JACK TAKES A LESSON IN DISCIPLINE.
On the following day, Spriggs was released from confinement; having
served out his twenty-four hours upon bread and water. He was ordered
to resume his duties as cook of the mess. He looked at Jack with an
evil eye: but, as our hero was under the powerful protection of three
old men-of-war’s men, he behaved tolerably well; and Jack, willing to
forgive him, treated him as handsomely as though nothing had happened
to disturb their friendly relations.
“Just keep an eye to windward, my lad,” said Blinks after supper.
“Spriggs looks as though he meant mischief.”
“Thank you, I will,” replied Jack; “though I am willing to let by-gones
go for nothing.”
“Spriggs isn’t: so just keep your weather-eye wide open.”
“Do you think he will attempt to whip me?”
“Not he; he has got enough of that: but he’ll upset a pot of hot tea in
your lap, or do some dirty trick of that sort.”
“I’ll look out for him.”
“Just keep right up stiff into the wind, and we’ll see you through if
he attempts to fool you.”
Jack paid no apparent attention to Spriggs, though he kept a close
watch upon all his movements. When the hammocks were piped down at
night, he observed that his enemy kept a sharp eye upon him, and he had
no doubt he intended mischief. He mentioned his suspicions to Blinks,
whose hammock was slung next to his own.
“All right: he’s got your bearings, and he means to cut you down.”
“I don’t see that I can help myself, unless I keep awake all night.”
“Yes, you can: we’ll rig a dummy for you.”
Blinks explained his plan; and, with the assistance of his other
friends, they deposited four twenty-four-pound shot in Jack’s hammock.
Another shot was slung over the hook, in such a manner that the
ropeyarn which held it in position would be severed when the revengeful
villain cut the lanyard of the hammock. Bob Rushington then stowed
himself away under the lee of the mainmast, and Jack occupied his
hammock. All these preparations had been very carefully conducted, so
as to avoid the keen scrutiny of the master-at-arms and the ship’s
corporals, who form the active police of a man-of-war; but it is more
than probable that one of the latter officers knew all about the
proceedings, and was quite willing that Spriggs should be “sarved out”
in his own coin.
The conspirators kept themselves wide awake, though they were careful
to avoid an open breach of discipline. The lights were all put out,
so that nothing could be seen; and silence reigned upon the decks of
the Ohio, on which were berthed not less than a thousand men. Jack
was nervous and expectant. Four bells--ten o’clock--struck; and he
began to be very sleepy, and impatient for the trap to be sprung. At
five bells, he began to think that he had mistaken the purpose of his
malignant enemy; and he was just going to sleep, when down thundered
the cannon-balls upon the deck, rolling off into the scuppers with a
noise like the mutterings of a distant tempest. At the same time, a
heavy groan saluted the ears of the aroused sleepers, as well as of the
ingenious conspirators who had plotted and executed the mischief.
“What’s the row?” demanded Blinks, as innocently as though he had just
awakened from the slumber of innocence itself. “Who’s hurt?”
“Oh, my foot!” groaned the sufferer, who appeared to be unable to
retreat from his position.
“What’s the matter with your foot?” asked Rushington, who had come
forward from the mainmast to ascertain the issue of the plot.
“It’s smashed to a jelly!” groaned Spriggs, whose tones were readily
recognized by the occupants of the hammocks in the vicinity.
“How did you do it? Did you roll out of your hammock? I heard an awful
fall of something out here just now,” added Rushington, whose voice
seemed to melt with sympathy for the afflicted cook of the mess.
Spriggs made no reply to these direct questions; for we doubt not his
conscience was as sore as his foot. One of the ship’s corporals on duty
upon the berth-deck presently appeared, and demanded the cause of the
disturbance.
“Spriggs has tumbled out of his hammock,” replied Rushington. “The ship
gave a lee-lurch, and pitched him out.”
“Oh, my foot!” groaned Spriggs.
“I don’t exactly see how you could smash your foot tumbling out of a
hammock,” added the ship’s corporal. “There aren’t a very heavy sea
runnin’ just here alongside the wharf, nuther.”
“I didn’t fall out of the hammock,” said Spriggs in savage tones.
