Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

NIGHTS AT SEA;

Or, Sketches of Naval Life during the War

A strange sail is always a matter of interest in a ship of war; and no sooner was the canvass set in chase of the brig mentioned in my last, than the forecastle of the Spankaway received its usual group of yarn-spinners, anxious to ascertain the character of the stranger, and what amount of prize-money was likely to be shared in case of her carrying an enemy's flag. There was our old friend Jack Sheavehole, together with Joe Nighthead, Bob Martingal, Bill Buntline, and several others; and occasionally the warrant-officers, and even the mate of the watch, stopped to chime in with a few words, so as to give life to their conversation.

"It bothers my univarsal knowledge," said old Savage, the boatswain, "to make out what lay the skipper's on; and as for the chase, mayhap she mayn't turn out to be moonshine arter all."

"How moonshine?" returned Mr. Bracebit, the carpenter; "she's plain enough to be seen, and they've made her out to be a brig: there can be no moonshine in that, anyhow."

"But I tell you there is moonshine in it," persevered the boatswain, "a complete bag o' moonshine, unless you can diskiver the right bearings and distance o' the thing. I tell you what it is, Mr. Bracebit, I arn't been these many years man and boy in the sarvice – "

"You should say boy and man, old Pipes," exclaimed the mate of the watch as he stopped short in his walk by the veteran's side.

"And why should I say boy and man, instead of man and boy, Mr. Winterbottom?" demanded old Savage in anger.

"Because, according to your own maxim, everything should be done ship-shape," replied the other; "and you was a boy before you was a man."

"He has him there," whispered Jack Sheavehole to his messmate Bob. "I'm bless'd if that arn't plain-sailing, anyhow!"

"Ship-shape do you call it?" answered the boatswain wrathfully.

"Ay, ay, Muster Winterbottom, mayhap it may be according to your calculations of the jometry of the thing. It's nothing new now-a-days to see the boy put forud afore the man;" and he laid strong emphasis on the latter words.

"There he hit him again, Jack," observed Bob Martingal in a whisper; "and I'm blowed if there arn't Gospel truth in that, anyhow!"

"Well, well, don't be angry, old friend," said Mr. Winterbottom, himself somewhat offended; "there's no occasion for being hot upon it; but, if you are, you may go to – and cool yourself!"

"And a precious queer place that 'ud be for a cold-bath," said the carpenter: "but let's have no contentions, gentlemen. What do you take the brig to be, Mr. Winterbottom?"

"A ship with her mizen-mast out, bound to Bombay, with a cargo of warming-pans," replied the young officer.

"That arn't being over civil, anyhow," whispered Bob to his messmate; "though mayhap they may want warming-pans in Bumbay as much as they do in the West Ingees. To my thinking, she's a treasure-craft laden with mummies."

"Did you ever fall athwart any o' them there hanimals, Bob?" inquired Joe Nighthead.

"What hanimals do you mean, Joe?" returned Martingal. "For my part, I've seen a little somut of everything."

"I means the mummies," replied Joe, as he squatted down in amidships just before the foremast, in preparation for a yarn, and was soon surrounded by the rest; – "I means the mummies, my boyo."

"No; can't say as I have," answered Bob; "though I've heard somut about 'em, too: – what rig are they?"

"Why, for the matter o' that," said Joe, laughing, "they're broomstick-rig as soon as they makes a brush of it; but I'm blow'd if I hadn't onest as pretty a spree with a whole fleet of mummies as ever any man could fall aboard of in this world, or t'other either."

"What was it, Joe?" asked the boatswain's mate eagerly. "Pay it out handsomely, messmate; but don't pitch us any of Bob's devil's consarns; – let's have it all truth and honesty."

"I'd scorn to deceive you, Jack, or anybody else o' my shipmates wot's seamen," responded Joe reproachfully. "It's all as true as the skipper's a lord, and looks, alongside o' Johnny Cropoh there, like a man alongside of a – But, there, – it arn't honourable to make delusions; and so, shipmates, here goes for a yarn. I was coxswain in the pinnace of the ould Ajax, the Honourable Captain Cochrane, at that 'ere time when Sir Richard Bickerton took command of the fleet, and a flotilla was employed in co-operating with the troops again' Alexandria. Well, shipmates, I was always fond of a bit of gab; and so, the night we lay at a grapplin', waiting for daylight to begin the attack, my officer gets to talking about the place, and what a grand consarn it was in former days for gould and jewels, and sich like; and thinks I to myself, mayhap the Lords of the Admirality will take all that 'ere into account in regard o' the prize-money: and then he overhauls a good deal about the hobbylisks and Clipsypaddyree's Needle, and what not, that I'm blow'd if it didn't quite bamfoozle my larning. Well, we'd four or five days' hard work in the fighting way, and then there was a truce, and my officer run the pinnace aboard of a French prize laden with wine and brandy; so we starts the water out of one of the breakers and fills it with the real stuff, and I man-handled a pair of sodgers' canteens chock-full; and the prize-master, Muster Handsail, an old shipmate of mine, gives me a two-gallon keg to my own cheek, and I stows 'em all snug and safe abaft in the box, and kivers 'em up with my jacket to keep 'em warm. Well, it was just getting dusk in the evening when the skipper claps us alongside, and orders the leftenant to land me well up the lake, so as I might carry a letter from him across to a shore party as manned one of the heavy batteries away inland, at the back of the town.

