CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
JACK BRACE STIRS UP THE WAR SPIRIT OF ADAMS.
"You must know, John Adams," said Jack Brace, with a look and a clearingof the throat that raised great expectations in the breasts of thelisteners, "you must know that for a long while before the battle LordNelson had bin scourin' the seas, far and near, in search o' the Frenchand Spanish fleets, but do what he would, he could never fall in with'em. At last he got wind of 'em in Cadiz Harbour, and made all sail tocatch 'em. It was on the 19th of October 1805 that Villeneuve, that wasthe French admiral, put to sea with the combined fleets o' France andSpain. It wasn't till daybreak of the 21st that we got sight of 'em,right ahead, formed in close line, about twelve miles to lee'ard,standin' to the s'uth'ard, off Cape Trafalgar.
"Ha, John Adams, an' boys an' girls all, you should have seen thatsight; it would have done you good. An' you should have felt ourbuzzums; they was fit to bust, _I_ tell you! You see, we'd bin chasin'of 'em so long, that we could scarce believe our eyes when we saw 'em atlong last. They wor bigger ships and more of 'em than ours; but whatcared Nelson for that? not the shank of a brass button! he rather likedthat sort o' thing; for, you know, one Englishman is equal to threeFrenchmen any day."
"No, no, Jack Brace," said John Adams, with a quiet smile and shake ofthe head; "'snot quite so many as that."
"Not _quite_!" repeated Brace, vehemently; "why, it's my opinion that Icould lick any six o' the Mounseers myself. Thursday November Christianthere--"
"He ain't November yet," interrupted Adams, quietly, "he's onlyOctober."
"No matter, it's all the same. I tell 'ee, John, that he could walloptwenty of 'em, easy. There ain't no go in 'em at all."
"Didn't you tell me, Jack Brace, that Trafalgar was a glorious battle?"
"In coorse I did, for so it was."
"Didn't the Frenchmen stick to their guns like men?"
"No doubt of it."
"An' they didn't haul down their colours, I suppose, till they was aboutblown to shivers?"
"You're about right there, John Adams."
"Well, then, you can't say they've got no go in 'em. Don't underrateyour enemy, whatever you do, for it's not fair; besides, in so doin' youunderrate your own deeds. Moreover, we don't allow boastin' aboard ofthis island; so go ahead, Jack Brace, and tell us what you did do,without referrin' to what you think you could do. Mind, I'm king here,and I'll have to clap you in irons if you let your tongue wag toofreely."
"All right, your majesty," replied Brace, with a bow of gracefulhumility, which deeply impressed his juvenile audience; "I'll behavebetter in futur' if you'll forgive me this time. Well, as I was aboutto say, when you sent that round shot across my bows and brought me up,Nelson he would have fought 'em if they'd had ten times the number o'ships that we had. As it was, the enemy had thirty-three sail of theline and seven frigates. We had only twenty-seven sail of the line andfour frigates, so we was outnumbered by nine vessels. Moreover theenemy had 4000 lobsters on board--"
"Lobsters bein' land sodgers, my dears," remarked Adams, in explanation,"so-called 'cause of their bein' all red-coated; but the French sodgersare only red-trousered, coats bein' blue. Axin' your pardon, Brace, goon."
The seaman, who had availed himself of the interruption to stir up andstuff down his pipe, resumed.
"Likewise one of their line-o'-battle ships was a huge four-decker,called the _Santissima Trinidad_, and they had some of the best Tyroleseriflemen that could be got scattered throughout the fleet, as weafterwards came to find out to our cost.
"Soon after daylight Nelson came on deck. I see him as plain as if hewas before me at this moment, for, bein' stationed in the mizzen-top o'the _Victory_--that was Nelson's ship, you know--I could see everythingquite plain. He stood there for a minute or so, with his admiral'sfrock-coat covered with orders on the left breast, and his empty rightsleeve fastened up to it; for you must know he had lost his right arm inaction before that, and also his right eye, but the arm and eye thatwere left were quite enough for him to work with. After a word or twowith the officers, he signalled to bear down on the enemy in two lines.
