Every Man Will Do His Duty Read online

  If a stranger had come into the midshipmen’s berth at that moment, he might have thought his Majesty’s naval service was about to be broken up. All allegiance, discipline, and subordination seemed utterly cancelled by this horrible act. Many were the execrations hurled upwards at the offending “nobs,” who, we declared, were combining to make our lives miserable. Some of our party proposed a letter of remonstrance to the admiral against this unheard-of outrage; and one youth swore deeply that he would leave the service, unless justice were obtained: but as he had been known to swear the same thing half-a-dozen times every week since he joined the ship, no great notice was taken of this pledge. Another declared, upon his word of honour, that such an act was enough to make a man turn Turk, and fly his country! At last, by general agreement, it was decided that we should not do duty, or stir from our seats, till we obtained redress for our grievances.

  While we were in the very act of vowing mutiny and disobedience, the hands were turned up to “furl sails!” upon which the whole party, forgetting their magnanimous resolution, scudded up the ladders and jumped into their stations with more than usual alacrity, wisely thinking that the moment for actual revolt had not yet arrived.

  A better scheme than throwing up the service, or writing to the admiral, or turning Mussulman, was afterwards concocted. The midshipman who went on shore in the next boat easily got hold of poor Shakings, who was howling on the steps of the watering-place. In order to conceal him, he was stuffed neck and crop into the captain’s cloak-bag, brought safely on board, and restored once more to the bosom of his friends.

  In spite of all we could do, however, to keep Master Shakings below, he presently found his way to the quarter-deck, to receive the congratulations of the other dogs. There he was soon detected by the higher powers, and very shortly afterwards trundled over the gangway, and again tossed on the beach. Upon this occasion he was honoured by the presence of one of his own masters, a middy, sent upon this express duty, who was specially desired “to land the brute, and not to bring him on board again.” Of course, this particular youngster did not bring the dog off; but, before night, somehow or other, old Shakings was snoring away in grand chorus with his more fashionable friends the pointers, and dreaming no evil, before the door of the very officer’s cabin whose beautifully-polished boots he had brushed by so rudely in the morning.

  This second return of our dog was too much. The whole posse of us were sent for to the quarter-deck, and in very distinct terms positively ordered not to bring Shakings on board again. These injunctions having been given, this wretched victim of oppression, as we thought him, was once more landed among the cedar groves. This time he remained a full week on shore; and how or when he found his way off again, no one ever knew—at least, no one chose to divulge. Never was there anything like the mutual joy felt by Shakings and his two dozen masters at this meeting. He careered about the ship, barking and yelling with delight, and, in his raptures, he actually leaped, with his dirty feet, on the milk-white duck trousers of the disgusted officers, who heartily wished him at the bottom of the anchorage! The poor beast unwittingly contributed to accelerate his own hapless fate by this ill-timed show of confidence. If he had only kept his paws to himself, and stayed quietly in the dark recesses of the cockpit, wings, cable-tiers, and other wild regions—the secrets of which were known only to the inhabitants of our submarine world—all might have been well with him.

  We had a grand jollification on the night of Shakings’ restoration; and his health was in the very act of being drunk, with three times three, when the officer of the watch, hearing an uproar below, the sounds of which were distinctly conveyed up the windsail, sent down to put our lights out; and we were forced to march off, growling, to our hammocks.

  Next day, to our surprise and horror, old Shakings was not to be seen or heard of. We searched everywhere, interrogated the coxswains of all the boats, and cross-questioned the marines who had been sentries during the night on the forecastle, gangways, and poop; but all in vain!—no trace of Shakings could be found.

  At length the idea began to gain ground among us that the poor beast had been put an end to by some diabolical means, and our ire mounted accordingly. This suspicion seemed the more natural, as the officers said not a word about the matter, nor even asked us what we had done with our dog. While we were in this state of excitement, one of the midshipmen, who had some drollery in his composition, gave a new turn to the expression of our thoughts.

