Tale of a Patriot Part One Page 6

CHAPTER SIX

  The delay caused us to miss our opportunity to capture any of those ships heading for Canada. Our next assignment is to keep the southern coast clear of British Ships. Patrolling up and down the coast, not one vessel crosses our path. Boredom sets in and some start thinking too much of home. After three months, we head for home. Not having any captured cargo to sell we will arrive broke. We have back pay coming, but that’s barely enough for one night out on the town.   

  As the sun peaks over the horizon, a lookout shouts, “A SHIP OFF THE PORT SIDE, SHE MUST HAVE TRIED TO PASS US DURING THE NIGHT.  HER MAIN MAST IS BARELY IN SIGHT.” 

  As we get closer, Captain Nickolas looks through his eyeglass and notices she is deep in the water and flying the French Flag. He believes, because she’s sitting so low; she could never have survived the trip from France. He decides we should have a closer look. 

  Captain Nickolas closes his eyeglass and barks, “Men, clear for action and do it now!”  As we’re preparing for a possible battle, he looks to his forward gun crew and says, “Tom, when I tell you fire a shot over her bow.” 

  On Captain Nickolas’s command, Tom fires his cannon.  The cannonball barely sails over the ship’s bow.  The warning shot must have scared her Captain, because he immediately lowers his sails. 

  When we get within twenty feet of the ship, Captain Nickolas shout, “HEAVE TO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.” 

  After lashing the two ships together, Lieutenant Snibly’s boarding party corrals the captors and has them to stand quietly on the bow of the ship. To insure their cooperation, he points to our bow, “look over there; we have two swivel cannons pointed at you. To try anything will be very foolish, copi…, I mean comprende.” 

  Captain Nickolas, standing on the upper deck, is perplexed, except for the crew; the captors are women and children. , he says to me, “Joe, take some men and look below. I want to know why she’s sitting so low.” Then he says, “Ensign, go into the Captain’s Cabin and bring me the Daily Log.” 

  I take three men with me.  We grab some lanterns and cautiously enter the cargo hold.  We can barely walk around.  Except for a small living area, for the women and children, the cargo hold is full of kegs, marked rum, stacked three high.  As we start leaving the cargo hold, I see a reflection of something shiny.  The light, from my lantern hit the object just right, causing it to shine. 

  I tell the men, “STOP! Everyone, wait here; I want to find out what’s causing the reflection.” 

  I slowly enter the living area.  Tied to one hammock, I see a highly polished medallion. Picking it up, I think, it looks military; I’ll bring it to the Captain. He’ll know what it is.  I bring up the medallion for the Captain to inspect.  Nickolas recognizes the insignia carved into the medallion.  It’s from a Welsh Unit, called the Black Kilts; they wear them across their chests.  To prove they fear no one, they shine the medallions and dare the enemy to shoot at it. 

  After interrogating the ship’s Captain, Nickolas finds out that the Black Kilts hired his ship to transport their families to Canada. As for the medallion, it belongs to a boyfriend of one of the teenage girls; she took it as a memento, to remember him by.  

  When the French Captain couldn’t produce a Bill of Lading, for the rum, Nickolas, walks up to the women and says, “I have no intention of battling with families, so I will set you free.  As for the rum; since your Captain can’t prove they’re legal, the kegs are coming with me.”           

  One lady steps forward and says, “Sir, thank you for not harming us. I can assure you we will cooperate, but I can’t vouch for the crew. The maybe French, but they are pirates.”

  Hearing this, Captain Nickolas has us unload every cannon, musket, and pistol on-board the French ship. Then, after transferring the liquor to our ship, he orders the muskets, pistols, knives, and sabers thrown into the cargo hold. Now, before some heroic person retrieves and loads a musket, we’ll be out of range. If not, Ebenezer and the other sharpshooters have orders to shoot if they see a musket aimed at us.  

