Kilgorman: A Story of Ireland in 1798

by Talbot Baines Reed

  CHAPTER THIRTY.

  "BATTLE AND MURDER AND SUDDEN DEATH."

  It was past midnight, and in two hours the summer night would be past.After that, further mystification as to our course would be impossible;but could we hold on till then, with half a gale of wind behind us, weshould be well over to the Dutch side, and clear at any rate of themutinous atmosphere which infected Yarmouth Roads and the Nore.

  The men, having, as I supposed, satisfied themselves that the _Zebra_was being sailed according to their own directions, decided to wait tilldaylight, by which time they counted on the encouragement and company ofthe Yarmouth mutineers, before they finally hoisted the red flag andtook possession of the ship. Meanwhile they applied themselvesassiduously to the liquor, an indulgence which, in the case of a goodmany of the land-lubbers of their company, must have been seriouslyspoiled by the rolling of the ship and their first acquaintance since weleft Dublin with really dirty weather.

  I reckoned that we were some twelve leagues from the Dutch coast, withthe wind shifting westerly and sending heavy seas over our counter, whenthe grey dawn lifted and showed us a waste of water, with nothingvisible but a single speck on the eastern horizon.

  After close scrutiny we concluded this to be one or more sail beating upagainst the gale; but whether they were Dutch or English, it was toosoon to say.

  "Keep her as she is," said Mr Adrian; "and, Mr Gallagher, pipe allhands. The sooner we come to an understanding with these fiends thebetter."

  I obeyed. A few of the old tars instinctively turned up to the call,but seeing all decks but the quarter-deck deserted, they rememberedthemselves and went off to look for their comrades.

  Presently an uneasy group assembled on the forecastle, many of themshowing traces of the mingled drunkenness and sea-sickness of the night.We could see them scanning the horizon with their glasses, and slowlyawaking to the discovery that instead of being in the arms of theconfederacy of "the Republic afloat" (as one of the proclamations hadcalled it), the _Zebra_ was scudding over the high seas.

  There was an angry consultation, and shouts to those below to turn up.About half the number obeyed, though many of these were fit only to liehelplessly about the deck. A more miserable crew you never beheld.

  "Hands aloft! Take in the main-topgallant sail!" cried Mr Adrian, andthe order was shouted forward.

  Not a man moved, except Callan, who came to the forecastle rail, andholding up a pistol, shouted back,--

  "Surrender the ship, or we fire!"

  Mr Adrian's reply was to repeat the order just given, and draw hispistol.

  One of the mutineers, sent forward by the leaders, advanced to themainmast with a red flag in his hand, which he proceeded to fasten tothe flag-lines and to hoist, bringing down the Union flag as he did so.

  Mr Adrian levelled his pistol. There was a sharp, clear ring above thenoise of the gale; the man flung up his arms, uttered a yell, and rolledover on the deck.

  "Stand clear!" cried Callan, waving his men on either side of theforecastle guns. "Fire, my lads!"

  There was a silence. No one on the quarter-deck stirred. Those on theforecastle who had stood with their faces our way, expecting to see theeffect of the volley, looked round impatiently to see why the guns weremute.

  Then came a cry of "Spiked!" followed by a howl of dismay as thecontents of one of our quarter-deck guns crashed with a dull, savageroar on to the forecastle.

  When the smoke cleared we saw a ghastly sight. Men lay in alldirections--some blown to pieces, some groaning in pools of blood, somedragging themselves with livid faces to a place of shelter.

  For my own part, I dreaded to hear Mr Adrian give the order to fire thesecond gun. The only thing which prevented it was the sudden clearingof the forecastle. All who could rushed to the main-deck, where atleast they were below the range of the deadly grape.

  Here Callan, who had escaped unhurt, called on his men to form, whichthey did in three straggling lines across the deck, howling execrationsand flourishing their knives in our direction.

  Before they could advance--before, indeed, those of them who carriedpistols could fire--Mr Adrian, who had ranged us up behind thebarricade, gave the signal to present arms and fire.

  It was a volley almost as deadly as the first. Callan sprang a foot ortwo in the air, and fell back shot through the heart. The front rank ofthe mutineers went down like ninepins, and those behind fell back a pacein consternation, "Reload! Mark your men!" cried Mr Adrian, whose facewas savage and as hard as a flint.

  The wretches gathered themselves together after a moment's hesitation,and stepping over the fallen bodies of their comrades, advanced with ahalf-hearted rush for the quarter-deck.

