James Barnes - With The Flag In The Channel

If the crew had been surprised at what they had just witnessed, they were soon to be more so. The two men appeared and, hat in hand, stood at the mast. Higgins carried in one hand a bundle of iron nails and in the other the ax, one side of which was flat like a hammer.

Captain Conyngham ordered him to step forward, and he handed the nails and ax to Mr. Jarvis, who stood wonderingly by his side.

“Higgins,” asked Captain Conyngham sternly, “do you know what I want these for?”

“No, sir.”

The man was pale, but over his face there flickered a smile of affected amusement or bravado.

“I’ll show you. – McCarthy, step up here.”

The two men stood before him.

“Now, Higgins,” said Conyngham sternly, “I’ll tell you what I wanted the nails and ax for. I wanted to nail the lies that you are going to tell me.”

The man began to protest feebly, and the captain stopped him.

“What were you saying just as that cutter came within hailing distance?”

“I was saying nothing, sir.”

“Lie number one; you were.”

The captain changed one of the nails from one hand into the other.

“You, McCarthy, what did you say to Higgins?”

“I said nothing, sir.”

“Lie number two.”

The captain looked from one to the other with his piercing eyes, and then, almost without a movement of preparation, his bare fists shot out to left and right, and the men dropped where they stood like knackered beeves.

It had all come so suddenly that the crew, at least those who had been watching, were held spellbound in astonishment. Even Mr. Jarvis looked frightened, and gazed at his superior officer, wondering if he had lost his senses.

“Here, pick these men up, some of you, and put them on their feet,” ordered Conyngham sternly.

Half dazed, the two men were propped against the railing.

“What are you doing aboard this vessel?”

“Sailing as honest seamen,” responded the Englishman, who had recovered his equilibrium in a measure, and in whose eyes glared a fierce light of mad hatred, as he returned Conyngham’s steadfast look.

“Lie number three. But we won’t go on. I’ll tell you what you said. When you saw that we were outpointing that cutter, you said that when she was near enough to hail, you would take your knife and cut away the sheets, and that McCarthy here would let go the jib-halyards, and that you would then – ” he paused suddenly. “Open your shirt,” he ordered.

The men’s faces were white and terrified. Higgins fumbled weakly at his breast and then, all at once, collapsed forward on the deck. He had fainted dead away.

Acting on Conyngham’s orders, Mr. Jarvis bent over the prostrate man and drew forth and displayed, to the astonished eyes of all, a small British Union Jack.

The crew fell to murmuring. Captain Conyngham was all smiles again. He waited until Higgins had been revived by a dash of cold water. Then he spoke to the two frightened and now trembling men.

“Your conduct shall be reported,” he said, “to Messrs. Lester and Flackman, secret agents of the British Crown. They should not employ such joltheads. Now below with these rascals. Put them in irons, Mr. Jarvis.”

In charge of the first mate and the boatswain, the two prisoners were marched below. The captain resumed his hurried pacing of the quarter-deck, and the crew suddenly jumped at his order to shorten sail, for the wind had increased and was blowing in unsteady puffs.

During the early hours of the night it blew half a gale, but died away in the early morning hours, and at daybreak the Peggy found herself jumping uneasily in the rough water with her sails flapping idly against the masts. All about her was a thick opaque white haze. One of the Channel mists had suddenly swept down from the north. It was almost impossible to see even the length of the deck.

The lookout forward, who had been peering over the bows, came stumbling aft to where the first mate, whose watch it was, stood by the wheel.

“There’s a vessel close off our bow, sir; listen, and you can hear her! She can’t be more than a pistol-shot away.”

In the stillness there could be heard the slow squeaking and creaking of blocks and yards, and even the faint tapping of the reef-points against the sails, as she rose and fell to the seas. Clearer and clearer it sounded every minute.

Slowly but surely the two ships were drifting together.

“Jump below and call the captain to the deck,” ordered Mr. Jarvis quietly.

It was evident the Charming Peggy was in for further adventures.

By the time that Captain Conyngham reached the deck the outlines of the stranger could be seen. She towered huge and indistinct in the white gloom high above the little Peggy, almost threatening to roll her down as she swept broadside on.

“A frigate!” muttered Conyngham below his breath to Mr. Jarvis, as he noticed the double line of ports out of which the black muzzles of the guns stretched menacingly. Just as he spoke the Charming Peggy’s bowsprit struck gently in the foreshrouds of the big one, and with hardly a jar they came together. Strange to say there had been no warning shout from either side. But that the larger vessel had perceived the Peggy first was evident, for instantly half a score of men, a few armed with cutlasses, swarmed down the frigate’s side and jumped on deck. They were headed by a young officer, who walked quickly aft.

“What vessel is this?” he asked.

There was no use in dissembling then. Plainly the jig was up with a vengeance.

Quietly, with his arms folded, Captain Conyngham gave the name of the Charming Peggy, but added that she was merely a merchant vessel from Philadelphia in ballast proceeding to Holland to be sold.

At this moment a voice from the frigate hailed the deck, and, calling the young officer by name, asked him the name of the clumsy craft that had dared to run afoul so deliberately of one of his Majesty’s ships of war.

“A Yankee rebel brig,” returned the young officer. “I think we’ve made a prize, sir; and she’s armed, too,” he added, noticing for the first time the six-pounder amidships.

The unseen owner of the voice from the frigate’s quarter-deck replied again.

“Examine into her papers and if she’s all right let her proceed. If not, we’ll put a prize crew on her and send her into Portsmouth.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” was the lieutenant’s answer, and then he turned and requested that Captain Conyngham would produce his papers and muster his crew in the waist.

Conyngham politely asked the young officer to follow him down to the cabin. As he opened the chest that contained the charts and papers his mind was working quickly. He knew that it might be easy to claim that the Charming Peggy was the property of loyal British subjects, for there was nothing to prove otherwise. No one but himself and Mr. Jarvis knew what her mission was, and he did not doubt that he could pull the wool over the young officer’s eyes, if it were not for the presence of the two plotters now confined in the forward hold. If their presence should be discovered and their story listened to, he doubted if anything he might say could save him from being taken into a British port; and the prospect before him was exceedingly unpleasant, in view of the fact that in his mind a long war was about to begin. Still, he hoped that the officer’s search would not prove a diligent one, and that the presence of Higgins and McCarthy would not be discovered. The officer looked at the papers carefully, and his words after glancing at them cast a gloom upon Captain Conyngham’s hopes.

“I shall have to take a look into your hold,” he said peremptorily, “and ask a few questions of the crew.”