White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War
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CHAPTER LXVIII.
A MAN-OF-WAR FOUNTAIN, AND OTHER THINGS.
Let us forget the scourge and the gangway a while, and jot down in ourmemories a few little things pertaining to our man-of-war world. I letnothing slip, however small; and feel myself actuated by the samemotive which has prompted many worthy old chroniclers, to set down themerest trifles concerning things that are destined to pass awayentirely from the earth, and which, if not preserved in the nick oftime, must infallibly perish from the memories of man. Who knows thatthis humble narrative may not hereafter prove the history of anobsolete barbarism? Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more,"White-Jacket" may not be quoted to show to the people in theMillennium 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 comingof strangers, and overhear more greetings and gossipings ofacquaintances, than in the immediate vicinity of the scuttle-butt, justforward of the main-hatchway, on the gun-deck.
The scuttle-butt is a goodly, round, painted cask, standing on end, andwith 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 anunfailing supply of the much-admired Pale Ale, first brewed in thebrooks of the garden of Eden, and stamped with the _brand_ of our oldfather Adam, who never knew what wine was. We are indebted to the oldvintner Noah for that. The scuttle-butt is the only fountain in theship; and here alone can you drink, unless at your meals. Night andday an armed sentry paces before it, bayonet in hand, to see that nowater is taken away, except according to law. I wonder that theystation 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 oftensurrounded by officers' servants drawing water for their masters towash; by the cooks of the range, who hither come to fill theircoffee-pots; and by the cooks of the ship's messes to procure water fortheir _duffs_; the scuttle-butt may be denominated the town-pump of theship. And would that my fine countryman, Hawthorne of Salem, had butserved on board a man-of-war in his time, that he might give us thereading of a "_rill_" from the scuttle-butt.
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As in all extensive establishments--abbeys, arsenals, colleges,treasuries, metropolitan post-offices, and monasteries--there are manysnug little niches, wherein are ensconced certain superannuated oldpensioner officials; and, more especially, as in most ecclesiasticalestablishments, 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 decrepitor 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 numberof _braces, lifts_, and _buntlines_ are belayed to the pins. It is thesole duty of the mast-man to see that these ropes are always keptclear, to preserve his premises in a state of the greatest attainableneatness, 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 welldeserved his comfortable berth. He had seen more than half a century ofthe most active service, and, through all, had proved himself a goodand faithful man. He furnished one of the very rare examples of asailor in a green old age; for, with most sailors, old age comes inyouth, 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 satat the door of his tent, biding his time to die, so sits our oldmast-man on the _coat of the mast_, glancing round him with patriarchalbenignity. And that mild expression of his sets off very strangely aface that has been burned almost black by the torrid suns that shonefifty years ago--a face that is seamed with three sabre cuts. You wouldalmost think this old mast-man had been blown out of Vesuvius, to lookalone at his scarred, blackened forehead, chin, and cheeks. But gazedown into his eye, and though all the snows of Time have drifted higherand higher upon his brow, yet deep down in that eye you behold aninfantile, sinless look, the same that answered the glance of this oldman's mother when first she cried for the babe to be laid by her side.That look is the fadeless, ever infantile immortality within.
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The Lord Nelsons of the sea, though but Barons in the state, yetoftentimes prove more potent than their royal masters; and at suchscenes as Trafalgar--dethroning this Emperor and reinstatingthat--enact on the ocean the proud part of mighty Richard Neville, theking-making Earl of the land. And as Richard Neville entrenched himselfin his moated old man-of-war castle of Warwick, which, underground, wastraversed with vaults, hewn out of the solid rock, and intricate as thewards of the old keys of Calais surrendered to Edward III.; even so dothese King-Commodores house themselves in their water-rimmed,cannon-sentried frigates, oaken dug, deck under deck, as cell undercell. And as the old Middle-Age warders of Warwick, every night atcurfew, patrolled the battlements, and dove down into the vaults to seethat all lights were extinguished, even so do the master-at-arms andship's corporals of a frigate perambulate all the decks of aman-of-war, blowing out all tapers but those burning in the legalizedbattle-lanterns. Yea, in these things, so potent is the authority ofthese sea-wardens, that, though almost the lowest subalterns in theship, yet should they find the Senior Lieutenant himself sitting uplate in his state-room, reading Bowditch's Navigator, or D'Anton "_OnGunpowder and Fire-arms_," they would infallibly blow the light outunder 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 ferretingover a rambling old house in the country, startling at fancied witchesand ghosts, yet intent on seeing every door bolted, every smoulderingember in the fireplaces smothered, every loitering domestic abed, andevery light made dark. This is the master-at-arms taking hisnight-rounds in a frigate.
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It may be thought that but little is seen of the Commodore in thesechapters, and that, since he so seldom appears on the stage, he cannotbe so august a personage, after all. But the mightiest potentates keepthe most behind the veil. 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 anyone doubts the majesty of a Commodore, let him know that, according toXLII. of the Articles of War, he is invested with a prerogative which,according to monarchical jurists, is inseparable from the throne--theplenary pardoning power. He may pardon all offences committed in thesquadron 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 betweenthe stately absolutism of a Commodore enthroned on his poop in aforeign harbour, and an unlaced Commodore negligently reclining in aneasy-chair in the bosom of his family at home.