, seems to have a complete battery. And on what they used to call that upper, the spar deck, are guns forward and aft. As we come nearer I can make out the raised quarter deck and, in the bow, the bow-chasers in the fo'castle."
Kennedy nodded. "She seems to be modeled after the best French practice of a hundred and fifty years ago. See how her sides at the top tumble home, slightly?"
Little David was awed by this Goliath. "You— you—don't think she'll—sink us, sir—do you?"
Kennedy smiled as he tried to be reassuring over the prospect of a broadside from the old frigate.
"I s'pose you know the sailing frigate in the old navies," put in Captain Brower, "had about the same place as cruisers in our time. Sloops, frigates, and line-of-battle ships, there were. I was reading onct Lord Nelson called 'em the eyes of the fleet. They were the scouts," he nodded looking the boys over.
From where we were now we could see not a sign of life aboard. She was being carried by the fresh off-shore breeze further out to sea. Apparently no one was at the wheel. She was drifting, helpless, likely soon to become a menace to shipping.
"If there are any men aboard, they ought to have seen us by this time!" Ken turned to Craig. "Why don't they show themselves? Are they ghosts looking at us—and we can't see 'em?"
"It's next to a derelict, Ken, I think. If anybody is aboard her, I'm afraid he's in a bad way. She is quite a bit a-wash now."
A derelict was fascinating, drifting in this ocean lane between Orient and Block Island. But this derelict, an ancient frigate—and with the first American flag flying on it—that was more fascinating than a sea story itself!
The color of the frigate, a sombre black, significant, I thought, of the bourne from whence it seemed to come and to which it might be inviting us, intensified the mystery, the uncanniness of the derelict. Not only was it black, but its blackness spelled antiquity. The timbers appeared aged, as if the ship had seen hard service for many years.
"She looks mighty old, Captain Brower," nodded Ken seriously. "Do you think she'll stand the weight of us when we board her?"
"When we board her!" Little David repeated the words with almost a horror.
"I'm a-going to keep this here engine running, lad. If that great-great-grandmother of the Ella pulls anything I'll be—a little prepared!"
The Ella was now crossing the stern of the frigate as she slowly and with strange dignity drifted on out to sea.
"Look!" shouted Ken.
There stood out boldly in tarnished gold letters her name—BONHOMME RICHARD!
Captain Brower half whispered the name as he spelt it out. "Bonhomme Richard! Now I know I was right!" He looked at us with a momentary puzzled, painful silence, a certain foreboding. Then I could hear him muttering to himself, "I wonder if I be stunned in some manner—not accountable, non compos mentis, put out, daft—and not know it. I wonder if that has happened to all of us and we don't know it—just think we are—ourselves!"
"Well, why shouldn't the Bonhomme Richard celebrate the day, too?" Dick Ward said it with a nervous bravado he was far from feeling.
"But, Dick, don't you remember, that fight with the Serapis was off Flamborough Head, on the North Sea coast of England, three thousand miles from here!" exclaimed Ken.
"And, lest we forget," put in Joe Banks, "a hundred and forty-five years ago!"
Captain Brower threw up his hands. "More credit to the old ship! How could she get here from there," pointing first out to sea and then down below, "if there weren't spirit hands plugging up every hole in her rotten hull? I hope they don't take it into their heads to plug us!"
"Bonhomme Richard—ahoy!"
It was Kennedy himself calling.
I could not help a feeling that even that was a sort of sacrilege.
There was no answer, just the lapping of the waves and the creaking of planks and rigging.
"Are—are you really going—aboard?" This was from David who, fascinated, was watching Craig's preparations as Captain Brower seemed for the moment stunned.
The captain did not interfere. In fact underneath there was in him as in the rest of us a sort of fascinated fear and curiosity.
"It's this way, fellows," bustled Craig. "We can't all go aboard. Some of us must take care of the Ella. Line up and I'll tell you who is going to do it. Of course Captain Brower and Mr. Jameson will want to go."
Neither of us said a word I think Captain Brower would have been just as pleased to stick to the Ella. But he didn't like to say anything.
There was a scramble of the boys. Spooks or no spooks, all wanted to board that old fighting frigate, hero of the seas. Then Craig chose half of them, by lot.
