Swords From the Sea (51 page)

Through the cloud of rolling smoke that hemmed in the lower decks of the Vladimir the masts of the frigate alongside were seen to list sharply. This vessel, the Little Alexander, had been hit several times between wind and water, and was sinking. Another bark near the end of the line had been dismasted and was drifting down on the Turks. Above the growl of the guns the men on the Vladimir could hear a roaring that was like the muttering sigh of surf on a rocky shore. This was the ululation of the Moslems.

"Allah akbar-allah, il-allah!"

To Pierre Pillon and Ivak, who were leaning on the rail of the maintop, waiting the time when they could use their muskets, this sound was familiar. They looked at each other gravely, and Ivak bent his head to Pierre's ear.

"The decks of those ships are crowded with men. I can see the coats of Osmanli infantry. They have more than we-twice as many. Will Paul try to board them, do you think?"

"We will see."

The Provencal turned away to caution the others not to fire until they could bring down a man with a bullet.

Although a boatswain's mate had been placed in charge of the half dozen in the fighting top, no one except Pierre knew what was expected of them, and as men will when life is at stake and decisions must be made, they began to listen to Pierre, those who understood his lingua franca explaining to the others.

He wrapped the netting they found lying on the platform about the rail, to check flying splinters. He stacked the grenades near the mast and told off the quietest of the lot to hold the lighted linstock, waving it gently so the flame would not go out, against the time when the fuses of the grenades were to be ignited.

A faint hail from the quarterdeck reached their ears, and was repeated, while the Russians stared blankly at Pierre, who had not understood.

"Ahoy the maintop!" Dmitri's stentorian voice clove through the uproar. "By the eyes of , are ye all dead in the tops? The admiral asks whether ye can see our flotilla, and tell him its position."

The pall of smoke below them hid their surroundings, but Pierre climbed over the rail and dropped to the mainyard.

"Aye, aye!" He went out to the end and came back to shout down at the boatswain.

"The flotilla lags behind, half a league."

Nassau's boats, instead of following up and engaging the Turk's flotilla, were making little way, obviously hanging back. For a moment Pierre stared down at the deck. Paul Jones was standing at the break of the poop, watching the Little Alexander through his glass. For a while Pierre searched for Alexiano in vain.

Then he saw him run out from the main cabin to the wheel. Cupping his hands, the Greek gave a command that Pierre did not catch. It was obviously in Russian because the sailors on the foredeck shouted a response and in a moment Pierre saw the anchor, loosed from the cat-heads, drop into the water.

"Bon sang!"

It was quite clear to the Provencal that Alexiano had given the order to let go the anchor on his own initiative. Equally clear that Jones could not have understood the order.

But in another second the American turned his head and ran to the side. He had seen or heard the cable going out. Striding to the break of the poop he shouted a question at Alexiano, who shrugged bulky shoulders as if absolving himself from all blame.

What Paul Jones said then no one else heard, but Alexiano flinched as if hit by a bullet and the admiral shouted through the trumpet to man the braces, Edwards interpreting as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"What is happening?" asked Ivak, who was fiddling with the flint in his musket.

Pierre's answering gesture took in the whole ship.

"Hold fast and watch out aloft," he answered.

The Vladimir's snub bow was coming around more and more quickly. The men below braced the maintopsail back in time. The whole mast swayed, and the mizzen-topyard came down with a splintering crash. There was a ripping of planks on the foredeck as the cable ran to its end, snapping off a cat-head and part of the rail.

The great ship swung to her anchor within pistol shot of two Turkish vessels.

For a moment there was a lull as the guns on all three ships were trained anew.

"That sacre enfant du , Alexiano has put us in irons!" cried the Pro- venqal. "And the good God knows we will never get way on us again."

With the sandbar on which the three-decker of Hassan was stranded and the two ships hemming them in, with the wind now light and baf fling, with their anchor down, they were as good as dismasted. The sailing qualities of the Vladimir were poor under the best conditions.

"Nay," the Cossack grunted, "the man is no more than a coward. He has arranged matters so we will not board the Moslems. Ekh, what now?"

