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Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England | |
Medical Life in the Navy | |
By Gordon Stables | |
Published by Robert Hardwicke, 192 Picadilly, London. | |
This edition dated 1868. | |
Medical Life in the Navy, by Gordon Stables. | |
________________________________________________________________________ | |
________________________________________________________________________ | |
MEDICAL LIFE IN THE NAVY, BY GORDON STABLES. | |
CHAPTER ONE. | |
BY RAIL TO LONDON. LITTLE MOONFACE. EUSTON SQUARE. | |
I chose the navy. I am not at all certain what it was that determined | |
my choice; probably this--I have a mole on my left arm, which my | |
gossiping old nurse (rest the old lady's soul!) used to assert was a | |
sure sign that I was born to be a rover. Then I had been several | |
voyages to the Arctic regions, and therefore knew what a sea-life meant, | |
and what it didn't mean; that, no doubt, combined with an extensive | |
acquaintance with the novels of Captain Marryat, had much to do with it. | |
Be this as it may, I did choose that service, and have never yet | |
repented doing so. | |
Well, after a six weeks' preparatory read-up I packed my traps, taking | |
care not to forget my class-tickets--to prove the number of lectures | |
attended each course--a certificate of age and another of virtue, my | |
degree in surgery (M.Ch.), and my M.D. or medical degree; and with a | |
stick in my hand, and a porter at my side, I set out for the nearest | |
railway station. Previously, of course, I had bidden double adieus to | |
all my friends, had a great many blessings hurled after me, and not a | |
few old shoes; had kissed a whole family of pretty cousins, ingeniously | |
commencing with the grandmother, although she happened to be as yellow | |
as a withered dock-leaf, and wrinkled as a Malaga raisin; had composed | |
innumerable verses, and burned them as soon as written. | |
"Ticket for London, please," said I, after giving a final wipe to my | |
eyes with the cuff of my coat. | |
"Four, two, six," was the laconic reply from the Jack-in-the-box; and | |
this I understood to mean 4 pounds 2 shillings 6 pence of the sterling | |
money of the realm--for the young gentleman, like most of his class, | |
talked as if he were merely a column in a ledger and had pound shilling | |
penny written on his classic brow with indelible marking ink, an idea | |
which railway directors ought to see carried out to prevent mistakes. | |
I got on board the train, a porter banged-to the door so quickly that my | |
coat-tails were embraced between the hinges; the guard said "all right," | |
though it wasn't all right; the whistle shrieked, the engine puffed, the | |
wheels went round with a groan and a grunt, and presently we were | |
rattling over the bridge that spans the romantic Dee, with the white | |
walls of the Granite City glimmering in the moonlight far behind us. | |
After extricating my imprisoned garment, I leant over the window, and | |
began to feel very dull and sentimental. I positively think I would | |
have wept a little, had not the wind just then blown the smoke in my | |
face, causing me to put up the window in disgust. I had a whole | |
first-class compartment to myself, so I determined to make the best of | |
it. Impressed with this idea, I exchanged my hat for a Glengarry, made | |
a pillow of my rug, a blanket of my plaid, and laid me down to | |
sleep--"perchance to dream." Being rather melancholy, I endeavoured to | |
lull myself to slumber by humming such cheering airs as `Kathleen: | |
Mavourneen,' `Home, sweet home,' etc--"a vera judeecious arrangement," | |
had it continued. Unfortunately for my peace of mind it did not; for, | |
although the night train to London does not stop more than half-a-dozen | |
times all the way, at the next station, and before my eyes had closed in | |
sleep, the door of the compartment was opened, a lady was bundled in, | |
the guard said "all right" again, though I could have sworn it wasn't, | |
and the train, like the leg of the wonderful merchant of Rotterdam, "got | |
up and went on as before." | |
Now, I'm not in the habit of being alarmed at the presence of ladies--no | |
British sailor is--still, on the present occasion, as I peered round the | |
corner of my plaid, and beheld a creature of youth and beauty, I _did_ | |
feel a little squeamish; "for," I reasoned, "if she happens to be good, | |
`all right,' as the guard said, but if not then all decidedly wrong; for | |
why? she might take it into her head, between here and London, to swear | |
that I had been guilty of manslaughter, or suicide, or goodness knows | |
what, and then I feared my certificate of virtue, which I got from the | |
best of aged Scottish divines, might not save me." I looked again and | |
again from below my Highland plaid. "Well," thought I, "she seems mild | |
enough, any how;" so I pretended to sleep, but then, gallantry forbade. | |
"I may sleep in earnest," said I to myself, "and by George I don't like | |
the idea of sleeping in the company of any strange lady." | |
Presently, however, she relieved my mind entirely, for she showed a | |
marriage-ring by drawing off a glove, and hauling out a baby--not out of | |
the glove mind you, but out of her dress somewhere. I gave a sigh of | |
relief, for there was cause and effect at once--a marriage-ring and a | |
baby. I had in my own mind grievously wronged the virtuous lady, so I | |
immediately elevated my prostrate form, rubbed my eyes, yawned, | |
stretched myself, looked at my watch, and in fact behaved entirely like | |
a gentleman just awakened from a pleasant nap. | |
After I had benignly eyed her sleeping progeny for the space of half a | |
minute, I remarked blandly, and with a soft smile, "Pretty baby, ma'am." | |
(I thought it as ugly as sin.) | |
"Yes, sir," said she, looking pleasedly at it with one eye (so have I | |
seen a cock contemplate a bantam chick). "It is so like its papa!" | |
"Is it indeed, ma'am? Well, now, do you know, I thought it just the | |
very image of its mamma!" | |
"So he thinks," replied the lady; "but he has only seen its | |
carte-de-visite." | |
"Unfortunate father!" thought I, "to have seen only the shadowy image of | |
this his darling child--its carte-de-visite, too! wonder, now, if it | |
makes a great many calls? shouldn't like the little cuss to visit me." | |
"Going far, ma'am?" said I aloud. | |
And now this queer specimen of femininity raised her head from the study | |
of her sleeping babe, and looked me full in the face, as if she were | |
only aware of my presence for the first time, and hadn't spoken to me at | |
all. I am proud to say I bore the scrutiny nobly, though it occupied | |
several very long seconds, during which time I did not disgrace my | |
certificate of virtue by the ghost of a blush, till, seeming satisfied, | |
she replied, apparently in deep thought,--"To Lon--don." | |
"So am I, ma'am." | |
"I go on to Plymouth," she said. "I expect to go there myself soon," | |
said I. | |
"I am going abroad to join my husband." | |
"Very strange!" said I, "and _I_ hope to go abroad soon to join my," | |
(she looked at me now, with parted lips, and the first rays of a rising | |
smile lighting up her face, expecting me to add "wife")--"to join my | |
ship;" and she only said "Oh!" rather disappointedly I thought, and | |
recommenced the contemplation of the moonfaced babe. | |
"Bah!" thought I, "there is nothing in you but babies and matrimony;" | |
and I threw myself on the cushions, and soon slept in earnest, and | |
dreamt that the Director-General, in a bob-wig and drab shorts, was | |
dancing Jacky-tar on the quarter-deck of a seventy-four, on the occasion | |
of my being promoted to the dignity of Honorary-Surgeon to the Queen--a | |
thing that is sure to happen some of these days. | |
When I awoke, cold and shivering, the sun had risen and was shining, as | |
well as he could shine for the white mist that lay, like a veil of | |
gauze, over all the wooded flats that skirt for many miles the great | |
world of London. My companion was still there, and baby had woken up, | |
too, and begun to crow, probably in imitation of the many cocks that | |
were hallooing to each other over all the country. And now my attention | |
was directed, in fact riveted, to a very curious pantomime which was | |
being performed by the young lady; I had seen the like before, and often | |
have since, but never could solve the mystery. Her eyes were fixed on | |
baby, whose eyes in turn were fastened on her, and she was bobbing her | |
head up and down on the perpendicular, like a wax figure or automaton; | |
every time that she elevated she pronounced the letter "a," and as her | |
head again fell she remarked "gue," thus completing the word "ague," | |
much to the delight of little moonface, and no doubt to her own entire | |
satisfaction. "A-gue! a-gue!" | |
Well, it certainly was a morning to give any one ague, so, pulling out | |
my brandy-flask, I made bold to present it to her. "You seem cold, | |
ma'am," said I; "will you permit me to offer you a very little brandy?" | |
"Oh dear, no! thanks," she answered quickly. | |
"For baby's sake, ma'am," I pleaded; "I am a doctor." | |
"Well, then," she replied, smiling, "just a tiny little drop. Oh dear! | |
not so much!" | |
It seemed my ideas of "a tiny little drop," and hers, did not exactly | |
coincide; however, she did me the honour to drink with me: after which I | |
had a tiny little drop to myself, and never felt so much the better of | |
anything. | |
Euston Square Terminus at last; and the roar of great London came | |
surging on my ears, like the noise and conflict of many waters, or the | |
sound of a storm-tossed ocean breaking on a stony beach. I leapt to the | |
platform, forgetting at once lady and baby and all, for the following | |
Tuesday was to be big with my fate, and my heart beat flurriedly as I | |
thought "what if I were plucked, in spite of my M.D., in spite of my | |
C.M., in spite even of my certificate of virtue itself?" | |
CHAPTER TWO. | |
DOUBTS AND FEARS. MY FIRST NIGHT IN COCKNEYDOM. | |
What if I were plucked? What should I do? Go to the American war, | |
embark for the gold-diggings, enlist in a regiment of Sepoys, or throw | |
myself from the top of Saint Paul's? This, and such like, were my | |
thoughts, as I bargained with cabby, for a consideration, to drive me | |
and my traps to a quiet second-rate hotel--for my purse by no means | |
partook of the ponderosity of my heart. Cabby did so. The hotel at | |
which I alighted was kept by a gentleman who, with his two daughters, | |
had but lately migrated from the flowery lands of sunny Devon; so lately | |
that he himself could still welcome his guests with an honest smile and | |
hearty shake of hand, while the peach-like bloom had not as yet faded | |
from the cheeks of his pretty buxom daughters. So well pleased was I | |
with my entertainment in every way at this hotel, that I really believed | |
I had arrived in a city where both cabmen and innkeepers were honest and | |
virtuous; but I have many a time and often since then had reason to | |
alter my opinion. | |
Now, there being only four days clear left me ere I should have to | |
present myself before the august body of examiners at Somerset House, I | |
thought it behoved me to make the best of my time. Fain--oh, how | |
fain!--would I have dashed care and my books, the one to the winds and | |
the other to the wall, and floated away over the great ocean of London, | |
with all its novelties, all its pleasures and its curiosities; but I was | |
afraid--I dared not. I felt like a butterfly just newly burst from the | |
chrysalis, with a world of flowers and sunshine all around it, but with | |
one leg unfortunately immersed in birdlime. I felt like that gentleman, | |
in Hades you know, with all sorts of good things at his lips, which he | |
could neither touch nor taste of. Nor could I of the joys of London | |
life. No, like Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah, I could but behold | |
the promised land afar off; _he_ had the dark gates of death to pass | |
before he might set foot therein, and I had to pass the gloomy portals | |
of Somerset House, and its board of dread examiners. | |
The landlord--honest man! little did he know the torture he was giving | |
me--spread before me on the table more than a dozen orders for places of | |
amusement,--to me, uninitiated, places of exceeding great joy--red | |
orders, green orders, orange and blue orders, orders for concerts, | |
orders for gardens, orders for theatres royal, and orders for the opera. | |
Oh, reader, fancy at that moment my state of mind; fancy having the | |
wonderful lamp of Aladdin offered you, and your hands tied behind your | |
back I myself turned red, and green, and orange, and blue, even as the | |
orders were, gasped a little, called for a glass of water,--not beer, | |
mark me,--and rushed forth. I looked not at the flaming placards on the | |
walls, nor at the rows of seedy advertisement-board men. I looked | |
neither to the right hand nor to the left, but made my way straight to | |
the British Museum, with the hopes of engaging in a little calm | |
reflection. I cannot say I found it however; for all the strange things | |
I saw made me think of all the strange countries these strange things | |
came from, and this set me a-thinking of all the beautiful countries I | |
might see if I passed. | |
"_If_, gracious heavens!" thought I. "Are you mad, knocking about here | |
like a magnetised mummy, and Tuesday the passing day? Home, you devil | |
you, and study!" | |
Half an hour later, in imagination behold me seated before a table in my | |
little room, with the sun's parting beams shemmering dustily in through | |
my window, surrounded with books--books--books medical, books surgical, | |
books botanical, books nautical, books what-not-ical; behold, too, the | |
wet towel that begirts my thoughtful brow, my malar bones leaning on my | |
hands, my forearms resting on the mahogany, while I am thinking, or | |
trying to think, of, on, or about everything known, unknown, or guessed | |
at. | |
Mahogany, did I say? "Mahogany," methinks I hear the examiner say, | |
"hem! hem! upon what island, tell us, doctor, does the mahogany tree | |
grow, exist, and flourish? Give the botanical name of this tree, the | |
natural family to which it belongs, the form of its leaves and flower, | |
its uses in medicine and in art, the probable number of years it lives, | |
the articles made from its bark, the parasites that inhabit it, the | |
birds that build their nests therein, and the class of savage who finds | |
shelter beneath its wide-spreading, _if_ wide-spreading, branches; | |
entering minutely into the formation of animal structure in general, and | |
describing the whole theory of cellular development, tracing the gradual | |
rise of man from the sponge through the various forms of snail, oyster, | |
salmon, lobster, lizard, rabbit, kangaroo, monkey, gorilla, <DW65>, and | |
Irish Yahoo, up to the perfect Englishman; and state your ideas of the | |
most probable form and amount of perfection at which you think the | |
animal structure will arrive in the course of the next ten thousand | |
years. Is mahogany much superior to oak? If so, why is it not used in | |
building ships? Give a short account of the history of shipbuilding, | |
with diagrams illustrative of the internal economy of Noah's ark, the | |
Great Eastern, and the Rob Roy canoe. Describe the construction of the | |
Armstrong gun, King Theodore's mortar, and Mons Meg. Describe the | |
different kinds of mortars used in building walls, and those used in | |
throwing them down; insert here the composition of gunpowder tea, Fenian | |
fire, and the last New Yankee drink? In the mahogany country state the | |
diseases most prevalent among the natives, and those which you would | |
think yourself justified in telling the senior assistant-surgeon to | |
request the surgeon to beg the first lieutenant to report to the | |
commander, that he may call the attention of your captain to the | |
necessity of ordering the crew to guard against." | |
Then, most indulgent reader, behold me, with these and a thousand other | |
such questions floating confusedly through my bewildered brain--behold | |
me, I say, rise from the table slowly, and as one who doubteth whether | |
he be not standing on his head; behold me kick aside the cane-bottomed | |
chair, then clear the table with one wild sweep, state "Bosh!" with the | |
air and emphasis of a pasha of three tails, throw myself on the sofa, | |
and with a "Waitah, glass of gwog and cigaw, please," commence to read | |
`Tom Cwingle's Log.' This is how I spent my first day, and a good part | |
of the night too, in London; and--moral--I should sincerely advise every | |
medical aspirant, or candidate for a commission in the Royal Navy, to | |
bring in his pocket some such novel as Roderick Random, or Harry | |
Lorrequer, to read immediately before passing, and to leave every other | |
book at home. | |
CHAPTER THREE. | |
A FELINE ADVENTURE. PASSED--HOORAY! CONVERSATION OF (NOT WITH) TWO | |
ISRAELITISH PARTIES. | |
Next morning, while engaged at my toilet--not a limb of my body which I | |
had not amputated that morning mentally, not one of my joints I had not | |
exsected, or a capital operation I did not perform on my own person; I | |
had, in fact, with imaginary surgical instruments, cut myself all into | |
little pieces, dissected my every nerve, filled all my arteries with red | |
wax and my veins with blue, traced out the origin and insertion of every | |
muscle, and thought of what each one could and what each one could not | |
do; and was just giving the final twirl to my delicate moustache, and | |
the proper set to the bow of my necktie, when something occurred which | |
caused me to start and turn quickly round. It was a soft modest little | |
knock--almost plaintive in its modesty and softness--at my door. I | |
heard no footfall nor sound of any sort, simply the "tapping as of some | |
one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door; simply that and nothing | |
more." | |
"This," thought I, "is Sarah Jane with my boots: mindful girl is Sarah | |
Jane." Then giving voice to my thoughts, "Thank you, Sally," said I, | |
"just leave them outside; I'll have Finnon haddocks and oatcake for | |
breakfast." | |
Then, a voice that wasn't Sally's, but ever so much softer and more | |
kitten-like in tone, replied,-- | |
"Hem! ahem!" and presently added, "it is only _me_." Then the door was | |
pushed slightly open, while pressing one foot doubtfully against it I | |
peeped out, and to my surprise perceived the half of a little yellow | |
book and the whole of a little yellow face with whiskers at it, and an | |
expression so very like that of a one-year-old lady cat, that I remained | |
for a little in momentary expectation of hearing it purr. But it | |
didn't, merely smiling and repeating,-- | |
"It's only me." | |
"So I see," said I, quite taken aback as it were. "So I see." Then | |