Without a murmur they accepted the decision. They were good scouts. Banks was to stay on the Ella with half the boys not chosen. The Ella hove to, standing by, as we got the boats over and began pulling for the frigate.
The guns were lowering, yawning at us. It was eerie. They may have been ancient, out of date. But they could sink us. Still, in spite of continued calls, there was not a sign of life on her.
Listed a bit, as she was, and leaking, still her sides seemed to tower above our small boats. How were we to board her, after all?
The dory, in which Captain Brower was, happened to have an anchor, used when we fished. As the boat hovered a few feet from the frigate, Captain Brower swung the clawed anchor, let it go. It went through one of the open gun ports, and caught.
"We got to make it now!" he muttered as the dory was carried along with the frigate.
He tested the anchor rope, then hand over hand climbed the few feet, going over the side gingerly.
"Anyone on board?" called Craig.
"Nary a soul!"
Craig was next. Ken was over almost as quickly as Craig. I waited until all of the boys in both our dory and the yawl were aboard, then I followed.
There was a deathly silence on board the old Bonhomme Richard. I don't know what else I expected. Perhaps it was to be greeted by John Paul Jones himself stalking aft to meet me. I don't know as even that would have surprised me, now.
Unconsciously at first we found ourselves whispering to each other and stepping almost on tip toe. The only sounds we heard were the waves washing up against the hull and the light breeze in the rigging. We stood in a group for a few seconds.
"No one seems to give us a word of welcome," decided Craig finally. "Let's search her!"
On two decks there were guns mounted on crude wooden carriages formed by two brackets or sides joined together at the ends by crosspieces.
They were elevated and depressed by means of hand spikes placed under the breach which was heavier than the muzzle. Breech ropes secured to eye-bolts in the hull passed through a jaw in the rear of the gun to limit the recoil. There was tackle for hauling the gun about the deck and holding it.
Ken was squinting along one gun. "No sights!" he suddenly bethought himself, vainly trying by a detective genius to fathom the mystery.
"No," agreed Kennedy. "You recall that until the War of 1812 the British had no sights for their guns and they suffered then because the Americans were clever enough to provide the forerunner of the sight-bar. And the Richard was over thirty years before that. No, no sights, of course."
Ken had been turning it over in his mind. "That's right. The 23rd of September, 1779, it was. I remember reading. There was a full harvest moon and thousands of spectators lined the English shore that night to watch it. The fight didn't begin until about seven o'clock."
Captain Brower nodded approval of Ken's memory. "The engagement of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, boy, was one of the most desperate in naval history."
He looked toward Craig who nodded. "As a close and deadly fight, hand to hand, with all the dreadful circumstances that can attend a sea engagement, you're right, Captain, it has no parallel."
As a son of the Revolution and student of the sea, Captain Brower scratched his head, recollecting. "When they went into action, the Serapis was a 44-gun ship, I remember. The Richard was an old ship anyway, fitted in France, outclassed by the Serapis three to two, or better. Worse than that. In a broadside, the Richard had only three 18-pounders, the Serapis, ten. And, the first fire, two of the Richard's three exploded, killed half the gun crew, and tore open the spar deck immediately above."
Dick Ward was looking about carefully. "The ghosts must have fixed it, then. But it doesn't look as if it'd take much to tear it all loose again!"
Captain Brower was intent on recalling his reading. "Yes, sir. That left the 12-pounders, these fellows up here, and the long nines. She was hopelessly outclassed then. Finally half the 12-pounders were demounted and the others so jammed in the wreckage that they were useless. There were really only three 12-pounders left."
"And John Paul Jones won the fight, after all!" cried Ken, enthusiastically. "That shows what giants they were in those days. Nothing soft about Americans then!"
Ken was near me as we made our way to a little cabin. Inside were three or four books on the floor where they had fallen in the violent pitching of the night before.
He picked them up. On all was stamped in the leather binding the name, "John Paul Jones."
"Mr. Jameson!" Ken exclaimed, his brows knitted, "What does it mean? John Paul Jones—in 1924!" Ken pinched his arm as if to see if he were awake.
The Richard was full of life now. The scouts aboard her were making enough racket hunting for the crew, anyone and anything, to make it seem as if the full complement of men needed for a brisk naval engagement were aboard. The boys were here, there, everywhere at once. If any members of that crew had any objections to this overhauling of personal property there must have been many ghostly mutterings.
