  The first thing to be done on board the Bon Homme Richard was to attempt to check the fire. The ceilings had caught, and were burning slowly but determinedly. The fire having got within a few inches of the powder magazine, Paul Jones ordered all the powder brought up on deck. There were more than a hundred prisoners on the Bon Homme Richard before the fight, and the men taken from the Serapis brought the number up to over five hundred. Those who were not disabled were put to work at the pumps, where they toiled with the desperate energy of men struggling for their lives. Paul Jones himself escorted Captain Pearson to the cabin, saying: “I beg that you will make yourself as comfortable as circumstances will admit. You will have the consolation of knowing that no man ever made a better defense of his ship.” Captain Pearson bowed, and answered: “Your conduct is most generous—” and hesitated, as if to express surprise at such good treatment. “You will find, I hope, that all American officers are generous in victory; and should we have the misfortune to be forced to haul down our colors, I trust that we would show the fortitude of the brave who are unfortunate,” said Paul Jones, with dignity—and, with a low bow, he retired from the cabin, leaving Captain Pearson alone. As soon as the commodore returned to the deck he ordered the lashings to be cut, as the ships continued to catch fire from each other, and there was great danger to the powder on both. “And both ships must be saved, my lads!” cried he to the men, who were working like Trojans to save the Serapis from the flames. “Ay, ay, sir,” answered the men heartily. As soon as they were free, the Bon Homme Richard drifted rapidly off. The Serapis was hailed and ordered to follow. On board the Serapis Dale was in command. Exhausted by his five hours of work and fighting, he sat down on a dismounted gun near the binnacle. The reaction had come. A profound sadness seized him, and he could almost have wept when he saw the destruction around him. But nothing made him forget his duty for a moment. As soon as the ships parted he ordered the wreck of the mainmast to be cleared away, the headyards braced aback, and the helm put hard down. This was promptly done, but still the ship did not pay off. Imagining that her steering gear was cut to pieces, he ordered it examined, but, to his surprise, found it uninjured. Puzzled by so strange a state of things, Dale jumped from his seat, only to fall his length upon the deck. Bill Green ran to him and helped him up; but Dale could not stand upon his feet. “And natural you can’t, sir, seein’ as your ankle is wounded,” said Bill. “Is it?” answered Dale, faintly. “I did not know until this moment I was hurt.” Just then the pilot boat containing Lieutenant Lunt and sixteen men hailed the ship alongside. “For Heaven’s sake, Lunt, come aboard!” cried Dale; “your services are needed here.” As Lunt came over the side the sailing master of the Serapis appeared, and, going up to Dale, said: “Sir, the ship can’t pay off, because she has an anchor under foot.” This was the anchor dropped by Captain Pearson when the ships first fouled. The cable was cut, and the ship instantly answered the helm. She was much cut up aloft, but her hull was sound, and she had no water in her. Preparations were at once made to repair her. A jury mast was rigged in place of the mainmast, and new sails were bent instead of those that had been torn to pieces by hand grenades exploded in her rigging. The night was now far spent. The moon, that had shone so brilliantly during the fury of the battle, now hung low in the misty night sky that glimmered with a pale and waning light. A white fog was creeping slowly in from the Atlantic, and a fitful wind ruffled the black and phosphorescent water. The first thing to be attended to, while the carpenters were at work upon the crippled Serapis and the almost wrecked Bon Homme Richard, was the care of the wounded and the burial of the dead. As there was great doubt whether the Bon Homme Richard could be kept afloat until daylight, no wounded were removed from the Serapis, where the British surgeons attended to them. Her dead also were buried from her deck, one of the British lieutenants reading the service of the Established Church, in an agitated voice. On board the Bon Homme Richard, Paul Jones, as he always did, read the Psalms for the dead over the brave men who had fallen around him. Everything was done quickly, but with proper reverence, for, no matter how much encompassed by danger Paul Jones