"_Me_," slowly and gently overcame the resistance my right foot offered, | |
and, pushing open the door, held out the yellow tract, which I took to | |
be of a spiritual nature, and spoke to "I" as follows:-- | |
"We--that is, he! he! my father and me, he! he! you see--had heard of | |
your going up to join the Navy." At that moment it seemed to "I" the | |
easiest thing in the world, short of spending money, to "join" the Royal | |
Navy. "And so," continued "_Me_", "you see, he! he! we thought of | |
making you a call, all in business, you see, he! he! and offering you | |
our estimate for your uniform." | |
Uniform! grand name to my ear, I who had never worn anything more gay | |
than a homespun coat of houden-grey and a Gordon tartan kilt. I thought | |
it was my turn to say, "Hem! hem!" and even add an inaudible "Ho! ho!" | |
for I felt myself expanding inch by inch like a kidney bean. | |
"In that little book," _Me_ went on, "there,"--pointing to the front | |
page--"you will find the names of one hundred and fifty-seven officers | |
and gentlemen who have honoured us with their custom." | |
Then I exclaimed, "Dear me!" and Me added with animation, "You see: he! | |
he!" | |
Was it any wonder then, that I succumbed to such a flood of temptation, | |
that even my native canniness disappeared or was swept away, and that I | |
promised this gentleman of feline address that if I passed I would | |
assuredly make his father a call? Alas! unfortunate greenhorn that I | |
was, I found out when too late that some on the list had certainly given | |
him their custom, and like myself repented only once but for ever; while | |
the custom of the majority was confined to a pair or two of duck | |
inexpressibles, a uniform cap, a dozen of buttons, or a hank of sewing | |
silk. | |
"We can proudly refer you," Me continued, as I bowed him to the door, | |
"to any of them, and if you do us the honour of calling you will be | |
enabled to judge for yourself; but," added he, in a stage whisper, at | |
the same time making a determined attempt, as I thought, to bite off my | |
ear, "be aware of the Jews." | |
"What," said I, "is your father not then a Jew? the name I thought--" | |
"Oh-h-h!" he cried, "they may call us so; but--born in England--bred in | |
London--neighbourhood of Bond Street, highly respectable locality. Army | |
and Navy outfitters, my father and me, you see, he! he! We invite | |
inspection, give satisfaction, and defy competition, you see, he! he!" | |
And he glided silently down stairs, giving me scarcely time to observe | |
that he was a young man with black hair, black eyes and whiskers, and | |
wearing goloshes. | |
I soon after went down to breakfast, wondering, as I well might, how my | |
feline friend had found out all about my affairs; but it was not till I | |
had eaten ninety and one breakfasts and a corresponding number of | |
dinners that I discovered he belonged to a class of fellows who live by | |
fleecing the poor victims they pretend to clothe. Intending candidates, | |
beware of the Jews! | |
Tuesday came round at last, just as Tuesdays have always been in the | |
habit of doing, and at eleven o'clock precisely I, with my heart playing | |
a game of cricket, with my spine for the bat and my ribs for the wicket, | |
"repaired"--a very different mode of progression from any other with | |
which I am acquainted--to the medical department of Somerset House. I | |
do not remember ever having entered any place with feelings of greater | |
solemnity. I was astonished in no small degree at the people who passed | |
along the Strand for appearing so disgustingly indifferent,-- | |
"And I so weerie fu' o' care." | |
Had I been going to stand my trial for manslaughter or cattle-lifting, I | |
am certain I should have felt supremely happy in comparison. I passed | |
the frowning gateway, traversed the large square, and crossed the | |
Rubicon by entering the great centre doorway and inquiring my way to the | |
examination room. I had previously, be it observed, sent in my medical | |
and surgical degrees, with all my class tickets and certificates, | |
including that for virtue. I was now directed up a great many long | |
stairs, along as many gloomy-looking corridors, in which I lost my way | |
at least half a dozen times, and had to call at a corresponding number | |
of green-baize-covered brass tacketed doors, in order to be put right, | |
before I at length found myself in front of the proper one, at which I | |
knocked once, twice, and even thrice, without in any way affecting or | |
diminishing the buzz that was going on behind the door; so I pushed it | |
open, and boldly entered. I now found myself in the midst of a large | |
and select assortment of clerks, whose tongues were hard at work if | |
their pens were not, and who did not seem half so much astonished at | |
seeing me there as I felt at finding myself. The room itself looked | |
like an hypertrophied law office, of which the principal features were | |
papers and presses, three-legged stools, calf-bound folios, and cobwebs. | |
I stood for a considerable time, observing but unobserved, wondering | |
all the while what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it to, and | |
resisting an inclination to put my finger in my mouth. Moreover, at | |
that moment a war was going on within me between pride and modesty, for | |
I was not at all certain whether I ought to take off my hat; so being | |
"canny" and a Scot, I adopted a middle course, and commenced to wipe | |
imaginary perspiration from my brow, an operation which, of course, | |
necessitated the removal of my head-dress. Probably the cambric | |
handkerchief caught the tail of the eye of a quieter-looking knight of | |
the quill, who sat a little apart from the other drones of the pen; at | |
any rate he quickly dismounted, and coming up to me politely asked my | |
business. I told him, and he civilly motioned me to a seat to await my | |
turn for examination. By-and-bye other candidates dropped in, each of | |
whom I rejoiced to observe looked a little paler, decidedly more blue, | |
and infinitely greener than I did myself! This was some relief, so I | |
sat by the dusty window which overlooked the Thames, watching the little | |
skiffs gliding to and fro, the boats hastening hither and thither, and | |
the big lazy-like barges that floated on the calm unruffled bosom of the | |
great mysterious river, and thinking and wishing that it could but break | |
its everlasting silence and tell its tale, and mention even a tithe of | |
the scenes that had been acted on its breast or by its banks since it | |
first rolled its infant waters to the sea, through a forest of trees | |
instead of a forest of masts and spires, or tell of the many beings that | |
had sought relief from a world of sin and suffering under its dark | |
current. So ran my thoughts, and as the river so did time glide by, and | |
two hours passed away, then a third; and when at last my name was | |
called, it was only to inform me that I must come back on the following | |
day, there being too many to be examined at once. | |
At the hour appointed I was immediately conducted into the presence of | |
the august assembly of examiners, and this, is what I saw, or rather, | |
this was the picture on my retina, for to see, in the usual acceptation | |
of the term, was, under the circumstances, out of the question:--A table | |
with a green cover, laid out for a feast--to me a ghastly feast--of | |
reason and flow of soul. My reason was to form the feast, my soul was | |
to flow; the five pleasant-looking and gentlemanly men who sat around | |
were to partake of the banquet. I did not walk into the room, I seemed | |
to glide as if in a dream, or as if I had been my own ghost. Every | |
person and every thing in the room appeared strangely contorted; and the | |
whole formed a wonderful mirage, miraculously confused. The fire hopped | |
up on the table, the table consigned itself to the flames at one moment, | |
and made an insane attempt to get up the chimney the next. The roof | |
bending down in one corner affectionately kissed the carpet, the carpet | |
bobbing up at another returned the chaste salute. Then the gentlemen | |
smiled on me pleasantly, while I replied by a horrible grin. | |
"Sit down, sir," said one, and his voice sounded far away, as if in | |
another world, as I tottered to the chair, and with palsied arm helped | |
myself to a glass of water, which had been placed on the table for my | |
use. The water revived me, and at the first task I was asked to | |
perform--translate a small portion of Gregory's (not powder) Conspectus | |
into English--my senses came back. The scales fell from my eyes, the | |
table and fire resumed their proper places, the roof and carpet ceased | |
to dally, my scattered brains came all of a heap once more, and I was | |
myself again as much as ever Richard was, or any other man. I answered | |
most of the questions, if not all. I was tackled for ten minutes at a | |
time by each of the examiners. I performed mental operations on the | |
limbs of beings who never existed, prescribed hypothetically for | |
innumerable ailments, brought divers mythical children into the world, | |
dissected muscles and nerves in imagination, talked of green trees, | |
fruit, flowers, natural families, and far-away lands, as if I had been | |
Linnaeus, Columbus, and Humboldt all in one, so that, in less than an | |
hour, the august body leant their backs against their respective chairs, | |
and looked knowingly in each other's faces for a period of several very | |
long seconds. They then nodded to one another, did this august body, | |
looked at their tablets, and nodded again. After this pantomime had | |
come to a conclusion I was furnished with a sheet of foolscap and sent | |
back to the room above the Thames to write a dissertation on fractures | |
of the cranium, and shortly after sending it in I was recalled and | |
informed that I had sustained the dread ordeal to their entire | |
satisfaction, etc, and that I had better, before I left the house, pay | |
an official visit to the Director-General. I bowed, retired, heaved a | |
monster sigh, made the visit of ceremony, and afterwards my exit. | |
The first gentleman (?) I met on coming out was a short, middle-aged | |
Shylock, hook-nosed and raven-haired, and arrayed in a surtout of seedy | |
black. He approached me with much bowing and smiling, and holding below | |
my nose a little green tract which he begged I would accept. | |
"Exceedingly kind," thought I, and was about to comply with his request, | |
when, greatly to my surprise and the discomposure of my toilet, an arm | |
was hooked into mine, I was wheeled round as if on a pivot, and found | |
myself face to face with another Israelite armed with a _red_ tract. | |
"He is a Jew and a dog," said this latter, shaking a forefinger close to | |
my face. | |
"Is he?" said I. The words had hardly escaped my lips when the other | |
Jew whipped his arm through mine and quickly re-wheeled me towards him. | |
"He is a liar and a cheat," hissed he, with the same motion of the | |
forefinger as his rival had used. | |
"Indeed!" said I, beginning to wonder what it all meant. I had not, | |
however, long time to wonder, being once more set spinning by the | |
Israelite of the red tract. | |
"Beware of the Jews?" he whispered, pointing to the other; and the | |
conversation was continued in the following strain. Although in the | |
common sense of the word it really was no conversation, as each of them | |
addressed himself to me only, and I could find no reply, still, taking | |
the word in its literal meaning (from con, together, and _verto_, I | |
turn), it was indeed a conversation, for they turned me together, each | |
one, as he addressed me, hooking his arm in mine and whirling me round | |
like the handle of an air-pump or a badly constructed teetotum, and | |
shaking a forefinger in my face, as if I were a parrot and he wanted me | |
to swear. | |
_Shylock of the green tract_.--"He is a swine and a scoundrel." | |
_Israelite of the red_.--"He's a liar and a thief." | |
_Shylock of the green_.--"And he'll get round you some way." | |
_Israelite of red_.--"Ahab and brothers cheat everybody they can." | |
_Shylock of green_.--"He'll be lending you money." | |
_Red_.--"Whole town know them--" | |
_Green_.--"Charge you thirty per cent." | |
Red--"They are swindlers and dogs." | |
_Green_.--"Look at our estimate." | |
_Red_.--"Look at _our_ estimate." | |
_Green_.--"Peep at our charges." | |
_Red_.--"Five years' credit." | |
_Green_.--"Come with us, sir," tugging me to the right. | |
_Red_.--"This way, master," pulling me to the left. | |
_Green_.--"Be advised; he'll rob you." | |
_Red_.--"If you go he'll murder you." | |
"Damn you both!" I roared; and letting fly both fists at the same time, | |
I turned them both together on their backs and thus put an end to the | |
conversation. Only just in time, though, for the remaining ten tribes, | |
or their representatives, were hurrying towards me, each one swaying | |
aloft a gaudy- tract; and I saw no way of escaping but by fairly | |
making a run for it, which I accordingly did, pursued by the ten tribes; | |
and even had I been a centipede, I would have assuredly been torn limb | |
from limb, had I not just then rushed into the arms of my feline friend | |
from Bond Street. | |
He purred, gave me a paw and many congratulations; was so glad I had | |
passed,--but, to be sure, knew I would,--and so happy I had escaped the | |
Jews; would I take a glass of beer? | |
I said, "I didn't mind;" so we adjourned (the right word in the right | |
place--adjourned) to a quiet adjoining hotel. | |
"Now," said he, as he tendered the waiter a five-pound Bank of England | |
note, "you must not take it amiss, Doctor, but--" | |
"No smaller change, sir?" asked the waiter. | |
"I'm afraid," said my friend (?), opening and turning over the contents | |
of a well-lined pocket-book, "I've only got five--oh, here are sovs, he! | |
he!" Then turning to me: "I was going to observe," he continued, "that | |
if you want a pound or two, he! he!--you know young fellows will be | |
young fellows--only don't say a word to my father, he! he! he!--highly | |
respectable man. Another glass of beer? No? Well, we will go and see | |
father!" | |
"But," said I, "I really must go home first." | |
"Oh dear no; don't think of such a thing." | |
"I'm deuced hungry," continued I. | |
"My dear sir, excuse me, but it is just our dinner hour; nice roast | |
turkey, and boiled leg of mutton with--" | |
"Any pickled pork?" | |
"He! he! now you young _officers_ will have your jokes; but, he! he! | |
though we don't just eat pork, you'll find us just as good as most | |
Christians. Some capital wine--very old brand; father got it from the | |
Cape only the other day; in fact, though I should not mention these | |
things, it was sent us by a grateful customer. But come, you're hungry, | |
we'll get a cab." | |
CHAPTER FOUR. | |
THE CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. IN JOINING THE SERVICE! FIND OUT WHAT A "GIG" | |
MEANS. | |
The fortnight immediately subsequent to my passing into the Royal Navy | |
was spent by me in the great metropolis, in a perfect maze of pleasure | |
and excitement. For the first time for years I knew what it was to be | |
free from care and trouble, independent, and quietly happy. I went the | |
round of the sights and the round of the theatres, and lingered | |
entranced in the opera; but I went all alone, and unaccompanied, save by | |
a small pocket guide-book, and I believe I enjoyed it all the more on | |
that account. No one cared for nor looked at the lonely stranger, and | |
he at no one. I roamed through the spacious streets, strolled | |
delightedly in the handsome parks, lounged in picture galleries, or | |
buried myself for hour's in the solemn halls and classical courts of | |
that prince of public buildings the British Museum; and, when tired of | |
rambling, I dined by myself in a quiet hotel. Every sight was strange | |
to me, every sound was new; it was as if some good fairy, by a touch of | |
her magic wand, had transported me to an enchanted city; and when I | |
closed my eyes at night, or even shut them by day, behold, there was the | |
same moving panorama that I might gaze on till tired or asleep. | |
But all this was too good to last long. One morning, on coming down to | |
breakfast, bright-hearted and beaming as ever, I found on my plate, | |
instead of fried soles, a long blue official letter, "On her Majesty's | |
Service." It was my appointment to the `Victory,'--"additional for | |
service at Haslar Hospital." As soon as I read it the enchantment was | |
dissolved, the spell was broken; and when I tried that day to find new | |
pleasures, new sources of amusement, I utterly failed, and found with | |
disgust that it was but a common work-a-day world after all, and that | |
London was very like other places in that respect. I lingered but a few | |
more days in town, and then hastened by train to Portsmouth to take up | |
my appointment--to join the service in reality. | |
It was a cold raw morning, with a grey and cheerless sky, and a biting | |
south-wester blowing up channel, and ruffling the water in the Solent. | |
Alongside of the pier the boats and wherries were all in motion, | |
scratching and otherwise damaging their gunwales against the stones, as | |
they were lifted up and down at the pleasure of the wavelets. The | |
boatmen themselves were either drinking beer at adjacent bars, or | |
stamping up and down the quay with the hopes of enticing a little warmth | |
to their half-frozen toes, and rubbing the ends of their noses for a | |
like purpose. Suddenly there arose a great commotion among them, and | |
they all rushed off to surround a gentleman in brand-new naval uniform, | |
who was looking, with his mouth open, for a boat, in every place where a | |
boat was most unlikely to be. Knowing at a glance that he was a | |
stranger, they very generously, each and all of them, offered their | |
services, and wanted to row him somewhere--anywhere. After a great deal | |
of fighting and scrambling among themselves, during which the officer | |
got tugged here and tugged there a good many times, he was at last | |
bundled into a very dirty cobble, into which a rough-looking boatman | |
bounded after him and at once shoved off. | |
The naval officer was myself--the reader's obsequious slave. As for the | |
boatman, one thing must be said in his favour, he seemed to be a person | |
of religious character--in one thing at least, for, on the Day of | |
Judgment, I, for one, will not be able to turn round and say to him "I | |
was a stranger and ye took me not in," for he did take me in. In fact, | |
Portsmouth, as a town, is rather particular on this point of | |
Christianity: they do take strangers in. | |
"Where away to?" asked the jolly waterman, leaning a moment on his oars. | |
"H.M.S. `Victory,'" replied I. | |
"Be going for to join, I dessay, sir?" | |
"You are right," said I; "but have the goodness to pull so that I may | |