Every boy on that old frigate was like Craig, a detective, trying to figure out the uncanny thing.
Most of them accepted it. Ken, however, was inclined to be a sceptic.
"I tell you, it's on the wrong side of the ocean!" he kept repeating. "If I had a map, I'd show you Flamborough Head."
But each time that Ken seemed to have made a point for his doubt, one of these bright youngsters, either Dick Ward or Gus Lobo, or David Jardine, or John Thomas would come along with some new relic of the old Bonhomme Richard or John Paul. I had long since given up the attempt to answer their questions.
There was a great shouting and clashing as several of the boys came up from below with cutlasses, pistols, pikes.
"Where did you get them?" I asked. "Be careful!"
"There's a rack, down there, mighty convenient."
"Boarding pikes," muttered Captain Brower.
Ken dived down, returned with grappling irons for boarders.
"Tubs of water in the channels, too," observed Craig.
Captain Brower nodded. "For fire, of course. In action, you know, the decks were always thoroughly wet down and sanded to secure footing."
"By jingo, she looks as if she were going into action—not after it," exclaimed Gus Lobo. "Maybe she has to come back once a year to fight it all over again, eh?"
Craig smiled and shook his head, as we were surveying the sailors' quarters.
"The men must have lived like dogs in kennel on a ship like this," he observed. "Only a couple of feet between the places to hang each hammock and eight feet to stretch it in! Unventilated except by canvas ducts—they called them wind-sails. It seems impossible to live in such a place over night. Yet men did it, and seemed to enjoy life, to a degree."
Aft, the officers' bunks and quarters were a little better. But not much. I could not help contrasting it with the navy today. A ship three times as large, for instance, as the famous old Constitution still has a complement of men not much greater than it had.
"I'd as leave be on a submarine, like those we saw at Block Island, as I would on one of these old frigates," remarked Ken, "rather, I think."
"Look! Here!... Blood!"
It was David, on the quarterdeck of the frigate, pointing wide-eyed at a huge darkened red patch on the deck planks.
"And here, too!"
Kennedy had joined us and was examining the quarterdeck. He rose after looking it over at several spots minutely, shook his head, but said nothing. I fancied, however, a smile flitted over his face.
"You know," he remarked at length, "on the after deck, in personal charge of the French marines with him, was John Paul himself. He took the wheel from the quartermaster. There was considerable fine maneuvering to be done. He had been disabled so much that his only chance was to close in, fight it hand to hand. Here on this deck was the groat scene."
"Yes, yes," glowed Captain Brower. "Remember? The shank painter and ring stopper of the starboard anchor of the Serapis, after Paul John maneuvered it, caught first one, then the second, and finally the third of the Richard's mizzen elm inn. The third held them together, bow and stern. I 'an I Jones, with firelock after firelock snatched from I he French marines, was shooting down the English who came to loosen the ships. Oh, there was great work, on both sides." He seemed suddenly to recollect something, spat disgustedly over the rail to leeward into the ocean. "And all the time I In I French traitor, Captain Landais, supposed to be with John Paul's squadron, on the Alliance, was pouring broadsides into the Poor Richard, too!" Brower scowled as if he would have throttled I ho traitor yet. "Then the ensign gaff was shot away—and the flag trailed overboard."
Craig nodded. "That's when the famous incident took place. Captain Pearson of the Serapis bellowed, 'Do you surrender?'"
"'Surrender?' shouted John Paul back. 'I would have you know, sir, that we've just begun to fight!'"
The boys had stopped, pausing long enough to listen to Craig tell it. As he uttered the historic words, a little theatrically, I thought, as the day warranted, they broke out into a cheer.
"The Richard was afire by that time," interrupted Captain Brower. "There was six feet of water in the hold, coming in fast. She had been hit in many places between wind and water. The buckets were working—and two hundred or so prisoners at the pumps."
"Where were they—the prisoners?" asked Gus Lobo.
"Down in the hold, I suppose, below the water-line, at first the only nearly safe place on the boat in an action."
Two or three of the boys disappeared with Gus a moment later.
"Do you remember, John Paul laughed?" put in Craig. "That was the occasion for another of his famous remarks, about the pumps. 'That's what I call making one hand wash the other! We put out the flames that are eating us up with the water that is sinking us!'"