  When the ship is out of sight, I ask the Captain, “Sir, why didn’t we take the weapons and gunpowder with us?”

  The Captain replies, “Joe, because they have women and children on-board, I will not leave them defenseless.”  

  Three days later, we sail onto some relatively calm and hot weather. With almost no wind, we’re going nowhere fast. At this rate of speed, it will take us at least another ten days to reach port.

  I finished my chores and with nothing else to do; I walk around the ship several times. With the Officer of the Day’s permission, I join Skinny-Tom, who is on watch duty. It took me a while to reach the firing top. Climbing up a rope ladder is still a problem for me. Once up there, I stand still for a while, staring at the vastness of the water.  

  I mention to Tom, “at the rate we’re going, the rum will be well aged before we can sell it.” When I turn to my right, I see something. While pointing to the object, I tap Tom on the shoulder and ask; “Tom, what’s that? It can’t be a ship, it’s too small.” Before Tom can answer I holler, “SOMETHING IS FLOATOMG ACROSS THE PORT BOW.” 

  The Watch Commander replies, “I don’t see anything; wait, wait, I see it now.  Helmsman, steer towards it, so I can get a closer look.  You, uh, Ebenezer, get a grappling hook. “ 

  Ebenezer was on the main deck taking a break.  He wanted to clear his mind before deciding what he was going to cook for dinner.  Startled when he heard the Officer’s command, he jumps up and grabs the hook.  Running to the port side, he loses his balance when he trips over a full water bucket.  Ebenezer manages to regain his balance before he impales Johnathon, who is waiting for the hook.  

  Giving Ebenezer a dirty look Johnathon grabs the hook and says, “Ebenezer consider yourself lucky that you’re such a good cook.  If you weren’t you’d get more from me than just a dirty look” 

  While Johnathon is trying to grab the object, he says, “Sir, it looks like debris from a fight.  It also looks like it’s been in the water for a while.” Having trouble hanging on to it the object, he shouts, “A LITTLE BIT OF HELP HERE.”

  Samuel and Gabriel each grab a grappling hook and rush to help the Johnathon. When the ship sways to the opposite side, Samuel loses control and falls overboard. With a bleeding forehead, he quickly swims to the object and crawls on top of it. With two others helping Johnathon, Gabriel jumps into the water and helps Samuel out of the water.

  As Gabriel is preparing to get on-board, the Watch Commander looks over the side and shouts, “STAY THERE.” Then he looks at two others, “GET TWO ROPES, TWO HOOKS AND A HAMMER. ATTACH THE HOOKS AND HAMMER TO THE ROPE; THEN LOWER EVERYTHING TO GABRIEL.” While the two are getting the material, the Watch Commander points to two Marines. “GET YOUR MUSKETS AND KEEP A SHARP EYE OUT FOR SHARKS. THAT BLOOD IN THE WATER WILL ATTRACT THEM.” Then he turns to Gabriel, “when you get the ropes secure them to that thing so we can haul it up.

  When Gabriel hears, “SHARK”, he looks up and pleads, “Sir, please hurry.” Finally, someone throws Gabriel the ropes, one falls short and he has to reach for it. When Gabriel reaches out for the rope, a shark sticks his head out of the water. Gabriel kicks the shark in the head and shouts, “OH NO YOU DON’T.”

  Hoping to scare the shark away, the Marines fire their muskets into the water. They keep firing while Gabriel hammers the hooks into the object, ties the ropes to the hooks and makes his way out of the water. As he leans over the rail, the shark lunges at him again, this time just missing Gabriel’s foot. Hitting the deck, Gabriel crawls away from the rail while saying, “WHEW, that was close.”

  While the Marines are putting their muskets away, one asks the other, why didn’t you kill the shark when you had a chance?”

  The other Marine looks at the first and says; “if I did, we’d have shark meat for a week and I HATE shark meat.”

  The first Marine, aft
er pausing a moment says, “Josh, you did the right thing, I don’t care for shark meat either.”

