Peter Simple

I have already described pay-day on board of a man-of-war, but I think, that the two days before sailing are even more unpleasant; although, generally speaking, all our money being spent, we are not sorry when we once are fairly out of harbour, and find ourselves in blue water. The men never work well on those days: they are thinking of their wives and sweethearts, of the pleasure they had when at liberty on shore, where they might get drunk without punishment; and many of them are either half drunk at the time, or suffering from the effects of previous intoxication. The ship is in disorder, and crowded with the variety of stock and spare stores which are obliged to be taken on board in a hurry, and have not yet been properly secured in their places. The first lieutenant is cross, the officers are grave, and the poor midshipmen with all their own little comforts to attend to, are harassed and drive about like posthorses. “Mr Simple,” inquired the first lieutenant, “where do you come from?”

“From the gun wharf, sir, with the gunner’s spare blocks, and breechings.”

“Very well—send the marines aft to clear the boat, and pipe away the first cutter. Mr Simple, jump into the first cutter, and go to Mount Wise for the officers. Be careful that none of your men leave the boat. Come, be smart.”

Now, I had been away the whole morning, and it was then half-past one, and I had had no dinner; but I said nothing, and went into the boat. As soon as I was off, O’Brien, who stood by Mr Falcon, said, “Peter was thinking of his dinner, poor fellow!”

“I really quite forgot it,” replied the first lieutenant, “there is so much to do. He is a willing boy, and he shall dine in the gun-room when he comes back.” And so I did—so I lost nothing by not expostulating, and gained more of the favour of the first lieutenant, who never forgot what he called zeal. But the hardest trial of the whole is to the midshipman who is sent to the boat to purchase the supplies for the cabin and gun-room on the day before the ship’s sailing. It was my misfortune to be ordered upon that service this time, and that very unexpectedly. I had been ordered to dress myself to take the gig on shore for the captain’s orders, and was walking the deck with my very best uniform and sidearms, when the marine officer, who was the gun-room caterer, came up to the first lieutenant and asked him for a boat. The boat was manned, and a midshipman ordered to take charge of it; but when he came up, the first lieutenant recollecting that he had come off two days before with only half his boat’s crew, would not trust him, and calling out to me, “Here, Mr Simple, I must send you in this boat; mind you are careful that none of the men leave it; and bring off the serjeant of marines, who is on shore looking for the men who have broken their liberty.” Although I could not but feel proud of the compliment, yet I did not much like going in my very best uniform, and would have run down and changed it, but the marine officer and all the people were in the boat, and I could not keep it waiting, so down the side I went, and we shoved off. We had, besides the boat’s crew, the marine officer, the purser, the gun-room steward, the captain’s steward, and the pursers steward; so that we were pretty full. It blew hard from the S.E., and there was a sea running, but as the tide was flowing into the harbour there was not much bubble. We hoisted the foresail, flew before the wind and tide, and in quarter of an hour we were at Mutton Cove, when the marine officer expressed his wish to land. The landing-place was crowded with boats; and it was not without sundry exchanges of foul words and oaths, and the bow-men dashing the points of their boat-hooks into the shore-boats, to make them keep clear of us, that we forced our way to the beach. The marine officer and all the stewards then left the boat, and I had to look after the men. I had not been there three minutes before the bowman said that his wife was on the wharf with his clothes from the wash, and begged leave to go and fetch them. I refused, telling him that she could bring them to him. “Vy, now, Mr Simple,” said the woman, “ar’n’t you a nice lady’s man, to go for to ax me to muddle my way through all the dead dogs, cabbage-stalks, and stinking hakes’ heads, with my bran new shoes and clean stockings?” I looked at her, and sure enough she was, as they say in France, bien chaussée. “Come, Mr Simple, let him out to come for his clothes, and you’ll see that he’s back in a moment.” I did not like to refuse her, as it was very dirty and wet, and the shingle was strewed with all that she had mentioned. The bow-man made a spring out with his boat-hook, threw it back, went up to his wife, and commenced talking with her, while I watched him. “If you please, sir, there’s my young woman come down, mayn’t I speak to her?” said another of the men. I turned round, and refused him. He expostulated, and begged very hard, but I was resolute; however, when I again turned my eyes to watch the bowman, he and his wife were gone. “There,” says I to the coxswain, “I knew it would be so; you see Hickman is off.”

