White Jacket or, The World on a Man-of-War

by Herman Melville

  But perhaps there is a corner for you somewhere along the batteries on the gun-deck, where you may enjoy a snug nap. But as no one is allowed to recline on the larboard side of the gun-deck (which is reserved as a corridor for the officers when they go forward to their smoking-room at the _bridle-port_), the starboard side only is left to the seaman. But most of this side, also, is occupied by the carpenters, sail-makers, barbers, and coopers. In short, so few are the corners where you can snatch a nap during daytime in a frigate, that not one in ten of the watch, who have been on deck eight hours, can get a wink of sleep till the following night. Repeatedly, after by good fortune securing a corner, I have been roused from it by some functionary commissioned to keep it clear.

  Off Cape Horn, what before had been very uncomfortable became a serious hardship. Drenched through and through by the spray of the sea at night. I have sometimes slept standing on the spar-deck-and shuddered as I slept-for the want of sufficient sleep in my hammock.

  During three days of the stormiest weather, we were given the privilege of the _berth-deck_ (at other times strictly interdicted), where we were permitted to spread our jackets, and take a nap in the morning after the eight hours' night exposure. But this privilege was but a beggarly one, indeed. Not to speak of our jackets-used for blankets-being soaking wet, the spray, coming down the hatchways, kept the planks of the berth-deck itself constantly wet; whereas, had we been permitted our hammocks, we might have swung dry over all this deluge. But we endeavoured to make ourselves as warm and comfortable as possible, chiefly by close stowing, so as to generate a little steam, in the absence of any fire-side warmth. You have seen, perhaps, the way in which they box up subjects intended to illustrate the winter lectures of a professor of surgery. Just so we laid; heel and point, face to back, dove-tailed into each other at every ham and knee. The wet of our jackets, thus densely packed, would soon begin to distill. But it was like pouring hot water on you to keep you from freezing. It was like being «packed» between the soaked sheets in a Water-cure Establishment.

  Such a posture could not be preserved for any considerable period without shifting side for side. Three or four times during the four hours I would be startled from a wet doze by the hoarse cry of a fellow who did the duty of a corporal at the after-end of my file. "_Sleepers ahoy! stand by to slew round!_" and, with a double shuffle, we all rolled in concert, and found ourselves facing the taffrail instead of the bowsprit. But, however you turned, your nose was sure to stick to one or other of the steaming backs on your two flanks. There was some little relief in the change of odour consequent upon this.

  But what is the reason that, after battling out eight stormy hours on deck at, night, men-of-war's-men are not allowed the poor boon of a dry four hours' nap during the day following? What is the reason? The Commodore, Captain, and first Lieutenant, Chaplain, Purser, and scores of others, have _all night in_, just as if they were staying at a hotel on shore. And the junior Lieutenants not only have their cots to go to at any time: but as only one of them is required to head the watch, and there are so many of them among whom to divide that duty, they are only on deck four hours to twelve hours below. In some eases the proportion is still greater. Whereas, with _the people_ it is four hours in and four hours off continually.

  What is the reason, then, that the common seamen should fare so hard in this matter? It would seem but a simple thing to let them get down their hammocks during the day for a nap. But no; such a proceeding would mar the uniformity of daily events in a man-of- war. It seems indispensable to the picturesque effect of the spar-deck, that the hammocks should invariably remain stowed in the nettings between sunrise and sundown. But the chief reason is this-a reason which has sanctioned many an abuse in this world- _precedents are against it;_ such a thing as sailors sleeping in their hammocks in the daytime, after being eight hours exposed to a night-storm, was hardly ever heard of in the navy. Though, to the immortal honour of some captains be it said, the fact is upon navy record, that off Cape Horn, they _have_ vouchsafed the morning hammocks to their crew. Heaven bless such tender-hearted officers; and may they and their descendants-ashore or afloat- have sweet and pleasant slumbers while they live, and an undreaming siesta when they die.

  It is concerning such things as the subject of this chapter that special enactments of Congress are demanded. Health and comfort- so far as duly attainable under the circumstances-should be legally guaranteed to the man-of-war's-men; and not left to the discretion or caprice of their commanders.

  CHAPTER XXII

  WASH-DAY AND HOUSE-CLEANING IN A MAN-OF-WAR

  Besides the other tribulations connected with your hammock, you must keep it snow-white and clean; who has not observed the long rows of spotless hammocks exposed in a frigate's nettings, where, through the day, their outsides, at least, are kept airing?

  Hence it comes that there are regular mornings appointed for the scrubbing of hammocks; and such mornings are called _scrub- hammock-mornings;_ and desperate is the scrubbing that ensues.

  Before daylight the operation begins. All hands are called, and at it they go. Every deck is spread with hammocks, fore and aft; and lucky are you if you can get sufficient superfices to spread your own hammock in. Down on their knees are five hundred men, scrubbing away with brushes and brooms; jostling, and crowding, and quarrelling about using each other's suds; when all their Purser's soap goes to create one indiscriminate yeast.

  Sometimes you discover that, in the dark, you have been all the while scrubbing your next neighbour's hammock instead of your own. But it is too late to begin over again; for now the word is passed for every man to advance with his hammock, that it may he tied to a net-like frame-work of clothes-lines, and hoisted aloft to dry.

