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Updated: May 31, 2025
To this I replied that having been confined during the whole of my captivity between two guns, on the lower-deck, I had had no means of gaining any information whatever, either upon the points mentioned, or indeed any others. My statement was received with a look of incredulity and a dissatisfied grunt.
I'll die like an Englishman this day, or I'll know the reason why!" and turning, he sprang in over the bulwarks, as the huge ship rolled up more and more, like a dying whale, exposing all her long black hulk almost down to the keel, and one of her lower-deck guns as if in defiance exploded upright into the air, hurling the ball to the very heavens.
They now cleared the hold, ready to start their water to lighten the ship; got their upper and lower-deck guns forwards, to bring her by the head as she hung abaft on the rocks, and kept two guns constantly firing from the stern-ports at the enemy's battery, but could not get them to bear.
These guns she carried on two decks, but the lower-deck ports were so close to the water's edge that it was dangerous to open them in a seaway, besides which the space between decks was so low that it was with difficulty they could be worked, while the upper-deck had only a light breast-high bulwark.
The flesh gladdened the hearts of the crew and lower-deck passengers and also of the inhabitants of Lembarene, who got dashes of it on our arrival there. Hippo flesh is not to be despised by black man or white; I have enjoyed it far more than the stringy beef or vapid goat's flesh one gets down here.
Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the deck planking, butt first, and one of them jumped clean up into the air and came down again close to my head." "How was that managed?" "The moving galley's bow was plunking them back through their own oar-holes, and I could hear the devil of a shindy in the decks below.
On the lower-deck of the Tremendous hell had broken loose, in flame and smoke and horrible bellowings. The little ship was racked. In her agony she quivered from truck to keel. Suddenly the spars of the Cocotte above him began to crackle and blaze. Plip-plop-plank! the bullets smacked all about him. He was under fire and he didn't like it.
There was a heavy sea running at the time, and, big as were our ships, they kept tumbling about so much that we were unable to fight our lower-deck guns. The captain of one of the French ships, the Thesee, engaged with the Torbay, thought that he could do so; and Captain Keppel, who commanded the English seventy-four, unwisely followed his example.
They told the mess-men to navigate towards the extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is that our Number One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job.
Often as the superiority of British courage has been proved against France upon the seas, it was never more conspicuous than in this decisive conflict. Five of our ships were engaged muzzle to muzzle with five of the French. In all five the Frenchmen lowered their lower-deck ports, and deserted their guns; while our men continued deliberately to load and fire till they had made the victory secure.
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