Anew, the diapason of the guns roared below them. A shrill whining filled the air. Pierre coughed as the powder fumes got into his lungs, and leveled his weapon at the throngs of men that swarmed on the deck of Hassan's ship.

Smoke formed a swirling pall around them, out of which thrust the masts and sails. The firing quickened into a steady roar.

Whatever their failings, the ships that had followed the Vladimir into action stood to their guns. It was Pierre who first noticed that the starboard battery had ceased firing. After peering down a moment, he pulled his men away from that side of the fighting top.

"The big ship has struck its flag!" he shouted gleefully.

The guns of Hassan's three-decker no longer flashed and smoked. Its foremast had fallen, bringing with it the mainyard, and its hull was scarred and rent open. The other three-decker, anchored off the Vladimir's larboard quarter, was now confronted by two Russian vessels, and, seeing that Hassan had surrendered, slipped its cable.

Slowly its head came around, as the wind filled its sails.

"What now?" asked Ivak, ramming home a charge in his musket.

"Pick off the men at that wheel!" exclaimed Pierre.

Taking careful aim he fired, and saw the half-naked seaman who had been turning over the great wheel stagger and raise a hand to his shoulder. Another ran to take his place, and the three-decker slid away from them.

The sharpshooters in the mizzen top of the Vladimir were following Pierre's example, but without his success. Ivak, who had finished loading, thrust the men away from in front of him and raised his piece slowly, lowered it as smoke drifted in front of him, and sighted again, without taking a rest on the rail.

He pressed the trigger, and Pierre saw the Moslem helmsman drop to the planks. Confusion reigned on the crowded deck, and for a moment no one came to take the wheel. The great ship drifted away from them, until the Vladimir's guns no longer could be brought to bear on it.

Then it stopped suddenly, spars quivering. The masts listed, until the tiers of guns pointed skyward and at the surface of the water. Pierre, watching, saw its flag come down, and knew that it was fast aground on one of the shoals that fringed the channel of the Liman.

"What now?" asked Ivak, who had loaded again, and was looking around for something to shoot at.

For several moments Pierre did not answer. The firing was dwindling near the Vladimir and the smoke had cleared away.

The main squadron of the Turks, disheartened by the surrender of the flagship, had lost all formation. At least three frigates, trying to flee, had run aground. Two others were sinking, and the rest were making all efforts to escape down the Liman.

Jones had taken instant advantage of the turn in the tide of affairs, and signaled Fanshawe, who was in command of four frigates on the left of his line, to head down the Liman and head off the Turks at the narrow entrance.

Fearing now that they would be cut off, the remaining Turks were in utter disorder. Only the strong flotilla, in the shallows where Jones's ships could not penetrate, were keeping up a steady fire.

"Good!" exclaimed Pierre, grinning at Ivak. "You see what you have done. Behold, that three-decker has surrendered."

He spoke lightly, but Ivak was palpably astonished, glancing from his musket to the great ship. Then he set down his gun, and took out pipe and tobacco sack from his girdle. Filling the bowl, he seized the still-burning linstock and got a light from it.

"By the horns of the uncrowned one! " he muttered. "We had some sport from our lopazik after all. But to my mind a tiger has a lot more fight in him than that thing yonder."

After pondering this a while he went back to the bole of the mast and sat down, spreading his legs out at a comfortable angle and looking up at Pierre speculatively.

"If this is a battle of ships," he observed, "it is no more than a dogfight. The dogs snarl and yelp and the fur flies. Then they go off and lick their rips, and that's the end of it."

But Ivak had not yet seen the end of this.

Chapter VIII

Nassau Bears a Hand

A haze of powder smoke and heat overhung the Liman. Through this murk the cyclopean eye of the sun glared on battered ships, and men that toiled unceasingly. In the weed- and wreckage-strewn water, this eye of the sun marked a glowing path as it sank to rest.

And through the haze slipped a white winged thing, as a gull, circling among clouds, flashes into a ray of light.

It came up swiftly on a long slant toward the smoking deck of the stranded Turkish flagship. The men in the maintop of the Vladimir identified it as an Algerian sailing galley; its rake and shear, twin lateen sails, and high poop with gilded and carved woodwork were unmistakable, even if it had not carried the green flag with a silver crescent at the masthead.