“Only gone to take a parting glass, sir,” replied the coxswain; “he’ll be here directly.”

“I hope so; but I’m afraid not.” After this, I refused all the solicitations of the men to be allowed to leave the boat, but I permitted them to have some beer brought down to them. The gun-boat steward then came back with a basket of soft-tack, i.e., loaves of bread, and told me that the marine officer requested I would allow two of the men to go up with him to Glencross’ shop, to bring down some of the stores. Of course I sent two of the men, and told the steward if he saw Hickman, to bring him down to the boat.

By this time many of the women belonging to the ship had assembled, and commenced a noisy conversation with the boat’s crew. One brought one article for Jim, another some clothes for Bill; some of them climbed into the boat, and sat with the men—others came and went, bringing beer and tobacco, which the men desired them to purchase. The crowd, the noise, and confusion, were so great, that it was with the utmost difficulty that I could keep my eyes on all my men, who, one after another, made an attempt to leave the boat. Just at that time came down the sergeant of marines, with three of our men whom he had picked up, roaring drunk. They were tumbled into the boat, and increased the difficulty, as in looking after those who were riotous, and would try to leave the boat by force, I was not so well able to keep my eyes on those who were sober. The sergeant then went up after another man, and I told him also about Hickman. About half-an-hour afterwards the steward came down with the two men, loaded with cabbages, baskets of eggs, strings of onions, crockery of all descriptions, paper parcels of groceries, legs and shoulders of mutton, which were crowded in, until not only the stern-sheets, but all under the thwarts of the boat was also crammed full. They told me that they had a few more things to bring down, and that the marine officer had gone to Stonehouse to see his wife, so that they should be down long before him. In half-an-hour more, during which I had the greatest difficulty to manage the boat’s crew they returned with a dozen geese, and two ducks, tied by the legs, but without the two men, who had given them the slip, so that there were now three men gone, and I knew Mr Falcon would be very angry, for they were three of the smartest men in the ship. I was now determined not to run the risk of losing more men, and I ordered the boat’s crew to shove off, that I might lie at the wharf, where they could not climb up. They were very mutinous, grumbled very much, and would hardly obey me; the fact is, they had drunk a great deal, and some of them were more than half tipsy. However, at last I was obeyed, but not without being saluted with a shower of invectives from the women, and the execrations of the men belonging to the wherries and shore boats which were washed against our sides by the swell. The weather had become much worse and looked very threatening. I waited an hour more, when the sergeant of marines came down with two more men, one of whom, to my great joy, was Hickman. This made me more comfortable, as I was not answerable for the other two; still I was in great trouble from the riotous and insolent behaviour of the boat’s crew, and the other men brought down by the sergeant of marines. One of them fell back into a basket of eggs, and smashed them all to atoms; still the marine officer did not come down and it was getting late. The tide being now at the ebb, running out against the wind, there was a very heavy sea, and I had to go off to the ship with a boat deeply laden, and most of the people in her in a state of intoxication. The coxswain, who was the only one who was sober, recommended our shoving off, as it would soon be dark, and some accident would happen. I reflected a minute, and agreeing with him, I ordered the oars to be got out, and we shoved off, the sergeant of marines and the gun-room steward perched up in the bows—drunken men, ducks and geese, lying together at the bottom of the boat—the stern sheets loaded up to the gunwale, and the other passengers and myself sitting how we could among the crockery and a variety of other articles with which the boat was crowded. It was a scene of much confusion—the half-drunken boat’s crew catching crabs, and falling forward upon the others—those who were quite drunk swearing they would pull. “Lay on your oar, Sullivan; you were doing more harm than good. You drunken rascal, I’ll report you as soon as we get on board.”

“How the devil can I pull, your honour, when there’s that fellow Jones breaking the very back o’ me with his oar, and he never touching the water all the while?”

“You lie,” cried Jones; “I’m pulling the boat by myself against the whole of the larboard oars.”

“He’s rowing dry, your honour—only making bilave.”

“Do you call this rowing dry?” cried another, as a sea swept over the boat, fore and aft, wetting every body to the skin.

“Now, your honour, just look and see if I a’n’t pulling the very arms off me?” cried Sullivan.

“Is there water enough to cross the bridge, Swinburne?” said I to the coxswain.

