The Captain of H. B. M. Ship Diamond Rock
The Tale of a Strange Ship Off Martinique
“Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.”
Scott
I — The Condition
“I am a passed midshipman now, Dorothy dear, and I’m certain to get my swab——”
“Swab, Mr. Maurice?” interrupted the young lady, archly.
“Yes, my epaulet—a lieutenant’s commission—this year; you know what I mean, Miss Venour. And, oh, I do love you so! With my pay and what father will allow me and what your grandfather will allow you we can get along,—that is, if you love me well enough to try it.”
There was a long pause. The young lady looked down at her feet, while the arm of the young man stole around her waist. Tired at last of waiting, though the position was a charming one, the young officer recalled her to herself by a slight squeeze, which was answered by a delightful little shriek from the girl.
“What was it you were saying?” she asked, hurriedly drawing away.
“I was telling you that I loved you,” he answered with dignity, releasing her, “and asking you to marry me when I got to be a lieutenant, if you love me. You do, don’t you, Dorothy?” abandoning his stateliness and bending toward her entreatingly.
“Ye—es, I—I—I think so, Mr. Maurice—James, then,” she continued, in compliance with a deprecatory wave of his hand, “or Jim—or—” she hesitated a moment and added the word “dear.”
His face brightened. He sprang toward her in boyish delight; but she checked his rush with a pretty little motion, and continued, calmly,—
“You are a very nice boy indeed, but you are so young, you know——”
“Young!” he replied; “I am nineteen, and you are only seventeen yourself! You are scarcely old enough to be married.”
“I am,” she said, promptly; “I am old enough for anything.”
“Old enough for me, Dot? Say, ‘Yes!’ You know I’m sure to come out a lieutenant from this cruise, and then you will be a year older, too, you know, and—oh, Dot, do take me! You’d better take me now, you know; you might not have a chance next year. I’ve been wounded once, and something tells me——”
He paused gloomily.
“Oh, Jim,” she cried, “don’t speak of it! But grandfather will never consent. You know perfectly well a lieutenant’s pay does not amount to anything, and——”
“You are right there, Dot,” broke in a deep voice, as a stout, red-faced old man in the uniform of a captain in the navy came strolling out upon the beach from behind a clump of rocks.
“Captain Venour!” exclaimed the young officer, starting back in dismay.
“Oh, grandfather, you have been listening! How shocking!” cried Dorothy.
“Listening!” snorted the old man, contemptuously, with a nice mixture of metaphors; “why, this young calf here has been roaring out his love like the bulls of Bashan.”
“Sir—sir!” exclaimed Maurice, flushing painfully, “I love your granddaughter——”
“Stale news, lad. Everybody within half a mile of this knows it now,” said the old man. “Why, the smack of your——”
“Grandfather!” interrupted Dorothy, promptly, emulating her lover’s blush.
“And I want to marry her, sir, with your permission.”
“Marry her!” shouted Captain Venour. “On the pay of a midshipman! You young——”
“I’m a passed midshipman now, sir,” interrupted Maurice, “and I’m sure to be a lieutenant when I come back from this cruise to the West Indies,—and she says she loves me and that she will wait; didn’t you, Dot?”
“Miss Venour, sir!” roared the old man, “in my presence! Did you make any foolish promises to this young man, Dorothy?”
“I—ye—es, sir; I said I—I’d—I’d wait,” answered Dorothy, reluctantly.
“Yes? Well, you will; you’ll wait until he gets to be a captain. A man isn’t fit to be married until he has had command of a ship and three or four hundred men; he doesn’t know how to manage a wife. Look at me! I married when I was a midshipman and—and—I know.”
“But, sir, it will be fifteen years before I am a captain! Why, you weren’t a captain yourself until you were forty, and I can never hope to equal your record.”
“No more you won’t,” said the old man, somewhat mollified by the adroit compliment.
“Oh, grandfather, not forty years! We couldn’t wait until then! Why, I’m only seventeen now, sir, and James—Mr. Maurice—is only nineteen. Please, sir——”
Dorothy dropped on her knees on the sand before him, and at a motion of her hand Maurice did likewise.
“Get up, get up, you young fools!” said the old man; “suppose some one should see us!”
“No, sir,” said Dorothy, grasping the skirts of his coat tightly; “not until you modify your terms. You know he loves me, and—and—and I am so sorry for him,” she added, ingenuously.
“Well,” said the captain, to whom Dorothy was as the apple of his eye, “I’ll knock off a little. He can marry you when he has command of a ship. If he is lucky, he might be made a lieutenant-commandant in five years. Now, up with you!”
