THE ART OF MISCHIEF MADE EASY--RATHER HARD UPON THE
EXPERIMENTED--"HEAVEN PRESERVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS! I'LL TAKE CARE OF MY
ENEMIES MYSELF," SAY THE HONEST SPANIARDS, AND SO SAYS HONEST RALPH.
And so, filling our cabins with invalided officers, we sailed for
England. We took home with us a convoy; and a miserable voyage we made
of it.
In taking my _soi-disant_ schoolfellow on board the _Eos_, I had shipped
with me my Mephistophiles. The former servant to the midshipmen's berth
was promoted to the mizzen-top, and Joshua Daunton inducted, with due
solemnities, to all the honours of waiting upon about half a dozen
fierce, unruly midshipmen, and as many sick supernumeraries; and he
formally took charge of all the mess-plate and munitions _de bouche_ of
this submarine establishment. There was no temptation to embezzlement.
Our little society was a commonwealth of the most democratic
description--and, as usually happens in these sort of experiments, there
was a community of goods that were good for nothing to the community.
I will give an inventory of all the movables of this republic, for the
edification of the curious. Among these, I must first of all enumerate
the _salle a manger_ itself, a hot little hole in the cock-pit, of about
eight feet by six, which was never clean. This dining-room and
breakfast-room also contained our cellars which contained nothing, on
which cellars we lay down when there was room--your true midshipman is a
recumbent animal--and sat when we could not lie. For the same reason
that the Romans called a grove _lucus_, these cellerets were called
lockers, because there was nothing to lock in them, and no locks to lock
in that nothing withal. In the midst stood an oak table, carved with
more names than ever Rosalind accused Orlando of spoiling good trees
with, besides the outline of a ship, and a number of squares, which
served for an immovable draught-board. One battered, spoutless,
handless, japanned-tin jug, that did not contain water, for it leaked;
some tin mugs; seven, or perhaps eight, pewter plates; an excellent old
iron tureen, the best friend we had, and which had stood by us, through
storm and calm, and the spiteful kick of Reefer, and the contemptuous
"slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," in the galley; which tureen
contained our cocoa in the morning, our pea-soup at noon, and, after
these multiplied duties, performed the character of wash-hand basin,
whenever the midshipman's fag condescended to cleanse his hands. It is
a fact that, when we sailed for England, of crockeryware we had not a
single article. There was a calabash or so, and two or three sections
of cocoa-nut shells.
We had no other provisions than barely the ship's allowance, and even
these were of the worst description. Bread, it is well remarked, is the
staff of life; but it is not quite pleasant to find it life itself, and
to have the power of locomotion. Every other description of food was in
the same state of transition into vivification. There is no
exaggeration in all this. From the continual coming and going, and the
state of constant disunion in which we lived, it was every man for
himself, and God, I am sorry to say, seemed to have very little to do
with any of us. So complete was our disorganisation, and so great our
destitution as a mess, that, after the first week, the supernumerary
sick young gentlemen were relieved from this candlelight den of
starvation and of dirt, and distributed among the warrant officers.
It was to wait upon our persons, to administer to our wants, and to take
care of our culinary comforts, that Joshua Daunton was duly installed.
It was very ludicrous to see our late servant giving up his charge to
our present one--the solemnity with which the iron tureen, and the one
knife, and the three forks, that were not furcated, seeing that they had
but one prong each, were surrendered: Joshua's contempt at the sordid
poverty of the republic to which he was to administer, was quite as
undisguised as his surprise. I again and again requested him to do his
duty in some other capacity in the ship, but he steadily refused.
The silky, soft-spoken, cockney-dialected Josh got me into continual hot
water. At first he seemed to consider himself as my servant only;
consequently, he was continually thrashed, and I, on his appeal, taking
his part, had to endeavour to thrash the thrasher. Now, this could not
always be conveniently done. The more I suffered for this Daunton, the
more ardently he seemed to attach himself to me. But there appeared to
be much more malice than affection in his fidelity. Nothing prospered
either with me or my messmates. He contrived, in the most plausible
manner possible, to spoil our almost unspoilable meals. He always
managed to draw for us the very worst rations, and to lay the blame on
the purser's steward. In bringing aft our miserable dinners, his foot
would slip, or a man would run against him--or somebody had taken it off
the galley-fire, and thrown it in the manger. Salt-water would
miraculously intrude into my messmates' rum-bottle, and my daily pint of
wine was either sour or muddy, or sandy, or afflicted with something
that made it undrinkable. In one word, under the care of the good
Joshua, Messieurs the midshipmen ran a most eminent risk of being
actually starved.
