70. CHAPTER LXX.
MONTHLY MUSTER ROUND THE CAPSTAN.
Besides general quarters, and the regular morning and
evening quarters for prayers on board the Neversink, on the
first Sunday of every month we had a grand “muster round
the capstan,” when we passed in solemn review before the
Captain and officers, who closely scanned our frocks and trowsers,
to see whether they were according to the Navy cut. In
some ships, every man is required to bring his bag and hammock
along for inspection.
This ceremony acquires its chief solemnity, and, to a novice,
is rendered even terrible, by the reading of the Articles of War
by the Captain's clerk before the assembled ship's company,
who, in testimony of their enforced reverence for the code,
stand bareheaded till the last sentence is pronounced.
To a mere amateur reader the quiet perusal of these Articles
of War would be attended with some nervous emotions.
Imagine, then, what my feelings must have been, when, with
my hat deferentially in my hand, I stood before my lord and
master, Captain Claret, and heard these Articles read as the
law and gospel, the infallible, unappealable dispensation and
code, whereby I lived, and moved, and had my being on board
of the United States ship Neversink.
Of some twenty offences—made penal—that a seaman may
commit, and which are specified in this code, thirteen are punishable
by death.
“Shall suffer death!” This was the burden of nearly
every Article read by the Captain's clerk; for he seemed to
have been instructed to omit the longer Articles, and only
present those which were brief and to the point.
“Shall suffer death!” The repeated announcement falls
on your ear like the intermitting discharge of artillery. After
it has been repeated again and again, you listen to the reader
as he deliberately begins a new paragraph; you hear him reciting
the involved, but comprehensive and clear arrangement
of the sentence, detailing all possible particulars of the offence
described, and you breathlessly await, whether that clause also
is going to be concluded by the discharge of the terrible minute-gun.
When, lo! it again booms on your ear—shall suffer
death! No reservations, no contingencies; not the remotest
promise of pardon or reprieve; not a glimpse of commutation
of the sentence; all hope and consolation is shut out—shall
suffer death! that is the simple fact for you to digest; and it
is a tougher morsel, believe White-Jacket when he says it,
than a forty-two-pound cannon-ball.
But there is a glimmering of an alternative to the sailor
who infringes these Articles. Some of them thus terminate:
“Shall suffer death, or such punishment as a court-martial
shall adjudge.” But hints this at a penalty still more serious?
Perhaps it means “death, or worse punishment.”
Your honors of the Spanish Inquisition, Loyola and Torquemada!
produce, reverend gentlemen, your most secret
code, and match these Articles of War, if you can. Jack
Ketch, you also are experienced in these things! Thou most
benevolent of mortals, who standest by us, and hangest round
our necks, when all the rest of this world are against us—tell
us, hangman, what punishment is this, horribly hinted at as
being worse than death? Is it, upon an empty stomach, to
read the Articles of War every morning, for the term of one's
natural life? Or is it to be imprisoned in a cell, with its
walls papered from floor to ceiling with printed copies, in italics,
of these Articles of War?
But it needs not to dilate upon the pure, bubbling milk of
human kindness, and Christian charity, and forgiveness of
injuries which pervade this charming document, so thoroughly
imbued, as a Christian code, with the benignant spirit of
the Sermon on the Mount. But as it is very nearly alike in
the foremost states of Christendom, and as it is nationally set
forth by those states, it indirectly becomes an index to the
true condition of the present civilization of the world.
As, month after month, I would stand bareheaded among
my shipmates, and hear this document read, I have thought
to myself, Well, well, White-Jacket, you are in a sad box,
indeed. But prick your ears, there goes another minute-gun.
It admonishes you to take all bad usage in good part, and
never to join in any public meeting that may be held on the
gun-deck for a redress of grievances. Listen:
Art. XIII. “If any person in the navy shall make, or
attempt to make, any mutinous assembly, he shall, on conviction
thereof by a court martial, suffer death.”
Bless me, White-Jacket, are you a great gun yourself, that
you so recoil, to the extremity of your breechings, at that discharge?