not be wet through on both sides." | |
"Can't help the weather, sir." | |
"I'll pay here," said I, "before we go alongside." | |
"Very good, sir." | |
"How much?" | |
"Only three shillings, sir." | |
"_Only_ three shillings!" I repeated, and added "eh?" | |
"That's all, sir--distance is short you know." | |
"Do you mean to say," said I, "that you really mean to charge--" | |
"Just three bob," interrupting me; "flag's up--can see for yourself, | |
sir." | |
"The flag, you see--I mean my good man--don't tell me about a flag, I'm | |
too far north for you;" and I tried to look as northish as possible. | |
"Flag, indeed! humph!" | |
"Why, sir," said the man of oars, with a pitying expression of | |
countenance and voice, "flag means double fare--anybody'll tell you | |
that, sir." | |
"Nonsense?" said I; "don't tell me that any one takes the trouble of | |
hoisting a flag in order to fill your confounded pockets; there is half | |
a crown, and not a penny more do you get from me." | |
"Well, sir, o' condition you has me again, sir, you know, sir,--and my | |
name's McDonald;" and he pocketed the money, which I afterwards | |
discovered was a _leetle_ too much. "McDonald," thought I--"my | |
grandmother's name; the rascal thinks to come round me by calling | |
himself a Scotchman--the idea of a McDonald being a waterman!" | |
"Sir," said I, aloud, "it is my unbiassed opinion and firm conviction | |
that you are--" I was going to add "a most unmitigated blackguard," but | |
I noticed that he was a man of six feet two, with breadth in proportion, | |
so I left the sentence unfinished. | |
We were now within sight of the bristling sides of the old `Victory,' on | |
the quarter-deck of which fell the great and gallant Nelson in the hour | |
of battle and triumph; and I was a young officer about to join that | |
service which can boast of so many brave and noble men, and brave and | |
noble deeds; and one would naturally expect that I would indulge in a | |
few dreams of chivalry and romance, picture to myself a bright and | |
glorious future, pounds' weight of medals and crosses, including the | |
Victoria, kiss the hilt of my sword, and all that sort of thing. I did | |
not. I was too wretchedly cold for one reason, and the only feeling I | |
had was one of shyness; as for duty, I knew I could and would do that, | |
as most of my countrymen had done before me; so I left castle-building | |
to the younger sons of noblemen or gentry, whose parents can afford to | |
allow them two or three hundred pounds a year to eke out their pay and | |
smooth the difficulties of the service. Not having been fortunate | |
enough to be born with even a horn spoon in my mouth, I had to be | |
content with my education as my fortune, and my navy pay as my only | |
income. | |
"Stabird side, I dessay, sir?" said the waterman. | |
"Certainly," said I, having a glimmering idea that it must be the proper | |
side. | |
A few minutes after--"The Admiral's gig is going there, sir,--better | |
wait a bit." I looked on shore and _did_ see a gig, and two horses | |
attached to it. | |
"No," said I, "decidedly not, he can't see us here, man. I suppose you | |
want to go sticking your dirty wet oars in the air, do you?"--(I had | |
seen pictures of this performance). "Drive on, I mean pull ahead, my | |
hearty"--a phrase I had heard at the theatre, and considered highly | |
nautical. | |
The waterman obeyed, and here is what came of it. We were just | |
approaching the ladder, when I suddenly became sensible of a rushing | |
noise. I have a dim recollection of seeing a long, many-oared boat, | |
carrying a large red flag, and with an old grey-haired officer sitting | |
astern; of hearing a voice--it might have belonged to the old man of the | |
sea, for anything I could have told to the contrary--float down the | |
wind,-- | |
"Clear the way with that (something) bumboat!" Then came a crash, my | |
heels flew up--I had been sitting on the gunwale--and overboard I went | |
with a splash, just as some one else in the long boat sang out. "Way | |
enough!" | |
Way enough, indeed! there was a little too much way for me. When I came | |
to the surface of the water, I found myself several yards from the | |
ladder, and at once struck out for it. There was a great deal of noise | |
and shouting, and a sailor held towards me the sharp end of a boathook; | |
but I had no intention of being lugged out as if I were a pair of canvas | |
trowsers, and, calling to the sailor to keep his pole to himself--did he | |
want to knock my eye out?--I swam to the ladder and ascended. Thus then | |
I joined the service, and, having entered at the foot of the ladder, I | |
trust some day to find myself at the top of it. | |
And, talking of joining the service, I here beg to repudiate, as an | |
utter fabrication, the anecdote--generally received as authentic in the | |
service--of the Scotch doctor, who, going to report himself for the | |
first time on board of the `Victory,' knocked at the door, and inquired | |
(at a marine, I think), "Is this the Royal Nauvy?--'cause I'm come till | |
jine." The story bears "fib" on the face of it, for there is not a | |
Scottish schoolboy but knows that one ship does not make a navy, any | |
more than one swallow does a summer. | |
But, dear intending candidate, if you wish to do the right thing, array | |
yourself quietly in frock-coat, cap--not cocked hat, remember--and | |
sword, and go on board your ship in any boat you please, only keep out | |
of the way of gigs. When you arrive on board, don't be expecting to see | |
the admiral, because you'll be disappointed; but ask a sailor or marine | |
to point you out the midshipman of the watch, and request the latter to | |
show you the commander. Make this request civilly, mind you; do not | |
pull his ear, because, if big and hirsute, he might beat you, which | |
would be a bad beginning. When you meet the commander, don't rush up | |
and shake him by the hand, and begin talking about the weather; walk | |
respectfully up to him, and lift your cap as you would to a lady; upon | |
which he will hurriedly point to his nose with his forefinger, by way of | |
returning the salute, while at the same time you say-- | |
"_Come_ on board, sir--to _join_, sir." | |
It is the custom of the Service to make this remark in a firm, bold, | |
decided tone, placing the emphasis on the "_come_" to show clearly that | |
you _did come_, and that no one kicked, or dragged, or otherwise brought | |
you on board against your will. The proper intonation of the remark may | |
be learned from any polite waiter at a hotel, when he tells you, | |
"Dinner's ready, sir, please;" or it may be heard in the "Now then, | |
gents," of the railway guard of the period. | |
Having reported yourself to the man of three stripes, you must not | |
expect that he will shake hands, or embrace you, ask you on shore to | |
tea, and introduce you to his wife. No, if he is good-natured, and has | |
not had a difference of opinion with the captain lately, he _may_ | |
condescend to show you your cabin and introduce you to your messmates; | |
but if he is out of temper, he will merely ask your name, and, on your | |
telling him, remark, "Humph!" then call the most minute midshipman to | |
conduct you to your cabin, being at the same time almost certain to | |
mispronounce your name. Say your name is Struthers, he will call you | |
Stutters. | |
"Here, Mr Pigmy, conduct Mr Stutters to his cabin, and show him where | |
the gunroom--ah! I beg his pardon, the wardroom--lies." | |
"Ay, ay, sir," says the middy, and skips off at a round trot, obliging | |
you either to adopt the same ungraceful mode of progression, or lose | |
sight of him altogether, and have to wander about, feeling very much | |
from home, until some officer passing takes pity on you and leads you to | |
the wardroom. | |
CHAPTER FIVE. | |
HASLAR HOSPITAL. THE MEDICAL MESS. DR GRUFF. | |
It is a way they have in the service, or rather it is the custom of the | |
present Director-General, not to appoint the newly-entered medical | |
officer at once to a sea-going ship, but instead to one or other of the | |
naval hospitals for a few weeks or even months, in order that he may be | |
put up to the ropes, as the saying is, or duly initiated into the | |
mysteries of service and routine of duty. This is certainly a good | |
idea, although it is a question whether it would not be better to adopt | |
the plan they have at Netley, and thus put the navy and army on the same | |
footing. | |
Haslar Hospital at Portsmouth is a great rambling barrack-looking block | |
of brick building, with a yard or square surrounded by high walls in | |
front, and with two wings extending from behind, which, with the chapel | |
between, form another and smaller square. | |
There are seldom fewer than a thousand patients within, and, independent | |
of a whole regiment of male and female nurses, sick-bay-men, servants, | |
cooks, _et id genus omne_, there is a regular staff of officers, | |
consisting of a captain--of what use I have yet to learn--two medical | |
inspector-generals, generally three or four surgeons, the same number of | |
regularly appointed assistant-surgeons, besides from ten to twenty | |
acting assistant-surgeons [Note 1] waiting for appointments, and doing | |
duty as supernumeraries. Of this last class I myself was a member. | |
Soon as the clock tolled the hour of eight in the morning, the | |
staff-surgeon of our side of the hospital stalked into the duty cabin, | |
where we, the assistants, were waiting to receive him. Immediately | |
after, we set out on the morning visit, each of us armed with a little | |
board or palette to be used as a writing-desk, an excise inkstand slung | |
in a buttonhole, and a quill behind the ear. The large doors were | |
thrown open, the beds neat and tidy, and the nurses "standing by." Up | |
each side of the long wards, from bed to bed, we journeyed; notifying | |
the progress of each case, repeating the treatment here, altering or | |
suspending it there, and performing small operations in another place; | |
listening attentively to tales of aches and pains, and hopes and fears, | |
and just in a sort of general way acting the part of good Samaritans. | |
From one ward to another we went, up and down long staircases, along | |
lengthy corridors, into wards in the attics, into wards on the basement, | |
and into wards below ground,--fracture wards, Lazarus wards, erysipelas | |
wards, men's wards, officers' wards; and thus we spent the time till a | |
little past nine, by which time the relief of so much suffering had | |
given us an appetite, and we hurried off to the messroom to breakfast. | |
The medical mess at Haslar is one of the finest in the service. | |
Attached to the room is a nice little apartment, fitted up with a | |
bagatelle-table, and boxing gloves and foils _ad libitum_. And, sure | |
enough, you might walk many a weary mile, or sail many a knot, without | |
meeting twenty such happy faces as every evening surrounded our | |
dinner-table, without beholding twenty such bumper glasses raised at | |
once to the toast of Her Majesty the Queen, and without hearing twenty | |
such good songs, or five times twenty such yarns and original bons-mots, | |
as you would at Haslar Medical Mess. Yet I must confess we partook in | |
but a small degree indeed of the solemn quietude of Wordsworth's-- | |
"--Party in a parlour cramm'd, | |
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, | |
But, as you by their faces see, | |
All silent--and all damned." | |
I do not deny that we were a little noisy at times, and that on several | |
occasions, having eaten and drunken till we were filled, we rose up to | |
dance, and consequently received a _polite_ message from the inspector | |
whose house was adjoining, requesting us to "stop our _confounded_ row;" | |
but then the old man was married, and no doubt his wife was at the | |
bottom of it. | |
Duty was a thing that did not fall to the lot of us supers every day. | |
We took it turn about, and hard enough work it used to be too. As soon | |
as breakfast was over, the medical officer on duty would hie him away to | |
the receiving-room, and seat himself at the large desk; and by-and-bye | |
the cases would begin to pour in. First there would arrive, say three | |
or four blue-jackets, with their bags under their arms, in charge of an | |
assistant-surgeon, then a squad of marines, then more blue-jackets, then | |
more red-coats, and so the game of _rouge-et-noir_ would go on during | |
the day. The officer on duty has first to judge whether or not the case | |
is one that can be admitted,--that is, which cannot be conveniently | |
treated on board; he has then to appoint the patient a bed in a proper | |
ward, and prescribe for him, almost invariably a bath and a couple of | |
pills. Besides, he has to enter the previous history of the case, | |
verbatim, into each patient's case-book, and if the cases are numerous, | |
and the assistant-surgeon who brings them has written an elaborate | |
account of each disease, the duty-officer will have had his work cut out | |
for him till dinner-time at least. Before the hour of the patient's | |
dinner, this gentleman has also to glance into each ward, to see if | |
everything is right, and if there are any complaints. Even when ten or | |
eleven o'clock at night brings sleep and repose to others, his work is | |
not yet over; he has one other visit to pay any time during the night | |
through all his wards. Then with dark-lantern and slippers you may meet | |
him, gliding ghost-like along the corridors or passages, lingering at | |
ward doors, listening on the staircases, smelling and snuffing, peeping | |
and keeking, and endeavouring by eye, or ear, or nose, to detect the | |
slightest irregularity among the patients or nurses, such as burning | |
lights without orders, gambling by the light of the fire, or smoking. | |
This visit paid, he may return to his virtuous cabin, and sleep as | |
soundly as he chooses. | |
Very few of the old surgeons interfere with the duties of their | |
assistants, but there _be_ men who seem to think you have merely come to | |
the service to learn, not to practise your profession, and therefore | |
they treat you as mere students, or at the best hobble-de-hoy doctors. | |
Of this class was Dr Gruff, a man whom I would back against the whole | |
profession for caudle, clyster, castor-oil, or linseed poultice; but | |
who, I rather suspect, never prescribed a dose of chiretta, santonin, or | |
lithia-water in his life. He came to me one duty-day, in a great hurry, | |
and so much excited that I judged he had received some grievous bodily | |
ailment, or suffered some severe family bereavement. | |
"Well, sir," he cried; "I hear, sir, you have put a case of ulcer into | |
the erysipelas ward." | |
This remark, not partaking of the nature of question, I thought required | |
no answer. | |
"Is it true, sir?--is it true?" he continued, getting blue and red. | |
"It is, sir," was the reply. | |
"And what do you mean by it, sir? What do you mean by it?" he | |
exclaimed, waxing more and more wroth. | |
"I thought, sir--" I began. | |
"You thought, sir!" | |
"Yes, sir," continued I, my Highland blood getting uppermost, "I _did_ | |
think that, the case being one of ulcer of an _erysipelatous_ nature, I | |
was--" | |
"Erysipelatous ulcer!" interrupting me. "Oh!" said he, "that alters the | |
case. Why did you not say so at first? I beg your pardon;" and he | |
trotted off again. | |
"All right," thought I, "old Gruff. I guess you are sorry you spoke." | |
But although there are not wanting medical officers in the service who, | |
on being promoted to staff-surgeon, appear to forget that ever they wore | |
less than three stripes, and can keep company with no one under the rank | |
of commander, I am happy to say they are few and far between, and every | |
year getting more few and farther between. | |
It is a fine thing to be appointed for, say three or four years to a | |
home hospital; in fact, it is the assistant-surgeon's highest ambition. | |
Next, in point of comfort, would be an appointment at the Naval Hospital | |
of Malta, Cape of Good Hope, or China. | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
Note 1. The acting assistant-surgeons are those who have not as yet | |
served the probationary year, or been confirmed. They are liable to be | |
dismissed without a court-martial. | |
CHAPTER SIX. | |
AFLOAT. A STORM IN BISCAY BAY. A WORD ON BASS'S BEER. | |
For the space of six weeks I lived in clover at Haslar, and at the end | |
of that time my appointment to a sea-going ship came. It was the | |
pleasure of their Lordships the Commissioners, that I should take my | |
passage to the Cape of Good Hope in a frigate, which had lately been put | |
in commission and was soon about to sail. Arrived there, I was to be | |
handed over to the flag-ship on that station for disposal, like so many | |
stones of salt pork. On first entering the service every medical | |
officer is sent for one commission (three to five years) to a foreign | |
station; and it is certainly very proper too that the youngest and | |
strongest men, rather than the oldest, should do the rough work of the | |
service, and go to the most unhealthy stations. | |
The frigate in which I was ordered passage was to sail from Plymouth. | |
To that town I was accordingly sent by train, and found the good ship in | |
such a state of internal chaos--painters, carpenters, sail-makers, and | |
sailors; armourers, blacksmiths, gunners, and tailors; every one engaged | |
at his own trade, with such an utter disregard of order or regularity, | |
while the decks were in such confusion, littered with tools, nails, | |
shavings, ropes, and spars, among which I scrambled, and over which I | |
tumbled, getting into everybody's way, and finding so little rest for | |
the sole of my foot, that I was fain to beg a week's leave, and glad | |
when I obtained it. On going on board again at the end of that time, a | |
very different appearance presented itself; everything was in its proper | |
place, order and regularity were everywhere. The decks were white and | |
clean, the binnacles, the brass and mahogany work polished, the gear all | |
taut, the ropes coiled, and the vessel herself sitting on the water | |
saucy as the queen of ducks, with her pennant flying and her beautiful | |
ensign floating gracefully astern. The gallant ship was ready for sea, | |
had been unmoored, had made her trial trips, and was now anchored in the | |
Sound. From early morning to busy noon, and from noon till night, boats | |
glided backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore, filled | |
with the friends of those on board, or laden with wardroom and gunroom | |
stores. Among these might have been seen a shore-boat, rowed by two | |
sturdy watermen, and having on board a large sea-chest, with a naval | |
officer on top of it, grasping firmly a Cremona in one hand and holding | |
a hat-box in the other. The boat was filled with any number of smaller | |
