Swords From the Sea (50 page)

The riding lights of the squadron gleamed brighter as the red streaks faded from the sky. Overhead the yards creaked. For the first time in a week a fresh breeze was coming out of the south, blowing from Otchakof toward the anchored squadron.

Jones, who had been watching the men, with Edwards, rose and went aft to select the new topmen. Whether taking a Russian artilleryman aside to explain by example the mysteries of side tackle and crowbar or showing the gun captains how to quicken their work by stacking round shot in the stands near the gun muzzles, the American was in every drill.

The men grumbled, yet their food had been better since Jones arrived, and they did not grumble overmuch when they saw that he shared in the hard work. He was in everybody's mess and everybody's watch, tying a Turk's-head knot for a clumsy apprentice and making a jest of it to the boatswain's mate, who would otherwise have kicked the boy around the mast. Or trying out a cutlass with a bearded giant of the Urals who had never been out of his depth in water before except on a horse's back.

Not knowing Russian, he could not talk to the men, except through Edwards. But they became accustomed to him and in the end they listened for his voice and took to following him around, only leaving him when he retired to the quarterdeck ladder.

Once alone in his cabin or on the admiral's gallery, he looked worried. He knew that the crew of the Vladimir was incapable of handling a vessel at sea. And daily advice came from Potemkin's staff, urging a movement on Otchakof.

Paul Jones answered that such a course would not be for the good of the service, and when opportunity offered he would act.

Potemkin replied-

"You are expected to do your duty courageously or to take the consequences."

Only Edwards knew what it had cost Jones to take this in tight-lipped silence and to go on cheerfully with the work of preparation, refraining from moving at once on the Turks and throwing away the lives of his men and officers.

Just now he was inspecting the muskets and hand grenades before issuing them to a gunner's mate, to stow in the tops. And he explained to the men who had been told off for duty aloft, the work of topmen, how musketry was to be directed on the gun crews of the enemy's upper deck. Ivak listened attentively and peered up at the shadowy bole of the mast. Finally he became restless and spoke to Edwards.

"Will Paul give permission for me to go to that platform, if there is a battle?"

"Can you handle a musket?"

"I can drop a wild pig in a thicket a hundred paces away."

Edwards smiled and turned to the American, who had a warm regard for the old Cossack.

"Eh, Ivak," Paul Jones asked, "why do you want to go aloft?"

"That up there is a lopazik." Ivak pointed to the fighting top. "'Tis a hunter's rest in a tree, and it should be easy to see game from such a high place." When this was interpreted to him, Jones laughed.

"Very well, Ivak. But you will find that tree more hazardous than the ground down here."

"Will the admiral allow me to take also a kunak who was once a sergeant of marines on French ships?"

"Faith; if there is a marine sergeant on the Vladimir he belongs in the maintop."

That night the wind freshened, whining in the stays of the anchored vessels, and Pierre had the second watch on deck. He leaned on the preventer tackle of an eighteen-pounder, staring out of the open port, listening to the wash against the ship's side.

It was becoming clear to him that neither he nor Ivak was cut out for scouts. If there was plotting on the Vladimir they could not hit on a trace of it.

He turned his head just a little, eyeing the shadows cast by the lantern at the mast. Then he swung around, his back against the bulwarks. Dmitri had been walking past the booms, and had stepped toward the eighteen-pounder, his bare feet noiseless on the deck.

For a moment they faced each other, the Greek grinning in his beard, Pierre watchful, his arms folded on his chest.

"Sant' Nicolo!" grunted the boatswain. "You have good ears even for a spy."

Pierre, remembering Ivak's advice, kept silent. He could see that Alexiano was on the poop, in talk with another officer. Most of the men of the watch were asleep, out of sight; no one paid any attention to the boatswain and his victim.

Dmitri brushed a hand across his throat, under his oiled beard. He had puffy, good-natured eyes and smelled of scent and wine.

"You are looking for your friends of the after-guard, eh? They won't trouble about you, after you're down with the fish."

By now Pierre had seen enough of the Russian service to be aware that if he answered the Greek back or struck him, Dmitri would knife him and go free, if the man was in favor with an officer.