  "Present! fire!" cried Mr Adrian.

  Once more man after man went down dead or wounded, and the deck wasstrewn with bodies. A heavy sea at the moment broke over the quarter,sweeping the deck and clashing living and dead in a heap into the lee-scuppers. A few stood still, eyeing dubiously first one another, thenthe quarter-deck, then the waves as they broke across the waist.

  "Reload! Mark your men!" cried Mr Adrian again, with a curl of hislips.

  The mutineers heard the command, and dropping their weapons, retreatedin a panic to the hatchways.

  "Fire!" said Mr Adrian; "and after them, some of you, and make fast thehatches."

  The first order was not obeyed. It had been bad enough, in defence ofthe ship, to fire on one's own shipmates, but to fire on their backs wastoo much; and Lieutenant Adrian probably understood as much when he sawthat we all preferred his second order to his first.

  It was a short business making good the hatchways, after first drivingbelow the few stragglers who lingered above board. Then we had leisureto take stock of the execution our volleys had effected. Eleven men,including Callan and two of his fellow ringleaders, were dead. Eightmore were mortally wounded, and thirty-eight lay hurt, some badly, someslightly. We lost no time in throwing the dead overboard, and carryingthose most in need of succour out of the reach of the waves. Tarpaulinswere spread for the rest till a place could be found for them in some ofthe after-cabins.

  The doctor (who reported that Captain Swift had breathed his last whilethe engagement was at its height) did what he could to dress the woundsof the sufferers, and impressed the services of one or two of thehandiest of the men present as assistants.

  Just then, however, with the gale threatening every moment to snap themasts, it was even more important to get hands aloft to shorten sail.The midshipmen and officers gallantly undertook this difficult task, butnot in time to save the main-topgallant mast, which fell with a crash,carrying away the purser and the boatswain's mate, and fouling therigging below with its wreck. No sooner was this cleared, and the topcourses taken in, than the man who had been for some moments conning thestrange sails on the horizon reported,--

  "Two Dutchmen, sir, thirty-six guns a-piece, bearing this way."

  During the struggle with the mutineers we had almost forgotten thepresence of these strangers, and now found them not a league awaystanding across the wind to meet us.

  It was a hopeless venture to meet them, but Mr Adrian preferred it toputting the _Zebra_ about and running away.

  "Let them come," said he; "they can't do worse than these scoundrelsdown below. Stand by the guns, gentlemen!"

  We obeyed willingly enough. Had Mr Adrian only been a gentleman aswell as an officer we could have cheered him. But the vision of hisface as he gave the word to mow down his own crew stuck in my memory androbbed _me_ of all the enthusiasm which his present courage deserved.

  On we sped, and nearer drew the Dutchmen. Evidently they were cruiserson the prowl for an enemy, or sent to observe the motions of ourdisorganised fleet. Had we been a sound company we might have held ourown against the two of them. But crippled as we were, with our gunsunmanned, our ammunition lost, and part of our crew lying wounded ondeck, while the rest were prisoners below, we might as well have hopedto capture Ro
tterdam.

  Fate, however, determined our destiny in her own way. Just as we werecoming about, and those at the guns were blowing their matches for afirst and possibly a last broadside, the _Zebra_ gave a sudden shiver inevery timber, there was a dull growl, followed an instant later by aterrific explosion which rent the vessel in twain, and dimmed the skyoverhead with spars and smoke, and set the ship reeling on her beam-ends. At the moment, I was in the act of firing the charge of the gunin my care, and remember nothing but the tremendous noise, and findingmyself hurled, as it seemed, clear over the breech of the weapon outinto the boiling sea.

  Instinctively I clutched at a spar within reach, and clung to it. Allelse I saw and heard as in a dream--the ship heeling over further andfurther, and the waves leaping on her as she plunged down; the cries andshrieks of the imprisoned wretches who sought to escape from theconsequences of their own desperate revenge; the sea strewn withwreckage and struggling swimmers; the first lieutenant's dyingmalediction flung into the wind from the quarter-deck; the looming hullsof the two Dutchmen as they hung in the wind and watched our fate. All,I say, passed like a grim nightmare. What woke me was an arm suddenlyflung across me, and the white face of Mr Midshipman Gamble looking upat me out of the water.

  I hauled him up on to the spar; and the effort to keep him afloat, andsave myself from his wild struggles, helped me to find my wits.

