27. CHAPTER XXVII.
SOME THOUGHTS GROWING OUT OF MAD JACK'S COUNTERMANDING
HIS SUPERIOR'S ORDER.
In time of peril, like the needle to the load-stone, obedience,
irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best
fitted to command. The truth of this seemed evinced in the
case of Mad Jack, during the gale, and especially at that
perilous moment when he countermanded the Captain's order
at the helm. But every seaman knew, at the time, that the
Captain's order was an unwise one in the extreme; perhaps
worse than unwise.
These two orders, given by the Captain and his Lieutenant,
exactly contrasted their characters. By putting the
helm hard up, the Captain was for scudding; that is, for
flying away from the gale. Whereas, Mad Jack was for
running the ship into its teeth. It is needless to say that, in
almost all cases of similar hard squalls and gales, the latter
step, though attended with more appalling appearances, is, in
reality, the safer of the two, and the most generally adopted.
Scudding makes you a slave to the blast, which drives you
headlong before it; but running up into the wind's eye enables
you, in a degree, to hold it at bay. Scudding exposes to
the gale your stern, the weakest part of your hull; the contrary
course presents to it your bows, your strongest part.
As with ships, so with men; he who turns his back to his
foe gives him an advantage. Whereas, our ribbed chests,
like the ribbed bows of a frigate, are as bulkheads to dam off
an onset.
That night, off the pitch of the Cape, Captain Claret was
hurried forth from his disguises, and, at a manhood-testing
conjuncture, appeared in his true colors. A thing which every
man in the ship had long suspected that night was proved
true. Hitherto, in going about the ship, and casting his
glances among the men, the peculiarly lustreless repose of the
Captain's eye—his slow, even, unnecessarily methodical step,
and the forced firmness of his whole demeanor—though, to a
casual observer, seemingly expressive of the consciousness of
command and a desire to strike subjection among the crew
—all this, to some minds, had only been deemed indications
of the fact that Captain Claret, while carefully shunning positive
excesses, continually kept himself in an uncertain equilibrio
between soberness and its reverse; which equilibrio
might be destroyed by the first sharp vicissitude of events.
And though this is only a surmise, nevertheless, as having
some knowledge of brandy and mankind, White-Jacket will
venture to state that, had Captain Claret been an out-and-out
temperance man, he would never have given that most imprudent
order to hard up the helm. He would either have
held his peace, and stayed in his cabin, like his gracious majesty
the Commodore, or else have anticipated Mad Jack's order,
and thundered forth “Hard down the helm!”
To show how little real sway at times have the severest restrictive
laws, and how spontaneous is the instinct of discretion
in some minds, it must here be added, that though Mad Jack,
under a hot impulse, had countermanded an order of his superior
officer before his very face, yet that severe Article of
War, to which he thus rendered himself obnoxious, was never
enforced against him. Nor, so far as any of the crew ever
knew, did the Captain even venture to reprimand him for his
temerity.
It has been said that Mad Jack himself was a lover of
strong drink. So he was. But here we only see the virtue
of being placed in a station constantly demanding a cool head
and steady nerves, and the misfortune of filling a post that
does not at all times demand these qualities. So exact and
methodical in most things was the discipline of the frigate,
that, to a certain extent, Captain Claret was exempted from
personal interposition in many of its current events, and thereby,
perhaps, was he lulled into security, under the enticing
lee of his decanter.
But as for Mad Jack, he must stand his regular watches,
and pace the quarter-deck at night, and keep a sharp eye to
windward. Hence, at sea, Mad Jack tried to make a point
of keeping sober, though in very fine weather he was sometimes
betrayed into a glass too many. But with Cape Horn
before him, he took the temperance pledge outright, till that
perilous promontory should be far astern.
The leading incident of the gale irresistibly invites the
question, Are there incompetent officers in the American
navy?—that is, incompetent to the due performance of whatever
duties may devolve upon them. But in that gallant
marine, which, during the Late War, gained so much of
what is called glory, can there possibly be to-day incompetent
officers?