was, he never forgot to give fitting burial to the departed brave. Like all men of feeling heart and deep imagination, Paul Jones, after the inspiration of battle and the glory of victory, always felt a keen distress at the ruin and desolation it wrought. The sight of the gallant men cold in death, that lay in rows upon the reeking deck of the Bon Homme Richard, covered by the flag whose honor they had so gloriously maintained, wrung his heart and filled his eyes with tears. And this man, who had dared death from battle, fire, and water rather than strike his flag, faltered and almost wept as he read the solemn words of the Psalmist before the dead were laid at rest in the ocean. As each body fell swiftly and silently overboard a heavy blow seemed struck upon the heart of Paul Jones. The officers and men crowded the deck, standing with uncovered heads, while a little way off the Serapis loomed up in the fast rising mist, and from her side a frequent dull splash showed that the same solemn ceremony was taking place upon her decks. At last it was over. The men with a sudden alacrity folded up the flags, quickly carried the grewsome planks and canvas below, and the boatswain’s pipe sounded cheerily calling the men to work. The reaction from the burial of the dead at such a time is always great, and the officers and men vie in their quick rebound to cheerfulness. Paul Jones felt this instant and magnetic change. Ten minutes from the time that the last sad ceremonies were over he walked the deck with his usual graceful and alert step, ordering, overlooking, and encouraging everybody. Meanwhile a boat had pulled off from the Serapis, and when Paul Jones, who had gone below for a moment to see how the carpenters were getting on, came upon deck, Dale was being helped over the side. Paul Jones went immediately up to him. Dale leaned heavily upon a sailor, and Paul Jones at once saw that his favorite lieutenant was lame. “My lieutenant, you are wounded!” he cried; and Dale, at hearing the very words he had addressed to the commodore, smiled faintly. “Yes, sir,” he answered; “I did not know it until a little while ago. I don’t know when I was hurt, or how, but I was forced to give up the command to Mr. Lunt and return to you. But how is your wound?” “It is nothing—nothing!” cried Paul Jones, but really, although his wound in the head was not dangerous, he had lost much blood, and only his indomitable will kept him upon his feet. Wretched indeed was the plight of the brave Bon Homme Richard. Immortalized she was, but she had given her life for her victory. So desperate was her condition between decks that many of the sailors, regarding her as a floating coffin, sprang overboard and swam to the still stanch Serapis, and to the Alliance, that now appeared off the weather quarter of the gallant ship she had so treacherously deserted. It was now nearly daylight, but the fog enveloped everything, and the eye could scarcely penetrate a hundred yards. A wind still blew fitfully, driving the fog hither and thither, but as fast as it was drifted landward another great fog bank would come rolling sullenly in from the open Atlantic. It deadened the sounds of the saw and the hammer and the constant creaking of the pumps as the men toiled at them. Once it almost lifted. It was just at sunrise, and a great golden lance seemed to penetrate it straight from heaven. Like magic, the white mist parted, the sky, the sea, and the air were suddenly flooded with a rose-pink glow, and the fair and lovely light shone full upon the lithe figure of Paul Jones as he stood on the poop with his face turned to the east. His arms were folded, and his inscrutable dark eyes, full of a strange rapture, were uplifted to the sky. Glory was the breath of his life, and here was glory enough for a lifetime, as he saw his own shattered ship, and the Serapis conquered but still majestic. For five minutes he stood motionless. He was recalling the same hour the day before, and now his proudest wish was fulfilled. Alone and single-handed he had beaten an enemy at least twice as strong as himself. He had made the name of the American navy respected from thenceforward, and his far-seeing mind realized the mighty effect of his victory. After a while he roused himself from his reverie, which was a sort of exaltation, and swept the horizon with his glass. Not a sail was in sight where twenty-four hours before they had whitened the seas around him. The very name of Paul Jones had frightened them into harbor. But soon the fog descended again, and Paul