packages, among which were two black portmanteaus, warranted to be the | |
best of leather, and containing the gentleman's dress and undress | |
uniforms; these, however, turned out to be mere painted pasteboard, and | |
in a very few months the cockroaches--careless, merry-hearted | |
creatures--after eating up every morsel of them, turned their attention | |
to the contents, on which they dined and supped for many days, till the | |
officer's dress-coat was like a meal-sieve, and his pantaloons might | |
have been conveniently need for a landing-net. This, however, was a | |
matter of small consequence, for, contrary to the reiterated assurance | |
of his feline friend, no one portion of this officer's uniform held out | |
for a longer period than six months, the introduction of any part of his | |
person into the corresponding portion of his raiment having become a | |
matter of matutinal anxiety and distress, lest a solution of continuity | |
in the garment might be the unfortunate result. | |
About six o'clock on a beautiful Wednesday evening, early in the month | |
of May, our gallant and saucy frigate turned her bows seaward and slowly | |
steamed away from amidst the fleet of little boats that--crowded with | |
the unhappy wives and sweethearts of the sailors--had hung around us all | |
the afternoon. Puffing and blowing a great deal, and apparently panting | |
to be out and away at sea, the good ship nevertheless left her anchorage | |
but slowly, and withal reluctantly, her tears falling thick and fast on | |
the quarter-deck as she went. | |
The band was playing a slow and mournful air, by way of keeping up our | |
spirits. | |
_I_ had no friends to say farewell to, there was no tear-bedimmed eye to | |
gaze after me until I faded in distance; so I stood on the poop, leaning | |
over the bulwarks, after the fashion of Vanderdecken, captain of the | |
Flying Dutchman, and equally sad and sorrowful-looking. And what did I | |
see from my elevated situation? A moving picture, a living panorama; a | |
bright sky sprinkled with a few fleecy cloudlets, over a blue sea all in | |
motion before a fresh breeze of wind; a fleet of little boats astern, | |
filled with picturesquely dressed seamen and women waving handkerchiefs; | |
the long breakwater lined with a dense crowd of sorrowing friends, each | |
anxious to gain one last look of the dear face he may never see more. | |
Yonder is the grey-haired father, yonder the widowed mother, the | |
affectionate brother, the loving sister, the fond wife, the beloved | |
sweetheart,--all are there; and not a sigh that is sighed, not a tear | |
that is shed, not a prayer that is breathed, but finds a response in the | |
bosom of some loved one on board. To the right are green hills, | |
people-clad likewise, while away in the distance the steeple of many a | |
church "points the way to happier spheres," and on the flagstaff at the | |
port-admiral's house is floating the signal "Fare thee well." | |
The band has ceased to play, the sailors have given their last ringing | |
cheer, even the echoes of which have died away, and faintly down the | |
wind comes the sound of the evening bells. The men are gathered in | |
little groups on deck, and there is a tenderness in their landward gaze, | |
and a pathos in their rough voices, that one would hardly expect to | |
find. | |
"Yonder's my Poll, Jack," says one. "Look, see! the poor lass is | |
crying; blowed if I think I'll ever see her more." | |
"There," says another, "is _my_ old girl on the breakwater, beside the | |
old cove in the red nightcap." | |
"That's my father, Bill," answers a third. "God bless the dear old | |
chap?" | |
"Good-bye, Jean; good-bye, lass. Ah! she won't hear me. Blessed if I | |
don't feel as if I could make a big baby of myself and cry outright." | |
"Oh! Dick, Dick," exclaims an honest-looking tar; "I see'd my poor wife | |
tumble down; she had wee Johnnie in her arms, and--and what will I do?" | |
"Keep up your heart, to be sure," answers a tall, rough son of a gun. | |
"There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see. I've got | |
neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it's _me_ that ought to be | |
making a noodle of myself; but where's the use?" | |
An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing | |
visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of | |
Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on | |
their summits. | |
Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the | |
east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and | |
chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean. | |
Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated | |
myself on a rocking chair. It was now that I began to feel the | |
discomfort of not having a cabin. Being merely a supernumerary or | |
passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I | |
been an admiral. I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would | |
call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not | |
rigged. Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very | |
wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in | |
small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet | |
notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and | |
body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the | |
oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last | |
found myself within canvas. | |
By next morning the wind had freshened, and when I turned out I found | |
that the steam had been turned off, and that we were bowling along | |
before a ten-knot breeze. All that day the wind blew strongly from the | |
N.N.E., and increased as night came on to a regular gale of wind. I had | |
seen some wild weather in the Greenland Ocean, but never anything | |
before, nor since, to equal the violence of the storm on that dreadful | |
night, in the Bay of Biscay. We were running dead before the wind at | |
twelve o'clock, when the gale was at its worst, and when the order to | |
light fires and get up steam had been given. Just then we were making | |
fourteen knots, with only a foresail, a fore-topsail, and main-topsail, | |
the latter two close-reefed. I was awakened by a terrific noise on | |
deck, and I shall not soon forget that awakening. The ship was leaking | |
badly both at the ports and scupper-holes; so that the maindeck all | |
around was flooded with water, which lifted my big chest every time the | |
roll of the vessel allowed it to flow towards it. To say the ship was | |
rolling would express but poorly the indescribably disagreeable | |
wallowing motion of the frigate, while men were staggering with anxious | |
faces from gun to gun, seeing that the lashings were all secure; so | |
great was the strain on the cable-like ropes that kept them in their | |
places. The shot had got loose from the racks, and were having a small | |
cannonade on their own account, to the no small consternation of the men | |
whose duty it was to re-secure them. It was literally sea without and | |
sea within, for the green waves were pouring down the main hatchway, | |
adding to the amount of water already _below_, where the chairs and | |
other articles of domestic utility were all afloat and making voyages of | |
discovery from one officer's cabin to another. | |
On the upper deck all was darkness, confusion, and danger, for both the | |
fore and main-topsails had been carried away at the same time, reducing | |
us to one sail--the foresail. The noise and crackling of the riven | |
canvas, mingling with the continuous roar of the storm, were at times | |
increased by the rattle of thunder and the rush of rain-drops, while the | |
lightning played continually around the slippery masts and cordage. | |
About one o'clock, a large ship, apparently unmanageable, was dimly seen | |
for one moment close aboard of us--had we come into collision the | |
consequences must have been dreadful;--and thus for two long hours, | |
_till steam was got up_, did we fly before the gale, after which the | |
danger was comparatively small. | |
Having spent its fury, having in fact blown itself out of breath, the | |
wind next day retired to its cave, and the waves got smaller and | |
beautifully less, till peace and quietness once more reigned around us. | |
Going on deck one morning I found we were anchored under the very shadow | |
of a steep rock, and not far from a pretty little town at the foot of a | |
high mountain, which was itself covered to the top with trees and | |
verdure, with the white walls of many a quaint-looking edifice peeping | |
through the green--boats, laden with fruit and fish and turtle, | |
surrounded the ship. The island of Madeira and town, of Funchal. As | |
there was no pier, we had to land among the stones. The principal | |
amusement of English residents here seems to be lounging about, cheroot | |
in mouth, beneath the rows of trees that droop over the pavements, | |
getting carried about in portable hammocks, and walking or riding (I | |
rode, and, not being able to get my horse to move at a suitable pace, I | |
looked behind, and found the boy from whom I had hired him sticking like | |
a leech to my animal's tail, nor would he be shaken off--nor could the | |
horse be induced to kick him off; this is the custom of the Funchalites, | |
and a funny one it is) to the top of the mountain, for the pleasure of | |
coming down in a sleigh, a distance of two miles, in twice as many | |
minutes, while the least deviation from the path would result in a | |
terrible smash against the wall of either side, but I never heard of any | |
such accident occurring. | |
Three days at Madeira, and up anchor again; our next place of call being | |
Saint Helena. Every one has heard of the gentleman who wanted to | |
conquer the world but couldn't, who tried to beat the British but | |
didn't, who staked his last crown at a game of _loo_, and losing fled, | |
and fleeing was chased, and being chased was caught and chained by the | |
leg, like an obstreperous game-cock, to a rock somewhere in the middle | |
of the sea, on which he stood night and day for years, with his arms | |
folded across his chest, and his cocked hat wrong on, a warning to the | |
unco-ambitious. The rock was Saint Helena, and a very beautiful rock it | |
is too, hill and dell and thriving town, its mountain-sides tilled and | |
its straths and glens containing many a fertile little farm. It is the | |
duty of every one who touches the shores of this far-famed island to | |
make a pilgrimage to Longwood, the burial-place of the "great man." I | |
have no intention of describing this pilgrimage, for this has been done | |
by dozens before my time, or, if not, it ought to have been: I shall | |
merely add a very noticeable fact, which others may not perchance have | |
observed--_both sides_ of the road all the way to the tomb are strewn | |
with _Bass's beer-bottles_, empty of course, and at the grave itself | |
there are hogsheads of them; and the same is the case at every place | |
which John Bull has visited, or where English foot has ever trodden. | |
The rule holds good all over the world; and in the Indian Ocean, | |
whenever I found an uninhabited island, or even reef which at some | |
future day would be an island, if I did not likewise find an empty | |
beer-bottle, I at once took possession in the name of Queen Victoria, | |
giving three hips! and one hurrah! thrice, and singing "For he's a jolly | |
good fellow," without any very distinct notion as to who _was_ the jolly | |
fellow; also adding more decidedly "which nobody can deny"--there being | |
no one on the island to deny it. | |
England has in this way acquired much additional territory at my hands, | |
without my having as yet received any very substantial recompense for my | |
services. | |
CHAPTER SEVEN. | |
THE MODERN RODERICK RANDOM. HALF A SERVANT. A PRETTY PICTURE. | |
The duties of the assistant-surgeon--the modern Roderick Random--on | |
board a line-of-battle ship are seldom very onerous in time of peace, | |
and often not worth mentioning. Suppose, for example, the reader is | |
that officer. At five bells--half-past six--in the morning, if you | |
happen to be a light sleeper, you will be sensible of some one gliding | |
silently into your cabin, rifling your pockets, and extracting your | |
watch, your money, and other your trinkets; but do not jump out of bed, | |
pray, with the intention of collaring him; it is no thief--only your | |
servant. Formerly this official used to be a marine, with whom on | |
joining your ship you bargained in the following manner. | |
The marine walked up to you and touched his front hair, saying at the | |
same time,-- | |
"_I_ don't mind looking arter you, sir," or "I'll do for you, sir." On | |
which you would reply,-- | |
"All right! what's your name?" and he would answer "Cheeks," or whatever | |
his name might be. (Cheeks, that is the real Cheeks, being a sort of | |
visionary soldier--a phantom marine--and very useful at times, answering | |
in fact to the Nobody of higher quarters, who is to blame for so many | |
things,--"Nobody is to blame," and "Cheeks is to blame," being | |
synonymous sentences.) | |
Now-a-days Government kindly allows each commissioned officer one half | |
of a servant, or one whole one between two officers, which, at times, is | |
found to be rather an awkward arrangement; as, for instance, you and, | |
say, the lieutenant of marines, have each the half of the same servant, | |
and you wish your half to go on shore with a message, and the lieutenant | |
requires his half to remain on board: the question then comes to be one | |
which only the wisdom of Solomon could solve, in the same way that | |
Alexander the Great loosed the Gordian knot. | |
Your servant, then, on entering your cabin in the morning, carefully and | |
quietly deposits the contents of your pockets on your table, and, taking | |
all your clothes and your boots in his arms, silently flits from view, | |
and shortly after re-enters, having in the interval neatly folded and | |
brushed them. You are just turning round to go to sleep again, when-- | |
"Six bells, sir, please," remarks your man, laying his hand on your | |
elbow, and giving you a gentle shake to insure your resuscitation, and | |
which will generally have the effect of causing you to spring at once | |
from your cot, perhaps in your hurry nearly upsetting the cup of | |
delicious ship's cocoa which he has kindly saved to you from his own | |
breakfast--a no small sacrifice either, if you bear in mind that his own | |
allowance is by no means very large, and that his breakfast consists of | |
cocoa and biscuits alone--these last too often containing more weevils | |
than flour. As you hurry into your bath, your servant coolly informs | |
you-- | |
"Plenty of time, sir. Doctor himself hain't turned out yet." | |
"Then," you inquire, "it isn't six bells?" | |
"Not a bit on it, sir," he replies; "wants the quarter." | |
The rogue has lied to get you up. | |
At seven o'clock exactly you make your way forward to the sick-bay, on | |
the lower deck at the ship's bows. Now, this making your way forward | |
isn't by any means such an easy task as one might imagine; for at that | |
hour the deck is swarming with the men at their toilet, stripped to the | |
waist, every man at his tub, lathering, splashing, scrubbing and | |
rubbing, talking, laughing, joking, singing, sweating, and swearing. | |
Finding your way obstructed, you venture to touch one mildly on the bare | |
back, as a hint to move aside and let you pass; the man immediately | |
damns your eyes, then begs pardon, and says he thought it was Bill "at | |
his lark again." Another who is bending down over his tub you touch | |
more firmly on the _os innominatum_, and ask him in a free and easy sort | |
of tone to "slue round there." He "slues round," very quickly too, but | |
unfortunately in the wrong direction, and ten to one capsizes you in a | |
tub of dirty soapsuds. Having picked yourself up, you pursue your | |
journey, and sing out as a general sort of warning-- | |
For the benefit of those happy individuals who never saw, or had to eat, | |
weevils, I may here state that they are small beetles of the exact size | |
and shape of the common woodlouse, and that the taste is rather insipid, | |
with a slight flavour of boiled beans. Never have tasted the woodlouse, | |
but should think the flavour would be quite similar. | |
"Gangway there, lads," which causes at least a dozen of these worthies | |
to pass such ironical remarks to their companions as-- | |
"Out of the doctor's way there, Tom." | |
"Let the gentleman pass, can't you, Jack?" | |
"Port your helm, Mat; the doctor wants you to." | |
"Round with your stern, Bill; the surgeon's _mate_ is a passing." | |
"Kick that donkey Jones out of the doctor's road,"--while at the same | |
time it is always the speaker himself who is in the way. | |
At last, however, you reach the sick-bay in safety, and retire within | |
the screen. Here, if a strict service man, you will find the surgeon | |
already seated; and presently the other assistant enters, and the work | |
is begun. There is a sick-bay man, or dispenser, and a sick-bay cook, | |
attached to the medical department. The surgeon generally does the | |
brain-work, and the assistants the finger-work; and, to their shame be | |
it spoken, there are some surgeons too proud to consult their younger | |
brethren, whom they treat as assistant-drudges, not assistant-surgeons. | |
At eight o'clock--before or after,--the work is over, and you are off to | |
breakfast. | |
At nine o'clock the drum beats, when every one, not otherwise engaged, | |
is required to muster on the quarter-deck, every officer as he comes up | |
lifting his cap, not to the captain, but to the Queen. After inspection | |
the parson reads prayers; you are then free to write, or read, or | |
anything else in reason you choose; and, if in harbour, you may go on | |
shore--boats leaving the ship at regular hours for the convenience of | |
the officers--always premising that one medical man be left on board, in | |
case of accident. In most foreign ports where a ship may be lying, | |
there is no want of both pleasure and excitement on shore. Take for | |
example the little town of Simon's, about twenty miles from Cape Town, | |
with a population of not less than four thousand of Englishmen, Dutch, | |
Malays, Caffres, and Hottentots. The bay is large, and almost | |
landlocked. The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty | |
mountain. Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard | |
sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or | |
away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens. Nothing can | |
surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the | |
wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding. There is a good hotel | |
and billiard-room; and you can shoot where, when, and what you please-- | |
monkeys, pigeons, rock rabbits, wild ducks, or cobra-di-capellas. If | |
you long for more society, or want to see life, get a day or two days' | |