  This young gentleman, who was more than twice as old as most of us, say about thirty, had won the affections of the whole of our class, by the gentleness of his manners, and the generous part he always took on our side. He bore among us the pet name of Daddy; and certainly he was as a father to those who, like myself, were adrift in the ship without any one to look after them. He was a man of talents and classical education; but he had entered the navy far too late in life ever to take to it cordially. He could not bend to the mortifying kind of discipline, which it is essential every officer should run through, but which only the young and light-hearted can brook; and our worthy friend, accordingly, with all his abilities, taste, and acquirements, never seemed at home on board ship. At all events, our old friend Daddy cared more about his books than about the blocks, and delighted much more in giving us assistance in our literary pursuits, and trying to teach us to be useful, than in rendering himself proficient in professional mysteries. This had secured our confidence. On all cases of difficulty, we never failed to cluster round him, to tell our grievances, great and small, with the certainty of always finding in him that great desideratum in calamity—a patient and friendly listener.

  It will easily be supposed, that our kind Daddy took more than usual interest in this affair of Shakings, and that he was applied to by us at every stage of the transaction; like us, he felt sadly perplexed when the dog was finally missing; and, for some days afterwards he could afford us no comfort, nor suggest any mode of revenge which was not too dangerous to be put in practice. He prudently observed, that, as we had no certainty to go upon, it would be foolish to get ourselves into a serious scrape for nothing at all.

  “There can be no harm, however,” he at last exclaimed, in his dry and slightly sarcastic way, which all who knew him will recollect as well as if they saw him now, drawing his hand slowly across his mouth and chin, “There can be no possible harm, my boys, in putting the other dogs in mourning for Shakings; for, whatever is become of him, he is lost to them as well as to you, and his memory ought to be duly respected by his old masters.”

  This hint was no sooner given than a cry was raised for crape, and every chest and bag ransacked, to procure badges of mourning. Each of the pointers was speedily rigged out with a large bunch of black crape, tied in a handsome bow upon his left leg just above the knee. The joke took immediately, and even the officers could not help laughing; for, though we considered them little better than fiends at that moment of excitement, they really showed themselves (except in this instance) the best-natured and most indulgent persons I remember to have sailed with. They ordered the crape, however, to be instantly cut off from the dogs’ legs; and one of them remarked very seriously, that “as we had now had our piece of fun out, there were to be no more such tricks.”

  Off we scampered, to consult old Daddy what was to be done next, as we had been positively ordered not to meddle any more with the dogs.

  “Put the pigs in mourning!” said he.

  All our crape had been expended by this time; but this want was soon supplied by men whose trade it is to discover resources in difficulty. With a generous devotion to the memory of the departed Shakings, one of the juvenile mutineers pulled off his black neckerchief, and, tearing it in pieces, gave a portion to each of the circle; and thus supplied, away we all started to put into practice this new suggestion of our director-general of mischief.

  The row which ensued in the pig-sty was prodigious, for in those days hogs were allowed a place on board a man-of-war, a custom mo
st wisely abolished of late years, since nothing can be more out of character with any ship than such nuisances. But these matters of taste and cleanliness were nothing to us; we intermitted not our noisy labour till every one of the grunters wore his armlet of such crape as we had been able to muster; then, watching our opportunity, we opened the door and let out the whole herd of swine on the main-deck just at the moment when a group of the officers were standing on the fore part of the quarter-deck. Of course the liberated pigs, delighted with their freedom, passed in review under the very nose of our superiors, each with his mourning-knot displayed, grunting or squealing along, as if it was their express object to attract attention to their sorrow for the loss of Shakings. The officers now became excessively provoked; for they could not help seeing that these proceedings were affording entertainment, at their expense, to the whole crew. The men, of course, took no part in this touch of insubordination; but they (like the middies) were ready enough, in those idle times of the weary, weary peace, to catch at any species of distraction or devilry, no matter what, to compensate for the loss of their wonted occupation of pommelling their enemies.

