CHAPTER LXXXIII.
A MAN-OF-WAR COLLEGE.
In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goesoverboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, curses mix withtears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octaveof those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own. Checkers wereplayed in the waist at the time of Shenly's burial; and as the bodyplunged, a player swept the board. The bubbles had hardly burst, whenall hands were _piped down_ by the Boatswain, and the old jests wereheard again, as if Shenly himself were there to hear.
This man-of-war life has not left me unhardened. I cannot stop to weepover Shenly now; that would be false to the life I depict; wearing nomourning weeds, I resume the task of portraying our man-of-war world.
Among the various other vocations, all driven abreast on board of theNeversink, was that of the schoolmaster. There were two academies inthe frigate. One comprised the apprentice boys, who, upon certain daysof the week, were indoctrinated in the mysteries of the primer by aninvalid corporal of marines, a slender, wizzen-cheeked man, who hadreceived a liberal infant-school education.
The other school was a far more pretentious affair--a sort of army andnavy seminary combined, where mystical mathematical problems weresolved by the midshipmen, and great ships-of-the-line were navigatedover imaginary shoals by unimaginable observations of the moon and thestars, and learned lectures were delivered upon great guns, small arms,and the curvilinear lines described by bombs in the air.
"_The Professor_" was the title bestowed upon the erudite gentleman whoconducted this seminary, and by that title alone was he knownthroughout the ship. He was domiciled in the Ward-room, and circulatedthere on a social par with the Purser, Surgeon, and other_non-combatants_ and Quakers. By being advanced to the dignity of apeerage in the Ward-room, Science and Learning were ennobled in theperson of this Professor, even as divinity was honoured in the Chaplainenjoying the rank of a spiritual peer.
Every other afternoon, while at sea, the Professor assembled his pupilson the half-deck, near the long twenty-four pounders. A bass drum-headwas his desk, his pupils forming a semicircle around him, seated onshot-boxes and match-tubs.
They were in the jelly of youth, and this learned Professor poured intotheir susceptible hearts all the gentle gunpowder maxims of war.Presidents of Peace Societies and Superintendents of Sabbath-schools,must it not have been a most interesting sight?
But the Professor himself was a noteworthy person. A tall, thin,spectacled man, about forty years old, with a student's stoop in hisshoulders, and wearing uncommonly scanty pantaloons, exhibiting anundue proportion of his boots. In early life he had been a cadet in themilitary academy of West Point; but, becoming very weak-sighted, andthereby in a good manner disqualified for active service in the field,he had declined entering the army, and accepted the office of Professorin the Navy.
His studies at West Point had thoroughly grounded him in a knowledge ofgunnery; and, as he was not a little of a pedant, it was sometimesamusing, when the sailors were at quarters, to hear him criticise theirevolutions at the batteries. He would quote Dr. Hutton's Tracts on thesubject, also, in the original, "_The French Bombardier_," and wind upby Italian passages from the "_Prattica Manuale dell' Artiglieria_."
Though not required by the Navy regulations to instruct his scholars inaught but the application of mathematics to navigation, yet besidesthis, and besides instructing them in the theory of gunnery, he alsosought to root them in the theory of frigate and fleet tactics. To besure, he himself did not know how to splice a rope or furl a sail; and,owing to his partiality for strong coffee, he was apt to be nervouswhen we fired salutes; yet all this did not prevent him from deliveringlectures on cannonading and "breaking the enemy's line."
He had arrived at his knowledge of tactics by silent, solitary study,and earnest meditation in the sequestered retreat of his state-room.His case was somewhat parallel to the Scotchman's--John. Clerk, Esq.,of Eldin--who, though he had never been to sea, composed a quartotreatise on fleet-fighting, which to this day remains a text-book; andhe also originated a nautical manoeuvre, which has given to Englandmany a victory over her foes.
Now there was a large black-board, something like a great-guntarget--only it was square--which during the professor's lectures wasplaced upright on the gun-deck, supported behind by threeboarding-pikes. And here he would chalk out diagrams of great fleetengagements; making marks, like the soles of shoes, for the ships, anddrawing a dog-vane in one corner to denote the assumed direction of thewind. This done, with a cutlass he would point out every spot ofinterest.
