The Two Admirals (53 page)

The vice-admiral and his captain shook hands cordially on the poop, and
the former pointed out to the latter, with honest exultation, the result
of his own bold manoeuvres.

"We've clipped the wings of two of them," added Sir Gervaise, "and have
fairly bagged a third, my good friend; and, God willing, when Bluewater
joins, there will not be much difficulty with the remainder. I cannot
see that any of our vessels have suffered much, and I set them all down
as sound. There's been time for a signal of inability, that curse to an
admiral's evolutions, but no one seems disposed to make it. If we really
escape that nuisance, it will be the first instance in my life!"

"Half-a-dozen yards may be crippled, and no one the worse for it, in
this heavy weather. Were we under a press of canvass, it would be a
different matter; but, now, so long as the main sticks stand, we shall
probably do well enough. I can find no injury in my own ship that may
not be remedied at sea."

"And she has had the worst of it. 'Twas a decided thing, Greenly, to
engage such an odds in a gale; but we owe our success, most probably, to
the audacity of the attack. Had the enemy believed it possible, it is
probable he would have frustrated it. Well, Master Galleygo, I'm glad to
see you unhurt! What is your pleasure?"

"Why, Sir Jarvy, I've two opportunities, as a body might say, on the
poop, just now. One is to shake hands, as we always does a'ter a brush,
you knows, sir, and to look a'ter each other's health; and the other is
to report a misfortin that will bear hard on this day's dinner. You see,
Sir Jarvy, I had the dead poultry slung in a net, over the live stock,
to be out of harm's way; well, sir, a shot cut the lanyard, and let all
the chickens down by the run, in among the gun-room grunters; and as
they never half feeds them hanimals, there isn't as much left of the
birds as would make a meal for a sick young gentleman. To my notion, no
one ought to
have
live stock but the commanders-in-chief."

"To the devil with you and the stock! Give me a shake of the hand, and
back into your top—how came you, sir, to quit your quarters without
leave?"

"I didn't, Sir Jarvy. Seeing how things was a going on, among the pigs,
for our top hoverlooks the awful scene, I axed the young gentleman to
let me come down to condole with your honour; and as they always lets me
do as I axes, in such matters, why down I come. We has had one rattler
in at our top, howsever, that came nigh lo clear us all out on it!"

"Is any spar injured?" asked Sir Gervaise, quickly. "This must be looked
to—hey! Greenly?"

"Not to signify, your honour; not to signify. One of them French
eighteens aboard the prize just cocked its nose up, as the ship lurched,
and let fly a round 'un and a grist of grape, right into our faces. I
see'd it coming and sung out 'scaldings;' and 'twas well I did. We all
ducked in time, and the round 'un cleared every thing, but a handful of
the marbles are planted in the head of the mast, making the spar look
like a plum-pudding, or a fellow with the small-pox."

"Enough of this. You are excused from returning to the top;—and,
Greenly, beat the retreat. Bunting, show the signal for the retreat from
quarters. Let the ships pipe to breakfast, if they will."

This order affords a fair picture of the strange admixture of feelings
and employments that characterize the ordinary life of a ship. At one
moment, its inmates find themselves engaged in scenes of wild
magnificence and fierce confusion, while at the next they revert to the
most familiar duties of humanity. The crews of the whole fleet now
retired from the guns, and immediately after they were seated around
their kids, indulging ravenously in the food for which the exercise of
the morning had given keen appetites. Still there was something of the
sternness of battle in the merriment of this meal, and the few jokes
that passed were seasoned with a bitterness that is not usual among the
light-hearted followers of the sea. Here and there, a messmate was
missed, and the vacancy produced some quaint and even pathetic allusion
to his habits, or to the manner in which he met his death; seamen
usually treating the ravages of this great enemy of the race, after the
blow has been struck, with as much solemnity and even tenderness, as
they regard his approaches with levity. It is when spared themselves,
that they most regard the destruction of battle. A man's standing in a
ship, too, carries great weight with it, at such times; the loss of the
quarter-master, in particular, being much regretted in the Plantagenet.
This man messed with a portion of the petty officers, a set of men
altogether more thoughtful and grave than the body of the crew; and who
met, when they assembled around their mess-chest that morning, with a
sobriety and even sternness of mien, that showed how much in the
management of the vessel had depended on their individual exertions.
Several minutes elapsed in the particular mess of the dead man, before a
word was spoken; all eating with appetites that were of proof, but no
one breaking the silence. At length an old quarter-gunner, named Tom
Sponge, who generally led the discourse, said in a sort of
half-inquiring, half-regretting, way—