  With Skinny-Tom’s shift over, we make our way down and join the others. I could have descended earlier, but I felt it was more important to keep an eye out for sharks.

  With the ropes secure, the Watch Commander tells two sailors “swing the boom around so the ropes can be strung thru the pulleys.” When that’s done, he says, “everyone grab the ropes and let’s haul this thing on-board.” With great effort, they slowly inch the object out of the water.   “Put your backs into it men, I don’t want to bring something strange on-board our ship at night.” With the thing out of the water and dangling above us, the Watch Commander turns to me and says, “Joe, go tell the Captain about this and YES, wake him if you must.” 

  Once, it’s sitting on the deck, everyone awed at its size and shape.  It looked like a big egg with a flat bottom.  The top of it had a round tower about seven inches high and five feet in diameter.  Embedded in the tower are several pieces of glass that look like windows.  Off to one side, of the top, there are two U shaped tubes.  Opposite the tubes is something that looks like a big corkscrew.   Protruding from the side of the egg is a weird-looking propeller and a rudder.  

  Everyone one was mulling around the strange object.  One sailor was on top of it trying to get inside.  A sailor, sitting on the shoulders of another, was trying to look inside through the glass. 

  The sailor on top says, “I wonder how we can get into this thing.” 

  Another sailor replies, “the hull doesn’t look very thick; get me an ax and I’ll open her up with just one swing.”  

  The Watch Commander Hollers, “EVERYONE STOP!  Now back away from that thing and you get off the top.” 

  Finally, the Captain emerges from his cabin and shades his eyes from the sun. Sees the object, he orders two men with axes to cut holes into it, on its sides and top.  Then he has us throw it overboard.  We didn’t understand why, but did as the Captain ordered.  

  Watching it sink the Captain says, “lads, heed what I have to say.  Never mention to anyone, about that thing, and what we did to it.  Lieutenant, do not write about it in the Daily Log or note our location.” 

  As we slowly sail away, a cannonball hits our Portside, just above the water line.  The cannon crews run to their stations and load their cannons.  While waiting for orders another cannonball shatters the rigging to the forward mast.  

  The Captain hollers, “HELMSMAN TURN THE SHIP 90 DEGREES TO THE RIGHT.” Seeing no one at the wheel, he shouts as he runs towards it, “EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WAY.” 

  Just as Nickolas grabs the wheel and turns it, Pants grabs it and says, “I’ll take over Sir; tell me what you want me to do.”   

  Nickolas says, “steer it so we can fire a broadside; once this is over, I’ll deal with you.” 

  Once in place, the cannon crews, fire every cannon they can.  The recoil almost causes me to fall off the rope ladder.  I was carrying cartridge boxes and powder horns to the firing top. 

  When I reach the top, Ebenezer says, “Joe, I’m glad to see you made it.  Not many men can survive that fall.” 

  Once in position the sharpshooters wait for the British to come closer.  With our cannons reloaded, we fire again. This time, the British receive more damage.  Their forward mast is gone along with part of her upper hull. 

  The British Ship retreats.  Being out gunned and the element of surprise gone, the British Captain decides to run away.  Nickolas decides not to pursue the ship. He has something more pressing that needs his attention. 

  He calls the crew together, once they are in place he motions for Pants and the lookouts to come forward; as they approach, he angrily says, “I want everyone to understand this. When you are on duty our lives depend on you.” Then he points to the damage done to our ship.  “Now you know why you must never leave your posts or get distracted from your duty.”  Then he turns his attention to PANTS and the lookouts. “For your dereliction of duty you will get ten lashes and half of any prize money you get on this voyage will go to the families of the dead.”  He waits a moment to regain his composure. “Since you are slightly guiltier, than the rest of the crew; I will suspend the ten lashes, but not taking away half of your shares.  Now, everyone listen to me.  If this ever happens again the culprits will get FORTY LASHES; DISMISSED.”