The young people struggled to their feet and looked sadly at each other.
“Five years!” ejaculated the midshipman, mournfully.
“It’s better than twenty, Jim,” said Dorothy, cheerfully. “Can’t you wait?”
“Wait! I will wait forever, Dot, I love you so——”
“Waugh!” roared the old captain, “are you going on with these proceedings before my very eyes, at my age? It’s indecent! There,” he added, turning his back to them and walking away a few steps, at the same time pulling an old silver watch from his pocket, “I’ll give you just five minutes; and take my advice, youngster, when you cut out a prize under convoy of a ship-of-the-line, don’t make so much noise about it.”
“I’ll get a command inside of a year, Dot darling, or die in trying,” whispered the young man.
“I would rather have you alive without a command than dead with one, Jim,” remarked Dorothy through her tears as the old captain came back toward them.
“Now, I take it, you have just about time to make the harbor around yonder point where your ship is waiting for you,” he said. “You’ve said your good-bys, and you’ve got your answer, so you’d better up anchor and make a run for it. I’ll take care Dot keeps her word, and mind you keep yours! Good-by and good luck to you. If you are half as impudent in the face of the enemy as you have been to me here, you will get the ship in a week.”
The young midshipman clasped the proffered hand of the retired old sea-captain, wrung it warmly, looked longingly at Dorothy dissolved in tears on her grandfather’s shoulder, and then turned and made his way slowly down the beach toward the town and the harbor.
II — The Undertaking
H. B. M.’s ship-of-the-line Centaur, 74, Captain Murray Maxwell, flying the broad pennant of Commodore Samuel Hood, was cruising to and fro off the island of Martinique, in front of Fort Royal Bay, to blockade the port and capture in- and out-bound vessels. One afternoon in the month of January, 1804, the commodore and the captain were standing at the break of the poop discussing a problem. They had just been in chase of a fast-sailing French frigate, which had escaped them by boldly running under the lee of Diamond Rock, whither, through ignorance of the channel and want of pilots, they dared not follow. The thing had happened half a dozen times in the past month, and the commodore naturally was exasperated.
The rock itself was a huge mass of naked stone, about a mile in circumference at the base, and towering out of the water to a height of some six hundred feet, in shape resembling a rounded haystack. On the southward side the rock, sloping precipitously down to the water’s edge, was absolutely unscalable. The east and southwestern sides were so broken as to be equally inaccessible, and the breakers, smashing with tremendous force on the western end, made landing difficult or impossible. The officer of the watch that afternoon, who happened to be our quondam midshipman, James Wilkes Maurice, who had, by a series of fortunate accidents and some gallantry as well, been appointed a lieutenant a month since, could not help overhearing the conversation.
“It’s too bad!” said the commodore. “The scoundrels get under the lee of that rock every time and make a harbor, and I don’t see how we can prevent it unless we get a battery of heavy guns up on the rock; but there appears to be no way up.”
“If you please, sir,” said Maurice, turning about and saluting in great trepidation, for the junior lieutenant was a very small man indeed beside the commodore, “there is a way up, sir. When I was a reefer on the Cerberus she was cruising around here, and one calm day a party of us received permission to go ashore on that pile of stone, and we managed to reach the top.”
“Oho!” exclaimed the commodore, his eyes brightening. “And could you take a gun up?”
“Not the way we went, sir.”
“Well, then, I am afraid your experience will not be of service.”
“But, sir, if I might make so bold, sir——” continued the junior lieutenant, hesitatingly.
“Heave ahead! Out with it!” said the commodore.
“In calm weather, sir, there is no surf on that point, and it would be quite possible, I should think, to take the Centaur in close to the shore, and then with a hawser and a traveller from the main-topmast head we might make shift to land some guns.”
“Capital!” exclaimed the commodore. “What do you think of it, Maxwell?”
“It is for you to say, sir,” replied the cautious captain. “The weather is fine enough to-day, and we might try it. It will be risking His Majesty’s ship, though, sir,” he remarked, gravely.
“Fetch me a glass,” said Sir Samuel, turning to the midshipman of the watch. When it was brought to him he took a long look at the base of the cliff, observing a little stretch of sandy beach, upon which the breakers usually tumbled with tremendous fury. This morning, fortunately, it seemed calm.
“I will answer, sir, that there is deep water under the cliff,” ventured Maurice at this moment.
“Will you answer for the flag-ship, too, sir?” asked the commodore, keenly.