"I suppose there's no great use in asking why Jack Glass's spoon is idle
this morning. They says, them forecastle chaps, that they see'd his body
streaming out over the starboard quarter, as if it had been the fly of
one of his own ensigns. How was it, Ned? you was thereaway, and ought to
know all about it."

"To be sure I does," said Ned, who was Bunting's remaining assistant. "I
was there, as you says, and see'd as much of it as a man can see of what
passes between a poor fellow and a shot, when they comes together, and
that not in a very loving manner. It happened just as we come upon the
weather beam of that first chap—him as we winged so handsomely among
us. Well, Sir Jarvy had clapped a stopper on the signals, seeing as we
had got fairly into the smoke, and Jack and I was looking about us for
the muskets, not knowing but a chance might turn up to chuck a little
lead into some of the parly-woos; and so says Jack, says he, 'Ned, you's
got my musket;—(as I
had
, sure enough)—and says he, 'Ned, you's got
my musket; but no matter arter all, as they're much of a muchness.' So
when he'd said this, he lets fly; but whether he hit any body, is more
than I can say. If he
did
, 'twas likely a Frenchman, as he shot
that-a-way. 'Now,' says Jack, says he, 'Ned, as this is your musket, you
can load it, and hand over mine, and I'll sheet home another of the
b—s.' Well, at that moment the Frenchman lifted for'ard, on a heavy
swell, and let drive at us, with all his forecastle guns, fired as it
might be with one priming—"

"That was bad gunnery," growled Tom Sponge, "it racks a ship woundily."

"Yes, they'se no judgment in ships, in general. Well, them French
twelves are spiteful guns; and a
little
afore they fired, it seemed to
me I heard something give Jack a rap on the check, that sounded as if a
fellow's ear was boxed with a clap of thunder. I looked up, and there
was Jack streaming out like the fly of the ensign, head foremost, with
the body towing after it by strings in the neck."

"I thought when a fellow's head was shot off," put in another
quarter-master named Ben Barrel, "that the body was left in the ship
while only the truck went!"

"That comes of not seeing them things, Ben," rejoined the eye-witness.
"A fellow's head is staid in its berth just like a ship's mast. There's
for'ard and back-stays, and shrouds, all's one as aboard here; the only
difference is that the lanyards are a little looser, so as to give a man
more play for his head, than it might be safe to give to a mast. When a
fellow makes a bow, why he only comes up a little aft, and bowses on the
fore-stay, and now and then you falls in with a chap that is stayed
altogether too far for'ard, or who's got a list perhaps from having the
shrouds set up too taut to port or to starboard."

"That sounds reasonable," put in the quarter-gunner, gravely; "I've seen
such droggers myself."

"If you'd been on the poop an hour or too ago, you'd ha' seen more on
it! Now, there's all our marines, their back-stays have had a fresh pull
since they were launched, and, as for their captain, I'll warrant you,
he
had a luff upon luff!"

"I've heard the carpenter overhauling them matters," remarked Sam Wad,
another quarter-gunner, "and he chalked it all out by the square and
compass. It seems reasonable, too."

"If you'd seen Jack's head dragging his body overboard, just like the
Frenchman dragging his wreck under his lee, you'd ha'
thought
it
reasonable. What's a fellow's shoulders for, but to give a spread to his
shrouds, which lead down the neck and are set up under the arms
somewhere. They says a great deal about the heart, and I reckons it's
likely every thing is key'd there."

"Harkee, Ned," observed a quarter-master, who knew little more than the
mess generally, "if what you say is true, why don't these shrouds lead
straight from the head to the shoulders, instead of being all tucked up
under a skin in the neck? Answer me that, now."

"Who the devil ever saw a ship's shrouds that wasn't cat-harpened in!"
exclaimed Ned, with some heat. "A pretty hand a wife would make of it,
in pulling her arms around a fellow's neck if the rigging spread in the
way you mean! Them things is all settled according to reason when a
chap's keel's laid."

