CHAPTER LXXIX.
HOW MAN-OF-WAR'S-MEN DIE AT SEA.
Shenly, my sick mess-mate, was a middle-aged, handsome, intelligentseaman, whom some hard calamity, or perhaps some unfortunate excess,must have driven into the Navy. He told me he had a wife and twochildren in Portsmouth, in the state of New Hampshire. Upon beingexamined by Cuticle, the surgeon, he was, on purely scientific grounds,reprimanded by that functionary for not having previously appearedbefore him. He was immediately consigned to one of the invalid cots asa serious case. His complaint was of long standing; a pulmonary one,now attended with general prostration.
The same evening he grew so much worse, that according to man-of-warusage, we, his mess-mates, were officially notified that we must taketurns at sitting up with him through the night. We at once made ourarrangements, allotting two hours for a watch. Not till the third nightdid my own turn come round. During the day preceding, it was stated atthe mess that our poor mess-mate was run down completely; the surgeonhad given him up.
At four bells (two o'clock in the morning), I went down to relieve oneof my mess-mates at the sick man's cot. The profound quietude of thecalm pervaded the entire frigate through all her decks. The watch onduty were dozing on the carronade-slides, far above the sick-bay; andthe watch below were fast asleep in their hammocks, on the same deckwith the invalid.
Groping my way under these two hundred sleepers, I en-tered thehospital. A dim lamp was burning on the table, which was screwed downto the floor. This light shed dreary shadows over the white-washedwalls of the place, making it look look a whited sepulchre underground.The wind-sail had collapsed, and lay motionless on the deck. The lowgroans of the sick were the only sounds to be heard; and as I advanced,some of them rolled upon me their sleepless, silent, tormented eyes.
"Fan him, and keep his forehead wet with this sponge," whispered mymess-mate, whom I came to relieve, as I drew near to Shenly's cot, "andwash the foam from his mouth; nothing more can be done for him. If hedies before your watch is out, call the Surgeon's steward; he sleeps inthat hammock," pointing it out. "Good-bye, good-bye, mess-mate," hethen whispered, stooping over the sick man; and so saying, he left theplace.
Shenly was lying on his back. His eyes were closed, forming twodark-blue pits in his face; his breath was coming and going with aslow, long-drawn, mechanical precision. It was the mere foundering hullof a man that was before me; and though it presented the well-knownfeatures of my mess-mate, yet I knew that the living soul of Shenlynever more would look out of those eyes.
So warm had it been during the day, that the Surgeon himself, whenvisiting the sick-bay, had entered it in his shirt-sleeves; and so warmwas now the night that even in the lofty top I had worn but a looselinen frock and trowsers. But in this subterranean sick-bay, buried inthe very bowels of the ship, and at sea cut off from all ventilation,the heat of the night calm was intense. The sweat dripped from me as ifI had just emerged from a bath; and stripping myself naked to thewaist, I sat by the side of the cot, and with a bit of crumpledpaper--put into my hand by the sailor I had relieved--kept fanning themotionless white face before me.
I could not help thinking, as I gazed, whether this man's fate had notbeen accelerated by his confinement in this heated furnace below; andwhether many a sick man round me might not soon improve, if butpermitted to swing his hammock in the airy vacancies of the half-deckabove, open to the port-holes, but reserved for the promenade of theofficers.
At last the heavy breathing grew more and more irregular, and graduallydying away, left forever the unstirring form of Shenly.
Calling the Surgeon's steward, he at once told me to rouse themaster-at-arms, and four or five of my mess-mates. The master-at-armsapproached, and immediately demanded the dead man's bag, which wasaccordingly dragged into the bay. Having been laid on the floor, andwashed with a bucket of water which I drew from the ocean, the body wasthen dressed in a white frock, trowsers, and neckerchief, taken out ofthe bag. While this was going on, the master-at-arms--standing over theoperation with his rattan, and directing myself andmess-mates--indulged in much discursive levity, intended to manifesthis fearlessness of death.
Pierre, who had been a "_chummy_" of Shenly's, spent much time in tyingthe neckerchief in an elaborate bow, and affectionately adjusting thewhite frock and trowsers; but the master-at-arms put an end to this byordering us to carry the body up to the gun-deck. It was placed on thedeath-board (used for that purpose), and we proceeded with it towardthe main hatchway, awkwardly crawling under the tiers of hammocks,where the entire watch-below was sleeping. As, unavoidably, we rockedtheir pallets, the man-of-war's-men would cry out against us; throughthe mutterings of curses, the corpse reached the hatchway. Here theboard slipped, and some time was spent in readjusting the body. Atlength we deposited it on the gun-deck, between two guns, and aunion-jack being thrown over it for a pall, I was left again to watchby its side.
I had not been seated on my shot-box three minutes, when themessenger-boy passed me on his way forward; presently the slow, regularstroke of the ship's great bell was heard, proclaiming through the calmthe expiration of the watch; it was four o'clock in the morning.
Poor Shenly! thought I, that sounds like your knell! and here you liebecalmed, in the last calm of all!
Hardly had the brazen din died away, when the Boatswain and his matesmustered round the hatchway, within a yard or two of the corpse, andthe usual thundering call was given for the watch below to turn out.
"All the starboard-watch, ahoy! On deck there, below! Wide awake there,sleepers!"
But the dreamless sleeper by my side, who had so often sprung from hishammock at that summons, moved not a limb; the blue sheet over him layunwrinkled.
A mess-mate of the other watch now came to relieve me; but I told him Ichose to remain where I was till daylight came.