leave. Rise at five o'clock; the morning will be lovely and clear, with | |
the mist rising from its flowery bed on the mountain's brow, and the | |
sun, large and red, entering on a sky to which nor pen nor pencil could | |
do justice. The cart is waiting for you at the hotel, with an awning | |
spread above. Jump in: crack goes the long Caffre whip; away with a | |
plunge and a jerk go the three pairs of Caffre horses, and along the | |
sea-shore you dash, with the cool sea-breeze in your face, and the | |
water, green and clear, rippling up over the horses' feet; then, amid | |
such scenery, with such exhilarating weather, in such a life-giving | |
climate, if you don't feel a glow of pleasure that will send the blood | |
tingling through your veins, from the points of your ten toes to the | |
extreme end of your eyelashes, there must be something radically and | |
constitutionally wrong with you, and the sooner you go on board and dose | |
yourself with calomel and jalap the better. | |
Arrived at Cape Town, a few introductions will simply throw the whole | |
city at your command, and all it contains. | |
I do not intend this as a complete sketch of your trip, or I would have | |
mentioned some of the many beautiful spots and places of interest you | |
pass on the road--Rathfeldas for example, a hotel halfway, a house | |
buried in sweetness; and the country round about, with its dark waving | |
forests, its fruitful fields and wide-spreading vineyards, where the | |
grape seems to grow almost without cultivation; its comfortable | |
farm-houses; and above all its people, kind, generous, and hospitable as | |
the country is prolific. | |
So you see, dear reader, a navy surgeon's life hath its pleasures. Ah, | |
indeed, it hath! and sorry I am to add, its sufferings too; for a few | |
pages farther on the picture must change: if we get the lights we must | |
needs take the shadows also. | |
CHAPTER EIGHT. | |
A GOOD DINNER. ENEMY ON THE PORT BOW. MAN THE LIFE-BOAT. | |
We will suppose that the reader still occupies the position of | |
assistant-surgeon in a crack frigate or saucy line-of-battle ship. If | |
you go on shore for a walk in the forenoon you may return to lunch at | |
twelve; or if you have extended your ramble far into the country, or | |
gone to visit a friend or lady-love--though for the latter the gloaming | |
hour is to be preferred--you will in all probability have succeeded in | |
establishing an appetite by half-past five, when the officers' | |
dinner-boat leaves the pier. | |
Now, I believe there are few people in the world to whom a good dinner | |
does not prove an attraction, and this is what in a large ship one is | |
always pretty sure of, more especially on guest-nights, which are | |
evenings set apart--one every week--for the entertainment of the | |
officers' friends, one or more of whom any officer may invite, by | |
previously letting the mess-caterer know of his intention. The | |
mess-caterer is the officer who has been elected to superintend the | |
victualling, as the wine-caterer does the liquor department, and a | |
by-no-means-enviable position it is, and consequently it is for ever | |
changing hands. Sailors are proverbial growlers, and, indeed, a certain | |
amount of growling is, and ought to be, permitted in every mess; but it | |
is scarcely fair for an officer, because his breakfast does not please | |
him, or if he can't get butter to his cheese after dinner, to launch | |
forth his indignation at the poor mess-caterer, who most likely is doing | |
all he can to please. These growlers too never speak right out or | |
directly to the point. It is all under-the-table stabbing. | |
"Such and such a ship that I was in," says growler first, "and such and | |
such a mess--" | |
"Oh, by George!" says growler second, "_I_ knew that ship; that was a | |
mess, and no mistake?" | |
"Why, yes," replies number one, "the lunch we got there was better than | |
the dinner we have in this old clothes-basket." | |
On guest-nights your friend sits beside yourself, of course, and you | |
attend to his corporeal wants. One of the nicest things about the | |
service, in my opinion, is the having the band every day at dinner; then | |
too everything is so orderly; with our president and vice-president, it | |
is quite like a pleasure party every evening; so that altogether the | |
dinner, while in harbour, comes to be the great event of the day. And | |
after the cloth has been removed, and the president, with a preliminary | |
rap on the table to draw attention, has given the only toast of the | |
evening, the Queen, and due honour has been paid thereto, and the | |
bandmaster, who has been keeking in at the door every minute for the | |
last ten, that he might not make a mistake in the time, has played "God | |
save the Queen," and returned again to waltzes, quadrilles, or | |
selections from operas,--then it is very pleasant and delightful to loll | |
over our walnuts and wine, and half-dream away the half-hour till coffee | |
is served. Then, to be sure, that little cigar in our canvas | |
smoking-room outside the wardroom door, though the last, is by no means | |
the least pleasant part of the _dejeuner_. For my own part, I enjoy the | |
succeeding hour or so as much as any: when, reclining in an easy chair, | |
in a quiet corner, I can sip my tea, and enjoy my favourite author to my | |
heart's content. You must spare half an hour, however, to pay your last | |
visit to the sick; but this will only tend to make you appreciate your | |
ease all the more when you have done. So the evening wears away, and by | |
ten o'clock you will probably just be sufficiently tired to enjoy | |
thoroughly your little swing-cot and your cool white sheets. | |
At sea, luncheon, or tiffin, is dispensed with, and you dine at | |
half-past two. Not much difference in the quality of viands after all, | |
for now-a-days everything worth eating can be procured, in hermetically | |
sealed tins, capable of remaining fresh for any length of time. | |
There is one little bit of the routine of the service, which at first | |
one may consider a hardship. | |
You are probably enjoying your deepest, sweetest sleep, rocked in the | |
cradle of the deep, and gently swaying to and fro in your little cot; | |
you had turned in with the delicious consciousness of safety, for well | |
you knew that the ship was far away at sea, far from rock or reef or | |
deadly shoal, and that the night was clear and collision very | |
improbable, so you are slumbering like a babe on its mother's breast--as | |
you are for that matter--for the second night-watch is half spent; when, | |
mingling confusedly with your dreams, comes the roll of the drum; you | |
start and listen. There is a moment's pause, when birr-r-r-r it goes | |
again, and as you spring from your couch you hear it the third time. | |
And now you can distinguish the shouts of officers and petty officers, | |
high over the din of the trampling of many feet, of the battening down | |
of hatches, of the unmooring of great guns, and of heavy ropes and bars | |
falling on the deck: then succeeds a dead silence, soon broken by the | |
voice of the commander thundering, "Enemy on the port bow;" and then, | |
and not till then, do you know it is no real engagement, but the monthly | |
night-quarters. And you can't help feeling sorry there isn't a real | |
enemy on the port bow, or either bow, as you hurry away to the cockpit, | |
with the guns rattling all the while overhead, as if a real live | |
thunderstorm were being taken on board, and was objecting to be stowed | |
away. So you lay out your instruments, your sponges, your bottles of | |
wine, and your buckets of water, and, seating yourself in the midst, | |
begin to read `Midsummer Night's Dream,' ready at a moment's notice to | |
amputate the leg of any man on board, whether captain, cook, or | |
cabin-boy. | |
Another nice little amusement the officer of the watch may give himself | |
on fine clear nights is to set fire to and let go the lifebuoy, at the | |
same time singing out at the top of his voice, "Man overboard." | |
A boatswain's mate at once repeats the call, and vociferates down the | |
main hatchway, "Life-boat's crew a-ho-oy!" | |
In our navy a few short but expressive moments of silence ever precede | |
the battle, that both officers and men may hold communion with their | |
God. | |
The men belonging to this boat, who have been lying here and there | |
asleep but dressed, quickly tumble up the ladder pell-mell; there is a | |
rattling of oars heard, and the creaking of pulleys, then a splash in | |
the water alongside, the boat darts away from the ship like an arrow | |
from a bow, and the crew, rowing towards the blazing buoy, save the life | |
of the unhappy man, Cheeks the marine. | |
And thus do British sailors rule the waves and keep old Neptune in his | |
own place. | |
CHAPTER NINE. | |
CONTAINING--IF NOT THE WHOLE--NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. | |
If the disposing, in the service, of even a ship-load of | |
assistant-surgeons, is considered a matter of small moment, my disposal, | |
after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, needs but small comment. I was | |
very soon appointed to take charge of a gunboat, in lieu of a gentleman | |
who was sent to the Naval Hospital of Simon's Town, to fill a death | |
vacancy--for the navy as well as nature abhors a vacuum. I had seen the | |
bright side of the service, I was now to have my turn of the dark; I had | |
enjoyed life on board a crack frigate, I was now to rough it in a | |
gunboat. | |
The east coast of Africa was to be our cruising ground, and our ship a | |
pigmy steamer, with plenty fore-and-aft about her, but nothing else; in | |
fact, she was Euclid's definition of a line to a t, length without | |
breadth, and small enough to have done "excellently well" as a Gravesend | |
tug-boat. Her teeth were five: namely, one gigantic cannon, a | |
65-pounder, as front tooth; on each side a brass howitzer; and flanking | |
these, two canine tusks in shape of a couple of 12-pounder Armstrongs. | |
With this armament we were to lord it with a high hand over the Indian | |
Ocean; carry fire and sword, or, failing sword, the cutlass, into the | |
very heart of slavery's dominions; the Arabs should tremble at the roar | |
of our guns and the thunder of our bursting shells, while the slaves | |
should clank their chains in joyful anticipation of our coming; and best | |
of all, we--the officers--should fill our pockets with prize-money to | |
spend when we again reached the shores of merry England. Unfortunately, | |
this last premeditation was the only one which sustained disappointment, | |
for, our little craft being tender to the flag-ship of the station, all | |
our hard-earned prize-money had to be equally shared with her officers | |
and crew, which reduced the shares to fewer pence each than they | |
otherwise would have been pounds, and which was a burning shame. | |
It was the Cape winter when I joined the gunboat. The hills were | |
covered with purple and green, the air was deliciously cool, and the | |
far-away mountain-tops were clad in virgin snow. It was twelve o'clock | |
noon when I took my traps on board, and found my new messmates seated | |
around the table at tiffin. The gunroom, called the wardroom by | |
courtesy--for the after cabin was occupied by the lieutenant | |
commanding--was a little morsel of an apartment, which the table and | |
five cane-bottomed chairs entirely filled. The officers were five-- | |
namely, a little round-faced, dimple-cheeked, good-natured fellow, who | |
was our second-master; a tall and rather awkward-looking young | |
gentleman, our midshipman; a lean, pert, and withal diminutive youth, | |
brimful of his own importance, our assistant-paymaster; a fair-haired, | |
bright-eyed, laughing boy from Cornwall, our sub-lieutenant; and a "wee | |
wee man," dapper, clean, and tidy, our engineer, admitted to this mess | |
because he was so thorough an exception to his class, which is | |
celebrated more for the unctuosity of its outer than for the smoothness | |
of its inner man. | |
"Come along, old fellow," said our navigator, addressing me as I entered | |
the messroom, bobbing and bowing to evade fracture of the cranium by | |
coming into collision with the transverse beams of the deck above--"come | |
along and join us, we don't dine till four." | |
"And precious little to dine upon," said the officer on his right. | |
"Steward, let us have the rum," [Note 1] cried the first speaker. | |
And thus addressed, the steward shuffled in, bearing in his hand a black | |
bottle, and apparently in imminent danger of choking himself on a large | |
mouthful of bread and butter. This functionary's dress was remarkable | |
rather for its simplicity than its purity, consisting merely of a pair | |
of dirty canvas pants, a pair of purser's shoes--innocent as yet of | |
blacking--and a greasy flannel shirt. But, indeed, uniform seemed to be | |
the exception, and not the rule, of the mess, for, while one wore a blue | |
serge jacket, another was arrayed in white linen, and the rest had | |
neither jacket nor vest. | |
The table was guiltless of a cloth, and littered with beer-bottles, | |
biscuits, onions, sardines, and pats of butter. | |
"Look out there, Waddles!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant; "that beggar | |
Dawson is having his own whack o' grog and everybody else's." | |
"Dang it! I'll have _my_ tot to-day, I know," said the | |
assistant-paymaster, snatching the bottle from Dawson, and helping | |
himself to a very liberal allowance of the ruby fluid. | |
"What a cheek the fellow's got!" cried the midshipman, snatching the | |
glass from the table and bolting the contents at a gulp, adding, with a | |
gasp of satisfaction as he put down the empty tumbler, "The chap thinks | |
nobody's got a soul to be saved but himself." | |
"Soul or no soul," replied the youthful man of money as he gazed | |
disconsolately at the empty glass, "my _spirit's_ gone." | |
"Blessed," said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, "if you devils | |
have left me a drain! see if I don't look out for A1 to-morrow." | |
"Where's the doctor's grog?" cried the sub-lieutenant. | |
"Ay, where's the doctor's?" said another. | |
"Where is the doctor's?" said a third. | |
And they all said "Where is the doctor's?" and echo answered "Where?" | |
"Steward!" said the middy. | |
"Ay, ay, sir." | |
"See if that beggarly bumboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat | |
of butter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I'll pay | |
to-morrow." | |
These and such like scraps of conversation began to give me a little | |
insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my | |
future messmates. "Steward," said I, "show me my cabin." He did so; | |
indeed, he hadn't far to go. It was the aftermost, and consequently the | |
smallest, although I _ought_ to have had my choice. It was the most | |
miserable little box I ever reposed in. Had I owned such a place on | |
shore, I _might_ have been induced to keep rabbits in it, or | |
guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons. Its length was barely six feet, | |
its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient | |
standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for | |
a commodore--I mean Commodore Nutt--and was ventilated by a scuttle | |
seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and | |
below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather | |
hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I | |
was then at the mercy of the waves. | |
My cabin, or rather--to stick to the plain unvarnished truth--my burrow, | |
was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, ants, and other "crawlin' | |
ferlies." | |
"That e'en to name would be unlawfu'." | |
My dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To | |
it I gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing myself past a | |
large brass pump, and edging my body in sideways. The sick came one by | |
one to the dispensary door, and there I saw and treated each case as it | |
arrived, dressed the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and | |
bandaged the bad legs. There was no sick-berth attendant; to be sure | |
the lieutenant-in-command, at my request, told off "a little cabin-boy" | |
for my especial use. I had no cause for delectation on such an | |
acquisition, by no means; he was not a model cabin-boy like what you see | |
in theatres, and I believe will never become an admiral. He managed at | |
times to wash out the dispensary, or gather cockroaches, and make the | |
poultices--only in doing the first he broke the bottles, and in | |
performing the last duty he either let the poultice burn or put salt in | |
it; and, finally, he smashed my pot, and I kicked him forward, and | |
demanded another. _He_ was slightly better, only he was seldom visible; | |
and when I set him to do anything, he at once went off into a sweet | |
slumber; so I kicked him forward too, and had in despair to become my | |
own menial. In both dispensary and burrow it was quite a difficult | |
business to prevent everything going to speedy destruction. The best | |
portions of my uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp, | |
while my instruments required cleaning every morning, and even that did | |
not keep rust at bay. | |
Imagine yourself dear reader, in any of the following interesting | |
positions:-- | |
Very thirsty, and nothing but boiling hot newly distilled water to | |
drink; or wishing a cool bath of a morning, and finding the water in | |
your can only a little short of 212 degrees Fahrenheit. | |
To find, when you awake, a couple of cockroaches, two inches in length, | |
busy picking your teeth. | |
To find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot. | |
To have to arrange all the droppings and eggs of these interesting | |
creatures on the edge of your plate, previous to eating your soup. | |
To have to beat out the dust and weevils from every square inch of | |
biscuit before putting it in your mouth. | |
To be looking for a book and put your hand on a full-grown scaly | |
scorpion. Nice sensation--the animal twining round your finger, or | |
running up your sleeve. _Denouement_--cracking him under foot-- | |
full-flavoured bouquet--joy at escaping a sting. | |
You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a | |
strange titillating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down | |
at last to find a centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind-legs--you | |
thank God not his fore fifty--abutting on to your shin. _Tableau_-- | |
green and red light from the eyes of the many-legged; horror of yourself | |
as you wait till he thinks proper to "move on." | |
To awake in the morning, and find a large and healthy-looking tarantula | |
squatting on your pillow within ten inches of your nose, with his | |
basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and apparently saying, "You're only just | |