"You come," went on the boatswain, "you ask questions, you whisper to that sotnik. You are to be topman, by the horns! Aye, Kherson is lousy with spies and they picked you off to keep an eye on us."

Pierre let his hands rest on his belt, and leaned forward a little.

"With your fine ways and your French gab," hissed Dmitri, "the grandees thought you would fool us bullies. But I have been to Kherson, with his excellency Alexiano. In the bazaar I heard talk. When the wind is off the sea the Russians will be torn to pieces by Hassan 's sea wolves. And that is true talk. Some of the men did not come back to the ships."

"Who said that?" Pierre was beginning to be puzzled.

"Who sent the wind? Sukita fl adhimin-bite your thumbs for woe, you dog! Nay, Kalil, that wench out of Otchakof had visited the bazaar. But it is truth. I came back, yet we be as good as dead men."

Dmitri stepped nearer, his breath hot on the Provencal's throat.

"The Turks will be upon us with this wind. What chance have these ships against them?"

"Don't stir up your bile," Pierre growled. "Hold hard. Who do you think I serve?"

"The boyars who sent us here, to have our throats cut."

"-'s thunder! I'm Paul Jones's man."

"A lie!" Dmitri threw back his head, and glanced at the poop. Down the Liman a cannon had rumbled.

The Greek hesitated, then crouched suddenly, whipping out his dirk. Pierre swung his fist into the other's face, sending him back half a dozen paces. Dmitri snarled into his beard and shifted the knife in his hand, to throw it. Then he looked up and lowered his arm slowly.

Alexiano, flag captain of the fleet, was running along the poop railing, shouting that the Turks were bearing down on them. Pierre did not understand what he said, but it was evident that the man was thoroughly scared. Dmitri was staring at his countryman in astonished contempt of such behavior.

There came a long hail from the masthead, and a second shot down the estuary. After a moment drums beat to quarters and the boatswain thrust his knife back in its sheath. Alexiano was still vociferating, and Russian officers in every sort of uniform ran out of the wardroom to the quarterdeck, some still worse for wine.

"Moujiks-that's what they are, gentry and all!" Dmitri spat on the deck and jumped to the wheel. "Here, you dog-bear a hand."

Pierre joined him and helped with lashings, listening the while to the muttering groups that surged around the mainmast and the skuttles. Here and there he heard petty officers swearing and the impact of a blow. A half-naked Syrian stumbled over a lantern on the deck and howled when he fell headlong.

"Fools!" said Pierre from the depths of his heart.

Taken by surprise, with the ship at anchor-aroused from the deep sleep of the hours after midnight, and startled by Alexiano's mad bellow-speaking no common tongue, and the most of them landsmen, it was natural enough that the men of the Vladimir should be out of hand.

Hassan of Algiers had closed the jaws of the trap upon them.

From under the poop lantern Ivak emerged completely clad and looking pleased with events. He grinned when he saw Pierre with one eye on Dmitri, who had had worse chances and less provocation than this to use a knife on an enemy.

"Come along, Pietr, show me the way to the lopazik. I have leave to go there. I'll take you."

"Well, in an hour we'll all be eating breakfast in purgatory, off the leaving of the saints' table above."

Dmitri grinned and rolled off to launch himself into the noisiest group in the waist, sending men to right and left, calling them unmentionable names.

While they waited for the topmen who had gathered at the after companion, Ivak explained that Dmitri was a former pirate of the Dnieper, a first-class pilot who would fight for his bread and salt and was worth a dozen men.

Pierre jumped to the bulwarks, running up the ratlines, and deriving some satisfaction from watching Ivak, who wore boots, laboring in the shrouds with a musket and powder horn.

When they stood in the maintop, under the clewed-up topsail, he heard a voice give an order through a trumpet from the poop rail.

"The admiral will pistol any man not found at his place."

By degrees quiet was restored, and Pierre saw-now that the battle lanterns were lighted-boys bringing up powder, and the crews gathering around the guns on the spar deck. Looking over the rail he could make out Jones at intervals, going quietly around the ship, exchanging a word or two with the gun captains.

