CHAPTER LXIX.
PRAYERS AT THE GUNS.
The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking place inour frigate, have already been described, also the Sunday devotions onthe half-deck; but nothing has yet been said concerning the dailymorning and evening quarters, when the men silently stand at theirguns, and the chaplain simply offers up a prayer.
Let us now enlarge upon this matter. We have plenty of time; theoccasion invites; for behold! the homeward-bound Neversink bowls alongover a jubilant sea.
Shortly after breakfast the drum beats to quarters; and among fivehundred men, scattered over all three decks, and engaged in all mannerof ways, that sudden rolling march is magical as the monitory sound towhich every good Mussulman at sunset drops to the ground whatsoever hishands might have found to do, and, throughout all Turkey, the people inconcert kneel toward their holy Mecca.
The sailors run to and fro-some up the deck-ladders, some down--to gaintheir respective stations in the shortest possible time. In threeminutes all is composed. One by one, the various officers stationedover the separate divisions of the ship then approach the FirstLieutenant on the quarter-deck, and report their respective men attheir quarters. It is curious to watch their countenances at this time.A profound silence prevails; and, emerging through the hatchway, fromone of the lower decks, a slender young officer appears, hugging hissword to his thigh, and advances through the long lanes of sailors attheir guns, his serious eye all the time fixed upon the FirstLieutenant's--his polar star. Sometimes he essays a stately andgraduated step, an erect and martial bearing, and seems full of thevast national importance of what he is about to communicate.
But when at last he gains his destination, you are amazed to perceivethat all he has to say is imparted by a Freemason touch of his cap, anda bow. He then turns and makes off to his division, perhaps passingseveral brother Lieutenants, all bound on the same errand he himselfhas just achieved. For about five minutes these officers are coming andgoing, bringing in thrilling intelligence from all quarters of thefrigate; most stoically received, however, by the First Lieutenant.With his legs apart, so as to give a broad foundation for thesuperstructure of his dignity, this gentleman stands stiff as apike-staff on the quarter-deck. One hand holds his sabre--anappurtenance altogether unnecessary at the time; and which heaccordingly tucks, point backward, under his arm, like an umbrella on asun-shiny day. The other hand is continually bobbing up and down to theleather front of his cap, in response to the reports and salute of hissubordinates, to whom he never deigns to vouchsafe a syllable, merelygoing through the motions of accepting their news, without bestowingthanks for their pains.
This continual touching of caps between officers on board a man-of-waris the reason why you invariably notice that the glazed fronts of theircaps look jaded, lack-lustre, and worn; sometimes slightlyoleaginous--though, in other respects, the cap may appear glossy andfresh. But as for the First Lieutenant, he ought to have extra payallowed to him, on account of his extraordinary outlays in cap fronts;for he it is to whom, all day long, reports of various kinds areincessantly being made by the junior Lieutenants; and no report is madeby them, however trivial, but caps are touched on the occasion. It isobvious that these individual salutes must be greatly multiplied andaggregated upon the senior Lieutenant, who must return them all.Indeed, when a subordinate officer is first promoted to that rank, hegenerally complains of the same exhaustion about the shoulder and elbowthat La Fayette mourned over, when, in visiting America, he did littleelse but shake the sturdy hands of patriotic farmers from sunrise tosunset.
The various officers of divisions having presented their respects, andmade good their return to their stations, the First Lieutenant turnsround, and, marching aft, endeavours to catch the eye of the Captain,in order to touch his own cap to that personage, and thereby, withoutadding a word of explanation, communicate the fact of all hands beingat their gun's. He is a sort of retort, or receiver-general, toconcentrate the whole sum of the information imparted to him, anddischarge it upon his superior at one touch of his cap front.
But sometimes the Captain feels out of sorts, or in ill-humour, or ispleased to be somewhat capricious, or has a fancy to show a touch ofhis omnipotent supremacy; or, peradventure, it has so happened that theFirst Lieutenant has, in some way, piqued or offended him, and he isnot unwilling to show a slight specimen of his dominion over him, evenbefore the eyes of all hands; at all events, only by some one of thesesuppositions can the singular circumstance be accounted for, thatfrequently Captain Claret would pertinaciously promenade up and downthe poop, purposely averting his eye from the First Lieutenant, whowould stand below in the most awkward suspense, waiting the first winkfrom his superior's eye.
