MONTHLY MUSTER ROUND THE CAPSTAN.
Besides general quarters, and the regular morning and evening quarters
for prayers on board the Neversink, on the first Sunday of every month
we had a grand “_muster round the capstan_,” when we passed in solemn
review before the Captain and officers, who closely scanned our frocks
and trowsers, to see whether they were according to the Navy cut. In
some ships, every man is required to bring his bag and hammock along
for inspection.
This ceremony acquires its chief solemnity, and, to a novice, is
rendered even terrible, by the reading of the Articles of War by the
Captain’s clerk before the assembled ship’s company, who in testimony
of their enforced reverence for the code, stand bareheaded till the
last sentence is pronounced.
To a mere amateur reader the quiet perusal of these Articles of War
would be attended with some nervous emotions. Imagine, then, what _my_
feelings must have been, when, with my hat deferentially in my hand, I
stood before my lord and master, Captain Claret, and heard these
Articles read as the law and gospel, the infallible, unappealable
dispensation and code, whereby I lived, and moved, and had my being on
board of the United States ship Neversink.
Of some twenty offences—made penal—that a seaman may commit, and which
are specified in this code, thirteen are punishable by death.
“_Shall suffer death!_” This was the burden of nearly every Article
read by the Captain’s clerk; for he seemed to have been instructed to
omit the longer Articles, and only present those which were brief and
to the point.
“_Shall suffer death!_” The repeated announcement falls on your ear
like the intermitting discharge of artillery. After it has been
repeated again and again, you listen to the reader as he deliberately
begins a new paragraph; you hear him reciting the involved, but
comprehensive and clear arrangement of the sentence, detailing all
possible particulars of the offence described, and you breathlessly
await, whether _that_ clause also is going to be concluded by the
discharge of the terrible minute-gun. When, lo! it again booms on your
ear—_shall suffer death!_ No reservations, no contingencies; not the
remotest promise of pardon or reprieve; not a glimpse of commutation of
the sentence; all hope and consolation is shut out—_shall suffer
death!_ that is the simple fact for you to digest; and it is a tougher
morsel, believe White-Jacket when he says it, than a forty-two-pound
cannon-ball.
But there is a glimmering of an alternative to the sailor who infringes
these Articles. Some of them thus terminates: “_Shall suffer death, or
such punishment as a court-martial shall adjudge_.” But hints this at a
penalty still more serious? Perhaps it means “_death, or worse
punishment_.”
Your honours of the Spanish Inquisition, Loyola and Torquemada!
produce, reverend gentlemen, your most secret code, and match these
Articles of War, if you can. Jack Ketch, _you_ also are experienced in
these things! Thou most benevolent of mortals, who standest by us, and
hangest round our necks, when all the rest of this world are against
us—tell us, hangman, what punishment is this, horribly hinted at as
being worse than death? Is it, upon an empty stomach, to read the
Articles of War every morning, for the term of one’s natural life? Or
is it to be imprisoned in a cell, with its walls papered from floor to
ceiling with printed copies, in italics, of these Articles of War?
But it needs not to dilate upon the pure, bubbling milk of human
kindness, and Christian charity, and forgiveness of injuries which
pervade this charming document, so thoroughly imbued, as a Christian
code, with the benignant spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. But as it
is very nearly alike in the foremost states of Christendom, and as it
is nationally set forth by those states, it indirectly becomes an index
to the true condition of the present civilization of the world.
As, month after month, I would stand bareheaded among my shipmates, and
hear this document read, I have thought to myself, Well, well,
White-Jacket, you are in a sad box, indeed. But prick your ears, there
goes another minute-gun. It admonishes you to take all bad usage in
good part, and never to join in any public meeting that may be held on
the gun-deck for a redress of grievances. Listen:
Art. XIII. “If any person in the navy shall make, or attempt to make,
any mutinous assembly, he shall, on conviction thereof by a court
martial, suffer death.”
Bless me, White-Jacket, are you a great gun yourself, that you so
recoil, to the extremity of your breechings, at that discharge?
