In Action
At the first sight of a suspicious ship, all hands were called, and
the drummer of the marines beat to quarters. The roll to quarters was
short, quick, and determined, being the tune of the song “Hearts of
Oak.” Directly the drumming ceased the sailors sprang to their tasks.
They knew their posts, and the work allotted to them. The ship was
cleared quickly and quietly, each man of the hundreds aboard going at
once to his place to fit it for battle. The carpenter with his mates,
and a number of allotted assistants, repaired aft to the officers’
cabins, to unship the wooden bulkheads. The light wooden screens were
easily knocked from their grooves, and hurried down into the hold.
The captain’s furniture, generally no more than a table, settee, and
a few chairs, was handed down to the same place, and secured by a
rope or two. If the ship had to be cleared in a hurry these things
were tossed overboard. The French seem to have left them standing,
trusting to fortune to keep the splinters from doing any hurt. Men
from each mess went to the lower-deck, to the berth, to clear away
the crockery, kit-bags, sea chests, etc., and to run them down out of
the way into the wings. The topmen securely “stopped” the top-sail
sheets, rove preventer-lifts, slung their lower-yards with chain,
prepared their muskets, swivel-guns, pistols and hand-grenades,
and got up a few coils of rope and some spare blocks ready for
emergencies. If it were dark, or likely to be dark before the fight
had been brought to a conclusion, the purser issued “purser’s glims,”
in heavy battle lanterns, one of which was secured to the ship’s
side by each gun. As the lanterns were liable to be shaken from
their places by the concussion of the firing they were secured very
tightly. They gave little light; but by the help of the moon, if any
shone, and by instinct, and the knowledge of what was to be done, the
sailors managed very well. Few actions were fought in the dark, as
the risk was too great. It was always well to have a good look at the
enemy before engaging.
The hammocks, which ran all round the upper or spar deck, made a good
protection to the men engaged upon the gangways. Before going into
action, a number of hammocks were taken from the nettings and lashed
to the lower rigging, over the dead-eyes and lanyards. A few hammocks
were sometimes whipped into the tops, to protect the topmast-rigging
in the same way. Strong rope nettings were hung over the upper-deck
under the masts, to catch any wreck or men falling from above.
Some buckets of water were sent aloft and poured over the sails.
Sometimes the engine was rigged, and placed upon the poop, so that
the hose played upon the courses. The booms and boats were liberally
drenched. The buckets hanging on the quarter-deck were filled, and
fire hoses were laid along each deck. Buckets of water were placed in
the chains and head. The pumps were rigged in case the ship started
a leak. Wet swabs were laid by all the hatchways, ready for use. A
bucket of fresh water, a tub of salt water, and a swab, were placed
behind each gun, for the refreshment of the men, and in case of fire.
Wet sand was sprinkled over every deck, to make the planking moist,
so as to lessen the risk of fire, and to give surety to the footing
of the men. The match tubs were half filled with water. Wet canvas
cloths were rolled along the orlop to the mouths of the magazines.
Wet frieze screens were then nailed round the magazine hatches, so
that no spark could possibly penetrate to them. Wetted blankets were
hung round each hatchway.
While the appointed men were doing these things, the captains of the
guns went to the gunner’s store-rooms to get their cartouche boxes,
or square leather cases, filled with the powder tubes or quills,
for insertion in the touch-holes of the guns. They also received
the flinted gun-locks with which to fire the guns. The men told off
to the cannon cast their guns loose from their lashings, struck
their ports open, cleared away the side-tackles, preventer-tackles,
and breechings, took out the tompions, cast off the leaden aprons,
made ready the crows and handspikes, and laid the sponge ready for
use. They got the cheeses of wads ready, and placed “garlands,” or
rope-rings containing round shot, between the guns. Those of the
gun’s crews who were told off as boarders put a couple of loaded
pistols, and a ship’s cutlass in their belts. The gun-captains hung
up their powder horns, full of priming powder, above their pieces,
and stuck their priming-irons into their belts ready for use. The
powder-boys brought up their “salt-boxes” full of cartridges for the
first broadsides. The marines, or at anyrate some of their number,
fell in upon the poop quarter-deck and forecastle, with their muskets
and side-arms. They were expected to shoot the enemy’s topmen,
and to pick off the musketeers and sail-trimmers on the poop and
quarter-deck of the opposing ship. Some of their number helped to
work the heavy carronades of the upper after-batteries. The drummers
and fifers of the company, who were generally little fellows, younger
than the ship’s boys, were employed to keep them supplied with powder
and ball-cartridge.