Jones devoted himself to one intense and long-continued effort to save the smoldering, leaking, but glorious Bon Homme Richard. It was his ardent wish to save his ship, the eloquent witness of his prowess, and to that work he turned with almost superhuman energy. The dim morning wore on. The men were mostly below, fighting the leaks and the fire, and the decks were comparatively deserted, when Paul Jones, still on the poop, caught sight of Danny Dixon running aft as hard as he could clip it. “Hold on!” cried Paul Jones. “There is work for everybody on this ship. Why are you idle?” “I ain’t idle, sir,” answered Danny, touching his cap. “The flag as was most shot to pieces is hangin’ astern now, under water; and I thought, sir, as you wouldn’t want to lose that ’ere flag, I’d git it out o’ the water for the honor o’ the ship, sir.” “You are right; go and get it,” answered Paul Jones, smiling. Danny disappeared astern, and presently came up dripping. But he had the torn flag, and was wringing it out as he came along. “Here she is, sir,” said he, as Paul Jones took it; “and here’s a little rag o’ it, sir, that I hopes you’ll let me keep in my ditty box.” He showed a scrap a few inches square that he had torn from the shattered flagstaff. “Yes, you may,” replied Paul Jones. “That is in place of the shirt you took off and gave for a gunwad. I see you have another.” “Yes, sir,” answered Danny, who had on a shirt about twice too big for him. “Mr. Green, he flung it to me jist now. I dunno where he got it from.” As the hours passed on the terrible situation of the Bon Homme Richard became plainer. She was literally cut to pieces between decks, from her spar deck to the water line, and there was not planking enough in the whole squadron to patch her up. The wind also began to rise, and Paul Jones, remembering that where eleven British cruisers had been searching for him the day before, knew that probably fifty would be after him by sundown, and that he must make his way toward the Texel as quickly as possible. About ten o’clock in the morning the fire was at last out, and Paul Jones called Captain Cottineau, with all the carpenters in the squadron, on board, to consult with them as to the possibility of carrying his ship into port, which he could scarcely bring himself to believe was impossible. Captain Landais’s opinion was not asked, nor was he suffered to come on board the Bon Homme Richard. The carpenters examined the ship thoroughly, and all of them agreed that she could not possibly be made to last more than a few hours. Such also was Captain Cottineau’s opinion. When it was communicated to Paul Jones, this man, so insensible to fear, yet felt the loss of his ship so deeply that tears dropped from his eyes; but he realized that the ship was now in a hopeless condition, and that while he might risk his own life further, he could not risk those of the brave men under him. When once his mind was made up to the cruel necessity he acted with characteristic promptness. Immediately all the boats were pressed into service transferring the wounded to the captured Serapis. There was but little worth saving on the Bon Homme Richard, and the Serapis was full of stores of all sorts. It took the whole day and the following night to place the wounded and the prisoners on the Serapis and to repair damages. Even to the last, Paul Jones could not utterly abandon the hope of saving the old ship, made forever glorious in that short September night. He left an officer on board and a gang of men, who were directed to work the pumps as long as possible. The boats were in waiting in order to take them off if the water gained on them too fast. An American ensign was hoisted, and the officer was directed to leave it flying. About nine o’clock Paul Jones, from the quarter-deck of the Serapis, saw the signal made for the boats—the Bon Homme Richard was sinking. The men were taken off, and Paul Jones watched her last moments as one watches by the deathbed of one’s best beloved. She sank lower and lower in the water after she was left, while her ensign fluttered bravely in the wandering breeze. At last, about ten o’clock, as Paul Jones watched her agonizingly through his glass, he saw her give a lurch forward. She went down head foremost, and the last thing seen of her as she settled into her ocean grave was the mizzen to’gallant mast, and the flag at the peak. “Good-by, brave ship!” cried Paul Jones with a deep sob, as the waters closed over the ship of immortal memory. |
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