PRAYERS AT THE GUNS.
The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking place in
our frigate, have already been described, also the Sunday devotions on
the half-deck; but nothing has yet been said concerning the daily
morning and evening quarters, when the men silently stand at their
guns, and the chaplain simply offers up a prayer.
Let us now enlarge upon this matter. We have plenty of time; the
occasion invites; for behold! the homeward-bound Neversink bowls along
over a jubilant sea.
Shortly after breakfast the drum beats to quarters; and among five
hundred men, scattered over all three decks, and engaged in all manner
of ways, that sudden rolling march is magical as the monitory sound to
which every good Mussulman at sunset drops to the ground whatsoever his
hands might have found to do, and, throughout all Turkey, the people in
concert kneel toward their holy Mecca.
The sailors run to and fro-some up the deck-ladders, some down—to gain
their respective stations in the shortest possible time. In three
minutes all is composed. One by one, the various officers stationed
over the separate divisions of the ship then approach the First
Lieutenant on the quarter-deck, and report their respective men at
their quarters. It is curious to watch their countenances at this time.
A profound silence prevails; and, emerging through the hatchway, from
one of the lower decks, a slender young officer appears, hugging his
sword to his thigh, and advances through the long lanes of sailors at
their guns, his serious eye all the time fixed upon the First
Lieutenant’s—his polar star. Sometimes he essays a stately and
graduated step, an erect and martial bearing, and seems full of the
vast national importance of what he is about to communicate.
But when at last he gains his destination, you are amazed to perceive
that all he has to say is imparted by a Freemason touch of his cap, and
a bow. He then turns and makes off to his division, perhaps passing
several brother Lieutenants, all bound on the same errand he himself
has just achieved. For about five minutes these officers are coming and
going, bringing in thrilling intelligence from all quarters of the
frigate; most stoically received, however, by the First Lieutenant.
With his legs apart, so as to give a broad foundation for the
superstructure of his dignity, this gentleman stands stiff as a
pike-staff on the quarter-deck. One hand holds his sabre—an
appurtenance altogether unnecessary at the time; and which he
accordingly tucks, point backward, under his arm, like an umbrella on a
sun-shiny day. The other hand is continually bobbing up and down to the
leather front of his cap, in response to the reports and salute of his
subordinates, to whom he never deigns to vouchsafe a syllable, merely
going through the motions of accepting their news, without bestowing
thanks for their pains.
This continual touching of caps between officers on board a man-of-war
is the reason why you invariably notice that the glazed fronts of their
caps look jaded, lack-lustre, and worn; sometimes slightly
oleaginous—though, in other respects, the cap may appear glossy and
fresh. But as for the First Lieutenant, he ought to have extra pay
allowed to him, on account of his extraordinary outlays in cap fronts;
for he it is to whom, all day long, reports of various kinds are
incessantly being made by the junior Lieutenants; and no report is made
by them, however trivial, but caps are touched on the occasion. It is
obvious that these individual salutes must be greatly multiplied and
aggregated upon the senior Lieutenant, who must return them all.
Indeed, when a subordinate officer is first promoted to that rank, he
generally complains of the same exhaustion about the shoulder and elbow
that La Fayette mourned over, when, in visiting America, he did little
else but shake the sturdy hands of patriotic farmers from sunrise to
sunset.
The various officers of divisions having presented their respects, and
made good their return to their stations, the First Lieutenant turns
round, and, marching aft, endeavours to catch the eye of the Captain,
in order to touch his own cap to that personage, and thereby, without
adding a word of explanation, communicate the fact of all hands being
at their gun’s. He is a sort of retort, or receiver-general, to
concentrate the whole sum of the information imparted to him, and
discharge it upon his superior at one touch of his cap front.
But sometimes the Captain feels out of sorts, or in ill-humour, or is
pleased to be somewhat capricious, or has a fancy to show a touch of
his omnipotent supremacy; or, peradventure, it has so happened that the
First Lieutenant has, in some way, piqued or offended him, and he is
not unwilling to show a slight specimen of his dominion over him, even
before the eyes of all hands; at all events, only by some one of these
suppositions can the singular circumstance be accounted for, that
frequently Captain Claret would pertinaciously promenade up and down
the poop, purposely averting his eye from the First Lieutenant, who
would stand below in the most awkward suspense, waiting the first wink
from his superior’s eye.