But give ear again. Here goes another minute-gun. It indirectly
admonishes you to receive the grossest insult, and stand still under
it:
Art. XIV. “No private in the navy shall disobey the lawful orders of
his superior officer, or strike him, or draw, or offer to draw, or
raise any weapon against him, while in the execution of the duties of
his office, on pain of death.”
Do not hang back there by the bulwarks, White-Jacket; come up to the
mark once more; for here goes still another minute-gun, which
admonishes you never to be caught napping:
Part of Art. XX. “If any person in the navy shall sleep upon his watch,
he shall suffer death.”
Murderous! But then, in time of peace, they do not enforce these
blood-thirsty laws? Do they not, indeed? What happened to those three
sailors on board an American armed vessel a few years ago, quite within
your memory, White-Jacket; yea, while you yourself were yet serving on
board this very frigate, the Neversink? What happened to those three
Americans, White-Jacket—those three sailors, even as you, who once were
alive, but now are dead? “_Shall suffer death!_” those were the three
words that hung those three sailors.
Have a care, then, have a care, lest you come to a sad end, even the
end of a rope; lest, with a black-and-blue throat, you turn a dumb
diver after pearl-shells; put to bed for ever, and tucked in, in your
own hammock, at the bottom of the sea. And there you will lie,
White-Jacket, while hostile navies are playing cannon-ball billiards
over your grave.
By the main-mast! then, in a time of profound peace, I am subject to
the cut-throat martial law. And when my own brother, who happens to be
dwelling ashore, and does not serve his country as I am now doing—when
_he_ is at liberty to call personally upon the President of the United
States, and express his disapprobation of the whole national
administration, here am I, liable at any time to be run up at the
yard-arm, with a necklace, made by no jeweler, round my neck!
A hard case, truly, White-Jacket; but it cannot be helped. Yes; you
live under this same martial law. Does not everything around you din
the fact in your ears? Twice every day do you not jump to your quarters
at the sound of a drum? Every morning, in port, are you not roused from
your hammock by the _reveille_, and sent to it again at nightfall by
the _tattoo?_ Every Sunday are you not commanded in the mere matter of
the very dress you shall wear through that blessed day? Can your
shipmates so much as drink their “tot of grog?” nay, can they even
drink but a cup of water at the scuttle-butt, without an armed sentry
standing over them? Does not every officer wear a sword instead of a
cane? You live and move among twenty-four-pounders. White-Jacket; the
very cannon-balls are deemed an ornament around you, serving to
embellish the hatchways; and should you come to die at sea,
White-Jacket, still two cannon-balls would bear you company when you
would be committed to the deep. Yea, by all methods, and devices, and
inventions, you are momentarily admonished of the fact that you live
under the Articles of War. And by virtue of them it is, White-Jacket,
that, without a hearing and without a trial, you may, at a wink from
the Captain, be condemned to the scourge.
Speak you true? Then let me fly!
Nay, White-Jacket, the landless horizon hoops you in.
Some tempest, then, surge all the sea against us! hidden reefs and
rocks, arise and dash the ships to chips! I was not born a serf, and
will not live a slave! Quick! cork-screw whirlpools, suck us down!
world’s end whelm us!
Nay, White-Jacket, though this frigate laid her broken bones upon the
Antarctic shores of Palmer’s Land; though not two planks adhered;
though all her guns were spiked by sword-fish blades, and at her
yawning hatchways mouth-yawning sharks swam in and out; yet, should you
escape the wreck and scramble to the beach, this Martial Law would meet
you still, and snatch you by the throat. Hark!
Art. XLII. Part of Sec. 3.-“In all cases where the crews of the ships
or vessels of the United States shall be separated from their vessels
by the latter being wrecked, lost, or destroyed, all the command,
power, and authority given to the officers of such ships or vessels
shall remain, and be in full force, as effectually as if such ship or
vessel were not so wrecked, lost or destroyed.”
Hear you that, White-Jacket! I tell you there is no escape. Afloat or
wrecked the Martial Law relaxes not its gripe. And though, by that
self-same warrant, for some offence therein set down, you were indeed
to “suffer death,” even then the Martial Law might hunt you straight
through the other world, and out again at its other end, following you
through all eternity, like an endless thread on the inevitable track of
its own point, passing unnumbered needles through.