Any animals below decks were generally hoisted up and slung
overboard, so that the pens in which they lived might be demolished.
Hen-coops generally went over the side in the same way. If they were
stowed in the boats on the booms, they were allowed to remain. We
read of a cock which was liberated by a round shot in time to cheer
the ship’s company by crowing from the stump of a mast. If there
were pigs in the manger, which was a very powerful barricade, little
likely to be destroyed, they were suffered to stay there.
It took but a few minutes to clear a ship for action. The guns were
cast loose, the lumber cleared away, yards slung, sheets stopped,
and the galley-fire extinguished in much less time than a landsman
would think possible. As soon as the men had taken their places the
lieutenants walked round the gun-decks, to see that all was ready,
at the same time giving orders that the guns should be loaded and
run out. All this work was done silently: there was no singing out
or loud talking. Down below the gun-decks the gunner was busy in his
magazines, handing out cartridges to the powder-boys, who put them
in the wooden or leathern cases, and carried them to the guns. His
mates were kept employed filling fresh cartridges to replace those
discharged. The surgeon, with his assistants, prepared the cockpit
for the wounded, making ready a number of tourniquets and pledgets
for first intentions. A number of tourniquets were distributed about
the gun-decks for use by the men who carried down the wounded. As a
final preparation, the ship’s hatches were tripped up, so that the
men could not run below to the security of the orlop-deck. The small
fore and after hatches were left standing, to allow the powder-boys
and messengers to pass down. They were, however, guarded by marines,
who had orders to allow no one save powder-boys and midshipmen to go
down by them. Those hatches which led from the gun-deck to the orlop
were guarded by midshipmen with pistols, who had orders to shoot
any man trying to escape his duty. To prevent anyone from trying
to impose upon these hatchway sentries, it was the rule that all
powder-boys going for powder should display their cartridge cases as
they reached the ladder. The gunner, also, had orders to refuse to
give powder to anyone without a proper case.
When all was ready, the lieutenant, and sometimes the captain, made
the tour of the decks to cheer the men, and to give their final
orders. At the same time the carpenter and his mates took up their
stations on the orlop-deck and in the hold, with their shot plugs
ready for immediate insertion.
Many of the sailors delighted in battle, not because they were fond
of fighting, but because discipline was relaxed during the fight,
and, in spite of the extra duty, for a day or two afterwards; and
because a victory meant prize-money and a jolly time in port. A
fight broke the monotony of a cruise. It made the officers rather
more humane in their treatment. Lastly, it was exciting in itself.
It was, however, less popular among the men than among the officers.
If an officer was badly hurt he got promotion and half pay. If a
man was maimed he had nothing but Greenwich Hospital to look for.
If he could not get into the hospital he was free to starve, saying
with Goldsmith’s sailor, that those who got both legs shot off, and
a consequent pension, were born with golden spoons in their mouths.
Nevertheless, they always went into action cheerily. Their motto
was “The hotter the war the sooner the peace,” and they knew that
they would not be discharged till peace had been declared. Even
those who were stationed in the waist or midship guns were merry as
they went to quarters. “The very idea of going into action” was “a
source of joy to them.” They were as brave as they were careless. A
hot engagement was meat and drink to them. The thought of a general
action kept them from their beds.
It was their custom, when going into action, to strip to the waist.
They took their black silk handkerchiefs, and bound them very tightly
round their heads over their ears, so that the roar of the guns might
not deafen them for life. It was remarked that men going into action
always wore a sullen frown, however merry they were in their talk.
Before the firing began they used to settle among themselves what
amount of prize-money they would win, and how they would spend it.
They also made their wills, not in writing, but verbally: “If they
get me, Jack, you can have my kit. Tom, you can have my trousers
to buy you a mourning ring,” etc., always merrily, as though the
prospect of death was very remote. They would also whisper to each
other, as they came down to the enemy, as to her strength, size, and
appearance, guessing her nationality, length of absence from home,
etc., from the cut and shape of her masts and sails, and the colour
of the bunt patches in her top-sails.
It is not known how a gun-deck looked during the heat of an
engagement; for those who saw most of the fighting have left us but
a poor account of their experiences. We may take Smollett’s word for
it, that it was “a most infernal scene of slaughter, fire, smoke
and uproar.” We can imagine fifteen or sixteen cannon in a row, all
thundering and recoiling and flashing fire; on the other side of the
ship a similar row, nearly certain to be thundering and flashing
fire, if the action were general, instead of a duel between ships.