“Now I have him!” he must have said to himself, as the Captain would
turn toward him in his walk; “now’s my time!” and up would go his hand
to his cap; but, alas! the Captain was off again; and the men at the
guns would cast sly winks at each other as the embarrassed Lieutenant
would bite his lips with suppressed vexation.
Upon some occasions this scene would be repeated several times, till at
last Captain Claret, thinking, that in the eyes of all hands, his
dignity must by this time be pretty well bolstered, would stalk towards
his subordinate, looking him full in the eyes; whereupon up goes his
hand to the cap front, and the Captain, nodding his acceptance of the
report, descends from his perch to the quarter-deck.
By this time the stately Commodore slowly emerges from his cabin, and
soon stands leaning alone against the brass rails of the
after-hatchway. In passing him, the Captain makes a profound
salutation, which his superior returns, in token that the Captain is at
perfect liberty to proceed with the ceremonies of the hour.
Marching on, Captain Claret at last halts near the main-mast, at the
head of a group of the ward-room officers, and by the side of the
Chaplain. At a sign from his finger, the brass band strikes up the
Portuguese hymn. This over, from Commodore to hammock-boy, all hands
uncover, and the Chaplain reads a prayer. Upon its conclusion, the drum
beats the retreat, and the ship’s company disappear from the guns. At
sea or in harbour, this ceremony is repeated every morning and evening.
By those stationed on the quarter-deck the Chaplain is distinctly
heard; but the quarter-deck gun division embraces but a tenth part of
the ship’s company, many of whom are below, on the main-deck, where not
one syllable of the prayer can be heard. This seemed a great
misfortune; for I well knew myself how blessed and soothing it was to
mingle twice every day in these peaceful devotions, and, with the
Commodore, and Captain, and smallest boy, unite in acknowledging
Almighty God. There was also a touch of the temporary equality of the
Church about it, exceedingly grateful to a man-of-war’s-man like me.
My carronade-gun happened to be directly opposite the brass railing
against which the Commodore invariably leaned at prayers. Brought so
close together, twice every day, for more than a year, we could not but
become intimately acquainted with each other’s faces. To this fortunate
circumstance it is to be ascribed, that some time after reaching home,
we were able to recognise each other when we chanced to meet in
Washington, at a ball given by the Russian Minister, the Baron de
Bodisco. And though, while on board the frigate, the Commodore never in
any manner personally addressed me—nor did I him—yet, at the Minister’s
social entertainment, we _there_ became exceedingly chatty; nor did I
fail to observe, among that crowd of foreign dignitaries and magnates
from all parts of America, that my worthy friend did not appear so
exalted as when leaning, in solitary state, against the brass railing
of the Neversink’s quarter-deck. Like many other gentlemen, he appeared
to the best advantage, and was treated with the most deference in the
bosom of his home, the frigate.
Our morning and evening quarters were agreeably diversified for some
weeks by a little circumstance, which to some of us at least, always
seemed very pleasing.
At Callao, half of the Commodore’s cabin had been hospitably yielded to
the family of a certain aristocratic-looking magnate, who was going
ambassador from Peru to the Court of the Brazils, at Rio. This
dignified diplomatist sported a long, twirling mustache, that almost
enveloped his mouth. The sailors said he looked like a rat with his
teeth through a bunch of oakum, or a St. Jago monkey peeping through a
prickly-pear bush.
He was accompanied by a very beautiful wife, and a still more beautiful
little daughter, about six years old. Between this dark-eyed little
gipsy and our chaplain there soon sprung up a cordial love and good
feeling, so much so, that they were seldom apart. And whenever the drum
beat to quarters, and the sailors were hurrying to their stations, this
little signorita would outrun them all to gain her own quarters at the
capstan, where she would stand by the chaplain’s side, grasping his
hand, and looking up archly in his face.
It was a sweet relief from the domineering sternness of our martial
discipline—a sternness not relaxed even at our devotions before the
altar of the common God of commodore and cabin-boy—to see that lovely
little girl standing among the thirty-two pounders, and now and then
casting a wondering, commiserating glance at the array of grim seamen
around her.