“No, sir, I——”
“I shall have to answer for that myself,” he continued. “We’ll try it, Captain Maxwell; the wind’s off shore, the sea smooth as a mill-pond. We’ll anchor the Centaur close under the lee of the rock off the west side there. Call away a boat. Let Mr. Maurice go in charge, and I myself will accompany him. We’ll examine into the situation.”
The investigation under the commodore proved the practicability of the bold scheme proposed by the young lieutenant. The Centaur was anchored close under the lee of the cliff, and with incredible labor five of her big guns—three long twenty-four-pounders and two eighteen-pounders—were landed on the rock. One end of a heavy cable was fastened to the main-topmast and the other was secured to the top of the cliff. Up this by means of a traveller the heavy guns were dragged. One of the twenty-four-pounders had been fitted upon a circular carriage commanding the landing-place, another was mounted on the northeast side, and the third upon a platform about midway up the rock. The two eighteen-pounders were planted on the very summit and commanded an immense distance. When the commodore had decided to undertake the manning of the rock, Maurice had sought an interview with him and explained his reason for aspiring to the command of the landing party, which would, in the natural course of events, be given to a much older man.
“So your marriage with little Dot Venour depends on your commanding something with a pennant fluttering above, does it? Lord!” roared the commodore, bursting into deep sea laughter, “and you want to hoist your juvenile broad pennant on this rock, and then you’ll want to claim all sorts of privileges, you young dog! I didn’t think that baby was old enough to be married yet, nor you either. Get along with you! I don’t know what my old friend Venour would say if I’d be a party to this mad purpose of yours by giving you the command of this expedition. There, lad, go to your duty; I’ll think about it,” added the commodore, exploding with mirth again.
He thought so well about it, however, that when all preparations had been made, to the very great disgust of the older officers of the ship, he detailed Maurice to the command of the party. On account of his lack of rank, his junior officers were all midshipmen. He and the four midshipmen and one hundred and twenty men and boys, including some of the best seamen, composed the landing party, with four months’ supply of provisions and ammunition. As the Centaur got under way and beat up toward Fort Royal, Maurice tore open an envelope the commodore had handed him when he bade him good-by. It was a commission and orders to command H. B. M.’s sloop-of-war Diamond Rock, five guns and one hundred and twenty men! He almost fell over the precipice in surprise and delight at the situation.
The rock was entirely barren except on the north-west side, where a little depression existed in which there was a group of stunted wild fig-trees. There were two or three caves half-way up to the summit, dry and airy, the floors covered with fine sand, of which the officers chose the smallest, the men another, and all hands made themselves very much at home. The crew was divided into watches, a station bill made out, lookouts appointed, and the regular routine of a man-of-war begun.
They had not long to wait to demonstrate their usefulness. Two days after the departure of the Centaur the lookout on the top of the rock saw a frigate under a tremendous press of canvas endeavoring to run between the rock and the shore and make for Fort Royal. Far away, and coming along like a gigantic white cloud, was a ship which was presently made out to be the Centaur. A drummer-boy, not the least important member of the crew of the Diamond Rock, beat to quarters, the men sprang to their stations, and the huge guns were loaded and carefully trained on the unsuspicious French ship. She came booming along at a terrific pace. Maurice, with a coolness remarkable in one so young, waited until she was well in range, and then, taking careful aim, with the long twenty-four half-way up the summit, ignited the priming.
With a terrific roar the ball sped straight to its mark. They were too far away to hear the crash as it struck the fore-topmast, but the fall of the mast and the confusion on the ship were plainly visible. With hearty British cheers the rest of the battery let drive at the oncoming frigate. One of the eighteens carried away the jib-stay and the jib-halliards. There was great consternation on the French frigate. No one had dreamed of an enemy in that quarter, and before they could make up their minds what to do a second broadside was poured upon them from the rock. Clearly the pass was untenable. The captain of the frigate was a good seaman, and he promptly turned about and made for the sea again. He hoped to escape the Centaur by his speed, but the old ship-of-the-line had the wind and heels of him now and she came rushing down upon the frigate. After a long pursuit and a gallant endeavor the French captain found himself under the Centaur’s guns. There was nothing to do but to surrender. Throwing a prize crew on board, the Centaur ran off toward the rock. When near enough to be seen a string of flags fluttered out from the mizzen-topgallant yard-arm, and the delighted youngsters on the rock read the following:
“Well done, Captain Maurice!”
