by Edward Cline
Ramshaw gasped. “The Frenchman’s leaving off! What the deuce—?”
The two vessels traded second broadsides. Other guns on the privateer must also have fired grape and chain at the Charon’s masts. Canvas fore and aft shredded, and lines and shrouds on both its masts fell to the deck.
And then they all saw the reason why the privateer was quitting. On their left the Zeus, under full sail, had broken formation and was speeding in the direction of the fight.
“Wonder if the Frenchman could read signals from such a distance,” speculated Iverson. “That would explain why he thought the Charon was easy prey.”
“Whatever he thought,” remarked Ramshaw, “it was wrong.”
As the privateer disengaged in order to escape being trapped between the Charon and the Zeus, it fired one last broadside into the brig, as though out of spite.
Defiantly, the Charon answered with another.
The reports from this last exchange had just reached the spectator’s ears when there was another explosion. Abruptly, the bowsprit and part of the Charon’s bow were neatly severed from the rest of the vessel, and the foremast, partly secured by lines to the bow and bowsprit, bent, cracked, and fell with them.
“Good God!” exclaimed Ramshaw. “The damned fool must have stored powder above the water line!”
“you’re right, sir!” answered Haynie. “That’s the only thing that could do that! A French ball from that last broadside must have found a gun port and shot straight through to it!”
The Sparrowhawk was little more than half a mile away now. Her observers could see men swarming over the deck of the Charon, and other figures emerging with the billowing smoke from her hatches. Some of these were women and children. As they watched, the bow sank and the truck and masthead of the foremast dipped into the choppy waves. Flames shot up through the shattered foredeck, but were quickly extinguished as water flooded into the vessel. The Charon’s stern rose out of the water as the vessel began a swift descent. Rigging, guns, crew, and passengers slid or tumbled down the deck and splashed into the waves. In less than a minute, only the aft cabin was visible. Then the water broke and gushed through its paneled glass. The red ensign, wrapped around the lanyard, was the last thing to be swallowed by the waves. Then the Charon was gone, leaving behind bodies and debris.
The sea was quiet. Even the privateer seemed to pause in horror of what its crew had just witnessed. Ramshaw and his officers swept the site with their glasses for signs of survivors. None were to be seen.
“There were over a hundred people on the Charon,” remarked the surgeon in a near-whisper. “Counting convicts and crews.”
Ramshaw glanced at Hugh. Hugh stood with an expression frozen in disbelief, and tears rolled down his cheeks.
The captain stepped over to him and said, “If they were lucky or God was merciful, Mr. Kenrick, they were fettered somewhere below the powder, or close to it, and they died quickly. Most of the others had to settle for drowning.”
“I can see the name now!” said Iverson. “Le Voleur! ‘The Thief!’”
The Zeus swiftly approached Le Voleur’s stern. All of her starboard gun ports were open and that side of the warship bristled with the black noses of guns. The Sparrowhawk was now directly opposite the Zeus and the privateer.
Ramshaw glanced at Hugh again, and saw him sitting on a pile of coiled rope near the tiller. “Mr. Kenrick,” he said, “you may want to see this.” Hugh looked up, then rose and rejoined the men at the railing.
“She’s going to rake the stern!” said Iverson.
The Zeus fired. Two decks of guns blazed in consecutive pairs at the rear of Le Voleur as the warship glided past. Debris flew out from the disintegrating aft cabin.
“That is hellish gunnery!” exclaimed Haynie. “If only a third of those balls go through, they’ll rip her to pieces inside clear up to the bow!”
“Who is the captain of the Zeus?” asked Iverson.
“Our convoy commander, Post-Captain Farbrace,” answered Ramshaw, still peering through his glass. “Timothy Farbrace. Though there is nothing timid about that gentleman.”
“There goes the rudder! The Frenchman is done for!”
They saw two crewmen on the privateer scramble to haul down the white and gold banner. “She’s striking her colors! Bravo!” cried Haynie.
The crew and passengers of the Sparrowhawk cheered.
The Zeus tacked sharply starboard and maneuvered alongside the privateer. “By God, he is good!” said Ramshaw in admiration.
Then they heard the thunder of a broadside as the Zeus proceeded to pound the larboard side of Le Voleur. They could even discern the crackle of small arms.
“He’s going to finish her off!” cried Haynie.
Again, the spectators watched in amazement. The warship fired five broadsides into the privateer, then tacked starboard again to rake the bow. The top half of Le Voleur’s mizzenmast collapsed and fell to the deck. Grape and chain shot pierced the canvasses of her foremast. Brown smoke began to creep in wisps from the gun ports on the starboard side. The privateer began to list on her larboard side.
The Zeus tacked starboard again and in a minute blocked the view of the spectators on the Sparrowhawk as the warship rode through the debris of the Charon. Through gaps in the smoke they could see the frigate’s crew working the guns on the main deck as the warship delivered more broadsides, while others worked her sails. Crewmen and red-jacketed marines were busy pouring musket fire into the unfortunate privateer.
Ramshaw said, “It seems that our Mr. Farbrace is intent on punishing those Frenchmen for Captain Musto’s folly. That is not abiding by the rules.”
