A Rage for Glory by James Tertius de Kay

Author:James Tertius de Kay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FREE PRESS
Published: 2004-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

As Decatur’s ship wore to starboard in an attempt to gain the weather gauge, the stranger anticipated the move and hauled up, thwarting the American and forcing Decatur to wear again, this time to larboard.

But while the stranger had skillfully protected a tactical advantage, her move revealed an important fact—she had only a single gun deck. She was a frigate after all, but of whose navy? Moments later in answer the stranger ran up a huge Union Jack. She was indeed British, and that meant there would be a fight. A great cheer broke out on the ship. Decatur ordered the American colors displayed, and there was another shout when the Stars and Stripes unfurled overhead, snapping briskly from each mast. Doubtless, there was an equivalent burst of enthusiasm on the British ship. These men lived to fight.

By now the two ships were running side by side in the same direction on a parallel course toward the morning sun, separated by perhaps a mile of open sea. Decatur wanted a sense of the range, and ordered a broadside. Moments later, there was a ragged paroxysm of thunder as one after another of the guns fired, making the decks jump and sending up a white cloud of smoke that all but obscured the British ship. Leaning through the smoke, Decatur could just make out the splashes as the shots fell short—but not by much. Those had been double-shotted guns. With single rounds, he knew he could now reach the enemy every time, and gave the order to fire at will.

William Henry Allen, Decatur’s first lieutenant, broke into a broad grin as he relayed the order. Allen was the man who had fired the only shot from the Chesapeake back in 1807. He had spent years exercising the crew of the United States in anticipation of this day. Every night, he and the other officers had spent endless hours discussing the pros and cons of various theories of naval warfare. How you mixed your shot made all the difference: grape and canister to scatter the enemy, chain and langrage to cut up the sails and rigging, solid shot to hole the hull and wound or carry away the masts. Allen knew precisely how he wanted to fight the guns. He and Decatur had long since determined that the most efficient tactic was to concentrate first on the sails and rigging. Take away a ship’s ability to maneuver, and she would be helpless to fight back.

The battle was joined, and both ships now opened fire in earnest. Decatur stood on the quarterdeck where he could not see his twenty-four-pounders below on the gun deck, but he could hear and feel them, and he liked the noise they made, and the shocks they sent through the ship. They were firing at such a rapid rate that it was difficult to see through the thick smoke, which clung to the ship’s rigging, even as she pushed rapidly through the sea. Lieutenant Allen had trained his gun crews well.

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