"Now, young gentlemen, the board before you exhibits the disposition ofthe British West Indian squadron under Rodney, when, early on themorning of the 9th of April, in the year of our blessed Lord 1782, hediscovered part of the French fleet, commanded by the Count de Grasse,lying under the north end of the Island of Dominica. It was at thisjuncture that the Admiral gave the signal for the British line toprepare for battle, and stand on. D'ye understand, young gentlemen?Well, the British van having nearly fetched up with the centre of theenemy--who, be it remembered, were then on the starboard tack--andRodney's centre and rear being yet becalmed under the lee of theland--the question I ask you is, What should Rodney now do?"
"Blaze away, by all means!" responded a rather confident reefer, whohad zealously been observing the diagram.
"But, sir, his centre and rear are still becalmed, and his van has notyet closed with the enemy."
"Wait till he _does_ come in range, and _then_ blaze away," said thereefer.
"Permit me to remark, Mr. Pert, that '_blaze away_' is not a strictlytechnical term; and also permit me to hint, Mr. Pert, that you shouldconsider the subject rather more deeply before you hurry forward youropinion."
This rebuke not only abashed Mr. Pert, but for a time intimidated therest; and the professor was obliged to proceed, and extricate theBritish fleet by himself. He concluded by awarding Admiral Rodney thevictory, which must have been exceedingly gratifying to the familypride of the surviving relatives and connections of that distinguishedhero.
"Shall I clean the board, sir?" now asked Mr. Pert, brightening up.
"No, sir; not till you have saved that crippled French ship in thecorner. That ship, young gentlemen, is the Glorieuse: you perceive sheis cut off from her consorts, and the whole British fleet is givingchase to her. Her bowsprit is gone; her rudder is torn away; she hasone hundred round shot in her hull, and two thirds of her men are deador dying. What's to be done? the wind being at northeast by north?"
"Well, sir," said Mr. Dash, a chivalric young gentleman from Virginia,"I wouldn't strike yet; I'd nail my colours to the main-royal-mast! Iwould, by Jove!"
"That would not save your ship, sir; besides, your main-mast has goneby the board."
"I think, sir," said Mr. Slim, a diffident youth, "I think, sir, Iwould haul back the fore-top-sail."
"And why so? of what service would _that_ be, I should like to know,Mr. Slim?"
"I can't tell exactly; but I think it would help her a little," was thetimid reply.
"Not a whit, sir--not one particle; besides, you can't haul back yourfore-top-sail--your fore-mast is lying across your forecastle."
"Haul back the main-top-sail, then," suggested another.
"Can't be done; your main-mast, also, has gone by the board!"
"Mizzen-top-sail?" meekly suggested little Boat-Plug.
"Your mizzen-top-mast, let me inform you, sir, was shot down in thefirst of the fight!"
"Well, sir," cried Mr. Dash, "I'd tack ship, anyway; bid 'em good-bywith a broadside; nail my flag to the keel, if there was no otherplace; and blow my brains out on the poop!"
"Idle, idle, sir! worse than idle! you are carried away, Mr. Dash, byyour ardent Southern temperament! Let me inform you, young gentlemen,that this ship," touching it with his cutlass, "_cannot_ be saved."
Then, throwing down his cutlass, "Mr. Pert, have the goodness to handme one of th
ose cannon-balls from the rack."
Balancing the iron sphere in one hand, the learned professor beganfingering it with the other, like Columbus illustrating the rotundityof the globe before the Royal Commission of Castilian Ecclesiastics.
"Young gentlemen, I resume my remarks on the passage of a shot _invacuo_, which remarks were interrupted yesterday by general quarters.After quoting that admirable passage in 'Spearman's British Gunner,' Ithen laid it down, you remember, that the path of a shot _in vacuo_describes a parabolic curve. I now add that, agreeably to the methodpursued by the illustrious Newton in treating the subject ofcurvilinear motion, I consider the _trajectory_ or curve described by amoving body in space as consisting of a series of right lines,described in successive intervals of time, and constituting thediagonals of parallelograms formed in a vertical plane between thevertical deflections caused by gravity and the production of the lineof motion which has been described in each preceding interval of time.This must be obvious; for, if you say that the passage _in vacuo_ ofthis cannon-ball, now held in my hand, would describe otherwise than aseries of right lines, etc., then you are brought to the _Reductio adAbsurdum_, that the diagonals of parallelograms are----"
"All hands reef top-sail!" was now thundered forth by the boatswain'smates. The shot fell from the professor's palm; his spectacles droppedon his nose, and the school tumultuously broke up, the pupilsscrambling up the ladders with the sailors, who had been overhearingthe lecture.