69. CHAPTER LXIX.
The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking
place in our frigate, have already been described, also the
Sunday devotions on the half-deck; but nothing has yet been
said concerning the daily morning and evening quarters, when
the men silently stand at their guns, and the chaplain simply
offers up a prayer.
Let us now enlarge upon this matter. We have plenty of
time; the occasion invites; for behold! the homeward-bound
Neversink bowls along over a jubilant sea.
Shortly after breakfast the drum beats to quarters; and
among five hundred men, scattered over all three decks, and
engaged in all manner of ways, that sudden rolling march is
magical as the monitory sound to which every good Mussulman
at sunset drops to the ground whatsoever his hands might
have found to do, and, throughout all Turkey, the people in
concert kneel toward their holy Mecca.
The sailors run to and fro—some up the deck-ladders, some
down—to gain their respective stations in the shortest possible
time. In three minutes all is composed. One by one,
the various officers stationed over the separate divisions of the
ship then approach the First Lieutenant on the quarter-deck,
and report their respective men at their quarters. It is curious
to watch their countenances at this time. A profound
silence prevails; and, emerging through the hatchway, from
one of the lower decks, a slender young officer appears, hugging
his sword to his thigh, and advances through the long
lanes of sailors at their guns, his serious eye all the time fixed
upon the First Lieutenant's—his polar star. Sometimes he
essays a stately and graduated step, an erect and martial
bearing, and seems full of the vast national importance of
what he is about to communicate.
But when at last he gains his destination, you are amazed
to perceive that all he has to say is imparted by a Free-mason
touch of his cap, and a bow. He then turns and makes off
to his division, perhaps passing several brother Lieutenants,
all bound on the same errand he himself has just achieved.
For about five minutes these officers are coming and going,
bringing in thrilling intelligence from all quarters of the frigate;
most stoically received, however, by the First Lieutenant.
With his legs apart, so as to give a broad foundation
for the superstructure of his dignity, this gentleman stands
stiff as a pike-staff on the quarter-deck. One hand holds his
sabre—an appurtenance altogether unnecessary at the time;
and which he accordingly tucks, point backward, under his
arm, like an umbrella on a sunshiny day. The other hand
is continually bobbing up and down to the leather front of his
cap, in response to the reports and salutes of his subordinates,
to whom he never deigns to vouchsafe a syllable; merely going
through the motions of accepting their news, without bestowing
thanks for their pains.
This continual touching of caps between officers on board a
man-of-war is the reason why you invariably notice that the
glazed fronts of their caps look jaded, lack-lustre, and worn;
sometimes slightly oleaginous—though, in other respects, the
cap may appear glossy and fresh. But as for the First Lieutenant,
he ought to have extra pay allowed to him, on account
of his extraordinary outlays in cap fronts; for he it is to
whom all day long, reports of various kinds are incessantly
being made by the junior Lieutenants; and no report is made
by them, however trivial, but caps are touched on the occasion.
It is obvious that these individual salutes must be
greatly multiplied and aggregated upon the senior Lieutenant,
who must return them all. Indeed, when a subordinate officer
is first promoted to that rank, he generally complains of
the same exhaustion about the shoulder and elbow that La
Fayette mourned over, when, in visiting America, he did little
else but shake the sturdy hands of patriotic farmers from sunrise
to sunset.
The various officers of divisions having presented their respects,
and made good their return to their stations, the First
Lieutenant turns round, and, marching aft, endeavors to catch
the eye of the Captain, in order to touch his own cap to that
personage, and thereby, without adding a word of explanation,
communicate the fact of all hands being at their guns. He
is a sort of retort, or receiver general, to concentrate the whole
sum of the information imparted to him, and discharge it upon
his superior at one touch of his cap front.
But sometimes the Captain feels out of sorts, or in ill-humor,
or is pleased to be somewhat capricious, or has a fancy
to show a touch of his omnipotent supremacy; or, peradventure,
it has so happened that the First Lieutenant has, in
some way, piqued or offended him, and he is not unwilling to
show a slight specimen of his dominion over him, even before
the eyes of all hands; at all events, only by some one of these
suppositions can the singular circumstance be accounted for,
that frequently Captain Claret would pertinaciously promenade
up and down the poop, purposely averting his eye from
the First Lieutenant, who would stand below in the most awkward
suspense, waiting the first wink from his superior's eye.