"Now, in course, shipmates, I warn't by no manner o' means piping my eye to get a cruise on terror firmer, seeing as mayhap I might chance to pick up some 'o' the wee things aboot the decks' as likely wud get me a bottle o' rum in England, – for, my thoughts kept running on the gould and jewels the leftenant spun the yarn about, and I'd taken a pretty good whack of brandy aboard the prize, though I warn't not in the least tosticated, but ounly a little helevated, just enough to make me walk steady and comfortable. So we run the boat's nose on to the beach, and I catches up my jacket and my canteens, leaving the keg to the marcy of Providence, and strongly dubersome in my mind that I had bid it an etarnal farewell. Howsomever, I shins away with my two canteens filled chock ablock; and 'Bear a hand, Joel' says the leftenant, 'though I'm blessed if I know what course you're to take, seeing as it's getting as dark as a black fellow's phisog.' – 'Never fear, yer honour,' says I; 'ounly let me catch sight o' Clipsypaddyree's Needle for a landmark, and I'm darned if I won't find myself somewhere, anyhow;' and away I starts, shipmates, hand over hand, happy go lucky – all's one to Joe! But it got darker and darker, and the wind came down in sudden gusts, like a marmaid a-sighing; so, to clear my eyes, and keep all square, I was in course compelled to take a nip every now and then out of the canteen, till at last it got so dark, and the breeze freshened into a stiff gale, that the more I took to lighten my way and enable me to steer a straight course, I'm blessed, shipmates, if I didn't grow more dizzy; and as for my headway, why, I believes I headed to every point in the compass: – it was the dark night and the cowld breeze as did it, messmates."

"No doubt in the world on it, Joe," assented Jack Sheavehole; "for if anything could have kept you in good sailing trim, it was the brandy, and the more especially in token o' your drinking it neat; – them dark nights do play the very devil with a fellow's reckoning ashore, in regard of the course and distance, and makes him as apt to steer wild, like a hog in a squall."

"You're right, Jack," continued Nighthead; "and anybody as hears you, may know you speaks from experience o' the thing. Howsomever, there I was, – not a sparkler abroad in the heavens, not a beacon to log my bearings by; and, as I said afore, there I was in a sort of no-man's-land, backing and filling to drop clear of shoals, sometimes just at touch-and-go, and then brought-up all standing, like a haystack a-privateering. At last the weather got into a downright passion, with thunder, lightning, and hail; and 'I'm blessed, Joe,' says I to myself, 'if snug moorings under some kiver or other, if it's ounly a strip o' buntin', wouldn't be wastly superior to this here!' But there was no roadstead nor place of shelter, and the way got more rougherer and rougherer, in regard o' the wrecks of ould walls and ould buildings, till I'm blessed if I didn't think I was getting into the latitude and longitude of the dominions of the 'long-shore Davy Jones."

"My eyes, Joe!" exclaimed Martingal, replenishing his quid from an ample "'bacca" box, "but you was hard up, my boy!"

"Indeed and I was, Bob," responded the other; "and I'm blowed if every thing as I seed about me didn't begin to dance jigs and hornpipes to the whistling of the wind, that I thought all manner of bedevilment had come over me, and so I tries to dance too, to keep 'em company. But it wouldn't do, shipmates, and I capsizes in a sudden squall, and down I went, headforemost."

"It's precious bad work that, Joe," said the old boatswain's mate, shaking his head. "A fellow in an open sea may do somut to claw to wind'ard; but when you're dead upon a lee-shore, it's time to look for your bag. But what did you do, Joe?"