Meanwhile Ivak had sighted the Turks. The keen eyes of the Cossack, accustomed to the murk of starlight, had picked out the blur of sails that showed well down the Liman. No more shots were fired, and after an hour Pierre wondered why the Turks had come no nearer. The wind had hauled steadily to the northeast, so that the Turks no longer had it over the stern.

Dawn revealed the reason why the Turks had held back. The largest ship, that of Hassan himself, which was headed for the Vladimir, had run aground on a shoal. Several feluccas were endeavoring to get the threedecker off, and the rest of the fleet was standing by.

Chapter VII

When the fat grow lean, the lean must die; when the leaders of the herd falter and look to right and left, the weakest fall by the wayside.

-Kirghiz Proverb

The efforts of the Turks to work the flagship off the shoal were hindered by the wind. An hour after sunrise it had hauled to the north-northeast.

Jones waited, watching through his glass the confused movements of the Moslems and paying no attention to the advice of Alexiano to draw his ships back into the river behind them while the wind still permitted.

The mishap to Hassan was a bit of luck; the change in the wind was another. Paul Jones made the most of both, unexpectedly. He ordered two signals set. One was for his squadron to advance line abreast and engage the enemy. The other was for Nassau's flotilla to follow.

The Vladimir raised its anchor and made sail, after a fashion. Under top- and foresails, the line of black vessels stood down the Liman, white water showing under the clumsy bows. Because the foreign ship captains knew their business, because Jones himself had charted the course of the channel, and mainly because even untried Russian seamen cannot go far wrong with a fair wind dead astern, none of the vessels fouled and none grounded, although at times muddy water was to be seen around the hulls. The line was ragged, as seen from the poop of the Vladimir; but the Moslems on their hundred-and-twenty-odd vessels could not know the weakness of the Russian squadron.

A puff of smoke showed on the bows of Hassan's ship-of-the-line, and rolled to leeward. White smoke, pierced by the orange flashes of the guns, poured over the water in front of the accompanying frigates.

Jones set a course that would take him between the stranded vessel and the second largest of the Turks and held his fire, Alexiano arguing fiercely against both courses.

Something whined overhead-clattered-and white splinters dropped on the poop deck. A block and tackle thumped down by the quartermaster at the wheel, who glanced at it and up at the sails. Then he spat on the deck and planted his feet.

A rumble as of a laden cart going over a bridge came from somewhere in front of the Vladimir. The first broadside struck them. White fragments whirred from the bole of the foremast, splinters that rose and fell like spray. A gun carriage slewed around, dismounted. Those who remained standing among the gun crew turned to stare at their mates who sat and writhed on the deck.

A red-cheeked infantryman held out his right arm as if it were something he had never seen before. Blood from veins slashed open spattered on his feet. Dmitri ordered the survivors to carry the wounded below, and bellowed for a lad to empty a box of sand over the growing wetness on the white deck.

The man with the slashed forearm did not seem to know what to do.

"Down with ye to the pit, little brother," grinned Dmitri. "Others will see a deeper pit before this sun sets."

He glanced up at the sunlight, full on the bellying sails, and a man laughed. Others swore, fidgeting in their places. Another broadside whined and rattled overhead and they ducked falling gear.

"Too high!" called out Dmitri. "We aren't up with the angels yet."

Then the roar of the maindeck guns, which made the planks leap under their bare feet, snapped the inertia of the men. Smoke swirled up and around them, and the side tackle men who were nearest the ports peered out to see the result. They began to shout hoarsely because they could see where hits had been made. Jones had waited until even unskilled gunners could do execution.

This was necessary, too, because among the numerous shoals he could not wear ship-to bring first one broadside then the other to bear. So he headed in between the largest of the Turks, more slowly now because the wind began to fail.

For a few moments his ships were targets for a destructive fire. The Turks served their guns rapidly. Many of the Moslems had dropped anchor to keep from running aground, and were in a position to rake the Russians as the latter came up, sluggish in the light wind. And now the flotilla of Hassan-a hundred-odd feluccas and xebecs in the shallows of the far bank-opened up with heavy forty-two-pounders and mortars.

Being out of range of the lighter guns of the Russian squadron, they could fire at leisure, and the effect of their fire was visible.