33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
If you begin the day with a laugh, you may, nevertheless,
end it with a sob and a sigh.
Among the many who were exceedingly diverted with the
scene between the Down Easter and the Lieutenant, none
laughed more heartily than John, Peter, Mark, and Antone—
four sailors of the starboard-watch. The same evening these
four found themselves prisoners in the “brig,” with a sentry
standing over them. They were charged with violating a
well-known law of the ship—having been engaged in one of
those tangled, general fights sometimes occurring among sailors.
They had nothing to anticipate but a flogging, at the
captain's pleasure.
Toward evening of the next day, they were startled by the
dread summons of the boatswain and his mates at the principal
hatchway—a summons that ever sends a shudder through
every manly heart in a frigate:
“All hands witness punishment, ahoy!”
The hoarseness of the cry, its unrelenting prolongation, its
being caught up at different points, and sent through the
lowermost depths of the ship; all this produces a most dismal
effect upon every heart not calloused by long habituation
to it.
However much you may desire to absent yourself from the
scene that ensues, yet behold it you must; or, at least, stand
near it you must; for the regulations enjoin the attendance
of the entire ship's company, from the corpulent Captain himself
to the smallest boy who strikes the bell.
“All hands witness punishment, ahoy!”
To the sensitive seaman that summons sounds like a doom.
He knows that the same law which impels it—the same law
by which the culprits of the day must suffer; that by that
very law he also is liable at any time to be judged and condemned.
And the inevitableness of his own presence at the
scene; the strong arm that drags him in view of the scourge,
and holds him there till all is over; forcing upon his loathing
eye and soul the sufferings and groans of men who have
familiarly consorted with him, eaten with him, battled out
watches with him—men of his own type and badge—all this
conveys a terrible hint of the omnipotent authority under
which he lives. Indeed, to such a man the naval summons
to witness punishment carries a thrill, somewhat akin to what
we may impute to the quick and the dead, when they shall
hear the Last Trump, that is to bid them all arise in their
ranks, and behold the final penalties inflicted upon the sinners
of our race.
But it must not be imagined that to all men-of-war's-men
this summons conveys such poignant emotions; but it is hard
to decide whether one should be glad or sad that this is not
the case; whether it is grateful to know that so much pain
is avoided, or whether it is far sadder to think that, either
from constitutional hard-heartedness or the multiplied searings
of habit, hundreds of men-of-war's-men have been made
proof against the sense of degradation, pity, and shame.
As if in sympathy with the scene to be enacted, the sun,
which the day previous had merrily flashed upon the tin pan of
the disconsolate Down Easter, was now setting over the dreary
waters, veiling itself in vapors. The wind blew hoarsely in
the cordage; the seas broke heavily against the bows; and
the frigate, staggering under whole top-sails, strained as in
agony on her way.
“All hands witness punishment, ahoy!”
At the summons the crew crowded round the main-mast;
multitudes eager to obtain a good place on the booms, to overlook
the scene; many laughing and chatting, others canvassing
the case of the culprits; some maintaining sad, anxious
countenances, or carrying a suppressed indignation in their
eyes; a few purposely keeping behind to avoid looking on;
in short, among five hundred men, there was every possible
shade of character.
All the officers—midshipmen included—stood together in
a group on the starboard side of the main-mast; the First
Lieutenant in advance, and the surgeon, whose special duty
it is to be present at such times, standing close by his side.
Presently the Captain came forward from his cabin, and
stood in the centre of this solemn group, with a small paper
in his hand. That paper was the daily report of offences,
regularly laid upon his table every morning or evening, like
the day's journal placed by a bachelor's napkin at breakfast.
“Master-at-arms, bring up the prisoners,” he said.
A few moments elapsed, during which the Captain, now
clothed in his most dreadful attributes, fixed his eyes severely
upon the crew, when suddenly a lane formed through the
crowd of seamen, and the prisoners advanced—the master-at-arms,
rattan in hand, on one side, and an armed marine on
the other—and took up their stations at the mast.
“You John, you Peter, you Mark, you Antone,” said the
Captain, “were yesterday found fighting on the gun-deck.
Have you any thing to say?”
Mark and Antone, two steady, middle-aged men, whom I
had often admired for their sobriety, replied that they did not
strike the first blow; that they had submitted to much before
they had yielded to their passions; but as they acknowledged
that they had at last defended themselves, their excuse
was overruled.
John—a brutal bully, who, it seems, was the real author
of the disturbance—was about entering into a long extenuation,
when he was cut short by being made to confess, irrespective
of circumstances, that he had been in the fray.