"Why, what could I do, shipmate, but to take another nip at the canteen," responded Joe; "it was all I had in life to hould on by, with a heavy gale strong enough to blow the devil's horns off, and the breakers all round me: my eyes! but it was a reg'lar sneezer. 'Howsomever,' thinks I, 'it won't do, Joe, to be hove down here for a full due – you must at it again, ould chap;' and so I tries to make sail again, and heaves ahead a few fathoms, when down I comes again into a deep hole, and, before you could say Jack Robison, I'm blow'd if I warn't right slap in the middle of a large underground wault, where there was a company o' genelmen stuck up in niches, and peeping over mummy-cases, with great candles in their hands; and in other respects looking for all the world like the forty thieves as I once seed at the play, peeping out of their oil-jars; and there was a scuffling and scrimmaging at t'other eend o' the wault: and, 'Yo hoy!' says I, 'what cheer – what cheer, my hearties!' but not nobody never spoke, and the genelmen in the niches seemed to my thinking to be all groggy, and I'm blessed if ever I seed sich a set o' baboon-visaged fellows in all my days. 'Better luck to us, genelmen,' says I, filling my tot and taking a dram; but not a man on 'em answered. 'Pretty grave messmates I've got,' says I; 'but mayhap you don't hail as messmates, seeing as you arn't yet had a taste o' the stuff. Come, my hearties, I'll pipe to grog, and then I'll sarve it out all ship-shape to any on you as likes.' So I gives a chirp, and 'Grog ahoy!' sings I. Well, shipmates, I'm blessed if one on 'em didn't come down from the far eend o' the wault, and claps me alongside as I was sitting on the ground, and he takes hould o' the tot, knocks his head at me, as much as to say, 'All in good fellowship,' and down went the stuff through a pair o' leather lips in the twinkling of a hand-spik. 'All right, my hearty,' says I, filling the tot again: 'is there any more on you to chime in?' – 'Sailor,' says he, in a voice that seemed to come from a fathom and a half down underneath him, for I'm blowed, messmates, if his lips ever moved; – 'sailor, you must get out o' this,' says he. – 'Lord love your heart,' says I, 'the thing's onpossible; you wouldn't have the conscience to make an honest tar cut and run in sich a rough night as this here.' – 'We arn't never got no consciences,' says he; 'we're all dead.' – 'Dead!' says I laughing, though, messmates, I own I was a bit flusticated; 'dead!' says I; 'that's gammon you're pitching, and I thinks it's hardly civil on you to try and bamboxter me arter that fashion. Why, didn't I see you myself just now when you spliced the main brace? – dead men don't drink brandy.' – 'We're privileged,' sings out a little cock-eyed fellow up in one o' the niches; 'we're the ould ancient kings of Egypt, and I'm Fairer.' – 'If there warn't many more fairer nor you,' says I, 'you'd be a cursed ugly set, saving your majesty's presence,' for I thought it best to be civil, Jack, seeing as I had got jammed in with such outlandish company, and not knowing what other privileges they might have had sarved out to 'em besides swallowing brandy. 'Will your majesty like just to take a lime-burner's twist, by way of warming your stumack a bit, and fumigating your hould?' says I, as I poured out the stuff. – 'Give it to King Herod, as is moored alongside of you,' says he, 'and keep your thumb out of the measure;' for, shipmates, I'd shoved in my thumb pretty deep, by way of lengthening out the grog, and getting a better allowance of plush. How the ould chap came to obsarve it, I don't know, unless it was another of their privileges to be up to everything. 'Keep your thumb out!' says he. – 'All right, your honour,' says I, handing the little ould fellow the tot; and he nipped it up, and knocked off the stuff in a moment. And 'Pray,' says I, 'may I make bould to ax your honour how long you've been dead?' – 'About two thousand years,' says he: and, 'My eyes!' thinks I, 'but you're d – d small for your age.' – 'But, sailor,' says he, 'what brought you here?' – 'My legs, your honour,' says I, 'brought me as far as the hatchway; but I'm blowed if I didn't come down by the run into this here consarn.' – 'You mustn't stop here, sailor,' says he, – 'that's King Herod, – you can have no business with us, seeing as we're all mummies.' – 'All what?' says I, 'all dummies?' for I didn't catch very clearly what he said; 'all dummies?' says I. 'Well, I'm bless'd if I didn't think so!' – 'No, no! mummies,' says he again, rather cantankerously; 'not dummies, for we can all talk.' – 'Mayhap so, your majesty,' says I, arter taking another bite of the cherry, and handing him a third full tot, taking precious good care to keep my thumb out this time: 'but what am I to rouse out for? It ud take more tackles than one to stir Joe Nighthead from this. I'm in the ground-tier,' says I, 'and amongst all your privileges, though you clap luff upon luff, one live British tar, at a purchase, is worth a thousand dead kings, any day.' – 'Haugh!' says he, as he smacked his leather lips, and the noise was just like a breeze making a short board through a hole in a pair of bellows; 'Haugh!' says he, as soon as he'd bolted the licker, 'it doesn't rest with us, my man: as mummies, we're privileged against all kinds of spirits.' – 'Except brandy,' says I. – 'I means evil spirits,' says he: 'but if the devil should come his rounds, and find you here upon his own cruising-ground, he'd pick you up and make a prize of you to a sartinty.' – 'D – the devil!' says I, as bould as a lion, for I warn't a-going to let the ould fellow think I was afeard of Davy Jones, though I was hard and fast ashore; and 'D – the devil,' says I, 'axing your majesty's pardon; the wagabone has got no call to me, seeing as I'm an honest man, and an honest man's son as defies him.' Well, shipmates, I had my head turned round a little, and something fetches me a crack in the ear, that made all sneer again, and 'Yo hoy! your majesty,' says I; 'just keep your fingers to yourself, if you pleases.' – 'I never touched you,' says he; 'but there's one close to you as I can see, though you can't.' – 'Gammon!' says I; 'as if your dead-eyes were better than my top-lights.' – But, shipmates, at that moment somut whispers to me, – for may I be rammed and jammed into a penny cannon if I seed anything; but somut whispers to me, Joe Nighthead, I'm here over your shoulder.' – 'That's my name all reg'lar enough, whatever ship's books you got it from,' says I: 'But who the blazes are you that's not nothing more than a woice and no-body?' – 'You knows well enough who I am,' says the whisper again; 'and I tell you what it is, Joe, I've got a job for you to do.' – 'Show me your phisog first,' says I, 'or I'm blow'd if I've anything whatsomever to say to you. If you are the underground Davy Jones, it's all according to natur, mayhap; but I never signs articles unless I knows the owners.' – 'But you do know me, Joe,' says the woice, that warn't more nor half a woice neither, in regard of its being more like the sigh of a periwinkle, or the groan of an oyster. – 'Not a bit of it,' says I; for though I suckspected, shipmates, who the beggar was, yet I warn't going to let him log it down again me without having hoclar proof, so 'Not a bit of it,' says I; 'but if you wants me to do anything in all honour and wartue,' – you see, Jack, I didn't forget wartue, well knowing that when the devil baits his hook he claps a 'skylark' on to the eend of it; so, 'all in honour and wartue,' says I, 'and Joe's your man.' – 'Do you know who's alongside of you?' says the woice. – 'Why, not disactly,' says I: 'he calls himself King Herod; but it's as likely he may be Billy Pitt, for anything I knows to the contrary.' – 'It is King Herod,' says the whisper again; 'the fellow who killed all the Innocents,' – 'What innocents?' axes I, seeing as I didn't foregather upon his meaning. – 'The innocent babbies,' says the woice; 'he killed them all, and now he's got a cruising commission to keep me out o' my just rights, and I daren't attack him down below here.' – 'The ould cannibal!' says I: 'what! murder babbies? – then I'm blowed if he gets a drop more out of my canteen.' – 'Who's that you're meaning on?' says King Herod; 'who isn't to get another taste?' – 'Not nobody as consarns you, your honour,' answers I, for I didn't like to open my broadside upon him, in regard of not knowing but he might have a privilege to man-handle me again. – 'I think you meant me,' says he; 'but if you didn't, prove the truth on it by handing me over a full gill.' Well, shipmates, that was bringing the thing to the pint, and it put me into a sort of quandary; but 'All in course, your honour,' says I; 'but I'm saying, your majesty, you arn't never got sich a thing as a bite o' pigtail about you – have you? seeing as I lost my chaw and my 'bacca-box in the gale – hove overboard to lighten ship.' – 'Yes, I can, my man – some real Wirginny,' says the king."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the sergeant of marines; "go it, Joe; – you'll rival Tom Pepper presently. Why, Virginia is only a late discovery; such a place wasn't known in the days of Herod, nor tobacco either."