“Plenty, Mr Simple; it is but quarter ebb, and the sooner we are on board the better.”

We were now past Devil’s Point, and the sea was very heavy: the boat plunged in the trough, so that I was afraid that we should break her back. She was soon half full of water, and the two after oars were laid in for the men to bale. “Plase your honour, hadn’t I better cut free the legs of them ducks and geese, and allow them to swim for their lives?” cried Sullivan, resting on his oar; “the poor birds will be drowned else in their own iliment.”

“No, no—pull away as hard as you can.”

By this time the drunken men in the bottom of the boat began to be very uneasy, from the quantity of water which washed about them, and made several staggering attempts to get on their legs. They fell down again upon the ducks and geese, the major part of which were saved from being drowned by being suffocated. The sea on the Bridge was very heavy: and although the tide swept us out, we were nearly swamped. Soft bread was washing about the bottom of the boat; the parcels of sugar, pepper, and salt, were wet through with the salt water, and a sudden jerk threw the captain’s steward, who was seated upon the gunwale close to the after-oar, right upon the whole of the crockery and eggs, which added to the mass of destruction. A few more seas shipped completed the job, and the gun-room steward was in despair. “That’s a darling!” cried Sullivan: “the politest boat in the whole fleet. She makes more bows and curtsys than the finest couple in the land. Give way, my lads, and work the crater stuff out of your elbows, and the first lieutenant will see us all so sober, and so wet in the bargain, and think we’re all so dry, that perhaps he’ll be after giving us a raw nip when we get on board.”

In a quarter of an hour we were nearly alongside, but the men pulled so badly, and the sea was so great, that we missed the ship, and went astern. They veered out a buoy with a line, which we got hold of, and were hauled up by the marines and after guard, the boat plunging bows under, and drenching us through and through. At last we got under the counter, and I climbed up by the stern ladder. Mr Falcon was on deck, and very angry at the boat not coming alongside properly. “I thought, Mr Simple, that you knew by this time how to bring a boat alongside.”

“So I do, sir, I hope,” replied I; “but the boat was so full of water, and the men would not give way.”

“What men has the sergeant brought on board?”

“Three, sir,” replied I, shivering with the cold, and unhappy at my very best uniform being spoiled.

“Are all your boat’s crew with you, sir?”

“No, sir, there are two left on shore; they—”

“Not a word, sir. Up to the mast-head, and stay there till I call you down. If it were not so late, I would send you on shore, and not receive you on board again without the men. Up, sir, immediately.”

I did not venture to explain, but up I went. It was very cold, blowing hard from the S.E., with heavy squalls; I was so wet, that the wind appeared to blow through me, and it was now nearly dark. I reached the cross-trees, and when I was seated there, I felt that I had done my duty, and had not been fairly treated. During this time, the boat had been hauled up alongside to clear, and a pretty clearance there was. All the ducks and geese were dead, the eggs and crockery all broken, the grocery almost washed away; in short, as O’Brien observed, there was “a very pretty general average.” Mr Falcon was still very angry. “Who are the men missing?” inquired he of Swinburne, the coxswain, as he came up by the side.

“Williams and Sweetman, sir.”

“Two of the smartest topmen, I am told. It really is too provoking; there is not a midshipman in the ship I can trust. I must work all day, and get no assistance. The service is really going to the devil now, with the young men who are sent on board to be brought up as officers, and who are above doing their duty. What made you so late, Swinburne?”

“Waiting for the marine officer, who went to Stonehouse to see his wife; but Mr Simple would not wait any longer, as it was getting dark, and we had so many drunken men in the boat.”

“Mr Simple did right. I wish Mr Harrison would stay on shore with his wife altogether—it’s really trifling with the service. Pray, Mr Swinburne, why had not you your eyes about you, if Mr Simple was so careless? How came you to allow these men to leave the boat?”

“The men were ordered up by the marine officer, to bring down your stores, sir, and they gave the steward the slip. It was no fault of Mr Simple’s, nor of mine either. We laid off at the wharf for two hours before we started, or we should have lost more; for what can a poor lad do, when he has charge of drunken men who will not obey orders?” And the coxswain looked up at the mast-head, as much as to say, Why is he sent there? “I’ll take my oath, sir,” continued Swinburne, “that Mr Simple never put his foot out of the boat, from the time that he went over the side until be came on board; and that no young gentleman could have done his duty more strictly.”