Peter, a handsome lad about nineteen years old, belonging
to the mizzen-top, looked pale and tremulous. He was a great
favorite in his part of the ship, and especially in his own mess,
principally composed of lads of his own age. That morning
two of his young mess-mates had gone to his bag, taken out
his best clothes, and, obtaining the permission of the marine
sentry at the “brig,” had handed them to him, to be put on
against being summoned to the mast. This was done to propitiate
the Captain, as most captains love to see a tidy sailor.
But it would not do. To all his supplications the Captain
turned a deaf ear. Peter declared that he had been struck
twice before he had returned a blow. “No matter,” said the
Captain, “you struck at last, instead of reporting the case to
an officer. I allow no man to fight on board here but myself.
I do the fighting.”
“Now, men,” he added, “you all admit the charge; you
know the penalty. Strip! Quarter-masters, are the gratings
rigged?”
The gratings are square frames of barred wood-work, sometimes
placed over the hatch-ways. One of these squares was
now laid on the deck, close to the ship's bulwarks, and while
the remaining preparations were being made, the master-at-arms
assisted the prisoners in removing their jackets and
shirts. This done, their shirts were loosely thrown over their
shoulders.
At a sign from the Captain, John, with a shameless leer,
advanced, and stood passively upon the grating, while the
bare-headed old quarter-master, with gray hair streaming in
the wind, bound his feet to the cross-bars, and, stretching out
his arms over his head, secured them to the hammock-nettings
above. He then retreated a little space, standing silent.
Meanwhile, the boatswain stood solemnly on the other side,
with a green bag in his hand, from which taking four instruments
of punishment, he gave one to each of his mates; for a
fresh “cat,” applied by a fresh hand, is the ceremonious privilege
accorded to every man-of-war culprit.
At another sign from the Captain, the master-at-arms, stepping
up, removed the shirt from the prisoner. At this juncture
a wave broke against the ship's side, and dashed the spray
over his exposed back. But though the air was piercing cold,
and the water drenched him, John stood still, without a shudder.
The Captain's finger was now lifted, and the first boat-swain's-mate
advanced, combing out the nine tails of his cat
with his hand, and then, sweeping them round his neck,
brought them with the whole force of his body upon the mark.
Again, and again, and again; and at every blow, higher and
higher rose the long, purple bars on the prisoner's back. But
he only bowed over his head, and stood still. Meantime, some
of the crew whispered among themselves in applause of their
ship-mate's nerve; but the greater part were breathlessly
silent as the keen scourge hissed through the wintery air, and
fell with a cutting, wiry sound upon the mark. One dozen
lashes being applied, the man was taken down, and went
among the crew with a smile, saying, “D—n me! it's nothing
when you're used to it! Who wants to fight?”
The next was Antone, the Portuguese. At every blow he
surged from side to side, pouring out a torrent of involuntary
blasphemies. Never before had he been heard to curse.
When cut down, he went among the men, swearing to have
the life of the Captain. Of course, this was unheard by the
officers.
Mark, the third prisoner, only cringed and coughed under
his punishment. He had some pulmonary complaint. He
was off duty for several days after the flogging; but this was
partly to be imputed to his extreme mental misery. It was
his first scourging, and he felt the insult more than the injury.
He became silent and sullen for the rest of the cruise.
The fourth and last was Peter, the mizzen-top lad. He had
often boasted that he had never been degraded at the gang-way.
The day before his cheek had worn its usual red, but
now no ghost was whiter. As he was being secured to the
gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his dazzlingly
white back were revealed, he turned round his head imploringly;
but his weeping entreaties and vows of contrition were
of no avail. “I would not forgive God Almighty!” cried the
Captain. The fourth boatswain's-mate advanced, and at the
first blow, the boy, shouting “
My God! Oh! my God!”
writhed and leaped so as to displace the gratings, and scatter
the nine tails of the scourge all over his person. At the next
blow he howled, leaped, and raged in unendurable torture.
“What are you stopping for, boatswain's-mate?” cried the
Captain. “Lay on!” and the whole dozen was applied.
“I don't care what happens to me now!” wept Peter, going
among the crew, with blood-shot eyes, as he put on his
shirt. “I have been flogged once, and they may do it again,
if they will. Let them look out for me now!”
“Pipe down!” cried the Captain, and the crew slowly dispersed.
Let us have the charity to believe them—as we do—when
some Captains in the Navy say, that the thing of all others
most repulsive to them, in the routine of what they consider
their duty, is the administration of corporal punishment upon
the crew; for, surely, not to feel scarified to the quick at
these scenes would argue a man but a beast.
You see a human being, stripped like a slave; scourged
worse than a hound. And for what? For things not essentially
criminal, but only made so by arbitrary laws.