"To my thinking it's wery hodd, Muster Jolly, that you should shove your oar in where it arn't wanted," muttered Joe. "Why? – couldn't they have a Wirginny in Egypt? and as for the 'bacca, I'm blowed if I don't wouch for the truth on it, for out his majesty lugs a box as big round in dameter as the top of a scuttle-butt, and, knocking off the lid, 'There's some of the best as ever was many-facter'd,' says he. 'I loves a chaw myself, and there's nothing whatsomever as 'ull beat the best pound pig-tail.' – 'Sartinly not, in course, your honour,' says I; 'but I'm blessed if it doesn't double upon my calculations o' things to think how your majesty, who ought to be in quod in t'other world, should take your quid in this.' – 'We're privileged, my man,' says he; 'we're privileged and allowed to take anything, in reason,' and he fixed his glazed eyes with a 'ticing look at the canteen. 'You know,' says he, 'that it's an ould saying aboard, "the purser makes dead men chaw tobacco."' Well, shipmates, that was a clencher in the way of hargyfication that brought me up all standing; so I hands King Herod the tot again, and I rouses out a long scope of pig-tail out o' the box, and takes another nip at the brandy. – 'You won't do it, then, Joe,' says the whisper t'other side of me. – 'What is it?' axes I. – 'The best pound pigtail,' says King Herod, as if he thought I was speaking to him. – 'It's ounly to borrow one of these here mummies for me for about half an hour,' says the woice. – 'Which on 'em?' says I. – 'This here in the box,' says King Herod. 'Why, I'm thinking your brains are getting all becalmed.' And so they was, shipmates; for, what with the woice at one ear that I couldn't see, and his majesty at the other, who often doubled himself into two or three, I'm blowed if I warn't reg'larly bamboozled in my upper works."