awake, are you? I've been sitting here all the morning watching you." | |
You know if you move he'll bite you, somewhere; and if he _does_ bite | |
you, you'll go mad and dance _ad libitum_; so you twist your mouth in | |
the opposite direction and ejaculate-- | |
"Steward!" but the steward does not come--in fact he is forward, seeing | |
after the breakfast. Meanwhile the gentleman on the pillow is moving | |
his horizontal mandibles in a most threatening manner, and just as he | |
makes a rush for your nose you tumble out of bed with a shriek; and, if | |
a very nervous person, probably run on deck in your shirt. | |
Or, to fall asleep under the following circumstances: The bulkheads, all | |
around, black with cock-and-hen-roaches, a few of which are engaged | |
cropping your toe-nails, or running off with little bits of the skin of | |
your calves; bugs in the crevices of your cot, a flea tickling the sole | |
of your foot, a troop of ants carrying a dead cockroach over your | |
pillow, lively mosquitoes attacking you everywhere, hammer-legged flies | |
occasionally settling on your nose, rats running in and rats running | |
out, your lamp just going out, and the delicious certainty that an | |
indefinite number of earwigs and scorpions, besides two centipedes and a | |
tarantula, are hiding themselves somewhere in your cabin. | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
Note 1. Officers, as well as men, are allowed one half-gill of rum | |
daily, with this difference,--the former pay for theirs, while the | |
latter do not. | |
CHAPTER TEN. | |
ROUND THE CAPE AND UP THE 'BIQUE. SLAVER-HUNTING. | |
It was a dark-grey cloudy forenoon when we "up anchor" and sailed from | |
Simon's Bay. Frequent squalls whitened the water, and there was every | |
indication of our being about to have dirty weather; and the tokens told | |
no lies. To our little craft, however, the foul weather that followed | |
seemed to be a matter of very little moment; for, when the wind or waves | |
were in any way high, she kept snugly below water, evidently thinking | |
more of her own convenience than our comfort, for such a procedure on | |
her part necessitated our leading a sort of amphibious existence, better | |
suited to the tastes of frogs than human beings. Our beds too, or | |
matresses, became converted into gigantic poultices, in which we nightly | |
steamed, like as many porkers newly shaven. Judging from the amount of | |
salt which got encrusted on our skins, there was little need to fear | |
danger, we were well preserved--so much so indeed, that, but for the | |
constant use of the matutinal freshwater bath, we would doubtless have | |
shared the fate of Lot's wife and been turned into pillars of salt. | |
After being a few days at sea the wind began to moderate, and finally | |
died away; and instead thereof we had thunderstorms and waves, which, if | |
not so big as mountains, would certainly have made pretty large hills. | |
Many a night did we linger on deck till well nigh morning, entranced by | |
the sublime beauty and terrible grandeur of those thunderstorms. The | |
roar and rattle of heaven's artillery; the incessant _floods_ of | |
lightning--crimson, blue, or white; our little craft hanging by the bows | |
to the crest of each huge inky billow, or next moment buried in the | |
valley of the waves, with a wall of black waters on every side; the wet | |
deck, the slippery shrouds, and the faces of the men holding on to the | |
ropes and appearing so strangely pale in the electric light; I see the | |
whole picture even now as I write--a picture, indeed, that can never, | |
never fade from my memory. | |
Our cruising "ground" lay between the island and town of Mozambique in | |
the south, to about Magadoxa, some seven or eight degrees north of the | |
Equator. | |
Nearly the whole of the slave-trade is carried on by the Arabs, one or | |
two Spaniards sometimes engaging in it likewise. The slaves are brought | |
from the far interior of South Africa, where they can be purchased for a | |
small bag of rice each. They are taken down in chained gangs to the | |
coast, and there in some secluded bay the dhows lie, waiting to take | |
them on board and convey them to the slave-mart at Zanzibar, to which | |
place Arab merchants come from the most distant parts of Arabia and | |
Persia to buy them. Dhows are vessels with one or two masts, and a | |
corresponding number of large sails, and of a very peculiar | |
construction, being shaped somewhat like a short or Blucher boot, the | |
high part of the boot representing the poop. They have a thatched roof | |
over the deck, the projecting eaves of which render boarding exceedingly | |
difficult to an enemy. | |
Sometimes, on rounding the corner of a lagoon island, we would quietly | |
and unexpectedly steam into the midst of a fleet of thirty to forty of | |
these queer-looking vessels, very much to our own satisfaction, and | |
their intense consternation. Imagine a cat popping down among as many | |
mice, and you will be able to form some idea of the scramble that | |
followed. However, by dint of steaming here and there, and expending a | |
great deal of shot and shell, we generally managed to keep them together | |
as a dog would a flock of sheep, until we examined all their papers with | |
the aid of our interpreter, and probably picked out a prize. | |
I wish I could say the prizes were anything like numerous; for perhaps | |
one-half of all the vessels we board are illicit slaveholders, and yet | |
we cannot lay a finger on them. One may well ask why? It has been | |
said, and it is generally believed in England, that our cruisers are | |
sweeping the Indian Ocean of slavers, and stamping out the curse. But | |
the truth is very different, and all that we are doing, or able at | |
present to do, is but to pull an occasional hair from the hoary locks of | |
the fiend Slavery. This can be proved from the return-sheets, which | |
every cruiser sends home, of the number of vessels boarded, generally | |
averaging one thousand yearly to each man-o'-war, of which the half at | |
least have slaves or slave-irons on board; but only two, or at most | |
three, of these will become prizes. The reason of this will easily be | |
understood, when the reader is informed, that the Sultan of Zanzibar has | |
liberty to take any number of slaves from any one portion of his | |
dominions to another: these are called household slaves; and, as his | |
dominions stretch nearly all along the eastern shores of Africa, it is | |
only necessary for the slave-dealer to get his sanction and seal to his | |
papers in order to steer clear of British law. This, in almost every | |
case, can be accomplished by means of a bribe. So slavery flourishes, | |
the Sultan draws a good fat revenue from it, and the Portuguese--no | |
great friends to us at any time--laugh and wink to see John Bull paying | |
his thousands yearly for next to nothing. Supposing we liberate even | |
two thousand slaves a year, which I am not sure we do however, there are | |
on the lowest estimate six hundred slaves bought and sold daily in | |
Zanzibar mart; two hundred and nineteen thousand in a twelvemonth; and, | |
of our two thousand that are set free in Zanzibar, most, if not all, | |
by-and-bye, become bondsmen again. | |
I am not an advocate for slavery, and would like to see a wholesale raid | |
made against it, but I do not believe in the retail system; selling | |
freedom in pennyworths, and spending millions in doing it, is very like | |
burning a penny candle in seeking for a cent. Yet I sincerely believe, | |
that there is more good done to the spread of civilisation and religion | |
in one year, by the slave-traffic, than all our missionaries can do in a | |
hundred. Don't open your eyes and smile incredulously, intelligent | |
reader; we live in an age when every question is looked at on both | |
sides, and why should not this? What becomes of the hundreds of | |
thousands of slaves that are taken from Africa? They are sold to the | |
Arabs--that wonderful race, who have been second only to Christians in | |
the good they have done to civilisation; they are taken from a state of | |
degradation, bestiality, and wretchedness, worse by far than that of the | |
wild beasts, and from a part of the country too that is almost unfit to | |
live in, and carried to more favoured lands, spread over the sunny | |
shores of fertile Persia and Arabia, fed and clothed and cared for; | |
after a few years of faithful service they are even called sons and feed | |
at their master's table--taught all the trades and useful arts, besides | |
the Mahommedan religion, which is certainly better than none--and, above | |
all, have a better chance given them of one day hearing and learning the | |
beautiful tenets of Christianity, the religion of love. | |
I have met with few slaves who after a few years did not say, "Praised | |
be Allah for the good day I was take from me coontry!" and whose only | |
wish to return was, that they might bring away some aged parent, or | |
beloved sister, from the dark cheerless home of their infancy. | |
Means and measures much more energetic must be brought into action if | |
the stronghold of slavedom is to be stormed, and, if not, it were better | |
to leave it alone. "If the work be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest | |
haply ye be found to fight even against God." | |
CHAPTER ELEVEN. | |
AN UNLUCKY SHIP. THE DAYS WHEN WE WENT GIPSYING. INAMBANE. QUILP THE | |
PILOT AND LAMOO. | |
It might have been that our vessel was launched on a Friday, or sailed | |
on a Friday; or whether it was owing to our carrying the devil on board | |
of us in shape of a big jet-black cat, and for whom the lifebuoy was | |
thrice let go, and boats lowered in order to save his infernal majesty | |
from a watery grave; but whatever was the reason, she was certainly a | |
most unlucky ship from first to last; for during a cruise of eighteen | |
months, four times did we run aground on dangerous reefs, twice were we | |
on fire--once having had to scuttle the decks--once we sprung a bad leak | |
and were nearly foundering, several times we narrowly escaped the same | |
speedy termination to our cruise by being taken aback, while, compared | |
to our smaller dangers or lesser perils, Saint Paul's adventures--as a | |
Yankee would express it--wern't a circumstance. | |
On the other hand, we were amply repaid by the many beautiful spots we | |
visited; the lovely wooded creeks where the slave-dhows played at hide | |
and seek with us, and the natural harbours, at times surrounded by | |
scenery so sweetly beautiful and so charmingly solitary, that, if | |
fairies still linger on this earth, one must think they would choose | |
just such places as these for their moonlight revels. Then there were | |
so many little towns--Portuguese settlements--to be visited, for the | |
Portuguese have spread themselves, after the manner of wild | |
strawberries, all round the coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone on the | |
west to Zanzibar on the east. There was as much sameness about these | |
settlements as about our visits to them: a few houses--more like tents-- | |
built on the sand (it does seem funny to see sofas, chairs, and the | |
piano itself standing among the deep soft sand); a fort, the guns of | |
which, if fired, would bring down the walls; a few white-jacketed | |
swarthy-looking soldiers; a very polite governor, brimful of hospitality | |
and broken English; and a good dinner, winding up with punch of | |
schnapps. | |
Memorable too are the pleasant boating excursions we had on the calm | |
bosom of the Indian Ocean. Armed boats used to be detached to cruise | |
for three or four weeks at a time in quest of prizes, at the end of | |
which time they were picked up at some place of rendezvous. By day we | |
sailed about the coast and around the small wooded islets, where dhows | |
might lurk, only landing in sheltered nooks to cook and eat our food. | |
Our provisions were ship's, but at times we drove great bargains with | |
the naked natives for fowls and eggs and goats; then would we make | |
delicious soups, rich ragouts, and curries fit for the king of the | |
Cannibal Islands. Fruit too we had in plenty, and the best of oysters | |
for the gathering, with iguana most succulent of lizards, occasionally | |
fried flying-fish, or delicate morsels of shark, skip-jack, or devilled | |
dolphin, with a glass of prime rum to wash the whole down, and three | |
grains of quinine to charm away the fever. There was, too, about these | |
expeditions, an air of gipsying that was quite pleasant. To be sure our | |
beds were a little hard, but we did not mind that; while clad in our | |
blanket-suits, and covered with a boat-sail, we could defy the dew. | |
Sleep, or rather the want of sleep, we seldom had to complain of, for | |
the blue star-lit sky above us, the gentle rising and falling of the | |
anchored boat, the lip-lipping of the water, and the sighing sound of | |
the wind through the great forest near us--all tended to woo us to | |
sweetest slumber. | |
Sometimes we would make long excursions up the rivers of Africa, | |
combining business with pleasure, enjoying the trip, and at the same | |
time gleaning some useful information regarding slave or slave-ship. | |
The following sketch concerning one or two of these may tend to show, | |
that a man does not take leave of all enjoyment, when his ship leaves | |
the chalky cliffs of old England. | |
Our anchor was dropped outside the bar of Inambane river; the grating | |
noise of the chain as it rattled through the hawse-hole awoke me, and I | |
soon after went on deck. It was just six o'clock and a beautiful clear | |
morning, with the sun rising red and rosy--like a portly gentleman | |
getting up from his wine--and smiling over the sea in quite a pleasant | |
sort of way. So, as both Neptune and Sol seemed propitious, the | |
commander, our second-master, and myself made up our minds to visit the | |
little town and fort of Inambane, about forty--we thought fifteen--miles | |
up the river. But breakfast had to be prepared and eaten, the magazine | |
and arms got into the boat, besides a day's provisions, with rum and | |
quinine to be stowed away, so that the sun had got a good way up the | |
sky, and now looked more like a portly gentleman whose dinner had | |
disagreed, before we had got fairly under way and left the ship's side. | |
Never was forenoon brighter or fairer, only one or two snowy banks of | |
cloud interrupting the blue of the sky, while the river, miles broad, | |
stole silently seaward, unruffled by wave or wavelet, so that the hearts | |
of both men and officers were light as the air they breathed was pure. | |
The men, bending cheerfully on their oars, sang snatches of Dibdin-- | |
Neptune's poet laureate; and we, tired of talking, reclined astern, | |
gazing with half-shut eyes on the round undulating hills, that, covered | |
with low mangrove-trees and large exotics, formed the banks of the | |
river. We passed numerous small wooded islands and elevated sandbanks, | |
on the edges of which whole regiments of long-legged birds waded about | |
in search of food, or, starting at our approach, flew over our heads in | |
Indian file, their bright scarlet-and-white plumage showing prettily | |
against the blue of the sky. Shoals of turtle floated past, and | |
hundreds of rainbow- jelly-fishes, while, farther off, many | |
large black bodies--the backs of hippopotami--moved on the surface of | |
the water, or anon disappeared with a sullen plash. Saving these sounds | |
and the dip of our own oars, all was still, the silence of the desert | |
reigned around us, the quiet of a newly created world. | |
The forenoon wore away, the river got narrower, but, though we could see | |
a distance of ten miles before us, neither life nor sign of life could | |
be perceived. At one o'clock we landed among a few cocoa-nut trees to | |
eat our meagre dinner, a little salt pork, raw, and a bit of biscuit. | |
No sooner had we "shoved off" again than the sky became overcast; we | |
were caught in, and had to pull against, a blinding white-squall that | |
would have laid a line-of-battle on her beam ends. The rain poured down | |
as if from a water-spout, almost filling the boat and drenching us to | |
the skin, and, not being able to see a yard ahead, our boat ran aground | |
and stuck fast. It took us a good hour after the squall was over to | |
drag her into deep water; nor were our misfortunes then at an end, for | |
squall succeeded squall, and, having a journey of uncertain length still | |
before us, we began to feel very miserable indeed. | |
It was long after four o'clock when, tired, wet, and hungry, we hailed | |
with joy a large white house on a wooded promontory; it was the | |
Governor's castle, and soon after we came in sight of the town itself. | |
Situated so far in the interior of Africa, in a region so wild, few | |
would have expected to find such a little paradise as we now beheld,--a | |
colony of industrious Portuguese, a large fort and a company of | |
soldiers, a governor and consulate, a town of nice little detached | |
cottages, with rows of cocoa-nut, mango, and orange trees, and in fact | |
all the necessaries, and luxuries of civilised life. It was, indeed, an | |
oasis in the desert, and, to us, the most pleasant of pleasant | |
surprises. | |
Leaving the men for a short time with the boat, we made our way to the | |
house of the consul, a dapper little gentleman with a pretty wife and | |
two beautiful daughters--flowers that had hitherto blushed unseen and | |
wasted their sweetness in the desert air. | |
Our welcome was most warm. After making us swallow a glass of brandy | |
each to keep off fever, he kindly led us to a room, and made us strip | |
off our wet garments, while a servant brought bundle after bundle of | |
clothes, and spread them out before us. There were socks and shirts and | |
slippers galore, with waistcoats, pantaloons, and head-dresses, and | |
jackets, enough to have dressed an opera troupe. The commander and I | |
furnished ourselves with a red Turkish fez and dark-grey dressing-gown | |
each, with cord and tassels to correspond, and, thus, arrayed, we | |
considered ourselves of no small account. Our kind entertainers were | |
waiting for us in the next room, where they had, in the mean time, been | |
preparing for us the most fragrant of brandy punch. By-and-bye two | |
officers and a tall Parsee dropped in, and for the next hour or so the | |
conversation was of the most animated and lively description, although a | |
bystander, had there been one, would not have been much edified, for the | |
following reason: the younger daughter and myself were flirting in the | |
ancient Latin language, with an occasional soft word in Spanish; our | |
commander was talking in bad French to the consul's lady, who was | |
replying in Portuguese; the second-master was maintaining a smart | |
discussion in broken Italian with the elder daughter; the Parsee and | |
officer of the fort chiming in, the former in English, the latter in | |