“Didn’t you? Then maybe you can tell how it happened.”
“I don’t know what it was: somebody dropped a shot on my foot.”
“What were you doing here?” demanded the officer of police.
Spriggs declined to answer this question; and the unpitying official,
for some reason or other, did not press the question, but ordered the
sufferer to come with him to the hospital, and have the injured member
examined.
“I can’t walk,” sighed Spriggs, as he attempted to rise. “My foot is
smashed to a jelly, I tell you!”
“If that’s so, Spriggs, I reckon you’d better stick to your hammock
another time, and not go skylarking about decks at this hour of the
night,” added Rushington, whose advice was certainly good and well
meant. “If you can’t walk, we will carry you to the sick-bay.”
The ship’s corporal and the seamen picked up the discomfited
conspirator, and bore him to the hospital. As soon as they had
disappeared, Blinks carefully concealed the ropeyarn by which the
cannon-ball had been suspended; and, having repaired as well as he
could the damage to Jack’s hammock, they all turned in, and slept
without further disturbance.
Spriggs was confined to the sick-bay for a week; and it was a month
before he could walk without limping. On his return to the mess, he
seemed to be satisfied, and treated his companions with proper respect
and consideration. When he came back, Jack was taking his turn as
cook of the mess; a position in which each man in succession serves
for one week. He felt that his predecessor in office had been amply
“sarved out;” and, though he did not like the man, he wished to be at
peace with him. He treated him respectfully and kindly, and used every
means in his power to conciliate him. His efforts were not in vain;
for, before our hero left the receiving-ship, Spriggs had forgiven, and
perhaps forgotten, the past: at any rate, they were on as good terms as
two persons not mutually respecting each other could be.
Jack had not seen Mr. Bankhead since they had parted on the deck of
the Ohio; for the latter had gone to Philadelphia, where his ship was
fitting out: but our sailor-boy had written to him in regard to his
future prospects, and, in his letter, had taken occasion to mention
his three friends who had desired him to intercede for them. He had
received a favorable reply, and for several weeks had been impatiently
waiting to be summoned to a more active field of labor.
At the time of which we write, there was a deficiency of seamen at the
navy-yards of Philadelphia and Washington, and drafts were occasionally
made on those at Charlestown and Portsmouth. After Jack and his
friends had waited till their patience was nearly exhausted, they
were delighted to hear that Lieutenant Bankhead, first-lieutenant and
executive officer of the United States steam sloop-of-war Harrisburg,
was upon the spar-deck, and would immediately draft a number of seamen
for his ship.
“Now, my breezy little reefer, your time has come,” said Tom Longstone,
as the word was passed along among the men: “Mr. Bankhead is on deck.”
“I will run up and see him,” replied Jack hastily, as he started to
execute his purpose.
“Avast, there, avast! Belay everything!” exclaimed Tom, as he grasped
his _protégé_ by the arm, and detained him.
“What’s the matter, Tom!” demanded Jack, rather surprised at the
conduct of his friend.
“Don’t be in a hurry: just moor your hulk alongside of Old Tom on this
mess-chest, my sentimental little skipper, and let us overhaul this
matter a little.”
“But Mr. Bankhead is on deck, Tom; and I want to see him.”
“All right, Jack: so he is. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t say a word. Mr.
Bankhead is first-lieutenant and executive officer of the sloop-of-war
Harrisburg. Now, my lively little pap-consumer, what are you?”
“What am I? What am I? Why, I’m an ordinary seaman in the navy, and
hope soon to be drafted into the Harrisburg.”
“Precisely so; but you don’t know no more nor a marine. Are you goin’
for to go for to throw yourself into the arms of Mr. Bankhead, just as
though he was your fust cousin, and you’d been off on a long v’y’ge?”
“He will be very glad to take me by the hand,” said Jack, rather
mystified at this representation of his own insignificance.
“Jack, don’t you stick your flipper out to Mr. Bankhead any more’n
you’d put your leg into the maw of a ground shark,” continued Tom
earnestly.
“Why not?” demanded Jack, who thought Tom’s suspicions were an insult
to his friend, and a reflection upon his sincerity.