“Perhaps not,” remarked Haynie. “But, look! There is a better explanation!” he pointed to the southwest. The group trained their glasses in that direction. On the horizon, they saw sails, two sets of them. One set seemed to indicate a frigate, the other, another brig.
“Prudence, then, governs Mr. Farbrace,” sighed Ramshaw. “Forgive me for impugning your character, sir.”
Once more the Zeus tacked, but more slowly. They saw now that Le Voleur had capsized and was lying on her larboard side, showing half of her hull. Men flailed desperately in the water around her, and others clung to floating debris. Still others were trying to get a foothold on the slippery, barnacle-pitted hull.
“She is finished, Mr. Farbrace,” said Ramshaw to himself, “and she’s not put a scratch on your lovely ship. Pick up some of those rascals and perhaps they will tell you who else is lurking in these parts.”
But again, the Zeus loosed another full broadside. Some balls glanced off the hull, but others found weak spots and dented or shattered the wood. The men on the Sparrowhawk imagined they could hear the Frenchmen on the hull curse the Zeus. They could see them shaking their fists at her before they dived back into the water. One Frenchman was caught in midair as he dived and cut in half by a shot from the Zeus.
Water shot up through the new holes in the hull, and Le Voleur slipped quietly beneath the waves.
“The thief will sleep with the suicide,” remarked Iverson.
“That is more cruelty than I saw at Charing Cross,” said Hugh. “That ship was no match for the Zeus. What was the purpose in destroying her?”
Ramshaw did not immediately answer. He watched the Zeus tack around the debris and survivors—making no attempt to pick up the few men who still splashed in the water—and saw the spongers swab the barrels of the warship’s guns. One by one, the gun ports dropped shut.
“The purpose, Mr. Kenrick?” said the captain, lowering his glass and tucking it under his arm. “To make an example of her, for the benefit of those chaps there.” He nodded in the direction of the new sails. “They won’t worry us now. Won’t even bother to follow us.”
Hugh gestured vaguely in the direction of the carnage. “What about all those passengers from the Charon? I can see…their bodies in the water. We can’t just…leave them…”
Haynie said, “
There’s nothing to be done for them, sir. We don’t know who they were, and we would simply need to toss them back in.”
Ramshaw gave his crew the order to stand down, but stopped before he descended to the main deck. “I am very sorry that you lost your friends, Mr. Kenrick.” He patted one of Hugh’s shoulders. “Have supper with me this evening. Sea-pie on Sheffield plate. Washed down with a quart or more of Madeira. That will help you sleep…and accept it…and forget it.”
“I won’t forget,” said Hugh. He glanced once more out at the debris. The Zeus was cutting through it to rejoin the formation. “I am the last of the Pippins,” he added, more to himself than to Ramshaw.
A stiff breeze whipped through his shirt and filled the sails of the Sparrowhawk. The bodies, the debris, and the survivors from Le Voleur vanished behind the waves.
* * *
Hugh Kenrick withdrew into himself and remained withdrawn for the rest of the voyage. He said little, ate little, but wrote extensively in his journal, describing, among many other things, the terrible fates of the Charon and Le Voleur. His sleep was interrupted now and then by unbidden, recurring nightmares, in which he or one of his perished friends was chained to a wall in the hold of a sinking ship, or strapped to a cask of gunpowder while vague, laughing faces tossed lit matches at him. He did not scream, but thought he had when he woke up in a sweat. Ramshaw tried to draw him out of the mood, but was unsuccessful.
There were no further incidents. The sails on the horizon disappeared, and the convoy headed west without further molestation by man or weather. The convoy commander invited Ramshaw and Hugh to supper on the Zeus. The post-captain had observed Ramshaw’s battle drills with appreciation, and word had also reached him that the Sparrowhawk carried nobility. Hugh declined the invitation, and asked Ramshaw to convey his thanks and apologies. He did not wish to meet the man who had punished the Frenchmen of Le Voleur, even though he was convinced by Ramshaw that it had been the right thing to do.
Hugh came back to life only when Iverson came by his berth to inform him that the mainland had been sighted. Hugh smiled for the first time in weeks. He found his long-glass and went up to the quarterdeck and, for the rest of the morning, surveyed the shores of the alien continent. Only three other merchantmen remained from the convoy. The others, including the warships and the transports, had already gone their separate ways.
A day later, the Sparrowhawk rounded Cape May, entered Delaware Bay, and sailed placidly up its river. Hugh paced excitedly up and down the deck, unable to believe the immensity of the place, and believing it at the same time. From the deck he could see tobacco fields, and fields of corn and wheat, and great houses, and sleepy river towns, and rivers that meandered west to vanish into unending carpets of forests. A mountain range far in that direction ran from one invisible point north to another south. The earth seemed larger here. He felt equal to the challenge of all its possibilities.
John Ramshaw watched his special passenger, and was glad.
Another day passed, and the Sparrowhawk welcomed aboard the pilot who would take the merchantman into port. Through his long-glass, Hugh Kenrick could see the steeples of the city of Philadelphia.
The voyage begun by him long ago in the halls of Danvers was nearly over. There lay his future, and England was far away.