Up above, immediately overhead, not more than a foot from one’s hat
crown, was a similar double row of cannon, with heavy carriages
which banged and leaped at each recoil. Up above those, perhaps,
if the ship were a first or second rate, was yet another gun-deck,
with its thundering great guns and banging gun-trucks. And above
that, as a sort of pendant, was the upper battery of carronades,
making a terrible roaring at each shot; and marines firing their
muskets, and topmen firing their swivels, and blocks and spars and
heavy ropes coming down from aloft with a clatter. And every now and
again, if not every minute, the awful ear-splitting crash, “like the
smashing of a door with, crowbars,” as a shot struck home, and sent
the splinters scattering. Then, continually, the peculiar hissing
and screaming of the passing round shot made a lighter music, “like
the tearing of sails,” to the bass of the cannon. One heard, too,
the yells of perhaps five or six hundred men, as they tugged at the
tackling, or hove the guns round with the handspikes. Then there were
wounded men screaming, and port-lids coming down with a bang, and
perhaps a gun bursting, or thudding clean out of its carriage, as a
shot struck a trunnion; and every now and then a horrible noise, as a
ball exploded a cartridge on the deck.
So much for the racket. The noise was the clearest impression one
could gather. One could see little enough when once the firing had
begun. A large ship, fighting only one broadside at a time, burned
from 500 to 1100 lbs. of powder every minute, according to the heat
of the battle and the distance of the target. It was black powder,
and the decks were black with smoke after the first broadside, if
they were engaging to windward, for the smoke blew back at the
ports, and poured up the hatches like the reek of factory chimneys.
In the murk and stench one might see the flash from the spouting
touch-holes, as the “huff” leaped out, to burn a hole in the beams
above. One could mark the little light of the slow matches at those
guns where the flints of the locks had broken. One could see a
sailor’s face in the glow, as he blew at the red end to clear away
the ashes.
The least pleasant part of a ship of war in action was the waist or
midship part, near the main rigging. It was the custom in these sea
engagements to converge a broadside fire upon some central point in
the opposing ship’s side. The men stationed in the waist or main
battery always suffered more in proportion than the men at the after
or forward guns. That part of a ship’s lower-deck between the fore
and after hatchways, was known as “the slaughter-house,” on account
of the massacre which generally took place at that part. In the midst
of the fury and confusion, with the ship shaking like a tautened rope
from the concussion, and the blood “flowing like bilge water,” there
was yet a certain order and human purpose. The lieutenants walked to
and fro about the batteries, regulating the fire, and keeping the
men to their guns. The powder-boys skipped here and there on their
errands for powder. The half-dozen men told off for cockpit duty came
and went with the wounded, or paused at the gun-ports to heave a dead
or dying man overboard, “with no other ceremony than shoving him
through the port.” Now and then some men left their guns and ran on
deck to do any sail-trimming which might be necessary. Others broke
away to bring up shot from the hold. If the ship carried any women or
sailors’ wives they, too, were employed about the deck in carrying
water or powder. The master-at-arms went his rounds slowly, passing
from deck to deck, asking for complaints, and noting how things
were going. He had to make a note of the losses at the guns, of the
expenditure of powder, and of the shot-holes between wind and water.
His visits were godsends to the men working below the gun-deck in
the magazines. The work there was mechanical, not feverish, like the
work of the men at the guns. They had time to think, and found the
situation “not one of danger, but most wounding to the feelings, and
trying to the patience.” One of the gunner’s crew of H.M.S. _Goliah_,
a 74-gun ship engaged at the battle of St Vincent, has told us that—
“I was stationed in the after-magazine serving powder from the
screen, and could see nothing; but I could feel every shot that
struck the _Goliah_: and the cries and groans of the wounded were
most distressing, as there was only the thickness of the blankets of
the screen between me and them. Busy as I was, the time hung upon me
with a dreary weight. Not a soul spoke to me but the master-at-arms,
as he went his rounds to inquire if all was safe. No sick person
ever longed more for his physician than I for the voice of the
master-at-arms. I would, if I had had my choice, have been on the
deck; there I would have seen what was passing, and the time would
not have hung so heavy.”
If, during the engagement, the ships came grinding together, with
a crash which knocked the lower-deck ports in, the matter was
settled by boarding. The two or three men of each gun’s crew who
were told off as boarders were then “called away.” They dropped
their gun-tackles, drew their cutlasses and pistols, and skipped
up on deck, into the enemy’s rigging, and down on to her decks, to
carry her by hand-to-hand fighting. More generally the action was
determined by superior gunnery. The ship which lost her rudder or
her fore-mast, or caught fire either aloft or below, was the one to
strike. If one of the combatants became unmanageable her opponent
took up a position on her bow or quarter, and raked her into
submission, at a safe distance. When a ship struck a boat was sent to
take possession of her. Her officers were sent aboard the captor as
the guests of the ward-room and cabin. The men were hunted down into
the hold under a guard of marines. If they showed signs of rising,
or if they were too numerous for safety, they were put in irons. In
extreme cases they were battened down below, with cannon, loaded with
grape, pointing down the hatchways at them.