“Why, you little monkey, you are as green as a horse-mackerel! You
don’t know no more nor a land-lubber!”
“Mr. Bankhead has seen the time when he was glad to obey my orders,”
replied Jack smartly.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Tom, taking off his cap, and pitching it down
upon the mess-table; while Blinks and Rushington roared till their
sides ached at the self-sufficiency of the young sailor.
“Well, you may laugh as much as you please; but says he, ‘Jack, you are
skipper, and I will obey your orders. What shall I do?’ says he. ‘Knot
these reef-points in the foresail,’ says I; and he did it.”
“All that may be, my noisy little boatman; but things is changed since
you and Mr. Bankhead went on your last cruise. I s’pose you think he’ll
take you into the cabin, rig you out in long togs, and mess you with
the wardroom officers.”
“I don’t expect anything of that sort, Tom: I don’t want him to do
anything of that kind. I am willing to do my duty like any other fellow
on board.”
“So much the better, my darling; for Mr. Bankhead is too sensible a
man for to make a baby of you. He aren’t a-going to feed you with warm
milk. If he’s your friend, he’s going to make a man of you.”
“I expect to fare just like my mess-mates,--no better, no worse; but I
expect he will treat me like a Christian.”
“He’ll do that, my jolly little beef-eater; but if you go sticking
your flipper out to him, just like as if you was a wardroom officer,
I’ll bet a month’s wages he won’t know you. Don’t you do it, Jack. You
hain’t been thirty years in the navy, my precious little infant: you
never saw Cape Horn; you never went up the Mediterranean; you never
walked around a capstan board a man-o’-war. You don’t know no more
about discipline nor a heathen do about Watts’s Hymns.”
“What shall I do?” asked Jack, not a little puzzled by this
exemplification of man-of-war discipline; and perhaps he was disposed
to inquire if there was any use in having a friend in the wardroom, if
he was not to be permitted to know him.
“What shall you do? There, now my sweet little bone-cracker, them’s
the most sensible words you’ve spoken for half an hour. What shall you
do? That’s just what the publiken wanted to know when he smote his
breast. He smote his breast bekase he wanted to know. He didn’t spile
his shirt-bosom for nothin’, Jack. What shall you do, my blating little
lamb?”
“Yes, Tom; what shall I do?” asked Jack, highly amused as well as
deeply edified by the profound remarks of the old blue-jacket. “And, if
you don’t answer me pretty soon, I shall begin to think you are nothing
but an old blower.”
“Vast heavin’, Jack: respect my bald head, and never let that little
tongue of yourn unkile anything that sounds like a nick-name. It’s
a bad practice, and nothin’ but lubbers and marines ever does such
things,” replied Tom sagely.
Jack had his doubts upon this point, though he did not venture to
express them, but again pressed his question.
“What shall you do, my little snivelling milksop?--what shall you do?”
“Yes; what shall I do, Tom? That’s what I want to know; and, if you
don’t answer pretty soon, the boatswain’s whistle will cut short your
yarn, as it did yesterday.”
“I’ll tell you, Jack. Just throw your ear-ports wide open, and belay
that frisky little tongue of yourn, and I’ll tell you in less time than
it would take a monkey to run up the main-to-gallant-mast backstay.”
“Blaze away, Tom!” replied Jack impatiently.
“Ay, ay, my lad: here goes. When you’re mustered, and Mr. Bankhead goes
round lookin’ at every man from keel to truck, and gazin’ down into
his peepers as though he’d lost his jack-knife down them,--I say, my
oily little butter-chops, don’t you do so much as wink at him. I say,
Jack, you mustn’t know Mr. Bankhead from Adam’s great-grandfather. If
he wants to know you, he’ll tell you on’t. If he wants to shake hands
with you, he will send the ship’s cook to let you know it three weeks
aforehand, so’t you can be all ready for the honor that’s in store for
you. Mind that, Jack; and you’ve larnt a lesson that’ll make a seaman
of you.”
And just then the “people” were mustered, and Jack and his friends
tumbled up on the spar-deck to undergo the scrutiny of the executive
officer of the Harrisburg.