Part 11 (1/2)
”Don't desecrate the picture, bos'n,” he said; ”we will respect this man's religious scruples. You may put on his s.h.i.+rt,” he said, chuckling to himself, ”but remove his trousers, bos'n, and give him a dozen extra.
And lay them on religiously, bos'n.”
All this was in the older days, and it was never so bad in the American as in the English navy. The middle period of the American navy, from before the Civil War to the age of iron and steel cruisers, presents an entirely different aspect in some ways.
Illegal punishments were still inflicted, for there were always then, as now, a certain percentage of ruffians forward who were amenable to no discipline, and could be managed only by meeting them with their own weapons. The ”spread-eagle” and the ride on the ”gray mare” were still resorted to to compel obedience.
They ”spread-eagled” a man by tricing him up inside the rigging, taut lines holding his arms and legs outstretched to the farthest shrouds, a bight of rope pa.s.sed around his body preventing too great a strain. He was gagged, and so he could not answer back.
The ”gray mare” on which the obstreperous were forced to gallop was the spanker-boom--the long spar that extends far over the water at the s.h.i.+p's stern. By casting loose the sheets, the boom rolled briskly from side to side, and the lonely horseman was forced in this perilous position to hold himself by digging his nails into the soft wood or swinging to any of the gear that flew into his reach. At best it was not a safe saddle, and a rough sea made it worse than a bucking broncho.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SMOKING HOUR]
Paul Jones had a neat way of disciplining his mids.h.i.+pmen aloft. He would go to the rail himself, and casting loose the halyards, let the yard go down with a run, to the young gentleman's great discomfiture.
But the life of the old salt was not all bitterness. It was not all sh.o.r.e-leave, but there was skittles now and then for the deserving and good-conduct men. Jack's pleasures were simple, as they are to-day. There was never a crew that did not have its merry chanter and its flute, fiddle, or guitar, or the twice-told tale of the s.h.i.+p's Methuselah to entertain the dog-watches of the evening or the smoking-hour and make a break in the dreary monotony of routine.
On public holidays, when everything was snug at sea or in port, a glorious skylark was the order of the afternoon. At the call of the bos'n's mate, ”All hands frolic,” rigorous discipline was suspended, and the men turned to with a will to make the day one to be talked about. Mast-head-races, potato- and sack-races, climbing the greased pole, and rough horse-play and man-handling filled the afternoon until hammocks were piped down and the watch was set. Purses from the wardroom and prizes of rum and tobacco--luxuries dear to Jack's heart--were the incentives to vigorous athletics and rough buffoonery. The rigging was filled from netting to top with the rough, jesting figures, and cheer upon cheer and laugh upon laugh greeted a successful bout or fortunate sally.
Jack is a child at the best of times and at the worst, and he takes his pleasures with the zest of a boy of seven, laughing and making merry until he falls to the deck from very weariness. And woe be at these merry times to the s.h.i.+pmate who has no sense of humor. His day is a hideous one, for he is hazed and bullied until he is forced in self-defence to seek the seclusion granted by the nethermost part of the hold. A practical joker always, when discipline is lax, Jack's boisterous humor knows no restraint.
The ceremony of ”crossing the line,” the boarding of the s.h.i.+p by Neptune and his court, seems almost as old as s.h.i.+ps, and is honored even to-day, when much of the romantic seems to have pa.s.sed out of sea-life. It is the time when the deep-sea sailor has the better of his cousin of the coasts.
Every man who crossed the equator for the first time had to pay due honor to the G.o.d of the seas. They exacted it, too, among the whalers when they crossed the Arctic Circle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NEPTUNE COMES ABOARD]
The wardroom usually bought off in rum, money, or tobacco, but forward it was the roughest kind of rough man-handling; and the victims were happy indeed when they got their deep-water credentials. The details of procedure in this remarkable rite differed somewhat on different s.h.i.+ps, but the essential elements of play and torture were the same in all cases.
The day before the line was to be reached both wardroom and forecastle would receive a manifesto setting forth the intention of the G.o.d of the seas to honor their poor craft and ordering all those who had not paid tribute to him to gather forward to greet him as he came over the side. At the hour appointed there was a commotion forward, and a figure, wearing a pasteboard crown that surmounted a genial red face adorned with oak.u.m whiskers, made its appearance over the windward nettings and proclaimed its ident.i.ty as Neptune. Behind him was a motley crew in costumes of any kind and all kinds--or no kind--who had girded itself for this ungentle art of bull-baiting. The deep-water men intended to have an ample return for what they themselves had suffered, not many years back, when they had rounded the Horn or Cape of Good Hope.