“Now I have him!” he must have said to himself, as the
Captain would turn toward him in his walk; “now's my
time!” and up would go his hand to his cap; but, alas! the
Captain was off again; and the men at the guns would cast
sly winks at each other as the embarrassed Lieutenant would
bite his lips with suppressed vexation.
Upon some occasions this scene would be repeated several
times, till at last Captain Claret, thinking, that in the eyes
of all hands, his dignity must by this time be pretty well bolstered,
would stalk toward his subordinate, looking him full
in the eyes; whereupon up goes his hand to the cap front,
and the Captain, nodding his acceptance of the report, descends
from his perch to the quarter-deck.
By this time the stately Commodore slowly emerges from
his cabin, and soon stands leaning alone against the brass
rails of the after-hatchway. In passing him, the Captain
makes a profound salutation, which his superior returns, in
token that the Captain is at perfect liberty to proceed with
the ceremonies of the hour.
Marching on, Captain Claret at last halts near the mainmast,
at the head of a group of the ward-room officers, and
by the side of the Chaplain. At a sign from his finger, the
brass band strikes up the Portuguese hymn. This over, from
Commodore to hammock-boy, all hands uncover, and the
Chaplain reads a prayer. Upon its conclusion, the drum
beats the retreat, and the ship's company disappear from the
guns. At sea or in harbor, this ceremony is repeated every
morning and evening.
By those stationed on the quarter-deck the Chaplain is distinctly
heard; but the quarter-deck gun division embraces but
a tenth part of the ship's company, many of whom are below,
on the main-deck, where not one syllable of the prayer can be
heard. This seemed a great misfortune; for I well knew
myself how blessed and soothing it was to mingle twice every
day in these peaceful devotions, and, with the Commodore, and
Captain, and smallest boy, unite in acknowledging Almighty
God. There was also a touch of the temporary equality of
the Church about it, exceedingly grateful to a man-of-war's-man
like me.
My carronade-gun happened to be directly opposite the
brass railing against which the Commodore invariably leaned
at prayers. Brought so close together, twice every day, for
more than a year, we could not but become intimately acquainted
with each other's faces. To this fortunate circumstance
it is to be ascribed, that some time after reaching home,
we were able to recognize each other when we chanced to
meet in Washington, at a ball given by the Russian Minister,
the Baron de Bodisco. And though, while on board the
frigate, the Commodore never in any manner personally addressed
me—nor did I him—yet, at the Minister's social entertainment,
we
there became exceedingly chatty; nor did I
fail to observe, among that crowd of foreign dignitaries and
magnates from all parts of America, that my worthy friend
did not appear so exalted as when leaning, in solitary state,
against the brass railing of the Neversink's quarter-deck.
Like many other gentlemen, he appeared to the best advantage,
and was treated with the most deference in the bosom
of his home, the frigate.
Our morning and evening quarters were agreeably diversified
for some weeks by a little circumstance, which to some
of us at least, always seemed very pleasing.
At Callao, half of the Commodore's cabin had been hospitably
yielded to the family of a certain aristocratic-looking
magnate, who was going embassador from Peru to the Court
of the Brazils, at Rio. This dignified diplomatist sported a
long, twirling mustache, that almost enveloped his mouth.
The sailors said, he looked like a rat with his teeth through
a bunch of oakum, or a St. Jago monkey peeping through a
prickly-pear bush.
He was accompanied by a very beautiful wife, and a still
more beautiful little daughter, about six years old. Between
this dark-eyed little gipsy and our chaplain there soon sprung
up a cordial love and good feeling, so much so, that they were
seldom apart. And whenever the drum beat to quarters, and
the sailors were hurrying to their stations, this little signorita
would outrun them all to gain her own quarters at the capstan,
where she would stand by the chaplain's side, grasping
his hand, and looking up archly in his face.
It was a sweet relief from the domineering sternness of our
martial discipline—a sternness not relaxed even at our devotions
before the altar of the common God of commodore and
cabin-boy—to see that lovely little girl standing among the
thirty-two-pounders, and now and then casting a wondering,
commiserating glance at the array of grim seamen around her.
