68. CHAPTER LXVIII.
A MAN-OF-WAR FOUNTAIN, AND OTHER THINGS.
Let us forget the scourge and the gangway a while, and jot
down in our memories a few little things pertaining to our
man-of-war world. I let nothing slip, however small; and
feel myself actuated by the same motive which has prompted
many worthy old chroniclers, to set down the merest trifles
concerning things that are destined to pass away entirely from
the earth, and which, if not preserved in the nick of time,
must infallibly perish from the memories of man. Who knows
that this humble narrative may not hereafter prove the history
of an obsolete barbarism? Who knows that, when men-of-war
shall be no more, “White-Jacket” may not be quoted to show
to the people in the Millennium what a man-of-war was? God
hasten the time! Lo! ye years, escort it hither, and bless
our eyes ere we die.
There is no part of a frigate where you will see more going
and coming of strangers, and overhear more greetings and
gossipings of acquaintances, than in the immediate vicinity of
the scuttle-butt, just forward of the main-hatchway, on the
gun-deck.
The scuttle-butt is a goodly, round, painted cask, standing
on end, and with its upper head removed, showing a narrow,
circular shelf within, where rest a number of tin cups for the
accommodation of drinkers. Central, within the scuttle-butt
itself, stands an iron pump, which, connecting with the immense
water-tanks in the hold, furnishes an unfailing supply
of the much-admired Pale Ale, first brewed in the brooks of
the Garden of Eden, and stamped with the brand of our old
father Adam, who never knew what wine was. We are indebted
to the old vintner Noah for that. The scuttle-butt is
the only fountain in the ship; and here alone can you drink,
unless at your meals. Night and day an armed sentry paces
before it, bayonet in hand, to see that no water is taken away,
except according to law. I wonder that they station no sentries
at the port-holes, to see that no air is breathed, except
according to Navy regulations.
As five hundred men come to drink at this scuttle-butt; as
it is often surrounded by officer's servants drawing water for
their masters to wash; by the cooks of the range, who hither
come to fill their coffee-pots; and by the cooks of the ship's
messes to procure water for their duffs; the scuttle-butt may
be denominated the town-pump of the ship. And would that
my fine countryman, Hawthorn of Salem, had but served on
board a man-of-war in his time, that he might give us the
reading of a “rill” from the scuttle-butt.
As in all extensive establishments—abbeys, arsenals, colleges,
treasuries, metropolitan post-offices, and monasteries—
there are many snug little niches, wherein are ensconced certain
superannuated old pensioner officials; and, more especially,
as in most ecclesiastical establishments, a few choice prebendary
stalls are to be found, furnished with well-filled mangers
and racks; so, in a man-of-war, there are a variety of
similar snuggeries for the benefit of decrepit or rheumatic old
tars. Chief among these is the office of mast-man.
There is a stout rail on deck, at the base of each mast,
where a number of braces, lifts, and buntlines are belayed to
the pins. It is the sole duty of the mast-man to see that
these ropes are always kept clear, to preserve his premises in
a state of the greatest attainable neatness, and every Sunday
morning to dispose his ropes in neat Flemish coils.
The main-mast-man of the Neversink was a very aged
seaman, who well deserved his comfortable berth. He had
seen more than half a century of the most active service, and,
through all, had proved himself a good and faithful man. He
furnished one of the very rare examples of a sailor in a green
old age; for, with most sailors, old age comes in youth, and
Hardship and Vice carry them on an early bier to the grave.
As in the evening of life, and at the close of the day, old
Abraham sat at the door of his tent, biding his time to die, so
sits our old mast-man on the coat of the mast, glancing round
him with patriarchal benignity. And that mild expression of
his sets off very strangely a face that has been burned almost
black by the torrid suns that shone fifty years ago—a face
that is seamed with three sabre cuts. You would almost
think this old mast-man had been blown out of Vesuvius, to
look alone at his scarred, blackened forehead, chin, and cheeks.
But gaze down into his eye, and though all the snows of Time
have drifted higher and higher upon his brow, yet deep down
in that eye you behold an infantile, sinless look, the same that
answered the glance of this old man's mother when first she
cried for the babe to be laid by her side. That look is the
fadeless, ever infantile immortality within.
The Lord Nelsons of the sea, though but Barons in the
state, yet oftentimes prove more potent than their royal masters;
and at such scenes as Trafalgar—dethroning this Emperor
and reinstating that—enact on the ocean the proud part
of mighty Richard Nevil, the king-making Earl of the land.
And as Richard Nevil entrenched himself in his moated old
man-of-war castle of Warwick, which, underground, was
traversed with vaults, hewn out of the solid rock, and intricate
as the wards of the old keys of Calais surrendered to
Edward III.; even so do these King-Commodores house
themselves in their water-rimmed, cannon-sentried frigates,
oaken dug, deck under deck, as cell under cell. And as the
old Middle-Age warders of Warwick, every night at curfew,
patrolled the battlements, and dove down into the vaults to
see that all lights were extinguished, even so do the master-at-arms
and ship's corporals of a frigate perambulate all the
decks of a man-of-war, blowing out all tapers but those burning
in the legalized battle-lanterns. Yea, in these things, so
potent is the authority of these sea-wardens, that, though
almost the lowest subalterns in the ship, yet should they find
the Senior Lieutenant himself sitting up late in his state-room,
reading Bowditch's Navigator, or D'Anton “
On Gun-powder
and Fire-arms,” they would infallibly blow the light
out under his very nose; nor durst that Grand-Vizier resent
the indignity.
But, unwittingly, I have ennobled, by grand historical comparisons,
this prying, pettifogging, Irish-informer of a master-at-arms.
You have seen some slim, slip-shod housekeeper, at midnight,
ferreting over a rambling old house in the country,
starting at fancied witches and ghosts, yet intent on seeing
every door bolted, every smouldering ember in the fire-places
smothered, every loitering domestic abed, and every light
made dark. This is the master-at-arms taking his night-rounds
in a frigate.
It may be thought that but little is seen of the Commodore
in these chapters, and that, since he so seldom appears
on the stage, he can not be so august a personage, after all.
But the mightiest potentates keep the most behind the vail.
You might tarry in Constantinople a month, and never catch
a glimpse of the Sultan. The Grand Lama of Thibet, according
to some accounts, is never beheld by the people. But
if any one doubts the majesty of a Commodore, let him know
that, according to XLII. of the Articles of War, he is invested
with a prerogative which, according to monarchical
jurists, is inseparable from the throne—the plenary pardoning
power. He may pardon all offences committed in the
squadron under his command.
But this prerogative is only his while at sea, or on a foreign
station. A circumstance peculiarly significant of the
great difference between the stately absolutism of a Commodore
enthroned on his poop in a foreign harbor, and an unlaced
Commodore negligently reclining in an easy-chair in
the bosom of his family at home.