"Then it seemed to have occurred to him that the smoke of battle mightrender the signals difficult or impossible to make out, for heimmediately made one that would serve for everything. It was this: `ifsignals can't be seen, no captain can do wrong if he places his shipalongside an enemy.' Of coorse we all knew that he meant to win thatbattle; but, for the matter of that, every soul in the fleet, from theadmiral to the smallest powder-monkey, meant--"
"Boasting not allowed," said Dan McCoy, displaying his fine teeth fromear to ear.
The seaman looked at him with a heavy frown.
"You young slip of a pump-handle, what d'ye mean?"
"The king's orders," said Dan, pointing to Adams, while the rest of thePitcairners seemed awestruck by his presumption.
The frown slowly left the visage of Jack Brace. He shut his eyes,smiled benignly, and delivered a series of heavy puffs from thestarboard side of his mouth.
Then a little squeak that had been bottled up in the nose of OtaheitanSally forced a vent, and the whole party burst into hilarious laughter.
"Just so," resumed Brace, when they had recovered, "that is exactly whatwe did in the mizzen-top o' the _Victory_ when we made out the signal,only we stuck a cheer on to the end o' the laugh. After that cameanother signal, just as we were about to go into action, `Englandexpects that every man will this day do his duty.' The effect of thatsignal was just treemendious, _I_ tell you.
"I noticed at this time that some of Nelson's officers were botherin'him,--tryin' to persuade him, so to speak, to do somethin' he didn'twant to. I afterwards found out that they were tryin' to persuade himnot to wear his orders, but he wouldn't listen to 'em. Then they triedto convince him it would be wise for him to keep out of action as longas possible. He seemed to give in to this, for he immediately signalledthe _Temeraire_ and _Leviathan_, which were abreast of us, to passahead; but in _my_ opinion this was nothin' more than a sly joke of theAdmiral, for he kept carrying on all sail on the _Victory_, so that itwasn't possible for these ships to obey the order.
"We made the attack in two lines. The _Victory_ led the weather-line offourteen ships, and Collingwood, in the _Royal Sovereign_, led thelee-line of thirteen ships.
"As we bore down, the enemy opened the ball. We held our breath, for,as no doubt you know, messmate, just before the beginnin' of a fight,when a man is standin' still an' doin' nothin', he's got time to think;an' he _does_ think, too, in a way, mayhap, that he's not much used tothink."
"That's true, Jack Brace," responded Adams, with a grave nod; "an', d'yeknow, it strikes me that it would be better for all of us if we'd thinkoftener in that fashion when we've got time to do it."
"You're right, John Adams; you're right. Hows'ever, we hadn't much timeto think that morning, for the shot soon began to tell. One round shotcame, as it seemed, straight for my head, but it missed me by a shave,an' only took off the hat of a man beside me that was about a futshorter than myself.
"`You see the advantage,' says he, `o' bein' a little feller.' `That'sso,' says I, but I didn't say or think no more that I knows on afterthat, for we had got within musket range, and the small bullets wentwhistling about our heads, pickin' off or woundin' a man here an' there.
"It was just then that I thought it time to put my pipe in my pocket,for, you see, I had been havin' a puff on the sly as we was bearin'down; an' I put up my fore-finger to shove the baccy down, when one o'them stingin' little things comes along, whips my best cutty out o' mymouth, an' carries the finger along with it. Of coorse I warn't goin'below for such a small matter, so I pulls out my hankerchief, an' says Ito the little man that lost his hat, `Just take a round turn here, Jim,'says I, `an' I'll be ready for action again in two minutes.' Jim, hetied it up, but before he quite done it, the round shot was pitchin'into us like hail, cuttin' up the sails and riggin' most awful.
"They told me afterwards that Nelson gave orders to steer straight forthe bow of the great _Santissima Trinidad_, and remarked, `It's too warmwork to last long,' but he did not return a single shot, though aboutfifty of our men had been killed and wounded. You see, he never wasfond of wastin' powder an' shot. He generally reserved his fire till itcould be delivered with stunnin' effect.