"Now I have him!" he must have said to himself, as the Captain wouldturn toward him in his walk; "now's my time!" and up would go his handto his cap; but, alas! the Captain was off again; and the men at theguns would cast sly winks at each other as the embarrassed Lieutenantwould bite his lips with suppressed vexation.
Upon some occasions this scene would be repeated several times, till atlast Captain Claret, thinking, that in the eyes of all hands, hisdignity must by this time be pretty well bolstered, would stalk towardshis subordinate, looking him full in the eyes; whereupon up goes hishand to the cap front, and the Captain, nodding his acceptance of thereport, descends from his perch to the quarter-deck.
By this time the stately Commodore slowly emerges from his cabin, andsoon stands leaning alone against the brass rails of theafter-hatchway. In passing him, the Captain makes a profoundsalutation, which his superior returns, in token that the Captain is atperfect liberty to proceed with the ceremonies of the hour.
Marching on, Captain Claret at last halts near the main-mast, at thehead of a group of the ward-room officers, and by the side of theChaplain. At a sign from his finger, the brass band strikes up thePortuguese hymn. This over, from Commodore to hammock-boy, all handsuncover, and the Chaplain reads a prayer. Upon its conclusion, the drumbeats the retreat, and the ship's company disappear from the guns. Atsea or in harbour, this ceremony is repeated every morning and evening.
By those stationed on the quarter-deck the Chaplain is distinctlyheard; but the quarter-deck gun division embraces but a tenth part ofthe ship's company, many of whom are below, on the main-deck, where notone syllable of the prayer can be heard. This seemed a greatmisfortune; for I well knew myself how blessed and soothing it was tomingle twice every day in these peaceful devotions, and, with theCommodore, and Captain, and smallest boy, unite in acknowledgingAlmighty God. There was also a touch of the temporary equality of theChurch about it, exceedingly grateful to a man-of-war's-man like me.
My carronade-gun happened to be directly opposite the brass railingagainst which the Commodore invariably leaned at prayers. Brought soclose together, twice every day, for more than a year, we could not butbecome intimately acquainted with each other's faces. To this fortunatecircumstance it is to be ascribed, that some time after reaching home,we were able to recognise each other when we chanced to meet inWashington, at a ball given by the Russian Minister, the Baron deBodisco. And though, while on board the frigate, the Commodore never inany manner personally addressed me--nor did I him--yet, at theMinister's social entertainment, we _there_ became exceedingly chatty;nor did I fail to observe, among that crowd of foreign dignitaries andmagnates from all parts of America, that my worthy friend did notappear so exalted as when leaning, in solitary state, against the brassrailing of the Neversink's quarter-deck. Like many other gentlemen, heappeared to the best advantage, and was treated with the most deferencein the bosom of his home, the frigate.
Our morning and evening quarters were agreeably diversified for someweeks by a little circumstance, which to some of us at least, alwaysseemed very pleasing.
At Callao, half of the Commodore's cabin had been hospitably yielded tothe family of a certain aristocratic-looking magnate, who was goingambassador from Peru to the Court of the Brazils, at Rio.
Thisdignified diplomatist sported a long, twirling mustache, that almostenveloped his mouth. The sailors said he looked like a rat with histeeth through a bunch of oakum, or a St. Jago monkey peeping through aprickly-pear bush.
He was accompanied by a very beautiful wife, and a still more beautifullittle daughter, about six years old. Between this dark-eyed littlegipsy and our chaplain there soon sprung up a cordial love and goodfeeling, so much so, that they were seldom apart. And whenever the drumbeat to quarters, and the sailors were hurrying to their stations, thislittle signorita would outrun them all to gain her own quarters at thecapstan, where she would stand by the chaplain's side, grasping hishand, and looking up archly in his face.
It was a sweet relief from the domineering sternness of our martialdiscipline--a sternness not relaxed even at our devotions before thealtar of the common God of commodore and cabin-boy--to see that lovelylittle girl standing among the thirty-two pounders, and now and thencasting a wondering, commiserating glance at the array of grim seamenaround her.