"Some hero—that man—eh?" Ken was looking aloft at the masts and crows'-nests.
Captain Brower saw it. "Then, too, there was the musket fire from those tops," he explained.
By this time, having tried them out, the boys were racing up the shrouds like monkeys, two ratlins at a time. They spread out on the main topsail yard like a quintette of squirrels, Ken in the place of honor, at the earring.
Brower pointed. "That must have been where Midshipman Fanning hung. There was an eighteen-inch hole in the deck of the Serapis. They sent him up bucket after bucket of hand grenades. At last he hit the hole, through it. There was a terrific explosion, for the powder-monkeys on the Serapis had brought up ammunition and it was right under that hole!"
"How did it all end, sir?" asked little David eagerly.
"Oh, in victory. Of course. For Paul Jones. Surrounded by sparks and smoke, Captain Pearson handed over his cutlass in surrender. Even then he couldn't help a rather surly remark. 'It is painful to me to deliver up my sword to a man who has fought with a rope around his neck!' He meant that John Paul was only a rebel; a pirate on the sea, they called him. Well, John Paul bowed courteously, as he handed back the weapon, 'Sir, you have fought like a hero—and I make no doubt your sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner!'"
Captain Brower paused. "You know, as a matter of fact history says that the king knighted Pearson. When John Paul heard of it, he said, 'Well, he deserves it—and if I fall in with him again, I'll make a lord of him!'"
In the laugh that followed, Dick Ward came out of the cabin below. He had a card. On it were the words, printed:
"This flag and I are twins. We shall not be parted in life or death. We shall float together or sink together!"
"What does it mean?" asked Dick of Craig.
Kennedy was thinking. "I seem to recall it, as I try to recollect what I have heard about Paul Jones. They were fitting out the Ranger at Portsmouth, when the New Hampshire girls, on the fourth of July, 1778, came down to the boat and presented Captain John Paul with a flag—red, white and blue, of quilted cloth. You know, already, before that, he was in reality the first to hoist the new American flag on the ocean, down in the Delaware."
"Well, here's another paper that Billy Ritchie has," added Dick. "It must be about what's on this card. It's in writing."
"Those were brave words on the card, Dick," remarked Craig as he took the paper from Billy and read it. "But they had to be amended. Listen. This is it—a letter to those girls after the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis fight." Kennedy was reading:
"No one was left aboard the Richard but my dead. To them I gave the good old ship to be their coffin; in her they found a sublime sepulchre. She rolled heavily in a swell, her gun deck awash to the port sills, settled slowly by the head, and sank from sight.
"The ensign gaff, shot away in the action, had been fished and put in place, and there your flag was left flying when we abandoned her. As she went down by the head, her taff-rail rose for a moment; and so the last that mortal eye ever saw of the gallant Richard was your unconquered design. I couldn't strip it from the brave old ship in her last agony; nor could I deny my dead on her decks, who had given their lives to keep it flying, the glory of taking it with them. And so I parted with it; so they took it for their winding sheet."
Ken, down from the yardarm again, was looking eagerly? "Is it really—his writing—do you think?" Then he looked up at the flag with its thirteen stripes and its thirteen stars. "And is that the flag—here—now?"
Kennedy smiled his enigmatical smile. "On its way back to the spirits of the New Hampshire girls?" he asked quizzically.
John Thomas, Jardine and another boy in a fit of courage or curiosity had gone down to the hold. They had been down only a short time. Now a piercing shriek came from David followed by an unearthly yell of terror from John. It brought everyone of us on the jump to the cockpit to the hold.
"Mr. Kennedy! Ken! Captain Brower!"
Up the ladder, stumbling almost helplessly with fright, white to the lips, came the three boys.
"Don't go down! It's awful! The hold is full of dead men!"
"Dead men?" repeated Craig.
"Yes—dead men! It was pitch dark down there. We couldn't see a thing. My foot slipped, kicked something. It was a man's body—all dressed like they used to dress, then! I started to run—and I fell on two or three more! By that time Dave and Jim had fallen over some more. I stood up—and a dead man must have been standing right in back of me. When I backed and started to run I knocked him over. Oh! He tried to hug me! A dead man! Don't go down—please don't! If those men have been dead a hundred and forty-five years—"
"They'd smell bad!" grimly muttered Captain Brower.