We quote part of the account of a boy who fought in one of the
hottest of our frigate actions. The action belongs to a period
half-a-dozen years after that of Trafalgar, but, nevertheless, as the
author says, “it will reveal the horrors of war, and show at what a
fearful price a victory is won or lost.”
“The whole scene grew indescribably confused and horrible. I was
busily supplying my gun with powder, when I saw blood suddenly fly
from the arm of a man stationed at our gun. I saw nothing strike
him; the effect alone was visible: ... the third lieutenant tied his
handkerchief round the wounded arm, and sent the groaning wretch
below to the surgeon. The cries of the wounded rang through all parts
of the ship ... those more fortunate men who were killed outright
were immediately thrown overboard.... Two of the boys stationed on
the quarter-deck were killed. A man, who saw one of them killed,
afterwards told me that his powder caught fire and burnt the flesh
almost off his face. In this pitiable situation, the agonised boy
lifted up both hands, as if imploring relief, when a passing shot
instantly cut him in two.... A man named Aldrich had one of his
hands cut off by a shot, and almost at the some moment he received
another shot, which tore open his bowels in a terrible manner. As he
fell, two or three men caught him in their arms and, as he could not
live, threw him overboard.... Our men kept cheering with all their
might. I cheered with them, though I confess I scarcely knew for
what. Certainly there was nothing very inspiriting in the aspect of
things where I was stationed. Not only had we several boys and men
killed and wounded, but several of the guns were disabled. The one
I belonged to had a piece of the muzzle knocked out.... The brave
boatswain, who came from the sick-bay to the din of battle, was
fastening a stopper on a backstay, which had been shot away, when
his head was smashed to pieces by a cannon-ball; another man, going
to complete the unfinished task, was also struck down.... A fellow
named John, who for some petty offence had been sent on board as a
punishment, was carried past me wounded. I distinctly heard the large
blood drops fall pat, pat, pat on the deck. Even a poor goat kept by
the officers for her milk did not escape the general carnage; her
hind legs were shot off, and poor Nan was thrown overboard. Such was
the terrible scene, amid which we kept on our shouting and firing.
I felt pretty much as I suppose everyone does at such a time. We
all appeared cheerful, but I know that many a serious thought ran
through my mind.... I thought a great deal of the other world ... but
being without any particular knowledge of religious truth I satisfied
myself by repeating again and again the Lord’s Prayer.”
The poor little boy was barely fourteen years old.
After an action a supply of vinegar was heated for the sprinkling
of the ship, to drive away the smell of blood from decks and beams.
The last of the dead were thrown overboard, the wounded were made as
comfortable as the circumstance allowed, and as many men as could be
spared were sent on deck to knot and splice the rigging. Before the
repairs were begun the cannon were secured, and a gill of rum served
out to every man and boy. Then the heaviest work of the action began.
“It is after the action the disagreeable part commences.” There was
then no excitement to support the worker. The tired men had to turn
to with a will, to unbend sails and bend new ones, to send up new
spars, or new yards, to reeve new running-rigging, and set up new
stays and shrouds. “For days they have no remission of their toil,
repairing the rigging and other parts injured in the action.” The
work of a prize-crew, in charge of a prize, was especially arduous,
for they were generally a mere handful of men, barely sufficient to
sail the vessel, let alone to repair her. A prize-crew were sometimes
too busy to clean the prize’s decks. The _Chesapeake_ came into
Halifax six days after her capture by the _Shannon_ with her decks
still horrible with blood, and with human fingers sticking in her
sides, “as though they had been thrust through from without.” In any
case a ship which had been in a hot engagement needed to be cleansed
in every part with vinegar, and disinfected with brimstone, before
the shambles smell was removed from her.
The sailors were often inconvenienced indirectly during a hot
engagement by the destruction of the hammocks. The hammock nettings
stopped a great number of cannon balls, and the gangways were
frequently littered with hammocks thrown out by the shot, torn in
pieces, or shot clean through. As a 32lb. round shot made a very big
hole in a purser’s blanket, and as the sailors paid for their own
bedding, this was a real hardship. However, “everything is a joke at
sea.” The thought of prize-money atoned for the discomfort.