We quote the following "last scene of poor Jack's eventful history" from
Capt. Basil Hall's _Fragments of Voyages and Travel_, a work, observes
the _Quarterly Review_, "sure sooner or later, to be in everybody's
hands."
"It need not be mentioned, that the surgeon is in constant attendance
upon the dying man, who has generally been removed from his hammock to a
cot, which is larger and more commodious, and is placed within a screen
on one side of the sick bay, as the hospital of the ship is called. It
is usual for the captain to pass through this place, and to speak to the
men every morning; and I imagine there is hardly a ship in the service
in which wine, fresh meat, and any other supplies recommended by the
surgeon, are not sent from the tables of the captain and officers to
such of the sick men as require a more generous diet than the ship's
stores provided. After the carver in the gun-room has helped his
messmates, he generally turns to the surgeon, and says, 'Doctor, what
shall I send to the sick?' But, even without this, the steward would
certainly be taken to task were he to omit inquiring, as a matter of
course, what was wanted in the sick bay. The restoration of the health
of the invalids by such supplies is perhaps not more important, however,
than the moral influence of the attention on the part of the officers.
I would strongly recommend every captain to be seen (no matter for how
short a time) by the bed-side of any of his crew whom the surgeon may
report as dying. Not occasionally, and in the flourishing style with
which we read of great generals visiting hospitals, but uniformly and in
the quiet sobriety of real kindness, as well as hearty consideration for
the feelings of a man falling at his post in the service of his country.
He who is killed in action has a brilliant Gazette to record his
exploits, and the whole country may be said to attend his death-bed. But
the merit is not less--or may even be much greater--of the soldier or
sailor who dies of a fever in a distant land--his story untold, and his
sufferings unseen. In warring against climates unsuited to his frame,
he may have encountered, in the public service, enemies often more
formidable than those who handle pike and gun. There should be nothing
left undone, therefore, at such a time, to show not only to the dying
man, but to his shipmates and his family at home, that his services are
appreciated. I remembered, on one occasion, hearing the captain of a
ship say to a poor fellow who was almost gone, that he was glad to see
him so cheerful at such a moment; and begged to know if he had anything
to say. 'I hope, sir,' said the expiring seaman with a smile, 'I have
done my duty to your satisfaction;' 'That you have, my lad,' said his
commander, 'and to the satisfaction of your country, too.' 'That is all
I wanted to know, sir,' replied the man. These few commonplace words
cost the captain not five minutes of his time, but were long recollected
with gratitude by the people under his orders, and contributed, along
with many other graceful acts of considerate attention, to fix his
authority.
"If a sailor who knows he is dying, has a captain who pleases him,
he is very likely to send a message by the surgeon to beg a visit--not
often to trouble his commander with any commission, but merely to say
something at parting. No officer, of course, would ever refuse to grant
such an interview, but it appears to me it should always be volunteered;
for many men may wish it, whose habitual respect would disincline them
to take such a liberty, even at the moment when all distinctions are
about to cease.
"Very shortly after poor Jack dies, he is prepared for his deep-sea
grave by his messmates, who, with the assistance of the sailmaker, and
in the presence of the master-at-arms, sew him up in his hammock, and,
having placed a couple of cannon-shot at his feet, they rest the body
(which now not a little resembles an Egyptian mummy) on a spare grating.
Some portion of the bedding and clothes are always made up in the
package--apparently to prevent the form being too much seen. It is then
carried aft, and, being placed across the after-hatchway, the union
jack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns,
under the half deck; bat generally, I think, he is laid where I have
mentioned, just abaft the mainmast. I should have mentioned before, that
as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at an end,
he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch
that one of his patients has just expired. At whatever hour of the day
or night this occurs, the captain is immediately made acquainted with
the circumstance.
"Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the
half-hours are struck, is tolled for the funeral, and all who choose
to be present, assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the mainmast,
while the forepart of the quarter-deck is occupied by the officers. In
some ships--and it ought perhaps to be so in all--it is made imperative
on the officers and crew to attend the ceremony. If such attendance be
a proper mark of respect to a professional brother--as it surely is--it
ought to be enforced, and not left to caprice. There may, indeed, be
times of great fatigue, when it would harass men and officers,
needlessly, to oblige them to come on deck for every funeral, and upon
such occasions the watch on deck may be sufficient. Or, when some dire
disease gets into a ship, and is cutting down her crew by its daily and
nightly, or it maybe hourly ravages, and when, two or three times in a
watch, the ceremony must be repeated, those only, whose turn it is to be
on deck, need be assembled. In such fearful times, the funeral is
generally made to follow close upon the death.
"While the people are repairing to the quarter-deck, in obedience to
the summons of the bell, the grating on which the body is placed, being
lifted from the main-deck by the messmates of the man who has died, is
made to rest across the lee-gangway. The stanchions for the man-ropes
of the side are unshipped, and an opening made at the after-end of the
hammock netting, sufficiently large to allow a free passage. The body is
still covered by the flag already mentioned, with the feet projecting
a little over the gunwale, while the messmates of the deceased arrange
themselves on each side. A rope, which is kept out of sight in these
arrangements, is then made fast to the grating, for a purpose which will
be seen presently. When all is ready, the chaplain, if there be one on
board, or, if not, the captain, or any of the officers he may direct
to officiate, appears on the quarter-deck and commences the beautiful
service, which, though but too familiar to most ears, I have observed,
never fails to rivet the attention even of the rudest and least
reflecting. Of course, the bell has ceased to toll, and every one stands
in silence and uncovered as the prayers are read. Sailors, with all
their looseness of habits, are well disposed to be sincerely religious;
and when they have fair play given them, they will always, I believe,
be found to stand on as good vantage ground, in this respect, as their
fellow-countrymen on shore. Be this as it may, there can be no more
attentive, or apparently reverent auditory, than assembles on the deck
of a ship of war, on the occasion of a shipmate's burial.
