CHAPTER LXXXIX.
THE SOCIAL STATE IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
Bur the floggings at the gangway and the floggings through the fleet,the stealings, highway robberies, swearings, gamblings, blasphemings,thimble-riggings, smugglings, and tipplings of a man-of-war, whichthroughout this narrative have been here and there sketched from thelife, by no means comprise the whole catalogue of evil. One singlefeature is full of significance.
All large ships of war carry soldiers, called marines. In the Neversinkthere was something less than fifty, two thirds of whom were Irishmen.They were officered by a Lieutenant, an Orderly Sergeant, twoSergeants, and two Corporals, with a drummer and fifer. The custom,generally, is to have a marine to each gun; which rule usuallyfurnishes the scale for distributing the soldiers in vessels ofdifferent force.
Our marines had no other than martial duty to perform; excepting that,at sea, they stood watches like the sailors, and now and then lazilyassisted in pulling the ropes. But they never put foot in rigging orhand in tar-bucket.
On the quarter-bills, these men were stationed at none of the greatguns; on the station-bills, they had no posts at the ropes. What, then,were they for? To serve their country in time of battle? Let us see.When a ship is running into action, her marines generally lie flat ontheir faces behind the bulwarks (the sailors are sometimes ordered todo the same), and when the vessel is fairly engaged, they are usuallydrawn up in the ship's waist--like a company reviewing in the Park. Atclose quarters, their muskets may pick off a seaman or two in therigging, but at long-gun distance they must passively stand in theirranks and be decimated at the enemy's leisure. Only in one case inten--that is, when their vessel is attempted to be boarded by a largeparty, are these marines of any essential service as fighting men; withtheir bayonets they are then called upon to "repel!"
If comparatively so useless as soldiers, why have marines at all in theNavy? Know, then, that what standing armies are to nations, whatturnkeys are to jails, these marines are to the seamen in all largemen-of-war. Their muskets are their keys. With those muskets they standguard over the fresh water; over the grog, when doled; over theprovisions, when being served out by the Master's mate; over the "brig"or jail; at the Commodore's and Captain's cabin doors; and, in port, atboth gangways and forecastle.
Surely, the crowd of sailors, who besides having so many sea-officersover them, are thus additionally guarded by soldiers, even when theyquench their thirst--surely these man-of-war's-men must be desperadoesindeed; or else the naval service must be so tyrannical that the worstis feared from their possible insubordination. Either reason holdsgood, or both, according to the character of the officers and crew.
It must be evident that the man-of-war's-man casts but an evil eye on amarine. To call a man a "horse-marine," is, among seamen, one of thegreatest terms of contempt.
But the mutual contempt, and even hatred, subsisting between these twobodies of men--both clinging to one keel, both lodged in onehousehold--is held by most Navy officers as the height of theperfection of Navy discipline. It is regarded as the button that capsthe uttermost point on their main-mast.
Thus they reason: Secure of this antagonism between the marine and thesailor, we can always rely upon it, that if the sailor mutinies, itneeds no great incitement for the marine to thrust his bayonet throughhis heart; if the marine revolts, the pike of the sailor is impatientto charge. Checks and balances, blood against blood, _that_ is the cryand the argument.
What applies to the relation in which the marine and sailor standtoward each other--the mutual repulsion implied by a system ofchecks--will, in degree, apply to nearly the entire interior of aman-of-war's discipline. The whole body of this discipline isemphatically a system of cruel cogs and wheels, systematically grindingup in one common hopper all that might minister to the moral well-beingof the crew.
It is the same with both officers and men. If a Captain have a grudgeagainst a Lieutenant, or a Lieutenant against a midshipman, how easy totorture him by official treatment, which shall not lay open thesuperior officer to legal rebuke. And if a midshipman bears a grudgeagainst a sailor, how easy for him, by cunning practices, born of aboyish spite, to have him degraded at the gangway. Through all theendless ramifications of rank and station, in most men-of-war thereruns a sinister vein of bitterness, not exceeded by the firesidehatreds in a family of stepsons ashore. It were sickening to detail allthe paltry irritabilities, jealousies, and cabals, the spitefuldetractions and animosities, that lurk far down, and cling to the verykelson of the ship. It is unmanning to think of. The immutableceremonies and iron etiquette of a man-of-war; the spiked barriersseparating the various grades of rank; the delegated absolutism ofauthority on all hands; the impossibility, on the part of the commonseaman, of appeal from incidental abuses, and many more things thatmight be enumerated, all tend to beget in most armed ships a generalsocial condition which is the precise reverse of what any Christiancould desire. And though there are vessels, that in some measurefurnish exceptions to this; and though, in other ships, the thing maybe glazed over by a guarded, punctilious exterior, almost completelyhiding the truth from casual visitors, while the worst facts touchingthe common sailor are systematically kept in the background, yet it iscertain that what has here been said of the domestic interior of aman-of-war will, in a greater or less degree, apply to most vessels inthe Navy. It is not that the officers are so malevolent, nor,altogether, that the man-of-war's-man is so vicious. Some of theseevils are unavoidably generated through the operation of the Navalcode; others are absolutely organic to a Navy establishment, and, likeother organic evils, are incurable, except when they dissolve with thebody they live in.