But give ear again. Here goes another minute-gun. It
indirectly admonishes you to receive the grossest insult, and
stand still under it:
Art. XIV. “No private in the navy shall disobey the
lawful orders of his superior officer, or strike him, or draw,
or offer to draw, or raise any weapon against him, while in
the execution of the duties of his office, on pain of death.”
Do not hang back there by the bulwarks, White-Jacket;
come up to the mark once more; for here goes still another
minute-gun, which admonishes you never to be caught napping:
Part of Art. XX. “If any person in the navy shall sleep
upon his watch, he shall suffer death.”
Murderous! But then, in time of peace, they do not enforce
these blood-thirsty laws? Do they not, indeed? What
happened to those three sailors on board an American armed
vessel a few years ago, quite within your memory, White-Jacket;
yea, while you yourself were yet serving on board
this very frigate, the Neversink? What happened to those
three Americans, White-Jacket—those three sailors, even as
you, who once were alive, but now are dead? “
Shall suffer
death!” those were the three words that hung those three
sailors.
Have a care, then, have a care, lest you come to a sad
end, even the end of a rope; lest, with a black-and-blue
throat, you turn a dumb diver after pearl-shells; put to bed
forever, and tucked in, in your own hammock, at the bottom
of the sea. And there you will lie, White-Jacket, while hostile
navies are playing cannon-ball billiards over your grave.
By the main-mast! then, in a time of profound peace, I
am subject to the cut-throat martial law! And when my
own brother, who happens to be dwelling ashore, and does
not serve his country as I am now doing—when he is at
liberty to call personally upon the President of the United
States, and express his disapprobation of the whole national
administration, here am I, liable at any time to be run up at
the yard-arm, with a necklace, made by no jeweler, round
my neck!
A hard case, truly, White-Jacket; but it can not be helped.
Yes; you live under this same martial law. Does not every
thing around you din the fact in your ears? Twice every
day do you not jump to your quarters at the sound of a drum?
Every morning, in port, are you not roused from your hammock
by the reveille, and sent to it again at nightfall by the
tattoo? Every Sunday are you not commanded in the mere
matter of the very dress you shall wear through that blessed
day? Can your shipmates so much as drink their “tot of
grog?” nay, can they even drink but a cup of water at the
scuttle-butt, without an armed sentry standing over them?
Does not every officer wear a sword instead of a cane? You
live and move among twenty-four-pounders, White-Jacket;
the very cannon-balls are deemed an ornament around you,
serving to embellish the hatchways; and should you come to
die at sea, White-Jacket, still two cannon-balls would bear
you company when you would be committed to the deep.
Yea, by all methods, and devices, and inventions, you are
momentarily admonished of the fact that you live under the
Articles of War. And by virtue of them it is, White-Jacket,
that, without a hearing and without a trial, you may, at a
wink from the Captain, be condemned to the scourge.
Speak you true? Then let me fly!
Nay, White-Jacket, the landless horizon hoops you in.
Some tempest, then, surge all the sea against us! hidden
reefs and rocks, arise and dash the ship to chips! I was not
born a serf, and will not live a slave! Quick! cork-screw
whirlpools, suck us down! world's end whelm us!
Nay, White-Jacket, though this frigate laid her broken
bones upon the Antarctic shores of Palmer's Land; though
not two planks adhered; though all her guns were spiked by
sword-fish blades, and at her yawning hatchways mouth-yawning
sharks swam in and out; yet, should you escape the
wreck and scramble to the beach, this Martial Law would
meet you still, and snatch you by the throat. Hark!
Art. XLII. Part of Sec. 3.—“In all cases where the
crews of the ships or vessels of the United States shall be seperated
from their vessels by the latter being wrecked, lost, or
destroyed, all the command, power, and authority given to
the officers of such ships or vessels shall remain, and be in
full force, as effectually as if such ship or vessel were not so
wrecked, lost, or destroyed.”
Hear you that, White-Jacket! I tell you there is no
escape. Afloat or wrecked the Martial Law relaxes not its
gripe. And though, by that self-same warrant, for some offence
therein set down, you were indeed to “suffer death,”
even then the Martial Law might hunt you straight through
the other world, and out again at its other end, following you
through all eternity, like an endless thread on the inevitable
track of its own point, passing unnumbered needles through.