The men on the Centaur might have almost heard the cheers with which the men and boys on the rock greeted the signal. It had leaked out somehow that the young lieutenant whom they all loved, and to whose forethought the manning of the rock was due, was in some way fighting for his sweetheart as well as his country, and, above all men, the sailor loves a lover.
Scarcely a week passed without a brush with the enemy, and some months elapsed before the French learned that the passage which they had used with so much skill and success was finally closed to them, and, save at night, no vessels attempted the channel—not many then. There had been plenty of excitement during this period, but now all was changed. The Centaur and other ships sailed away, and the crew on the rock had little or no communication with the shore for over a year longer. Their provisions and water were replenished every quarter by a frigate, which was despatched for the purpose. Otherwise they seemed to have been forgotten. The novelty of the situation had worn off, and the monotony had begun to pall upon them dreadfully. Maurice and his young officers were at their wit’s end to find employment for the men and keep them in good spirits. The discipline was, of course, sternly maintained, but, sailor-like, the men tired of the shore and pined for the unsteady deck of a ship; in addition, Maurice longed for Dorothy. He had not been able to send a word, nor had he received a line from that young lady. He was too proud to write to the commodore by one of the provisioning ships, and ask for relief.
One evening about the middle of May, 1805, when the provision-ship was about due on its quarterly trip, the watchers on the rock saw a great fleet of sixteen sail-of-the-line, seven frigates, three corvettes, and a number of smaller vessels, all flying the French flag, running through the channel toward Fort Royal. With joy in their hearts at the opportunity for action, the five guns on the stony sloop-of-war promptly opened fire upon the great French and Spanish fleet of M. de Villeneuve, who was prosecuting his attempt to befool Nelson by giving him that mad chase across the Atlantic and back which ended at Trafalgar.
The French ships returned the fire as they came within range of the rock, and their tremendous broadsides kicked up a deal of noise and cut up the face of the rock somewhat, but did no other damage. The crew of the rock made excellent practice, and, considering their force, rendered the passage interesting to the French. The ennui of the intervening months was forgotten. Villeneuve was furious. Never before had one lieutenant, four midshipmen, and one hundred-odd men (some of them had died during the sojourn) engaged successfully a splendid fleet of line-of-battle-ships. Toward evening one belated Spanish ship unsuspiciously attempted to anchor near the rock, but she was soon driven off with much loss. The elated Englishmen saw the fleet anchor at Fort Royal, now called, in deference to the republican form of government of France, Fort de France. Villeneuve, who was furiously angry, learned from the French at Fort de France that the formidable barrier was held by a handful of men, so he determined to capture the rock, and for that purpose, on the 29th of May, he detached a squadron consisting of the Pluton and Berwick, 74’s, the frigate Sirene, 36, the Argus, 16, an armed schooner, and eleven gun-boats under the command of Commodore Cosmao, of the Pluton, with four hundred troops-of-the-line.
The rock had been blockaded ever since the arrival of the fleet at Martinique. When Maurice saw the ships bearing down upon him at break of day on the 31st of June, 1805, he knew what to expect. Owing to the fact that the supply-ship, which was due, had not arrived,—because of the blockade, doubtless, and the presence of the great French fleet,—Maurice unfortunately found himself with but a scanty supply of powder and shot. He determined to abandon two of the lower guns and concentrate his force about the eighteen-pounders and the twenty-four-pounder half-way up. Spiking the lower guns, thus destroying the battery, he withdrew to the summit of his command. For two days the ships were anchored near by, the mild weather permitting them to come close in. During this period the French poured an unremitting hail of shot upon the stone batteries of the rocky vessel. Maurice and his men answered the fire slowly but with great precision from their three remaining guns. Three of the gun-boats and two other small boats were sunk, and the larger ships were much cut up. The young captain might have protracted his defence indefinitely had not his powder entirely failed him. Observing the English fire to slacken, the French finally landed their troops on the beach at the foot of the rock. The last charge of the twenty-four hurled its iron missive of death among the Frenchmen huddled on the beach. Then, like a flock of goats, they sprang at the cliffs and clambered up the steep sides of the rock, which the fire of the ships cleared with showers of grape-shot. A feeble musketry-fire, for the small cartridges had been torn to contribute powder for the great guns, met them, but they came boldly on. As they swarmed over the rock Maurice and some of the older men struck at the advancing French with their swords. The two men nearest him were killed and he himself was badly wounded. There was nothing left but surrender. A French officer hauled down the English flag. The young captain had lost his first command. H. B. M.’s sloop-of-war Diamond Rock had passed into the hands of Admiral Villeneuve.