  "Easy, lad!" said I; "you're safe enough here. Keep quiet!"

  The sound of a voice steadied him, and he ceased his struggles, and letme lash him as best I could to the spar.

  The Dutchmen, who had, no doubt, witnessed with anything but pleasuretheir prey snatched out of their hands, were humane enough to make ashow of lowering a boat for the succour of those who still lived. Butthe heavy sea rendered this a very difficult and dangerous task, andafter very little trying we had the dismay of seeing them abandon theattempt and haul off on their course, leaving us to our fate.

  You may fancy with what feelings we watched them gradually growing lesson the horizon, and realised that we were at the mercy of an angry sea,with no support but a piece of broken timber, and every moment findingourselves more and more alone, as comrade after comrade gave up thestruggle and fell back among the waves.

  Presently Mr Gamble, whose leg, I found, had been crushed by theexplosion, groaned, and his head fell forward. Three great waves insuccession washed over us with the force of a falling wall; and whenthey had passed, and I looked to my companion, he was dead, with thelife simply beaten out of him.

  Sorrowfully enough I unlashed him, and let him drop beneath the pitilesswater; and then, finding my own strength beginning to fail, I lashedmyself under the arms and over the spar, and hung on for dear life. Inthis posture I spent weary hour after hour watching the waves, andendeavouring to ward off from my head the fury of their onslaught.

  About mid-day the gale eased somewhat. I looked about me. Not a signor vestige remained of the _Zebra_ or her hapless crew. Not a floatingthing among the waves caused me to count on the company of a livingwretch like myself. Not even a livid corpse across my track served toremind me that I, of all that ship's company, still clung to life.

  Strange visions, as I rose and fell with the heaving sea, floated beforemy eyes. The gloomy kitchen at Kilgorman, and my mother's lettergleaming under the hearthstone--the hollow on the cliff's edge where Timand I had once fought--Biddy McQuilkin sitting at the fireside in ourcabin, setting her cap at my father--Miss Kit with the gun at hershoulder behind the hall-door at Knockowen--the unhappy old man beingdragged to the guillotine in Paris--the lumbering barge floating downthe Seine--Tim in the light of the lantern at the helm of the_Kestrel_;--these and many other visions chased one another across mymemory, first in regular procession, then tripping one over the other,then all jumbled and mixed together in such chaos that it was Kit whowas being haled to the guillotine, and Tim who lay below thehearthstone, and Biddy who navigated the barge.

  Presently one vision seemed to hang in my memory longer than the others,and that was the light of the morning sun as it struck on the retreatingsails of the brig _Scheldt_ of Rotterdam, standing out to sea off Malin.One by one all my other fancies merged into this--the guillotinechanged into a brig, the _Kestrel_ changed into the _Scheldt_, theKilgorman kitchen became a deck, and Miss Kit a Dutch skipper. Why wasit? Why should everything come back to that one brig in the offing?

  Suddenly I understood it. There, as I looked up from my restless raftand followed the gleam of the afternoon sun as it broke through theclouds, I perceived just such another vision in the offing--a brig, withcanvas set, and the light glancing on her sails as she laboured over thewaves towards me!

  She may have been a mile away. By the look of her she was a foreigncraft, and may have been a trader coasting between the Dutch ports.Whatever she was, the sight of her put new life into me.

  I took my red scarf--the very scarf I had waved so vainly at the_Scheldt_ scarce three weeks ago--and spreading it wide waved it withall the energy of which I was capable. How long the minutes seemedthen! If she gave me the go-by, my last chance would go with her. Evenas I raised myself to wave, my head reeled, and a dimness clouded myeyes.

  Then, with a wonderful bound at my heart, half surprise, half joy, I sawthe brig suddenly put about, while a flag waved at her stern showed thatmy signal had been seen. A minute later the welcome sight of a boatcoming towards me assured me that I was saved, and with a cry ofthankfulness to Heaven my weary head drooped, and the mist in my eyesbecame darkness.

  What roused me was the consciousness of two strong arms round me, andthe taste of liquid fire between my lips. My saviours, who wereDutchmen, had lifted me from the spar, and were plying me with spiritsas I lay more dead than alive in the stern-sheets. I looked up. Thesails of the brig, flapping against the wind, towered above me, and herdark hull as she swung over us hid the sun. The boat pulled round herstern to reach the lee-ladder. As we passed I glanced up, and my eyesfell on two words, painted in gilt letters--

  "_Scheldt_. Rotterdam."