Many a time, after we had gone through the motions of dining, without
eating, and as we sat in our dark, hot hole, over our undrinkable
potations and our inedible eatables, each of us resting his hungry head
upon his aching elbows, watching the progress of some animated piece of
biscuit, would Master Daunton, the slave of our lamp, which, by-the-by,
was a bottle bearing a miserably consumptive purser's dip, beside which
a farthing rushlight would look quite aldermanic--I say, this slave of
our lamp would perch himself down on the combings of the cable-tier
hatchway, in the midst of the flood of Heaven's blessed daylight, that
came pouring from aloft into this abyss, and very deliberately take out
his private store of viands, and there insultingly wag his jaws, with
the most complacent satisfaction, in the faces of his masters. The
contrast was too bad--the malice of it too tormenting. Whilst he was
masticating his beautiful white American crackers, and smacking his lips
over his savoury German sausage, we were grumbling over putrid bones and
weavilly biscuit, that we could not swallow, and yet hunger would not
permit us to desert. It was a floating repetition of the horrors of
Tantalus.
Well, to myself, this rascal was most submissive--most eager in forcing
upon me his services. He relieved my hammock-man of his duty; but,
somehow, nothing prospered to which he put his hand. The third night,
the nails of the cleat that fastened my head-clews up to the deck above
me, drew, and I came down by the run, head foremost; and immediately
where my head ought to have alighted on the deck was found the
carpenter's pitch kettle, with the blade of an axe in the centre of it,
and the edge uppermost. No one knew how it came there, and, had I shot
out as young gentlemen usually do on such occasions, I should, if I had
not been quite decapitated, at least have died by the axe. Not being
asleep when the descent took place, I grappled with my neighbour, the
old fat assistant-surgeon, and he with the next, and the three came down
on deck with a lunge that actually started the marine officer--who,
everybody knows, is the best sleeper on board. Happily for myself, I
fell from my hammock sideways. Next, the accommodating Joshua got the
sole charge of my chest, and, though nothing was missed, in a short time
everything was ruined. The cockroaches ate the most unaccountable holes
in my best uniforms, my shoes burst in putting them on, my boots cracked
all across the upper leathers, and the feet of my stockings came off
when I attempted to draw them on.
The obsequious Joshua was equally assiduous with his other six masters,
and even more successful; so that, in addition to being starved, there
was every possibility of our being reduced to nakedness. This was no
pleasant prospect, running out of tropical latitudes towards England, in
the month of January. In the course of six weeks, such a ragged,
woebegone, gaunt, and famished gang of reefers was never before huddled
together in one of his Majesty's vessels of war. The shifts we were
obliged to have recourse to were quite amusing, to all but the
shiftmakers. The only good hat, and wearable uniform coat, went round
and round; it was a happy thing for this disconsolate seven that we were
all nearly of a size. To aggravate our misfortunes, we could no longer
get an occasional dinner, either in the captain's cabin or the
ward-room, for our clothes were all in rags.
In the meanwhile, Joshua Daunton grew more and more sleek, and pale, and
fat. He throve upon our miseries. He played his part at length so
well, as to avoid thrashings. He possessed, in perfection, that which,
in classic cockpit, is called "the gift of the gab." He was never in
the wrong. Indeed, he began to get a favourite with each of the
individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each
thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to
well-nurtured, shore-bred young gentlemen and ladies; but midshipmen
were always reckless and idle--that is, personally. On actual service,
they have ever been equally reckless, but commensurably active. This
kindness of Joshua, in taking all trouble off our hands, soon left us
almost nothing wherewith to trouble ourselves.