Scarborough Fair - Chris Scott Wilson [48]
“Ahoy there! Heave-to! Union!”
A speaking trumpet was raised. “By whose order? What ship are you?”
“Heave-to!” Dale shouted back, ignoring their inquiry.
Beside him Paul Jones watched a stream of men appear on Union’s weather deck, moving toward the shrouds.
“Run out the cannon. Chain shot at the lower rigging.”
Immediately, the gun ports were triced up. Bonhomme Richard’s topsides bristled with bronze snouts sniffing the salt air. The gun captains took their cue, a salvo rippling from half a dozen twelve-pounders like overlapping thunderclaps. The rolling smoke engulfed the horrified expressions on Union’s bridge as the deadly charges tore into her rigging, forestalling any orders to modify her sail plan in a bid to break for leeward. As the gun smoke thinned the damage could be seen. The main and mizzenmast shrouds were in tatters where the chain links had screamed through. Ten feet lower would have spread carnage across the decks. For’ard, one charge had smashed into the bulwarks, ugly splinters of shattered timber protruding at all angles, sickly white in the sun.
Not a shot was fired in return. There had been no margin for retaliation. Victory was swift. Pride filled Paul Jones’s chest. His first success of the voyage. He hoped it was merely the beginning.
In moments Union’s ensign was struck, a terrified midshipman shaking as he hauled the flag down.
“Run up the colors and prepare to board,” Paul Jones said with a grim smile. Bonhomme Richard came alongside, grapples thrown to pull Union into a reluctant embrace. A lieutenant led the boarding party over the rail, the heavily armed men greeted by the stunned expressions of Union’s crew, shocked into silence by the speed of their defeat. They stood with arms dangling helplessly at their sides, here and there a figure sprawled on the deck, victims of stray ricochets from the cannon fire. When the prisoners had been herded together by Richard’s officers, Paul Jones and Richard Dale crossed over to stand on the rigging strewn deck.
“A letter-of-marque ship,” Dale observed, glancing around. “What is your cargo?”
“Army supplies,” the tight-lipped captain replied.
“What manner of supplies?”
The tousled head of the lieutenant who had led the boarding party appeared from below. “Uniforms, sir. English infantry uniforms, winter issue.”
Dale repressed a smile. “For Canada, no doubt. We may not have robbed the English of the means to fight, but at least they’ll be cold when they do it.”
The commodore sniffed. Better than nothing. And one less ship to supply the enemy army. He accepted the English captain’s sword as a token of surrender, then turned to Lt. Dale. “Detail the lieutenant and the boarding party to man her until we select a prize crew to sail her back to France.” As the commodore turned to go, the English captain made to step forward. Two marines quickly moved to intercept him. Paul Jones stopped, waved them back, and raised a questioning eyebrow.
The Englishman was stiffly formal. “May I ask to whom I surrendered my ship?”
A faint smile. “How remiss of me. Commodore John Paul Jones of the American Navy.”
The Englishman nodded, eyes slowly traveling over the American from head to foot as though committing every detail of his image to memory. Their eyes locked.
“I will remember you, sir, believe you me I will.”
BOOK TWO
1779
Scarborough Fair
CHAPTER 1
One whiff of the salt wind told Jackie Rudd everything.
The day was already wasted. He closed the cottage door quietly behind him as he looked up. Cloud smothered the horizon from east to west, long gray banks that bunched and exploded, scudding across a raw gunmetal sky. With a grimace he pushed his hands deep into his pockets then clumped along Tutthill Street, empty in the gray dawn, before turning down into East Sandgate where he caught his first glimpse of the North Sea. His prediction was correct, but knowing he would be unable to put out into the heavy swell robbed him of any satisfaction.
Down at the Posthouse there was already a gathering of fishermen.