  The matter, therefore, as a point of discipline, necessarily became rather serious; and the whole gang of young culprits being sent for on the quarterdeck, were ranged in a line, each with his toes at the edge of a plank, according to the orthodox fashion of these gregarious scoldings, technically called “toe-the-line matches.” We were then given to understand that our proceedings were impertinent, and, after the orders we had received, highly offensive. It was with much difficulty that either party could keep their countenances during this official lecture, for, while it was going on, the sailors were endeavouring, by the direction of the officers, to remove the bits of silk from the legs of the pigs; but if it be difficult—as most difficult we found it—to put a hog into mourning, it is ten times more troublesome to take him out again. Such at least is the fair inference from these two experiments, the only cases, perhaps, on record; for it cost half the morning to undo what we had effected in less than an hour; to say nothing of the unceasing and outrageous uproar which took place along the decks, especially under the guns, and even under the coppers, forward in the galley, where two or three of the youngest pigs had wedged themselves, apparently resolved to die rather than submit to the degradation of being deprived of their sable badges.

  All this was very creditable to the memory of poor Shakings; but, in the course of the day, the real secret of this extraordinary difficulty of taking a pig out of mourning was discovered. Two of the mids were detected in the very fact of tying on a bit of black bunting to the leg of a sow, from which the seamen declared they had already cut off crape and silk enough to have made her a complete suite of black.

  On these fresh offences being reported, the whole party of us were ordered to the mast-head as a punishment. Some were sent to sit on the top-mast cross-trees, some on the top-gallant yard-arms, and one small gentleman being perched at the jibboom end, was very properly balanced abaft by another little culprit at the extremity of the gaff. In this predicament we were hung out to dry for six or eight hours, as old Daddy remarked to us with a grin, when we were called down as the night fell.

  Our persevering friend, being rather provoked at the punishment of his young flock, set seriously to work to discover the real fate of Shakings. It soon occurred to him, that if the dog had indeed been made away with, as he shrewdly suspected, the ship’s butcher, in all probability, must have had a hand in his murder: accordingly, he sent for the man in the evening, when the following dialogue took place:—

  “Well, butcher, will you have a glass of grog tonight?”

  “Thank you, sir, thank you. Here’s your honour’s health!” said the other, after smoothing down his hair and pulling an immense quid of tobacco out of his mouth.

  Old Daddy observed the peculiar relish with which the rogue took his glass: and mixing another, a good deal more potent, placed it before the fellow. He then continued the conversation in these words:—

  “I tell you what it is, Mr. Butcher—you are as humane a man as any in the ship, I dare say; but if required, you know well that you must do your duty, whether it is upon sheep or hogs?”

  “Surely, sir.”

  “Or upon dogs, either?” suddenly asked the inquisitor.

  “I don’t know about that,” stammered the butcher, quite taken by surprise, and thrown all aback.

  “Well—well,” said Daddy, “here’s another glass for you—a stiff northwester. Come! tell us all about it now. How did you get rid of the dog?—of Shakings, I mean.”

  “Why, sir,” said the peaching scoundrel, “I put him in a bag—a bread-bag, sir.”

  “Well!—what then?”

  “I tied up the mouth, and put him overboard, out of the midship lower-deck port, sir.”

  “Yes—but he would not sink?” said Daddy.

  “Oh, sir,” cried the fellow, now entering fully into the subject, “I put a four-and-twenty pound shot into the bag along with Shakings.”

  “Did you?—Then, Master Butcher, all I can say is, you are as precious a rascal as ever went about unhanged. There—drink your grog and be off with you!”

  Next morning, when the officers were assembling at breakfast in the ward-room, the door of the captain of marines’ cabin was suddenly opened, and that officer, half-shaved, and laughing through a collar of soap-suds, stalked out with a paper in his hand.

  “Here,” he exclaimed, “is a copy of verses which I found just now in my basin. I can’t tell how they got there, nor what they are about; but you shall judge.”

