14. CHAPTER XIV.
A DRAUGHT IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
We were not many days out of port, when a rumor was
set afloat that dreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this:
that, owing to some unprecedented oversight in the Purser, or
some equally unprecedented remissness in the Naval-storekeeper
at Callao, the frigate's supply of that delectable beverage,
called “grog,” was well-nigh expended.
In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of spirits
per day to every seaman. In two portions, it is served out
just previous to breakfast and dinner. At the roll of the
drum, the sailors assemble round a large tub, or cask, filled
with the liquid; and, as their names are called off by a midshipman,
they step up and regale themselves from a little tin
measure called a “tot.” No high-liver helping himself to
Tokay off a well-polished side-board, smacks his lips with more
mighty satisfaction than the sailor does over this tot. To
many of them, indeed, the thought of their daily tots forms a
perpetual perspective of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding
in the distance. It is their great “prospect in life.”
Take away their grog, and life possesses no further charms for
them. It is hardly to be doubted, that the controlling inducement
which keeps many men in the Navy, is the unbounded
confidence they have in the ability of the United
States government to supply them, regularly and unfailingly,
with their daily allowance of this beverage. I have known
several forlorn individuals, shipping as landsmen, who have
confessed to me, that having contracted a love for ardent spirits,
which they could not renounce, and having by their foolish
courses been brought into the most abject poverty—insomuch
that they could no longer gratify their thirst ashore
—they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the
asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives
by regular hours and exercise, and twice every day quench
their thirst by moderate and undeviating doses.
When I once remonstrated with an old toper of a top-man
about this daily dram-drinking; when I told him it was ruining
him, and advised him to stop his grog and receive the
money for it, in addition to his wages, as provided by law, he
turned about on me, with an irresistibly waggish look, and
said, “Give up my grog? And why? Because it is ruining
me? No, no; I am a good Christian, White-Jacket, and
love my enemy too much to drop his acquaintance.”
It may be readily imagined, therefore, what consternation
and dismay pervaded the gun-deck at the first announcement
of the tidings that the grog was expended.
“The grog gone!” roared an old Sheet-anchor-man.
“Oh! Lord! what a pain in my stomach!” cried a Main-top-man.
“It's worse than the Cholera!” cried a man of the Afterguard.
“I'd sooner the water-casks would give out!” said a Captain
of the Hold.
“Are we ganders and geese, that we can live without grog?”
asked a Corporal of Marines.
“Ay, we must now drink with the ducks!” cried a Quarter-master.
“Not a tot left?” groaned a Waister.
“Not a toothful!” sighed a Holder, from the bottom of his
boots.
Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum was no
longer heard rolling the men to the tub, and deep gloom and
dejection fell like a cloud. The ship was like a great city,
when some terrible calamity has overtaken it. The men
stood apart, in groups, discussing their woes, and mutually
condoling. No longer, of still moon-light nights, was the song
heard from the giddy tops; and few and far between were the
stories that were told.
It was during this interval, so dismal to many, that, to the
amazement of all hands, ten men were reported by the master-at-arms
to be intoxicated. They were brought up to the
mast, and at their appearance the doubts of the most skeptical
were dissipated; but whence they had obtained their liquor
no one could tell. It was observed, however, at the time, that
the tarry knaves all smelled of lavender, like so many dandies.
After their examination they were ordered into the “brig,”
a jail-house between two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners
are kept. Here they laid for some time, stretched out
stark and stiff, with their arms folded over their breasts, like
so many effigies of the Black Prince on his monument in Canterbury
Cathedral.
Their first slumbers over, the marine sentry who stood guard
over them had as much as he could do to keep off the crowd,
who were all eagerness to find out how, in such a time of
want, the prisoners had managed to drink themselves into oblivion.
In due time they were liberated, and the secret simultaneously
leaked out.
It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, who
had suffered severely from the common deprivation, had all
at once been struck by a brilliant idea. It had come to his
knowledge that the purser's steward was supplied with a large
quantity of Eau-de-Cologne, clandestinely brought out in the
ship, for the purpose of selling it, on his own account, to the
people of the coast; but the supply proving larger than the
demand, and having no customers on board the frigate but
Lieutenant Selvagee, he was now carrying home more than a
third of his original stock. To make a short story of it, this
functionary, being called upon in secret, was readily prevailed
upon to part with a dozen bottles, with whose contents the
intoxicated party had regaled themselves.
The news spread far and wide among the men, being only
kept secret from the officers and underlings, and that night
the long, crane-necked Cologne bottles jingled in out-of-the-way
corners and by-places, and, being emptied, were sent flying
out of the ports. With brown sugar, taken from the mess-chests,
and hot water begged from the galley-cooks, the men
made all manner of punches, toddies, and cocktails, letting fall
therein a small drop of tar, like a bit of brown toast, by way
of imparting a flavor. Of course, the thing was managed
with the utmost secrecy; and as a whole dark night elapsed
after their orgies, the revelers were, in a good measure, secure
from detection; and those who indulged too freely had twelve
long hours to get sober before daylight obtruded.
Next day, fore and aft, the whole frigate smelled like a lady's
toilet; the very tar-buckets were fragrant; and from
the mouth of many a grim, grizzled old quarter-gunner came
the most fragrant of breaths. The amazed Lieutenants went
about snuffing up the gale; and, for once, Selvagee had no
further need to flourish his perfumed handkerchief. It was
as if we were sailing by some odoriferous shore, in the vernal
season of violets. Sabæan odors!
“For many a league,
Cheered with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiled.”
But, alas! all this perfume could not be wasted for nothing;
and the masters-at-arms and ship's corporals, putting
this and that together, very soon burrowed into the secret.
The purser's steward was called to account, and no more lavender
punches and Cologne toddies were drank on board the
Neversink.