"Just then a round shot carried away our main-topmast with all herstun-s'ls an' booms. By good luck, however, we were close alongside o'the enemy's ship _Redoubtable_ by that time. Our tiller ropes were shotaway too, but it didn't matter much now. The word was given, and weopened with both broadsides at once. You should have felt the _Victory_tremble, John Adams. We tackled the _Redoubtable_ with the starboardguns, and the _Bucentaur_ and _Santissima Trinidad_ with the port guns.Of course they gave it us hot and strong in reply. At the same timeCaptain Hardy, in the _Temeraire_, fell on board the _Redoubtable_ onher other side, and the _Fougueux_, another o' the enemy, fell on boardthe _Temeraire_; so there we were four ships abreast--a compact tier--blazin' into each other like mad, with the muzzles of the guns touchin'the sides when they were run out, an' men stationed with buckets at theports, to throw water into the shot-holes to prevent their takin' fire.
"It was awful work, I tell you, with the never-stopping roar of greatguns and rattle of small arms, an' the smoke, an' the decks slipperywith blood. The order was given to depress our guns and load with lightcharges of powder, to prevent the shot going right through the enemyinto our own ship on the other side.
"The _Redoubtable_ flew no colours, so we couldn't tell when she struck,and twice the Admiral, wishing to spare life, gave orders to ceasefiring, thinking she had given in. But she had not done so, and soonafter a ball from her mizzen-top struck Nelson on the left shoulder, andhe fell. They took him below at once.
"Of course we in the mizzen-top knew nothing of this, for we couldn'tsee almost anything for the smoke, only here and there a bit of a mast,or a yard-arm, or a bowsprit, while the very air trembled with thetremendous and continuous roar.
"We were most of us wounded by that time, more or less, but kept blazingaway as long as we could stand. Then there came cheers of triumphmingling with the shouts and cries of battle. The ships of the enemywere beginning to strike. One after another the flags went down.Before long the cry was, `Five have struck!' then `Ten, hurrah!' thenfifteen, then twenty, hurrah!"
"Hurrah! Old England for ever!" cried Adams, starting to his feet andwaving his hat in a burst of irrepressible excitement, which roused thespirits of the youths around, who, leaping up with flushed faces andglittering eyes, sent up from the groves of Pitcairn a vigorous Britishcheer in honour of the great victory of Trafalgar.
"But," continued Jack Brace, when the excitement had abated, "there wasgreat sorrow mingled with our triumph that day, for Nelson, the hero ofa hundred fights, was dead. The ball had entered his spine. He livedjust long enough to know that our victory was complete, and diedthanking God that he had done his duty."
"That was truly a great battle," said Adams, while Brace, havingconcluded, was refilling his pipe.
"Right you are, John," said the other; "about the greatest victory weever gained. It has settled the fleets of France and Spain, I guess,for the next fifty years."
"But what was it all for?" asked Bessy Mills, looking up in the sailor'sface with much simplicity.
"What was it for?" repeated Brace, with a perplexed look. "Why, mydear, it was--it was for the honour and glory of Old England, to besure."
"No, no, Jack, not quite that," interposed Adams, with a laugh, "it wasto clap a stopper on the ambition of the French, as far as I can makeout; or rather to snub that rascal Napoleon Bonnypart, an' keep himwithin bounds."
"But he ain't easy to keep within bounds," said Brace, putting his pipein his pocket and rising; "for he's been knockin' the lobsters of Europeover like ninepins of late years. Hows'ever, we'll lick him yet onland, as we've licked him already on the sea, or my name's not--"
He stopped abruptly, having caught sight of Dan McCoy's twinkling eye.
"Now, John Adams, I must go, else the Cap'n'll think I've desertedaltogether."
"Oh, _don't_ go yet; please don't!" pleaded Dolly Young, as she graspedand fondled the seaman's huge hand.
Dolly was at that time about nine years of age, and full of enthusiasm.She was seconded in her entreaties by Dinah Adams, who seized the otherhand, while several of the older girls sought to influence him by wordsand smiles; but Jack Brace was not to be overcome.
"I'll be ashore again to-morrow, p'r'aps, with the Captain, if helands," said Brace, "and spin you some more yarns about the wars."
With this promise they were obliged to rest content. In a few minutesthe visitor was carried over the surf by Toc and Charlie in their canoe,and soon put on board the _Topaz_, which stood inshore to receive him.