Mr Falcon looked very angry at first, at the coxswain speaking so freely, but said nothing. He took one or two turns on the deck, and then hailing the mast-head, desired me to come down. But I could not; my limbs were so cramped with the wind blowing upon my wet clothes, that I could not move. He bailed again; I heard him, but was not able to answer. One of the top men then came up, and perceiving my condition, hailed the deck, and said he believed I was dying for I could not move, and that he dared not leave for fear I should fall. O’Brien, who had been on deck all the while, jumped up the rigging, and was soon at the cross-trees where I was. He sent the topman down into the top for a sail-block and the studding-sail haulyards, made a whip, and lowered me on deck. I was immediately put into my hammock; and the surgeon ordering me some hot brandy-and-water, and plenty of blankets, in a few hours I was quite restored.

O’Brien, who was at my bedside, said, “Never mind, Peter, and don’t be angry with Mr Falcon, for he is very sorry.”

“I am not angry, O’Brien: for Mr Falcon has been too kind to me not to make me forgive him for being once hasty.”

The surgeon came to my hammock, gave me some more hot drink, desired me to go to sleep, and I woke the next morning quite well.

When I came into the berth, my messmates asked me how I was, and many of them railed against the tyranny of Mr Falcon; but I took his part, saying, that he was hasty in this instance, perhaps, but that, generally speaking he was an excellent and very just officer. Some agreed with me, but others did not. One of them, who was always in disgrace, sneered at me, and said, “Peter reads the Bible, and knows that if you smite one cheek, he must offer the other. Now, I’ll answer for it, if I pull his right ear, he will offer me his left.” So saying, he lugged me by the ear, upon which I knocked him down for his trouble. The berth was then cleared away for a fight, and in a quarter of an hour my opponent gave in; but I suffered a little, and had a very black eye. I had hardly time to wash myself and change my shirt, which was bloody, when I was summoned on the quarter-deck. I arrived, I found Mr Falcon walking up and down. He looked very hard at me, but did not ask me any questions as to the cause of my unusual appearance.

“Mr Simple,” said he, “I sent for you to beg your pardon for my behaviour to you last night, which was not only very hasty but very unjust. I find that you were not to blame for the loss of the men.”

I felt very sorry for him when I heard him speak so handsomely; and to make his mind more easy, I told him that although I certainly was not to blame for the loss of those two men, still I had done wrong in permitting Hickman to leave the boat; and that had not the sergeant picked him up, I should have come off without him, and therefore I did deserve the punishment which I had received.

“Mr Simple,” replied Mr Falcon, “I respect you, and admire your feelings: still I was to blame, and it is my duty to apologise. Now go down below I would have requested the pleasure of your company to dinner, but I perceive that something else has occurred, which, under any other circumstances, I would have inquired into, but at present I shall not.”

I touched my hat and went below. In the meantime O’Brien had been made acquainted with the occasion of the quarrel, which he did not fail to explain to Mr Falcon, who, O’Brien declared, “was not the least bit in the world angry with me for what had occurred.” Indeed, after that, Mr Falcon always treated me with the greatest kindness, and employed me on every duty which he considered of consequence. He was a sincere friend; for he did not allow me to neglect my duty, but, at the same time, treated me with consideration and confidence.

The marine officer came on board very angry at being left behind, and talked about a court-martial on me for disrespect, and neglect of stores intrusted to my charge; but O’Brien told me not to mind him or what he said, “It’s my opinion, Peter, that the gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime.”

“What’s that, O’Brien?” replied I; “I never heard of it.”

“Why, Peter,” rejoined he, “it’s the stuff they feed fools on.”