Hindostanee; but as no one of the four could have had the slightest idea | |
of the other's meaning, the amount of information given and received | |
must have been very small,--in fact, merely nominal. It must not, | |
however, be supposed that our host or hostesses could speak _no_ | |
English, for the consul himself would frequently, and with a bow that | |
was inimitable, push the bottle towards the commander, and say, as he | |
shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skywards, "Continue you, Sar | |
Capitan, to wet your whistle;" and, more than once, the fair creature by | |
my side would raise and did raise the glass to her lips, and say, as her | |
eyes sought mine, "Good night, Sar Officeer," as if she meant me to be | |
off to bed without a moment's delay, which I knew she did not. Then, | |
when I responded to the toast, and complimented her on her knowledge of | |
the "universal language," she added, with a pretty shake of the head, | |
"No, Sar Officeer, I no can have speak the mooch Englese." A servant,-- | |
apparently newly out of prison, so closely was his hair cropped,-- | |
interrupted our pleasant confab, and removed the seat of our Babel to | |
the dining-room, where as nicely-cooked-and-served a dinner as ever | |
delighted the senses of hungry mortality awaited our attention. No | |
large clumsy joints, huge misshapen roasts or bulky boils, hampered the | |
board; but dainty made-dishes, savoury stews, piquant curries, delicate | |
fricassees whose bouquet tempted even as their taste and flavour | |
stimulated the appetite, strange little fishes as graceful in shape as | |
lovely in colour, vegetables that only the rich luxuriance of an African | |
garden could supply, and numerous other nameless nothings, with | |
delicious wines and costly liqueurs, neatness, attention, and kindness, | |
combined to form our repast, and counteract a slight suspicion of | |
crocodiles' tails and stewed lizard, for where ignorance is bliss a | |
fellow is surely a fool if he is wise. | |
We spent a most pleasant evening in asking questions, spinning yarns, | |
singing songs, and making love. The younger daughter--sweet child of | |
the desert--sang `Amante de alguno;' her sister played a selection from | |
`La Traviata;' next, the consul's lady favoured us with something | |
pensive and sad, having reference, I think, to bright eyes, bleeding | |
hearts, love, and slow death; then, the Parsee chanted a Persian hymn | |
with an "Allalallala," instead of Fol-di-riddle-ido as a chorus, which | |
elicited "Fra poco a me" from the Portuguese lieutenant; and this last | |
caused our commander to seat himself at the piano, turn up the white of | |
his eyes, and in very lugubrious tones question the probability of | |
"Gentle Annie's" ever reappearing in any spring-time whatever; then, | |
amid so much musical sentimentality and woe, it was not likely that I | |
was to hold my peace, so I lifted up my voice and sang-- | |
"Cauld kail in Aberdeen, | |
An' cas ticks in Strathbogie; | |
Ilka chiel maun hae a quean | |
Bit leeze me on ma cogie--" | |
with a pathos that caused the tears to trickle over and adown the nose | |
of the younger daughter--she was of the gushing temperament--and didn't | |
leave a dry eye in the room. The song brought down the house--so to | |
speak--and I was the hero for the rest of the evening. Before parting | |
for the night we also sang `Auld lang syne,' copies of the words having | |
been written out and distributed, to prevent mistakes; this was supposed | |
by our hostess to be the English national anthem. | |
It was with no small amount of regret that we parted from our friends | |
next day; a fresh breeze carried us down stream, and, except our running | |
aground once or twice, and being nearly drowned in crossing the bar, we | |
arrived safely on board our saucy gunboat. | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
"Afric's sunny fountains" have been engaged for such a length of time in | |
the poetical employment of "rolling down their golden sands," that a | |
bank or bar of that same bright material has been formed at the mouth of | |
every river, which it is very difficult and often dangerous to cross | |
even in canoes. We had despatched boats before us to take soundings on | |
the bar of Lamoo, and prepared to follow in the track thus marked out. | |
Now, our little bark, although not warranted, like the Yankee boat, to | |
float wherever there is a heavy dew, was nevertheless content with a | |
very modest allowance of the aqueous element; in two and a half fathoms | |
she was quite at home, and even in two--with the help of a few | |
breakers--she never failed to bump it over a bar. We approached the bar | |
of Lamoo, therefore, with a certain degree of confidence till the keel | |
rasped on the sand; this caused us to turn astern till we rasped again; | |
then, being neither able to get back nor forward, we stopped ship, put | |
our fingers in our wise mouths, and tried to consider what next was to | |
be done. Just then a small canoe was observed coming bobbing over the | |
big waves that tumbled in on the bar; at one moment it was hidden behind | |
a breaker, next moment mounting over another, and so, after a little | |
game at bo-peep, it got alongside, and from it there scrambled on board | |
a little, little man, answering entirely to Dickens's description of | |
Quilp. | |
"Quilp!" said the commander. | |
"Quilp!! by George!" repeated our second-master. | |
"Quilp!!!" added I, "by all that's small and ugly." | |
"Your sarvant, sar," said Quilp himself. "I am one pilot." There | |
certainly was not enough of him to make two. He was rather darker in | |
skin than the Quilp of Dickens, and his only garment was a coal-sack | |
without sleeves--no coal-sack _has_ sleeves, however--begirt with a | |
rope, in which a short knife was stuck; he had, besides, sandals on his | |
feet, and his temples were begirt with a dirty dishclout by way of | |
turban, and he repeated, "I am one pilot, sar." | |
"Can you take us over the bar?" asked the commander. | |
"How much water you?" | |
"Three fathoms." | |
"I do it, sar, plenty quick." | |
"Twenty shillings if you do." | |
"I do it, sar. I do him," cried the little man, as he mounted the | |
bridge; then cocking his head to one side, and spreading out his arms | |
like a badly feathered duck, he added, "Suppose I no do him plenty | |
proper, you catchee me and make shot." | |
"If the vessel strikes, I'll hang you, sir." | |
Quilp grinned--which was his way of smiling. | |
"Up steam, sar!" he cried; the order was obeyed. | |
"Go 'head. Stabird a leetle." | |
"And a half three," sung the man in the chains; then, "And a half four;" | |
and by-and-bye, "And a half three" again; followed next moment by, "By | |
the deep three." | |
The commander was all in a fidget. We were on the dreaded bar; on each | |
side of us the big waves curled and broke with a sullen boom like | |
far-off thunder; only, where we were, no waves broke. | |
"Mind yourself now," cried the commander to Quilp; to which he in wrath | |
replied-- | |
"What for you stand there make bobbery? _I_ is de cap'n; suppose you is | |
fear, go alow, sar." | |
"And a quarter less three." | |
"Steady!" and a large wave broke right aboard of us, almost sweeping us | |
from the deck, and lifting the ship's head into the sky. Another and | |
another followed; but amid the wet and the spray, and the roar of the | |
breakers, firmly stood the little pilot, coolly giving his orders, and | |
never for an instant taking his eyes from the vessel's jib-boom and the | |
distant shore, till we were safely through the surf and quietly steaming | |
up the river. | |
After proceeding some miles, native villages began to appear here and | |
there on both shores, and the great number of dhows on the river, with | |
boats and canoes of every description, told us we were nearing a large | |
town. Two hours afterwards we were anchored under the guns of the | |
Sultan's palace, which were belching forth fire and smoke in return for | |
the salute we had fired. We found every creature and thing in Lamoo as | |
entirely primitive, as absolutely foreign, as if it were a city in some | |
other planet. The most conspicuous building is the Sultan's lofty fort | |
and palace, with its spacious steps, its fountains and marble halls. | |
The streets are narrow and confused; the houses built in the Arab | |
fashion, and in many cases connected by bridges at the top; the | |
inhabitants about forty thousand, including Arabs, Persians, Hindoos, | |
Somali Indians, and slaves. The wells, exceedingly deep, are built in | |
the centre of the street without any protection; and girls, carrying on | |
their heads calabashes, are continually passing to and from them. | |
Slaves, two and two, bearing their burdens of cowries and ivory on poles | |
between, and keeping step to an impromptu chant; black girls weaving | |
mats and grass-cloth; strange-looking tradesmen, with stranger tools, at | |
every door; rich merchants borne along in gilded palanquins; people | |
praying on housetops; and the Sultan's ferocious soldiery prowling | |
about, with swords as tall, and guns nearly twice as tall, as | |
themselves; a large shark-market; a fine bazaar, with gold-dust, ivory, | |
and tiger-skins exposed for sale; sprightly horses with gaudy trappings; | |
solemn-looking camels; dust and stench and a general aroma of savage | |
life and customs pervading the atmosphere, but law and order | |
nevertheless. People of all religions agree like brothers. No | |
spirituous liquor of any sort is sold in the town; the Sultan's soldiers | |
go about the streets at night, smelling the breath of the suspected, and | |
the faintest odour of the accursed fire-water dooms the poor mortal to | |
fifty strokes with a thick bamboo-cane next morning. The sugar-cane | |
grows wild in the fertile suburbs, amid a perfect forest of fine trees; | |
farther out in the country the cottager dwells beneath his few cocoa-nut | |
trees, which supply him with all the necessaries of life. One tree for | |
each member of his family is enough. _He_ builds the house and fences | |
with its large leaves; his wife prepares meat and drink, cloth and oil, | |
from the nut; the space between the trees is cultivated for curry, and | |
the spare nuts are sold to purchase luxuries, and the rent of twelve | |
trees is only _sixpence_ of our money. Happy country! no drunkenness, | |
no debt, no religious strife, but peace and contentment everywhere! | |
Reader, if you are in trouble, or your affairs are going "to pot," or if | |
you are of opinion that this once favoured land is getting used up, I | |
sincerely advise you to sell off your goods and be off to Lamoo. | |
CHAPTER TWELVE. | |
PROS AND CONS. | |
Of the "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," very few can | |
know how entirely dependent for happiness one is on his neighbours. Man | |
is out-and-out, or out-and-in, a gregarious animal, else `Robinson | |
Crusoe' had never been written. Now, I am sure that it is only correct | |
to state that the majority of combatant [Note 1] officers are, in simple | |
language, jolly nice fellows, and as a class gentlemen, having, in fact, | |
that fine sense of honour, that good-heartedness, which loves to do as | |
it would be done by, which hurteth not the feelings of the humble, which | |
turneth aside from the worm in its path, and delighteth not in plucking | |
the wings from the helpless fly. To believe, however, that there are no | |
exceptions to this rule would be to have faith in the speedy advent of | |
the millennium, that happy period of lamb-and-lion-ism which we would | |
all rather see than hear tell of; for human nature is by no means | |
altered by bathing every morning in salt water, it is the same afloat as | |
on shore. And there are many officers in the navy, who--"dressed in a | |
little brief authority," and wearing an additional stripe--love to lord | |
it over their fellow worms. Nor is this fault altogether absent from | |
the medical profession itself! | |
It is in small gunboats, commanded perhaps by a lieutenant, and carrying | |
only an assistant-surgeon, where a young medical officer feels all the | |
hardships and despotism of the service; for if the lieutenant in command | |
happens to be at all frog-hearted, he has then a splendid opportunity of | |
puffing himself up. | |
In a large ship with from twenty to thirty officers in the mess, if you | |
do not happen to meet with a kindred spirit at one end of the table, you | |
can shift your chair to the other. But in a gunboat on foreign service, | |
with merely a clerk, a blatant middy, and a second-master who would fain | |
be your senior, as your messmates, then, I say, God help you! unless you | |
have the rare gift of doing anything for a quiet life. It is all | |
nonsense to say, "Write a letter on service about any grievance;" you | |
can't write about ten out of a thousand of the petty annoyances which go | |
to make your life miserable; and if you do, you will be but little | |
better, if, indeed, your last state be not worse than your first. | |
I have in my mind's eye even now a lieutenant who commanded a gunboat in | |
which I served as medical officer in charge. This little man was what | |
is called a sea-lawyer--my naval readers well know what I mean; he knew | |
all the Admiralty Instructions, was an amateur engineer, only needed the | |
title of M.D. to make him a doctor, could quibble and quirk, and in fact | |
could prove by the Queen's Regulations that your soul, to say nothing of | |
your body, wasn't your own; that _you_ were a slave, and _he_ lord--god | |
of all he surveyed. Peace be with him! he has gone to his account; he | |
will not require an advocate, he can speak for himself. Not many such | |
hath the service, I am happy to say. He was continually changing his | |
poor hard-worked sub-lieutenants, and driving his engineers to drink, | |
previously to trying them by court-martial. At first he and I got on | |
very well; apparently he "loved me like a vera brither;" but we did not | |
continue long "on the same platform," and, from the day we had the first | |
difference of opinion, he was my foe, and a bitter one too. I assure | |
you, reader, it gave me a poor idea of the service, for it was my first | |
year. He was always on the outlook for faults, and his kindest words to | |
me were "chaffing" me on my accent, or about my country. To be able to | |
meet him on his own ground I studied the Instructions day and night, and | |
tried to stick by them. | |
Malingering was common on board; one or two whom I caught I turned to | |
duty: the men, knowing how matters stood between the commander and me, | |
refused to work, and so I was had up and bullied on the quarter-deck for | |
"neglect of duty" in not putting these fellows on the sick-list. After | |
this I had to put every one that asked on the sick-list. | |
"Doctor," he would say to me on reporting the number sick, "this is | |
_wondrous_ strange--_thirteen_ on the list, out of only ninety men. | |
Why, sir, I've been in line-of-battle ships,--_line-of-battle_ ships, | |
sir,--where they had not ten sick--_ten sick_, sir." This of course | |
implied an insult to me, but I was like a sheep before the shearers, | |
dumb. | |
On Sunday mornings I went with him the round of inspection; the sick who | |
were able to be out of hammock were drawn up for review: had he been | |
half as particular with the men under his own charge or with the ship in | |
general as he was with the few sick, there would have been but little | |
disease to treat. Instead of questioning _me_ concerning their | |
treatment, he interrogated the sick themselves, quarrelling with the | |
medicine given, and pooh-pooh-ing my diagnosis. Those in hammocks, who | |
most needed gentleness and comfort, he bullied, blamed for being ill, | |
and rendered generally uneasy. Remonstrance on my part was either taken | |
no notice of, or instantly checked. If men were reported by me for | |
being dirty, giving impudence, or disobeying orders, _he_ became their | |
advocate--an able one too--and _I_ had to retire, sorry I had spoken. | |
But I would not tell the tenth part of what I had to suffer, because | |
such men as he are the _exception_, and because he is dead. A little | |
black baboon of a boy who attended on this lieutenant-commanding had one | |
day incurred his displeasure: "Bo'swain's mate," cried he, "take my boy | |
forward, hoist him on an ordinary seaman's back, and give him a | |
rope's-ending; and," turning to me, "Doctor, you'll go and attend my | |
boy's flogging." | |
I dared not trust myself to reply. With a face like crimson I rushed | |
below to my cabin, and--how could I help it?--made a baby of myself for | |
once; all my pent-up feelings found vent in a long fit of crying. | |
True, I might in this case have written a letter to the service about my | |
treatment; but, as it is not till after twelve months the | |
assistant-surgeon is confirmed, the commander's word would have been | |
taken before mine, and I probably dismissed without a court-martial. | |
That probationary year I consider more than a grievance, it is a _cruel | |
injustice_. | |
Cabins? There is a regulation--of late more strictly enforced by a | |
circular--that every medical officer serving on board his own ship shall | |
have a cabin, and the choice--by rank--of cabin, and he is a fool if he | |
does not enforce it. But it sometimes happens that a sub-lieutenant | |
(who has no cabin) is promoted to lieutenant on a foreign station; he | |
will then rank above the assistant-surgeon, and perhaps, if there is no | |
spare cabin, the poor doctor will have to give up his, and take to a | |
sea-chest and hammock, throwing all his curiosities, however valuable, | |
overboard. It would be the duty of the captain in such a case to build | |
an additional cabin, and if he did not, or would not, a letter to the | |
admiral would make him. | |
Does the combatant officer treat the medical officer with respect? | |
Certainly, unless one or other of the two be a snob: in the one case the | |
respect is not worth having, in the other it can't be expected. | |
In the military branch you shall find many officers belonging to the | |
best English families: these I need hardly say are for the most part | |
gentlemen, and gentle men. However, it is allowed in most messes that | |
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, | |
A man's man for a' that;" | |
and I assure the candidate for a commission, that, if he is himself a | |
gentleman, he will find no want of admirers in the navy. But there are | |
some young doctors who enter the service, knowing their profession to be | |
sure, and how to hold a knife and fork--not a carving-fork though--but | |
knowing little else; yet even these soon settle down, and, if they are | |
not dismissed by court-martial for knocking some one down at cards, or | |
on the quarter-deck, turn out good service-officers. Indeed, after all, | |
I question if it be good to know too much of fine-gentility on entering | |