  That done, without delay you get together your frocks and trowsers, and on the already flooded deck embark in the laundry business. You have no special bucket or basin to yourself-the ship being one vast wash-tub, where all hands wash and rinse out, and rinse out and wash, till at last the word is passed again, to make fast your clothes, that they, also, may be elevated to dry.

  Then on all three decks the operation of holy-stoning begins, so called from the queer name bestowed upon the principal instruments employed. These are ponderous flat stones with long ropes at each end, by which the stones are slidden about, to and fro, over the wet and sanded decks; a most wearisome, dog-like, galley-slave employment. For the byways and corners about the masts and guns, smaller stones are used, called _prayer-books;_ inasmuch as the devout operator has to down with them on his knees.

  Finally, a grand flooding takes place, and the decks are remorselessly thrashed with dry swabs. After which an extraordinary implement-a sort of leathern hoe called a"_squilgee_"-is used to scrape and squeeze the last dribblings of water from the planks. Concerning this "squilgee," I think something of drawing up a memoir, and reading it before the Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is a most curious affair.

  By the time all these operations are concluded it is _eight bell's_, and all hands are piped to breakfast upon the damp and every-way disagreeable decks.

  Now, against this invariable daily flooding of the three decks of a frigate, as a man-of-war's-man, White-Jacket most earnestly protests. In sunless weather it keeps the sailors' quarters perpetually damp; so much so, that you can scarce sit down without running the risk of getting the lumbago. One rheumatic old sheet-anchor-man among us was driven to the extremity of sewing a piece of tarred canvas on the seat of his trowsers.

  Let those neat and tidy officers who so love to see a ship kept spick and span clean; who institute vigorous search after the man who chances to drop the crumb of a biscuit on deck, when the ship is rolling in a sea-way; let all such swing their hammocks with the sailors; and they would soon get sick of this daily damping of the decks.

  Is a ship a wooden platter, that is to be scrubbed out every morning before breakfast, even if the thermometer be at zero, and every sailor goes barefooted through the flood with the chilblains? A
nd all the while the ship carries a doctor, well aware of Boerhaave's great maxim "_keep the feet dry_." He has plenty of pills to give you when you are down with a fever, the consequence of these things; but enters no protest at the outset-as it is his duty to do-against the cause that induces the fever.

  During the pleasant night watches, the promenading officers, mounted on their high-heeled boots, pass dry-shod, like the Israelites, over the decks; but by daybreak the roaring tide sets back, and the poor sailors are almost overwhelmed in it, like the Egyptians in the Red Sea.

  Oh! the chills, colds, and agues that are caught. No snug stove, grate, or fireplace to go to; no, your only way to keep warm is to keep in a blazing passion, and anathematise the custom that every morning makes a wash-house of a man-of-war.

  Look at it. Say you go on board a line-of-battle-ship: you see everything scrupulously neat; you see all the decks clear and unobstructed as the sidewalks of Wall Street of a Sunday morning; you see no trace of a sailor's dormitory; you marvel by what magic all this is brought about. And well you may. For consider, that in this unobstructed fabric nearly one thousand mortal men have to sleep, eat, wash, dress, cook, and perform all the ordinary functions of humanity. The same number of men ashore would expand themselves into a township. Is it credible, then, that this extraordinary neatness, and especially this _unobstructedness_ of a man-of-war, can be brought about, except by the most rigorous edicts, and a very serious sacrifice, with respect to the sailors, of the domestic comforts of life? To be sure, sailors themselves do not often complain of these things; they are used to them; but man can become used even to the hardest usage. And it is because he is used to it, that sometimes he does not complain of it.

  Of all men-of-war, the American ships are the most excessively neat, and have the greatest reputation for it. And of all men-of-war the general discipline of the American ships is the most arbitrary.

  In the English. navy, the men liberally mess on tables, which, between meals, are triced up out of the way. The American sailors mess on deck, and pick up their broken biscuit, or _midshipman's nuts_, like fowls in a barn-yard.

  But if this unobstructedness in an American fighting-ship be, at all hazards, so desirable, why not imitate the Turks? In the Turkish navy they have no mess-chests; the sailors roll their mess things up in a rug, and thrust them under a gun. Nor do they have any hammocks; they sleep anywhere about the decks in their _gregoes_. Indeed, come to look at it, what more does a man-of- war's-man absolutely require to live in than his own skin? That's room enough; and room enough to turn in, if he but knew how to shift his spine, end for end, like a ramrod, without disturbing his next neighbour.

  Among all men-of-war's-men, it is a maxim that over-neat vessels are Tartars to the crew: and perhaps it may be safely laid down that, when you see such a ship, some sort of tyranny is not very far off.

  In the Neversink, as in other national ships, the business of _holy-stoning_ the decks was often prolonged, by way of punishment to the men, particularly of a raw, cold morning. This is one of the punishments which a lieutenant of the watch may easily inflict upon the crew, without infringing the statute which places the power of punishment solely in the hands of the Captain.