When the young captain recovered his senses in the cabin of the Bucentaur, the flag-ship of the French admiral, bound for Europe again, he did not know whether or not he had won Dorothy Venour.
III — The Reward
Early in November, a week or so after the great battle of Trafalgar, which the young captain witnessed from the deck of the French ship, from which in the confusion he escaped to the Victory, where he did good service until the close of the action, he was landed at Portsmouth once more. In his pocket he bore two documents, one dated a year and a half back, and the other but yesterday. Led by an instinct which he could not explain, instead of going up to Captain Venour’s house on the hill, he made his way through the town and along the beach toward that sheltered little cove from which he had taken his departure two years before. As he turned the point of rocks he saw a lonesome little figure seated on the sand, resting her chin in her hand and looking mournfully out over the sea. It was Dorothy. He stole up behind her, caught her under the arms, lifted her to her feet, and kissed her before she could utter a scream. When she recovered, however, she made up for her startled silence.
“Oh, Jim dear!” she cried, precipitating herself into his arms with a shriek of delight, “you look like a real man now!”
“I am a man, Dot darling,” he replied, his eyes brightening as he saw her radiant face peeping out from the brown curls near his shoulder.
“Well, sir,” exclaimed the deep voice of Captain Venour, coming down the beach,—singular how he always happened to be around at inopportune moments,—“you may be a man, but have you a command?”
“Oh, grandfather, he has command of me,” cried Dorothy, archly, breaking away from her lover. “Won’t I do?”
The old captain whistled.
“I’ve had command of a ship-of-the-line and I’ve tried to command one woman, but give me the ship-of-the-line,” he answered, reflectively. “No, you won’t do.”
“Captain Venour,” remarked the young man, gravely, “I have had a command, sir, and in accordance with your agreement I have come to claim your granddaughter.”
“What was your command, my lad?” asked the captain, facetiously, “a dinghy or a jolly-boat?”
“Neither, sir.”
“A cutter, then?”
“No, sir.”
“A brig or a sloop-of-war?”
“No, sir.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the captain; “you don’t mean to say you have been in charge of a frigate or a ship-of-the-line, a boy like you?”
“No, sir, not quite,” said the young man.
“Well, what did you command? Did it have two masts?”
“It didn’t have any masts, sir.”
“No masts!”
“No, sir; it was a rock.”
“Good Lord!” ejaculated the old man, sitting down feebly and staring. “A rock? What do you mean? Are you trifling with me? That is no way to gain the lass.”
“Well, sir,” answered Maurice, gravely, “here are my orders authorizing me to command His Majesty’s sloop-of-war Diamond Rock, five guns and one hundred and twenty men. It’s a great stone hill off Martinique. I commanded it for one year and six months, at the end of which we beat off M. de Villeneuve’s great fleet, and were only captured when our powder gave out, by a heavy squadron which bombarded us for two days. I was wounded——”
“Oh, Jim, wounded!” cried Dorothy, with a shriek of alarm, rushing toward him, while the dazed old man made no movement to prevent her.
“It is nothing, Dot darling,” said the young fellow, manfully, but not making the slightest effort to avoid the caress. “I was wounded and taken on board the French flag-ship Bucentaur, from which I escaped to the Victory at Trafalgar, where Nelson beat the French fleet.”
“Hey? What?” cried the old man. “Beat the French? But, of course, we always do that.”
“I saw him killed, sir,” added young Maurice.
“Who killed?” exclaimed Captain Venour, in astonishment.
“Lord Nelson, sir; right in the height of the battle.”
“Good God!” cried Captain Venour. “Nelson gone? He was a reefer under me on the Hinchinbrook. It can’t be possible!”
“Yes, sir, it is,” replied the young captain.
There was a long pause.
“What next, sir?” asked Captain Venour.
“Well, sir, I swung myself on board the Victory in the action. Captain Hardy recognized me and gave me a gun division whose lieutenant had been killed, and—and that’s all. No, sir; here’s a paper from Lord Collingwood, who succeeded to the command after Lord Nelson died, recommending me to be appointed post-captain, and—and—that’s all, sir. May I have Dorothy now, sir?”
“You may,” answered the captain, feebly, utterly overcome by the astonishing recital. “Any man who has commanded a six-million-ton rock and fought at Trafalgar can have anything he wants,—if Dorothy is willing.”
Dorothy signified unmistakably that she was willing.
“Poor Nelson!” continued the old captain. He rose slowly to his feet and turned away again, saying,—
“I will turn my back once more, young people, and mind, do it softly!”