  So he read aloud the two following stanzas of doggerel:—

  “When the Northern Confederacy threatened our shores,

  And roused Albion’s Lion, reclining to sleep, Preservation was taken of all the King’s Stores,

  Nor so much as a Rope Yarn was launched in the deep.

  “But now it is Peace, other hopes are in view,

  And all active service as light as a feather. The Stores may be d—d, and humanity too,

  For SHAKINGS and Shot are thrown o’erboard together!”

  I need hardly say in what quarter of the ship this biting morsel of cockpit satire was concocted, nor indeed who wrote it, for there was no one but our good Daddy who was equal to such a flight. About midnight, an urchin—who shall be nameless—was thrust out of one of the after-ports of the lower deck, from which he clambered up to the marine officer’s port, and the sash happening to have been lowered down on the gun, the epigram, copied by another of the youngsters, was pitched into the soldier’s basin.

  The wisest thing would have been for the officers to have said nothing about the matter, and let it blow by; but as angry people are seldom judicious, they made a formal complaint to the captain, who, to do him justice, was not a little puzzled how to settle the affair. The reputed author, however, was called up, and the captain said to him—

  “Pray, sir, are you the writer of these lines?”

  “I am, sir,” he replied, after a little consideration.

  “Then, all I can say is,” remarked the captain, “they are clever enough, in their way; but take my advice, and write no more such verses.”

  So the matter ended. The satirist took the captain’s hint in good part, and confined his pen to topics less repugnant to discipline.

  In the course of a few months the war broke out, and there was no longer time for such nonsense; indeed our generous protector Daddy, some time after this affair of Shakings took place, was sent off to Halifax, in charge of a prize. His orders were, if possible, to rejoin his own ship, the Leander, then lying at the entrance of New York harbour, just within Sandy Hook light-house.

  Our good old friend, accordingly, having completed his mission, and delivered up his charge to the authorities of Halifax, took his passage in the British packet sailing from thence to the port in which we lay. As this ship sailed past us, on her way to the city of New York, we ascertained, to ou
r great joy, that our excellent Daddy was actually on board of her. Some hours afterwards, the pilot-boat was seen coming to us, and, though it was in the middle of the night, all the younger mids came hastily on deck to welcome their worthy messmate back again to his home.

  It was late in October, and the wind blew fresh from the northwestward, so that the ship riding to the ebb, had her head directed towards the Narrows, between Staten Land and Long Island: consequently, the pilot-boat (one of those beautiful vessels so well known to every visitor of the American coast) came flying down upon us with the wind nearly right aft. Our joyous party were all assembled on the quarter-deck, looking anxiously at the boat as she swept past. She then luffed round, in order to sheer alongside, at which moment the main-sail jibed, as was to be expected. It was obvious, however, that something more had taken place than the pilot had anticipated, since the boat, instead of ranging up to the gangway, being brought right round on her heel, went off upon a wind on the other tack. The tide carried her out of sight for a few minutes, but she was soon again alongside; when we learned, to our inexpressible grief and consternation, that on the main-boom of the pilot-boat swinging over, it had accidentally struck our poor friend, and pitched him headlong overboard. Being encumbered with his great-coat, the pockets of which, as we afterwards heard, were loaded with his young companions’ letters, brought from England by this packet, he struggled in vain to catch hold of the boat, but sunk to rise no more.

  Basil Hall remained on board the Leander until shortly after the death of Sir Andrew Mitchell in 1806. In 1808 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1809 he was sent to Corunna. (See “When I Beheld These Men Spring from the Ground, 1809,”.)

  The peace through which Hall and his fellow middies so restlessly passed their time at Bermuda was, for them, mercifully short-lived. In March 1803, the French fleet began to prepare for an invasion of England, and on May 16, Britain declared war on France. Britain made aggressive moves in the West Indies, taking St. Lucia and Tobago from France and Demerara and Barbice from the Batavian Republic, and resumed its blockade off key French ports. On December 14, 1804, Spain declared war on Britain.