This last argument seemed to dispose of the matter, the discourse
gradually turning on, and confining itself to the merits of the
deceased.

Sir Gervaise had directed Galleygo to prepare his breakfast as soon as
the people were piped to their own; but he was still detained on deck in
consequence of a movement in one of his vessels, to which it has now
become necessary more particularly to recur.

The appearance of the Druid to the northward, early in the morning, will
doubtless be remembered by the reader. When near enough to have it made
out, this frigate had shown her number; after which she rested satisfied
with carrying sail much harder than any vessel in sight. When the fleets
engaged, she made an effort to set the fore-top-sail, close-reefed, but
several of the critics in the other ships, who occasionally noticed her
movements, fancied that some accident must have befallen her, as the
canvass was soon taken in, and she appeared disposed to remain content
with the sail carried when first seen. As this ship was materially to
windward of the line, and she was running the whole time a little free,
her velocity was much greater than that of the other vessels, and by
this time she had got so near that Sir Gervaise observed she was fairly
abeam of the Plantagenet, and a little to leeward of the Active. Of
course her hull, even to the bottom, as she rose on a sea, was plainly
visible, and such of her people as were in the tops and rigging could be
easily distinguished by the naked eye.

"The Druid must have some communication for us from the other division
of the fleet," observed the vice-admiral to his signal-officer, as they
stood watching the movements of the frigate; "it is a little
extraordinary Blewet does not signal! Look at the book, and find me a
question to put that will ask his errand?"

Bunting was in the act of turning over the leaves of his little
vocabulary of questions and answers, when three or four dark balls, that
Sir Gervaise, by the aid of the glass, saw suspended between the
frigate's masts, opened into flags, effectually proving that Blewet was
not absolutely asleep.

"Four hundred and sixteen, ordinary communication," observed the
vice-admiral, with his eye still at the glass. "Look up that, Bunting,
and let us know what it means."

"The commander-in-chief—wish to speak him!" read Bunting, in the
customary formal manner in which he announced the purport of a signal.

"Very well—answer; then make the Druid's number to come within hail!
The fellow has got cloth enough spread to travel two feet to our one;
let him edge away and come under our lee. Speaking will be rather close
work to-day."

"I doubt if a ship
can
come near enough to make herself heard,"
returned the other, "though the second lieutenant of that ship never
uses a trumpet in the heaviest weather, they tell me, sir. Our gents say
his father was a town-crier, and that he has inherited the family
estate."

"Ay, our gents are a set of saucy fellows, as is usually the case when
there isn't work enough aboard."

"You should make a little allowance, Sir Gervaise, for being in the ship
of a successful commander-in-chief. That makes us all carry
weather-helms among the other messes."

"Up with your signal, sir; up with your signal. I shall be obliged to
order Greenly to put you upon watch-and-watch for a month, in order to
bring you down to the old level of manners."

"Signal answered, already, Sir Gervaise. By the way, sir, I'll thank you
to request Captain Greenly to give me another quarter-master. It's
nimble work for us when there is any thing serious to do."

"You shall have him, Bunting," returned the vice-admiral, a shade
passing over his face for the moment. "I had missed poor Jack Glass, and
from seeing a spot of blood on the poop, guessed his fate. I fancied,
indeed, I heard a shot strike something behind me."

"It struck the poor fellow's head, sir, and made a noise as if a butcher
were felling an ox."

"Well—well—let us try to forget it, until something can be done for
his son, who is one of the side boys. Ah! there's Blewet keeping away in
earnest. How the deuce he is to speak us, however, is more than I can
tell."

Sir Gervaise now sent a message to his captain to say that he desired
his presence. Greenly soon appeared, and was made acquainted with the
intention of the Druid, as well as with the purport of the last signals.
By this time, the rent main-top-sail was mended, and the captain
suggested it should be set again, close-reefed, as before, and that the
main-sail should be taken in. This would lessen the Plantagenet's way,
which ship was sensibly drawing ahead of her consorts. Sir Gervaise
assenting, the change was made, and the effects were soon apparent, not
only in the movement of the ship, but in her greater ease and steadiness
of motion.