"The land service for the burial of the dead contains the following
words: 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy,
to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we
therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to
ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope,' &c. Every one I am
sure, who has attended the funeral of a friend--and whom will this not
include?--must recollect the solemnity of that stage of the ceremony,
where, as the above words are pronounced, there are cast into the grave
three successive portions of earth, which, falling on the coffin, send
up a hollow, mournful sound, resembling no other that I know. In the
burial service at sea, the part quoted above is varied in the following
very striking and solemn manner:--'Forasmuch,' &c.--'we therefore commit
his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the
resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead, and the
life of the world to come,' &c. At the commencement of this part of the
service, one of the seamen stoops down, and disengages the flag from the
remains of his late shipmate, while the others, at the words 'we commit
his body to the deep,' project the grating right into the sea. The body
being loaded with shot at one end, glances off the grating, plunges at
once into the ocean, and--
"'In a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into its depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.'
"This part of the ceremony is rather less impressive than the
correspondent part on land; but still there is something solemn, as
well as startling, in the sudden splash, followed by the sound of the
grating, as it is towed along under the main-chains.
"In a fine day at sea, in smooth water, and when all the ship's company
and officers are assembled, the ceremony just described, although a
melancholy one, as it must always be, is often so pleasing, all things
considered, that it is calculated to leave even cheerful impressions on
the mind."
(Even Captain Hall, however, admits that a sea-funeral may sometimes
be a scene of unmixed sadness; and he records the following as the most
impressive of all the hundreds he has witnessed. It occurred in the
Leander, off the coast of North America.)
"There was a poor little middy on board, so delicate and fragile, that
the sea was clearly no fit profession for him; but he or his friends
thought otherwise; and as he had a spirit for which his frame was no
match, he soon gave token of decay. This boy was a great favourite with
every body--the sailors smiled whenever he passed, as they would have
done to a child--the officers petted him, and coddled him up with
all sorts of good things--and his messmates, in a style which did not
altogether please him, but which he could not well resist, as it was
meant most kindly, nicknamed him Dolly. Poor fellow!--he was long
remembered afterwards. I forget what his particular complaint was, but
he gradually sunk; and at last went out just as a taper might have done,
exposed to such gusts of wind as blew in that tempestuous region. He
died in the morning; but it was not until the evening that he was
prepared for a seaman's grave.
"I remember, in the course of the day, going to the side of the boy's
hammock, and on laying my hand upon his breast, was astonished to find
it still warm--so much so, that I almost imagined I could feel the heart
beat. This, of course, was a vain fancy; but I was much attached to my
little companion, being then not much taller myself--and I was soothed
and gratified, in a childish way, by discovering that my friend, though
many hours dead, had not yet acquired the usual revolting chillness.
"In after years I have sometimes thought of this incident, when
reflecting on the pleasing doctrine of the Spaniards--that as soon as
children die, they are translated into angels, without any of those cold
obstructions, which, they pretend, intercept and retard the souls of
other mortals. The peculiar circumstances connected with the funeral
which I am about to describe, and the fanciful superstitions of the
sailors upon the occasion, have combined to fix the whole scene in
my memory.
"Something occurred during the day to prevent the funeral taking place
at the usual hour, and the ceremony was deferred till long after sunset.
The evening was extremely dark, and it was blowing a treble-reefed
topsail breeze. We had just sent down the top-gallant yards, and made
all snug for a boisterous winter's night. As it became necessary to have
lights to see what was done, several signal lanterns were placed on the
break of the quarter-deck, and others along the hammock railings on the
lee-gangway. The whole ship's company and officers were assembled, some
on the booms, others in the boats; while the main-rigging was crowded
half way up to the cat-harpings. Over-head, the mainsail, illuminated
as high as the yard by the lamps, was bulging forwards under the gale,
which was rising every minute, and straining so violently at the
main-sheet, that there was some doubt whether it might not be necessary
to interrupt the funeral in order to take sail off the ship. The lower
deck ports lay completely under water, and several times the muzzles of
the main-deck guns were plunged into the sea; so that the end of the
grating on which the remains of poor Dolly were laid, once or twice
nearly touched the tops of the waves, as they foamed and hissed past.
The rain fell fast on the bare heads of the crew, dropping also on the
officers, during all the ceremony, from the foot of the mainsail, and
wetting the leaves of the prayer-book. The wind sighed over us amongst
the wet shrouds, with a note so mournful, that there could not have been
a more appropriate dirge.
"The ship--pitching violently--strained and creaked from end to end: so
that, what with the noise of the sea, the rattling of the ropes, and the
whistling of the wind, hardly one word of the service could be
distinguished. The men, however, understood, by a motion of the
captain's hand, when the time came--and the body of our dear little
brother was committed to the deep.
"So violent a squall was sweeping past the ship at this moment, that no
sound was heard of the usual splash, which made the sailors allege that
their young favourite never touched the water at all, but was at once
carried off in the gale to his final resting-place!"
* * * * *