As in the camp ashore, so on the quarter-deck at sea—the
trumpets of one victory drown the muffled drums of a thousand
defeats. And, in degree, this holds true of those events
of war which are neuter in their character, neither making
renown nor disgrace. Besides, as a long array of ciphers, led
by but one solitary numeral, swell, by mere force of aggregation,
into an immense arithmetical sum, even so, in some brilliant
actions, do a crowd of officers, each inefficient in himself,
aggregate renown when banded together, and led by a numeral
Nelson or a Wellington. And the renown of such heroes,
by outliving themselves, descends as a heritage to their subordinate
survivors. One large brain and one large heart have
virtue sufficient to magnetize a whole fleet or an army. And
if all the men who, since the beginning of the world, have
mainly contributed to the warlike successes or reverses of nations,
were now mustered together, we should be amazed to
behold but a handful of heroes. For there is no heroism in
merely running in and out a gun at a port-hole, enveloped in
smoke or vapor, or in firing off muskets in platoons at the word
of command. This kind of merely manual valor is often born
of trepidation at the heart. There may be men, individually
craven, who, united, may display even temerity. Yet it would
be false to deny that, in some instances, the lowest privates
have acquitted themselves with even more gallantry than their
commodores. True heroism is not in the hand, but in the heart
and the head.
But are there incompetent officers in the gallant American
navy? For an American, the question is of no grateful cast.
White-Jacket must again evade it, by referring to an historical
fact in the history of a kindred marine, which, from its
long standing and magnitude, furnishes many more examples
of all kinds than our own. And this is the only reason why
it is ever referred to in this narrative. I thank God I am
free from all national invidiousness.
It is indirectly on record in the books of the English Admiralty,
that in the year 1808—after the death of Lord Nelson—when
Lord Collingwood commanded on the Mediterranean
station, and his broken health induced him to solicit a
furlough, that out of a list of upward of one hundred admirals,
not a single officer was found who was deemed qualified to
relieve the applicant with credit to the country. This fact
Collingwood sealed with his life; for, hopeless of being recalled,
he shortly after died, worn out, at his post. Now, if this
was the case in so renowned a marine as England's, what
must be inferred with respect to our own? But herein no
special disgrace is involved. For the truth is, that to be an
accomplished and skillful naval generalissimo needs natural
capabilities of an uncommon order. Still more, it may safely
be asserted, that, worthily to command even a frigate, requires
a degree of natural heroism, talent, judgment, and integrity,
that is denied to mediocrity. Yet these qualifications are
not only required, but demanded; and no one has a right to
be a naval captain unless he possesses them.
Regarding Lieutenants, there are not a few Selvagees and
Paper Jacks in the American navy. Many Commodores
know that they have seldom taken a line-of-battle ship to sea,
without feeling more or less nervousness when some of the
Lieutenants have the deck at night.
According to the last Navy Register (1849), there are now
68 Captains in the American navy, collectively drawing
about $300,000 annually from the public treasury; also,
297 Commanders, drawing about $200,000; and 377 Lieutenants,
drawing about half a million; and 451 Midshipmen
(including Passed-midshipmen), also drawing nearly half a
million. Considering the known facts, that some of these officers
are seldom or never sent to sea, owing to the Navy Department
being well aware of their inefficiency; that others
are detailed for pen-and-ink work at observatories, and solvers
of logarithms in the Coast Survey; while the really meritorious
officers, who are accomplished practical seamen, are known
to be sent from ship to ship, with but a small interval of a
furlough; considering all this, it is not too much to say, that
no small portion of the million and a half of money above
mentioned is annually paid to national pensioners in disguise,
who live on the navy without serving it.
Nothing like this can be even insinuated against the “forward
officers”—Boatswains, Gunners, &c.; nor against the
petty officers—Captains of the Tops, &c.; nor against the
able seamen in the navy. For if any of these are found wanting,
they are forthwith disrated or discharged.
True, all experience teaches that, whenever there is a great
national establishment, employing large numbers of officials,
the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent
men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing
in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent
persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many
of the worthy.
Nevertheless, in a country like ours, boasting of the political
equality of all social conditions, it is a great reproach that
such a thing as a common seaman rising to the rank of a commissioned
officer in our navy, is nowadays almost unheard-of.
Yet, in former times, when officers have so risen to rank, they
have generally proved of signal usefulness in the service, and
sometimes have reflected solid honor upon the country. Instances
in point might be mentioned.
Is it not well to have our institutions of a piece? Any
American landsman may hope to become President of the
Union—commodore of our squadron of states. And every
American sailor should be placed in such a position, that he
might freely aspire to command a squadron of frigates.