The unfortunates, stripped to the waist, were brought forward, one by one, to be put through their paces. After a mock trial by the jury of buffoons, the king ordered their punishment meted out in doses proportioned directly to the popularity of the victims as s.h.i.+pmates. The old long boat, with thwarts removed and a canvas lining, served as a ducking-pond. After vigorous applications, of ”slush,”--which is another name for s.h.i.+p's grease,--or perhaps a toss in a hammock or a blanket, they were pitched backward into the pool and given a thorough sousing, emerging somewhat the worse for wear, but happy that the business was finally done for good and all.
To-day the roughest sort of bullying no longer takes place, and much of the romance seems to have pa.s.sed out of the custom.
The punishments, too, have lost their severity. The ”gray mare” swings to an empty saddle, the ”spread eagle” is a thing of the past, and the ”cat”
is looked upon as a relic of barbarism. Things are not yet Pinafore-like, but the cursing and man-handling are not what they used to be. There are a few of the old-timers who still believe the ”cat” a necessary evil, and would like to see an occasional ”spread eagle,” but the more moderate punishments of to-day have proved, save in a few hardened cases, that much may be done if the morale of the service is high.
The fact of the matter is, that the standard of the man behind the gun has kept up with the marvellous advance of the s.h.i.+ps and the ordnance. To-day, the naval service of the United States is worthy of any seaman's metal. As a mode of living, sea-faring on American men-of-war attracts as many good men as any other trade. Machinists, electricians, carpenters, gunners, and sail-makers, all have the chance of a good living, with prizes for the honest and industrious.
The seaman himself, in times of peace, may rise by faithful service to a competency and a retiring pension more generous than that of any other nation in the world. The discipline is the discipline of right relations between superior and inferior men of sense, and the articles of war govern as rigorously the cabin as the forecastle. Republican principles are carried out, as far as they are compatible with perfect subordination, and there exists no feeling between the parts of the s.h.i.+p, except in extraordinary instances, but wholesome respect and convention. There is little tyranny on the one side or insubordination on the other.
The training of the young officer of the old navy was the training of the larger school of the world. ”Least squares” and ”ballistics” were not for him. He could muster a watch, bend and set a stun'sail, work out a traverse, and pa.s.s a weather-earing; but he toyed not with the higher mathematics, like the machine-made ”young gentleman” of to-day. What he knew of navigation he had picked haphazard, as best he might.
At the age of twelve his career usually opened briskly in the thunder of a hurricane or the slaughter of a battle, under conditions trying to the souls of bronzed, bearded men. Physical and even mental training of a certain kind he had, but the intellectual development of modern days was missing. The American officer of the days before the Naval Academy was founded was the result of rough conditions that Nature shaped to her own ends with the only tools she had. Though these ”boys” had not the beautiful theory of the thing, they had its practice, and no better seamen ever lived.
At the beginning of the century, the crusty Preble, commodore of the blockading fleet before Tripoli, was sent a consignment of these ”boys”
to aid him in his work. The names of the ”boys” were Decatur, Stewart, Macdonough, Lawrence, and Perry. Excepting Decatur, who was twenty-six, there was not one who was over twenty-four, and two or three of them were under twenty. The commodore grew red in the face and swore mighty oaths when he thought of the things he had to accomplish with the youngsters under his command. But he found before long that though youth might be inconvenient, it could not be considered as a reproach in their case.
Decatur, with a volunteer crew, went under the guns at Tripoli, captured and blew up the ”Philadelphia” in a way that paled all deeds of gallantry done before or since. The dreamy Somers went in with a fire-s.h.i.+p and destroyed both the s.h.i.+pping and himself. In the hand-to-hand fights on the gunboats, Lawrence, young Bainbridge, Stewart, and the others fought and defeated the best hand-to-hand fighters of the Mediterranean. The Dey of Algiers, when Decatur came before him to make terms of peace, stroked his black beard and looked at the young hero curiously. ”Why,” he said, ”do they send over these young boys to treat with the older Powers?”
When the war was over, Preble no longer grew red in the face or swore. He loved his school-boys, and walked his quarter-deck with them arm-in-arm.