"You was drunk, Joe," said the sergeant of marines; "it's very evident you was non compos mentis."

"And, what if I hadn't a nun compass to steer by?" replied Joe angrily, "is that any reason I should be tosticated? I tell you I warn't drunk, in regard o' the full allowance o' brandy I stowed in my hould to keep me steady and sober. Ax Jack there if it's any way likely I should be drunk."

"It stands to reason, not," argued Jack Sheavehole, "or, what's the use of a fellow having the stuff sarved out at all? Short allowance only brings a mist afore the eyes and circumpollygates the head till everything looms, like Beachy in a fog. But when you've your full whack, it clears the daylights, cherishes the cockles o' your heart, and makes you more handy, 'cause you often sees two first leftenants where there's ounly one."

"Dat berry true, massa Jack," said Mungo Pearl; "me al'ays sweep de deck more clean when me tink me hab two broom in me hand."

"In course," continued Joe, more soothed; "none but a Jolly would go to say anything again it, or doubt the woracity o' the thing. Well, shipmates, to heave ahead, I'm saying I was reg'larly bamblustercated when one of the genelmen up in the niches squeaks out, 'King Herod, I'll just thank you for a thimble-full of the stuff.'"

"Did he say 'a thimble-full?'" inquired Sam Slick, the tailor. "It couldn't be a professional thimble, then, for they never has no tops to 'em. It shows, however, the antickity of thimbles; though I thought they never had any use for them in those days."

"And why not, you lubber?" asked Bob Martingale.

"Simply because their garments were not sewed together as they are in the present day," answered the tailor.

"Tell that to the marines, Sam," said the boatswain's mate; "why what was Clipsypaddyree's needle for, eh? But, get on, Joe; there's no conwincing such ignoramasses."

"Ay, ay, messmate!" uttered Joe. "'Well,' says the genelman in the niche, 'I'll thank you for a thimbleful of that 'ere stuff.' – 'With all the pleasure in life, your honour,' says I as I filled up the tot, and was going to carry it to him, but – 'Give it to me, I'll take it,' says King Herod;' and up he gets, – my eyes! I never seed such a queer little ould chap in all my life! – and off he bolts to t'other mummy, steering precious wild, by the way; and he tips him the likser witey, and then back again he comes, and brings up in his ould anchorage. 'May I make bould to ax your majesty,' says I, 'what the name o' that genelman is as you've just sarved out the stuff to?' – 'He's not a genelman, not by no manner o' means,' says he, 'in regard of his being a king.' – 'And King who?' axes I. – 'You're werry quizative, Muster Sailor,' says he; 'but it's in the natur o' things to want to know your company. That's King Hangabull.' – 'And a devilish queer name, too,' says I, 'for a fellow to turn into his hammock with. Is he of Irish distraction?' – 'His mother was an Irishman,' says the king, 'and his father came out of a Cartridge.' – 'And a pretty breed they'd make of it,' says I, 'somut atwixt a salt cod and a marmaid.' – 'Will you steal me a mummy?' comes the whisper again; 'you'd better, Joe.' – 'No threats, if you please,' says I. – 'I never threatened you,' says the king, who thought I was directing my discourse to him; 'but, sailor, I must call over all their names now to see there's none absent without leave,' – and I'm blow'd if he didn't begin with King Fairer; but there was a whole fleet of King Fairers and King Rabshakers, and King Dollyme, and ever so many more, every one answering muster, as if it had been a rope-yarn Sunday for a clean shirt and a shave, till at last I got fairly foozlified, and hove down on my beam-ends as fast asleep as a parish-clerk in sarmon time."