Chapter Twenty Nine

A long conversation with Mr Chucks—The advantages of having a prayer-book in your pocket—We run down the trades—Swinburne, the quarter-master, and his yarns—the captain falls sick

The next day the captain came on board with sealed orders, with directions not to open them until off Ushant. In the afternoon, we weighed and made sail. It was a fine northerly wind, and the Bay of Biscay was smooth. We bore up, set all the studding sails, and ran along at the rate of eleven miles an hour. As I could not appear on the quarter-deck, I was put down on the sick list. Captain Savage, who was very particular, asked what was the matter with me. The surgeon replied, “An inflamed eye.” The captain asked no more questions; and I took care to keep out of his way. I walked in the evening on the forecastle, when I renewed my intimacy with Mr Chucks, the boatswain, to whom I gave a full narrative of all my adventures in France. “I have been ruminating, Mr Simple,” said he, “how such a stripling as you could have gone through so much fatigue, and now I know how it is. It is blood, Mr Simple—all blood—you are descended from good blood; and there’s as much difference between nobility and the lower classes, as there is between a racer and a cart-horse.”

“I cannot agree with you, Mr Chucks. Common people are quite as brave as those who are well-born. You do not mean to say that you are not brave—that the seamen on board this ship are not brave?”

“No, no, Mr Simple but as I observed about myself, my mother was a woman who could not be trusted, and there is no saying who was my father; and she was a very pretty woman to boot, which levels all distinctions for the moment. As for the seamen, God knows, I should do them an injustice if I did not acknowledge that they were as brave as lions. But there are two kinds of bravery, Mr Simple—the bravery of the moment, and the courage of bearing up for a long while. Do you understand me?”

“I think I do; but still do not agree with you. Who will bear more fatigue than our sailors?”

“Yes, yes, Mr Simple, that is because they are endured to it from their hard life: but if the common sailors were all such little thread-papers as you, and had been brought up so carefully, they would not have gone through all you have. That’s my opinion, Mr Simple—there’s nothing like blood.”

“I think, Mr Chucks, you carry your ideas on that subject too far.”

“I do not Mr Simple; and I think, moreover, that he who has more to lose than another will always strive more. But a common man only fights for his own credit; but when a man is descended from a long line of people famous in history, and has a coat in arms, criss-crossed, and stuck all over with lions and unicorns to support the dignity of—why, has he not to fight for the credit of all his ancestors, whose names would be disgraced if he didn’t behave well?”

“I agree with you, Mr Chucks, in the latter remark, to a certain extent.”

“Mr Simple, we never know the value of good descent when we have it, but it’s when we cannot get it, that we can ’preciate it. I wish I had been born a nobleman—I do, by heavens!” and Mr Chucks slapped his fist against the funnel, so as to make it ring again. “Well, Mr Simple,” continued he, after a pause, “it is however a great comfort to me that I have parted company with that fool, Mr Muddle, with his twenty-six thousand and odd years, and that old woman, Dispart the gunner. You don’t know how those two men used to fret me; it was very silly, but I couldn’t help it. Now the warrant officers of this ship appear to be very respectable, quiet men who know their duty, and attend to it, and are not too familiar, which I hate and detest. You went home, Mr Simple, to your friends, of course, when you arrived in England?”

“I did, Mr Chucks, and spent some days with my grandfather, Lord Privilege, whom you say you met at dinner.”

“Well, and how was the old gentleman?” inquired the boatswain with a sigh.

“Very well, considering his age.”

“Now do, pray, Mr Simple, tell me all about it; from the time that the servants met you at the door until you went away. Describe to me the house and all the rooms, for I like to hear of all these things, although I can never see them again.”

To please Mr Chucks, I entered into a full detail, which he listened to very attentively, until it was late, and then with difficulty would he permit me to leave off, and go down to my hammock.

The next day, rather a singular circumstance occurred. One of the midshipmen was mast-headed by the second lieutenant, for not waiting on deck until he was relieved. He was down below when he was sent for, and expecting to be punished from what the head-master told him, he thrust the first book into his jacket-pocket which he could lay his hand on, to amuse himself at the mast-head, and then ran on deck. As he surmised he was immediately ordered aloft. He had not been there more than five minutes, when a sudden squall carried away the main-topgallant mast, and away he went flying over to leeward (for the wind: had shifted, and the yards were now braced up). Had he gone overboard as he could not swim, he would in all probability have been drowned; but the book in his pocket brought him up in the jaws of the fore-brace, block, where he hung until taken out by the main-topmen. Now it so happened that it was a prayer-book which he had laid hold of in his hurry, and those who were superstitious declared it was all owing to his having taken a religious book with him. I did not think so, as any other book would have answered the purpose quite as well: still the midshipman himself thought so, and it was productive of good, as he was a sad scamp, and behaved much better afterwards.