"The galley of the captain-pasha," Ivak pronounced. "Hassan keeps his sea wolves aboard it."

They watched it pass under the far rail of the Turkish three-decker, losing way as its sails were blanketed by the mass of the line-of-battle ship. Then they saw several men jump from the waist of the larger vessel to the high poop of the galley. At once the Algerians headed away, keeping the three-decker between them and the guns of the Vladimir.

"Smartly done," assented Pierre. "There's a sting in those hornets yet." He could make out men in white and red cloaks who wore turbans different from the peaked headgear of the Turks. They crowded around one powerful figure in yellow. A scimitar was drawn and waved defiantly at the Russians, who were beyond musket shot.

"Aye," nodded Ivak, puckering his brows. "It is in my mind that Hassan escaped on that vessel. I will climb down from this tree and tell Paul what we have seen."

It was no easy matter to go down the damaged ratlines, but he made the deck. He stepped over a great rent in the planking, and, circling a group at work getting a gun back on its carriage with crowbars and tackle, bumped into Dmitri, who was swinging an ax at the wreckage of the mizzen top-yard.

In its fall this had smashed the wheel, putting the Vladimir out of commission for at least a few hours.

Dmitri turned with a barbed oath that changed to a grin when he saw the Cossack.

"Out of the way, Uncle. This is not your place."

"Where is Little Father Paul? What is Alexiano doing?"

By way of answer Dmitri pointed with the ax. The Greek flag-captain was standing by the gangway head, waiting until a boat could take him off to a felucca that had come up when the firing stopped. Ivak watched until he saw Alexiano go over the rail of the little vessel and the felucca stood off to the other side of the Liman. Then he touched Dmitri's shoulder.

"Tell me, Pantaloons, is that big buffalo in the boat with one sail going to give chase to Hassan's galley?"

"Not he! His excellency-" and he smiled scornfully-"was sent by Paul to bring up the flotilla. By the holy name-days, was Hassan's galley about here?"

Ivak explained what they had seen from the maintop.

"Rare prize money escaped us then," Dmitri muttered. "'Tis said the cabins of the pasha are plated with gold. Paul is below in the steerage, fitting a spare tiller to the rudder stem."

As he made his way below Ivak reflected that Alexiano was where he could do no more harm for the time being. He found Jones with his coat off, helping some sailors rigging give-and-take tackle, to steer by hand. Through the interpreter, the Cossack made his report, and Jones looked up with a smile-in good spirits as always when there was action in view.

"Gentlemen, we have not done with the captain-pasha. Ivak, did you have good hunting from your lopazik?"

Near at hand heavy guns boomed, and the sailors glanced at the American questioningly. Motioning them to continue their work, Paul Jones started for the upper deck without waiting to put on his coat. When Ivak and the Englishman gained the poop ladder, they found him standing at the rail, his swarthy face tense.

All around them barges and squat sloops were pressing forward slowly, firing on the stranded Turks. Ivak saw the mortar on a bomb ketch flare, and watched a flaming shell describe an arc crashing into the waist of the dismasted three-decker.

He heard a faint outcry following the explosion of the bomb, but the Turks made no effort to answer this new attack, being unable to bring what guns remained serviceable to bear on the gunboats, or perhaps accepting with the resignation of their race the kismet that was in store for them. Ivak had heard it said that the Russian flotilla under Nassau-Siegen had come up at last, and instead of engaging the Turkish gunboats, was destroying the ships that had already surrendered.

"If they had arrived an hour earlier," grumbled the Englishman, Edwards, "we would have accounted for all Hassan's squadron, instead of half. Nine frigates got by Fanshawe and put to sea."

Rowed by fifty sweeps, a long barge was approaching the Vladimir. Its prow bore an enormous bronze eagle; its stern was roofed over with tim hers carved and gilded. Under this was a space where a half-dozen men sat. At one time this barge had carried the empress upon an inspection of the new fleet. Now it was devoted to the use of Nassau, who sat on a divan, nursing a sword between his knees.

"Monsieur le Prince," Jones hailed in his clear voice as soon as the barge was within hearing, "those ships have struck. They are our prizes."