  The abhorrence which men-of-war's-men have for this protracted _holy-stoning_ in cold, comfortless weather-with their bare feet exposed to the splashing inundations-is shown in a strange story, rife among them, curiously tinctured with their proverbial superstitions.

  The First Lieutenant of an English sloop of war, a severe disciplinarian, was uncommonly particular concerning the whiteness of the quarter-deck. One bitter winter morning at sea, when the crew had washed that part of the vessel, as usual, and put away their holy-stones, this officer came on deck, and after inspecting it, ordered the _holy-stones_ and _prayer-books_ up again. Once more slipping off the shoes from their frosted feet, and rolling up their trowsers, the crew kneeled down to their task; and in that suppliant posture, silently invoked a curse upon their tyrant; praying, as he went below, that he might never more come out of the ward-room alive. The prayer seemed answered: for shortly after being visited with a paralytic stroke at his breakfast-table, the First Lieutenant next morning was carried out of the ward-room feet foremost, dead. As they dropped him over the side-so goes the story-the marine sentry at the gangway turned his back upon the corpse.

  To the credit of the humane and sensible portion of the roll of American navy-captains, be it added, that _they_ are not so particular in keeping the decks spotless at all times, and in all weathers; nor do they torment the men with scraping bright-wood and polishing ring-bolts; but give all such gingerbread-work a hearty coat of black paint, which looks more warlike, is a better preservative, and exempts the sailors from a perpetual annoyance.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THEATRICALS IN A MAN-OF-WAR

  The Neversink had summered out her last Christmas on the Equator; she was now destined to winter out the Fourth of July not very far from the frigid latitudes of Cape Horn.

  It is sometimes the custom in the American Navy to celebrate this national holiday by doubling the allowance of spirits to the men; that is, if the ship happen to be lying in harbour. The effects of this patriotic plan may be easily imagined: the whole ship is converted into a dram-shop; and the intoxicated sailors reel about, on all three decks, singing, howling, and fighting. This is the time that, owing to the relaxed discipline of the ship, old and almost forgotten quarrels are revived, under the stimulus of drink; and, fencing themselves up between the guns-so as to be sure of a clear space with at least three walls-the combatants, two and two, fight out their hate, cribbed and cabined like soldiers duelling in a sentry-box. In a word, scenes ensue which would not for a single instant be tolerated by the officers upon any other occasion. This is the time that the most venerable of quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, together with the, smallest apprentice boys, and men never known to have been previously intoxicated during the cruise-this is the time that they all roll together in the same muddy trough of drunkenness.

  In emulation of the potentates of the Middle Ages, some Captains augment the din by authorising a grand jail-delivery of all the prisoners who, on that auspicious Fourth of the month, may happen to be confined in the ship's prison-"_the brig_."

  But from scenes like these the Neversink was happily delivered. Besides that she was now approaching a most perilous part of the ocean-which would have made it madness to intoxicate the sailors-her complete destitution of _grog_, even for ordinary consumption, was an obstacle altogether insuperable, even had the Captain felt disposed to indulge his man-of-war's-men by the most copious libations.

  For several days previous to the advent of the holiday, frequent conferences were held on the gun-deck touching the melancholy prospects before the ship.

  "Too bad-too bad!" cried a top-man, "Think of it, shipmates-a Fourth of July without grog!"

  "I'll hoist the Commodore's pennant at half-mast that day," sighed the signal-quarter-master.

  "And I'll turn my best uniform jacket wrong side out, to keep company with the pennant, old Ensign," sympathetically responded an after-guard's-man.

  "Ay, do!" cried a forecastle-man. "I could almost pipe my eye to think on't."

  "No grog on de day dat tried men's souls!" blubbered Sunshine, the galley-cook.

  "Who would be a _Jankee_ now?" roared a Hollander of the fore- top, more Dutch than sour-crout.

  "Is this the _riglar_ fruits of liberty?" touchingly inquired an Irish waister of an old Spanish sheet-anchor-man.

  You will generally observe that, of all Americans, your foreign- born citizens are the most patriotic-especially toward the Fourth of July.

  But how could Captain Claret, the father of his crew, behold the grief of his ocean children with indifference? He could not. Three days before the anniversary-it still continuing very pleasant weather for these latitudes-it was publicly announced that free permission was given to the sailors to get up any sort of theatricals the
y desired, wherewith to honour the Fourth.

  Now, some weeks prior to the Neversink's sailing from home- nearly three years before the time here spoken of-some of the seamen had clubbed together, and made up a considerable purse, for the purpose of purchasing a theatrical outfit having in view to diversify the monotony of lying in foreign harbours for weeks together, by an occasional display on the boards-though if ever there w-as a continual theatre in the world, playing by night and by day, and without intervals between the acts, a man-of-war is that theatre, and her planks are the _boards_ indeed.

  The sailors who originated this scheme had served in other American frigates, where the privilege of having theatricals was allowed to the crew. What was their chagrin, then, when, upon making an application to the Captain, in a Peruvian harbour, for permission to present the much-admired drama of "_The Ruffian Boy_," under the Captain's personal patronage, that dignitary assured them that there were already enough _ruffian boys_ on board, without conjuring up any more from the green-room.