the service, for, although the navy officers one meets have much that is | |
agreeable, honest, and true, there is through it all a vein of what can | |
only be designated as the coarse. The science of conversation, that | |
beautiful science that says and lets say, that can listen as well as | |
speak, is but little studied. Mostly all the talk is "shop," or rather | |
"ship." There is a want of tone in the discourse, a lack of refinement. | |
The delicious chit-chat on new books, authors, poetry, music, or the | |
drama, interspersed with anecdote, incident, and adventure, and | |
enlivened with the laughter-raising pun or happy bon-mot, is, alas! but | |
too seldom heard: the rough joke, the tales of women, ships, and former | |
ship-mates, and the old, old, stale "good things,"--these are more | |
fashionable at our navy mess-board. Those who would object to such | |
conversation are in the minority, and prefer to let things hang as they | |
grew. Now, only one thing can ever alter this, and that is a good and | |
perfect library in every ship, to enable officers, who spend most of | |
their time out of society, to keep up with the times if possible. But I | |
fear I am drifting imperceptibly into the subject of navy-reform, which | |
I prefer leaving to older and wiser heads. | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
Note 1. Combatant (from combat, a battle), fighting officers,--as if | |
the medical offices didn't fight likewise. It would be better to take | |
away the "combat," and leave the "ant"--ant-officers, as they do the | |
work of the ship. | |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. | |
ODDS AND ENDS. | |
There is one grievance which the medical officers, in common with their | |
combatant brethren, have to complain of--I refer to _compulsory | |
shaving_; neither is this by any means so insignificant a matter as it | |
may seem. It may appear a ridiculous statement, but it is nevertheless | |
a true one, that this regulation has caused many a young surgeon to | |
prefer the army to the navy. "Mere dandies," the reader may say, "whom | |
this grievance would affect;" but there is many a good man a dandy, and | |
no one could surely respect a man who was careless of his personal | |
appearance, or who would willingly, and without a sigh, disfigure his | |
face by depriving it of what nature considers both ornate and useful-- | |
ornate, as the ladies and the looking-glass can prove; and useful, as | |
the blistered chin and upper lip of the shaven sailor, in hot climates, | |
points out. From the earliest ages the moustache has been worn,--even | |
the Arabs, who shave the head, leave untouched the upper lip. What | |
would the pictures of some of the great masters be without it? Didn't | |
the Roman youths dedicate the first few downy hairs of the coming | |
moustache to the gods? Does not the moustache give a manly appearance | |
to the smallest and most effeminate? Does it not even beget a certain | |
amount of respect for the wearer? What sort of guys would the razor | |
make of Count Bismark, Dickens, the Sultan of Turkey, or Anthony | |
Trollope? Were the Emperor Napoleon deprived of his well-waxed | |
moustache, it might lose him the throne of France. Were Garibaldi to | |
call on his barber, he might thereafter call in vain for volunteers, and | |
English ladies would send him no more splints nor sticking-plaster. | |
Shave Tennyson, and you may put him in petticoats as soon as you please. | |
As to the moustache movement in the navy, it is a subject of talk-- | |
admitting of no discussion--in every mess in the service, and thousands | |
are the advocates in favour of its adoption. Indeed, the arguments in | |
favour of it are so numerous, that it is a difficult matter to choose | |
the best, while the reasons against it are few, foolish, and despotic. | |
At the time when the Lords of the Admiralty gave orders that the navy | |
should keep its upper lip, and three fingers' breadth of its royal chin, | |
smooth and copper-kettlish, it was neither fashionable nor respectable | |
to wear the moustache in good society. Those were the days of | |
cabbage-leaf cheeks, powdered wigs, and long queues; but those times are | |
past and gone from every corner of England's possessions save the navy. | |
Barberism has been hunted from polite circles, but has taken refuge | |
under the trident of old Neptune; and, in these days of comparative | |
peace, more blood in the Royal Navy is drawn by the razor than by the | |
cutlass. | |
In our little gunboat on the coast of Africa, we, both officers and men, | |
used, under the rose, to cultivate moustache and whiskers, until we fell | |
in with the ship of the commodore of the station. Then, when the | |
commander gave the order, "All hands to shave," never was such a | |
hurlyburly seen, such racing hither and thither (for not a moment was to | |
be lost), such sharpening of scissors and furbishing up of rusty razors. | |
On one occasion I remember sending our steward, who was lathering his | |
face with a blacking-brush, and trying to scrape with a carving-knife, | |
to borrow the commander's razor; in the mean time the commander had | |
despatched his soapy-faced servant to beg the loan of mine. Both | |
stewards met with a clash, nearly running each other through the body | |
with their shaving gear. I lent the commander a Syme's bistoury, with | |
which he managed to pluck most of the hairs out by the root, as if he | |
meant to transplant them again, while I myself shaved with an amputating | |
knife. The men forward stuck by the scissors; and when the commander, | |
with bloody chin and watery eyes, asked why they did not shave,--"Why, | |
sir," replied the bo'swain's mate, "the cockroaches have been and gone | |
and eaten all our razors, they has, sir." | |
Then, had you seen us reappear on deck after the terrible operation, | |
with our white shaven lips and shivering chins, and a foolish grin on | |
every face, you would, but for our uniform, have taken us for tailors on | |
strike, so unlike were we to the brave-looking, manly dare-devils that | |
trod the deck only an hour before. | |
And if army officers and men have been graciously permitted to wear the | |
moustache since the Crimean war, why are not we? But perhaps the navy | |
took no part in that gallant struggle. But if we _must_ continue to do | |
penance by shaving, why should it not be the crown of the head, or any | |
other place, rather than the upper lip, which every one can see? | |
One item of duty there is, which occasionally devolves on the medical | |
officer, and for the most part goes greatly against the feelings of the | |
_young_ surgeon; I refer to his compulsory attendance at floggings. It | |
is only fair to state that the majority of captains and commanders use | |
the cat as seldom as possible, and that, too, only sparingly. In some | |
ships, however, flogging is nearly as frequent as prayers of a morning. | |
Again, it is more common on foreign stations than at home, and boys of | |
the first or second class, marines, and ordinary seamen, are for the | |
most part the victims. | |
I do not believe I shall ever forget the first exhibition of this sort I | |
attended on board my own ship; not that the spectacle was in any way | |
more revolting than scores I have since witnessed, but because the sight | |
was new to me. | |
I remember it wanted fully twenty minutes of seven in the morning, when | |
my servant aroused me. | |
"Why so early to-day?" I inquired as I turned out. | |
"A flaying match, you know, sir," said Jones. | |
My heart gave an anxious "thud" against my ribs, as if I myself were to | |
form the "ram for the sacrifice." I hurried through with my bath, and, | |
dressing myself as if for a holiday, in cocked hat, sword, and undress | |
coat, I went on deck. We were at anchor in Simon's Bay. All the | |
minutiae of the scene I remember as though it were but yesterday, | |
morning was cool and clear, the hills clad in lilac and green, seabirds | |
floating high in air, and the waters of the bay reflecting the line of | |
the sky and the lofty mountain-sides, forming a picture almost dreamlike | |
in its quietness and serenity. The men were standing about in groups, | |
dressed in their whitest of pantaloons, bluest of smocks, and neatest of | |
black silk neckerchiefs. By-and-bye the culprit was led aft by a file | |
of marines, and I went below with him to make the preliminary | |
examination, in order to report whether or not he might be fit for the | |
punishment. | |
He was as good a specimen of the British marine as one could wish to | |
look upon, hardy, bold, and wiry. His crime had been smuggling spirits | |
on board. | |
"Needn't examine me, Doctor," said he; "I ain't afeard of their four | |
dozen; they can't hurt me, sir,--leastways my back you know--my breast | |
though; hum-m!" and he shook his head, rather sadly I thought, as he | |
bent down his eyes. | |
"What," said I, "have you anything the matter with your chest?" | |
"Nay, Doctor, nay; its my feelins they'll hurt. I've a little girl at | |
home that loves me, and--bless you, sir, I won't look her in the face | |
again no-how." | |
I felt his pulse. No lack of strength there, no nervousness; the artery | |
had the firm beat of health, the tendons felt like rods of iron beneath | |
the finger, and his biceps stood out hard and round as the mainstay of | |
an old seventy-four. | |
I pitied the brave fellow, and--very wrong of me it was, but I could not | |
help it--filled out and offered him a large glass of rum. | |
"Ah! sir," he said, with a wistful eye on the ruby liquid, "don't tempt | |
me, sir. I can bear the bit o' flaying athout that: I wouldn't have my | |
messmates smell Dutch courage on my breath, sir; thankee all the same, | |
Doctor." And he walked on deck and surrendered himself. | |
All hands had already assembled, the men and boys on one side, and the | |
officers, in cocked hats and swords, on the other. A grating had been | |
lashed against the bulwark, and another placed on deck beside it. The | |
culprit's shoulders and back were bared, and a strong belt fastened | |
around the lower part of the loins for protection; he was then firmly | |
tied by the hands to the upper, and by the feet to the lower grating; a | |
little basin of cold water was placed at his feet; and all was now | |
prepared. The sentence was read, and orders given to proceed with the | |
punishment. The cat is a terrible instrument of torture; I would not | |
use it on a bull unless in self-defence: the shaft is about a foot and a | |
half long, and covered with green or red baize according to taste; the | |
thongs are nine, about twenty-eight inches in length, of the thickness | |
of a goose-quill, and with two knots tied on each. Men describe the | |
first blow as like a shower of molten lead. | |
Combing out the thongs with his five fingers before each blow, firmly | |
and determinedly was the first dozen delivered by the bo'swain's mate, | |
and as unflinchingly received. | |
Then, "One dozen, sir, please," he reported, saluting the commander. | |
"Continue the punishment," was the calm reply. | |
A new man and a new cat. Another dozen reported; again, the same reply. | |
Three dozen. The flesh, like burning steel, had changed from red to | |
purple, and blue, and white; and between the third and fourth dozen, the | |
suffering wretch, pale enough now, and in all probability sick, begged a | |
comrade to give him a mouthful of water. There was a tear in the eye of | |
the hardy sailor who obeyed him, whispering as he did so-- | |
"Keep up, Bill; it'll soon be over now." | |
"Five, six," the corporal slowly counted--"seven, eight." It is the | |
last dozen, and how acute must be the torture! "Nine, ten." The blood | |
comes now fast enough, and--yes, gentle reader, I _will_ spare your | |
feelings. The man was cast loose at last and put on the sick-list; he | |
had borne his punishment without a groan and without moving a muscle. A | |
large pet monkey sat crunching nuts in the rigging, and grinning all the | |
time; I have no doubt _he_ enjoyed the spectacle immensely, _for he was | |
only an ape_. | |
Tommie G--was a pretty, fair-skinned, blue-eyed boy, some sixteen | |
summers old. He was one of a class only too common in the service; | |
having become enamoured of the sea, he had run away from his home and | |
joined the service; and, poor little man! he found out, when too late, | |
that the stern realities of a sailor's life did not at all accord with | |
the golden notions he had formed of it. Being fond of stowing himself | |
away in corners with a book, instead of keeping his watch, Tommie very | |
often got into disgrace, spent much of his time at the mast-head, and | |
had many unpleasant palmar rencounters with the corporal's cane. One | |
day, his watch being over, he had retired to a corner with his little | |
"ditty-box." | |
Nobody ever knew one-half of the beloved nicknacks and valued nothings | |
he kept in that wee box: it was in fact his private cabin, his sanctum | |
sanctorum, to which he could retreat when anything vexed him; a sort of | |
portable home, in which he could forget the toils of his weary watch, | |
the giddy mast-head, or even the corporal's cane. He had extracted, and | |
was dreamily gazing on, the portrait of a very young lady, when the | |
corporal came up and rudely seized it, and made a very rough and | |
inelegant remark concerning the fair virgin. | |
"That is my sister," cried Tommie, with tears in his eyes. | |
"Your sister!" sneered the corporal; "she is a--" and he added a word | |
that cannot be named. There was the spirit of young England, however, | |
in Tommie's breast; and the word had scarcely crossed the corporal's | |
lips, when those lips, and his nose too, were dyed in the blood the | |
boy's fist had drawn. For that blow poor Tommie was condemned to | |
receive four dozen lashes. And the execution of the sentence was | |
carried out with all the pomp and show usual on such occasions. Arrayed | |
in cooked-hats, epaulets, and swords, we all assembled to witness that | |
helpless child in his agony. One would have thought that even the rough | |
bo'swain's mate would have hesitated to disfigure skin so white and | |
tender, or that the frightened and imploring glance Tommie cast upward | |
on the first descending lash would have unnerved his arm. Did it? No, | |
reader; pity there doubtless was among us, but mercy--none. Oh! we were | |
a brave band. And the poor boy writhed in his agony; his screams and | |
cries were heartrending; and, God forgive us! we knew not till then he | |
was an orphan, till we heard him beseech his mother in heaven to look | |
down on her son, to pity and support him. Ah! well, perhaps she did, | |
for scarcely had the third dozen commenced when Tommie's cries were | |
hushed, his head drooped on his shoulder like a little dead bird's, and | |
for a while his sufferings were at an end. I gladly took the | |
opportunity to report further proceedings as dangerous, and he was | |
carried away to his hammock. | |
I will not shock the nerves and feelings of the reader by any further | |
relation of the horrors of flogging, merely adding, that I consider | |
corporal punishment, as applied to men, _cowardly, cruel_, and debasing | |
to human nature; and as applied to boys, _brutal_, and sometimes even | |
_fiendish_. There is only one question I wish to ask of every | |
true-hearted English lady who may read these lines--Be you sister, wife, | |
or mother, could you in your heart have respected the commander who, | |
with folded arms and grim smile, replied to poor Tommie's frantic | |
appeals for mercy, "Continue the punishment"? | |
The pay of medical officers is by no means high enough to entice young | |
doctors, who can do anything like well on shore, to enter the service. | |
Ten shillings a day, with an increase of half-a-crown after five years' | |
service on full pay, is not a great temptation certainly. To be sure | |
the expenses of living are small, two shillings a day being all that is | |
paid for messing; this of course not including the wine-bill, the size | |
of which will depend on the "drouthiness" of the officer who contracts | |
it. Government provides all mess-traps, except silver forks and spoons. | |
Then there is uniform to keep up, and shore-going clothes to be paid | |
for, and occasionally a shilling or two for boat-hire. However, with a | |
moderate wine-bill, the assistant-surgeon may save about four shillings | |
or more a day. | |
Promotion to the rank of surgeon, unless to some fortunate individuals, | |
comes but slowly; it may, however, be reckoned on after from eight to | |
ten years. A few gentlemen out of each "batch" who "pass" into the | |
service, and who have distinguished themselves at the examination, are | |
promoted sooner. | |
It seems to be the policy of the present Director-General to deal as | |
fairly as possible with every assistant-surgeon, after a certain | |
routine. On first joining he is sent for a short spell--too short, | |
indeed--to a hospital. He is then appointed to a sea-going ship for a | |
commission--say three years--on a foreign station. On coming home he is | |
granted a few months' leave on full pay, and is afterwards appointed to | |
a harbour-ship for about six months. By the end of this time he is | |
supposed to have fairly recruited from the fatigues of his commission | |
abroad; he is accordingly sent out again to some other foreign station | |
for three or four years. On again returning to his native land, he | |
might be justified in hoping for a pet appointment, say to a hospital, | |
the marines, a harbour-ship, or, failing these, to the Channel fleet. | |
On being promoted he is sent off abroad again, and so on; and thus he | |
spends his useful life, and serves his Queen and country, and earns his | |
pay, and generally spends that likewise. | |
Pensions are granted to the widows of assistant-surgeons--from forty to | |
seventy pounds a year, according to circumstances; and if he leaves no | |
widow, a dependent mother, or even sister, may obtain the pension. But | |
I fear I must give, to assistant-surgeons about to many, Punch's advice, | |
and say most emphatically, "Don't;" unless, indeed, the dear creature | |
has money, and is able to purchase a practice for her darling doctor. | |
With a little increase of pay ungrudgingly given, shorter commissions | |
abroad, and less of the "bite and buffet" about favours granted, the | |
navy would be a very good service for the medical officer. | |
However, as it is, to a man who has neither wife nor riches, it is, I | |
dare say, as good a way of spending life as any other; and I do think | |
that there are but few old surgeons who, on looking back to the life | |
they have led in the navy, would not say of that service,--"With all thy | |
faults I love thee still." | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
The End. | |
End of Project Gutenberg's Medical Life in the Navy, by Gordon Stables | |
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