"Or be skeletons!" interrupted Ken, still sceptically.
"It does smell something awful down there!" David finished his bit of information through teeth that actually chattered. "Fierce!"
All three of the boys had been badly frightened and showed it.
Kennedy started down the ladder. Others started to follow.
It was then that Captain Brower asserted his authority.
"I am Captain here! I forbid anybody else to go down in that hold! I am going to make for the nearest port—now—right away! If there are dead men there, we'll see that they get a decent burial. We'll let the authorities do it. I'll not be an undertaker to anybody that's been lying dead in the bottom of the sea and's come up after a hundred and forty-five years—not yet! Proper authorities for that!"
What Captain Brower said in that mood went. He had some of that same spirit which insisted on obedience just as John Paul Jones had it long before him.
"Mr. Kennedy!" he called down. Craig reappeared. "Did yer find 'em?"
"What's the nearest port?" was Craig's sole answer.
"Greenport—sou'west."
"You'd better get us there, captain."
"Aye, aye, sir."
There was general excitement. But I thought I saw again the same quiet smile on Craig's face that I had seen on the quarter deck.
"What are we going to do?" asked John, not taking it in. "Let her drift off to sea?"
"Oh—but the prize money—salvage money, I mean!" exclaimed our financier.
"From whom?" In disgust from Lobo.
"Why—er—the Government—of course!"
Captain Brower answered nothing. "Run a line from the bow to the stern of the Ella," was his sharp order.
"What's the place we're going?" asked David nervously.
"You heard Mr. Kennedy. Greenport."
SLOWLY and painfully the Ella limped along with the
brave old ghost of Bonhomme Richard in tow.
Never, I believe, under more queer circumstances was the dashing spirit of Captain Paul Jones, to me always the father of the American navy, more honored, not even when the old Paris cemetery was tunneled and explored inch by inch by General Horace Porter for the lead casket containing his body, or when it was found and President Roosevelt sent the American navy over to bring it back to lie in its imposing final resting place at Annapolis....
Greenport, at last!
I rubbed my own eyes, now.
Along the shore, on the dock, were fifty or more of John Paul's own men!
As we limped closer it seemed as if they were filled with unbounded joy. One of them discharged an old flintlock into the air in his excitement.
THEN suddenly a very modern speed boat put out from the shore
bearing a whole company of these Revolutionary seamen—and
one man in a trick cap and leather puttees. The speed boat came
closer, throttled down the engine.
"Who are you?" demanded Captain Brower, almost as alarmed as at the frigate behind him.
"Patriot Pictures, Incorporated! Making the educational movies for schools. Now at work on 'John Paul Jones.'"
"Look—by crackie!" Ken was pointing off down the harbor.
Anchored off shore now we could see another frigate, all yellow, the Serapis.
The man in the cap and puttees was calling. "The Richard broke loose from her moorings in that storm last night—with most of the stuff we had reproduced at a great cost for the picture—all our props, title cards, other stuff—carried off all our dummies, too. Are they all right?"
The boys gaped. Kennedy smiled broadly. Captain Brower looked sheepish.
"I figured a motion picture company must be here," shouted back Craig, "the direction of the wind during the night, and all that."
"You figured they were here?" demanded Captain Brower, a bit pugnaciously. "Now, how?"
"What else could it have been?" replied Craig. "I knew what it was when I found the marks of the tripods of their cameras all over the quarterdeck, all over the ship, in fact. Besides, that wood wasn't old and rotten, really. That had been made so, artificially, antiqued."
By this time the man in the cap and leather puttees was aboard the Ella, introducing himself as Jack Lord, the director of the Paul Jones film.
The relief at recovering the lost ship was profound.
"By the way, Mr. Director," remarked Craig, as Lord confessed what the loss would have meant to them, "I have a suggestion to make."
"Yes, sir! Shoot!"
"He's goner get salvage money!" whispered our young financier in a stage whisper. Kennedy raised his hand for silence.
"Don't you think, if we hove to here for a few days while you finish this picture, you could—"
The director fairly took the words from Craig's lips. "Find a place for them in the cast? Write the scouts into the story, in costume? You bet! And I'll do better than that. I'll recommend to the producers to declare the troop in for a share in the net when the picture's distributed, too!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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