Every Man Will Do His Duty (29 page)

In the mean time, the officers and young gentlemen of the flag-ship at Bermuda, I suppose to keep their hands in, were constantly blazing away among the cedar groves and orange plantations of those fairy islands, which appeared more and more beautiful after every such excursion. The midshipmen were contented with knocking down the blue and red birds with the ship’s pistols, charged with his Majesty’s gunpowder, and, for want of small shot, with slugs formed by cutting up his Majesty’s musket bullets. The officers aimed at higher game, and were, of course, better provided with guns and ammunition. Several of them had some fine dogs—high-bred pointers; while the middies, also, not to be outdone, must needs
have a dog of their own: they recked very little of what breed; but some sort of animal they said they must have.

I forget how we procured the strange-looking beast whose services we contrived to engage; but, having once obtained him, we were not slow in giving him our best affections. It is true, he was as ugly as anything could possibly be. His colour was a dirty, reddish yellow; and while one part of his hair became knotted and twisted into curls, another portion hung down, quite straight, almost to the ground. He proved utterly useless for all the purposes of real sport, but furnished the mids with plenty of fun when they went on shore—in chasing pigs, barking at old white-headed negresses, and other amusements, suited to the exalted tastes and habits of the rising generation of officers.

People differ about the merits of dogs; but we had no doubts as to the great superiority of ours over all the others on board, though the name we gave him certainly implied no such confidence on our part. After a full deliberation it was decided to call him Shakings. Now, be it known, that “shakings” is the name given to small fragments of rope-yarns, odds and ends of cordage, bits of oakum, old lanyards—in short, to every kind of refuse, arising out of the wear and tear of the ropes. This odd name was perhaps bestowed on our beautiful favourite in consequence of his colour not being very dissimilar to that of well-tarred Russia-hemp; a resemblance which was daily increased by many a dab of pitch, which, in the hot weather, his rough coat imbibed from the seams between the planks of the deck.

If Shakings was no great beauty, he was at least the most companionable of dogs. He dearly loved the midshipmen, and was dearly beloved by them in return; but he had enough of the animal in his composition to take a still higher pleasure in the society of his own kind, and when the highbred showy pointers belonging to the officers returned on board, after each shooting excursion, Mr. Shakings lost no time in applying to his fellow-dogs for the news. The pointers, who liked this sort of familiarity very well, gave poor Shakings all sorts of encouragement. Not so their masters, the officers, who could not bear to see “such an abominable cur,” as they called our favourite, at once “so cursedly dirty and so utterly useless,” mixing with their sleek and well-kept animals. At first, their dislike was confined to such insulting expressions as the above; then it came to an occasional kick on the stern, or a knock on the nose with the butt end of a fowling-piece; and lastly to a sound cut across the rump with the hunting-whip.

Shakings, who instinctively knew his place, or, at all events, soon learned it, took all this in good part, like a sensible fellow, while the mids, when out of hearing of the higher powers, uttered curses both loud and
deep against the tyranny and oppression exercised towards an animal which, in their fond fancy, was declared to be worth all the showy dogs in the ward-room put together. They were little prepared, however, for the stroke which soon fell upon them, perhaps in consequence of these very murmurs—for bulkheads have ears as well as walls. To their great horror and indignation, one of the lieutenants, provoked at some liberty which Master Shakings had taken with his newly-polished boot, called out, one morning,—

“Man the jolly-boat, there, and land that infernal dirty beast of a dog belonging to the young gentlemen!”

“Where shall I take him to, sir?” asked the strokesman of the boat.

“Oh, anywhere; pull to the nearest part of the shore and pitch him out on the rocks. He’ll shift for himself.” Such was the threatened fate of poor dear Shakings!

If a stranger had come into the midshipmen’s berth at that moment, he might have thought his Majesty’s naval service was about to be broken up. All allegiance, discipline, and subordination seemed utterly cancelled by this horrible act. Many were the execrations hurled upwards at the offending “nobs,” who, we declared, were combining to make our lives miserable. Some of our party proposed a letter of remonstrance to the admiral against this unheard-of outrage; and one youth swore deeply that he would leave the service, unless justice were obtained: but as he had been known to swear the same thing half-a-dozen times every week since he joined the ship, no great notice was taken of this pledge. Another declared, upon his word of honour, that such an act was enough to make a man turn Turk, and fly his country! At last, by general agreement, it was decided that we should not do duty, or stir from our seats, till we obtained redress for our grievances.

While we were in the very act of vowing mutiny and disobedience, the hands were turned up to “furl sails!” upon which the whole party, forgetting their magnanimous resolution, scudded up the ladders and jumped into their stations with more than usual alacrity, wisely thinking that the moment for actual revolt had not yet arrived.

A better scheme than throwing up the service, or writing to the admiral, or turning Mussulman, was afterwards concocted. The midshipman who went on shore in the next boat easily got hold of poor Shakings, who was howling on the steps of the watering-place. In order to conceal him, he was stuffed neck and crop into the captain’s cloak-bag, brought safely on board, and restored once more to the bosom of his friends.

In spite of all we could do, however, to keep Master Shakings below, he presently found his way to the quarter-deck, to receive the congratulations
of the other dogs. There he was soon detected by the higher powers, and very shortly afterwards trundled over the gangway, and again tossed on the beach. Upon this occasion he was honoured by the presence of one of his own masters, a middy, sent upon this express duty, who was specially desired “to land the brute, and not to bring him on board again.” Of course, this particular youngster did not bring the dog off; but, before night, somehow or other, old Shakings was snoring away in grand chorus with his more fashionable friends the pointers, and dreaming no evil, before the door of the very officer’s cabin whose beautifully-polished boots he had brushed by so rudely in the morning.

This second return of our dog was too much. The whole posse of us were sent for to the quarter-deck, and in very distinct terms positively ordered not to bring Shakings on board again. These injunctions having been given, this wretched victim of oppression, as we thought him, was once more landed among the cedar groves. This time he remained a full week on shore; and how or when he found his way off again, no one ever knew—at least, no one chose to divulge. Never was there anything like the mutual joy felt by Shakings and his two dozen masters at this meeting. He careered about the ship, barking and yelling with delight, and, in his raptures, he actually leaped, with his dirty feet, on the milk-white duck trousers of the disgusted officers, who heartily wished him at the bottom of the anchorage! The poor beast unwittingly contributed to accelerate his own hapless fate by this ill-timed show of confidence. If he had only kept his paws to himself, and stayed quietly in the dark recesses of the cockpit, wings, cable-tiers, and other wild regions—the secrets of which were known only to the inhabitants of our submarine world—all might have been well with him.

We had a grand jollification on the night of Shakings’ restoration; and his health was in the very act of being drunk, with three times three, when the officer of the watch, hearing an uproar below, the sounds of which were distinctly conveyed up the windsail, sent down to put our lights out; and we were forced to march off, growling, to our hammocks.

Next day, to our surprise and horror, old Shakings was not to be seen or heard of. We searched everywhere, interrogated the coxswains of all the boats, and cross-questioned the marines who had been sentries during the night on the forecastle, gangways, and poop; but all in vain!—no trace of Shakings could be found.

At length the idea began to gain ground among us that the poor beast had been put an end to by some diabolical means, and our ire mounted accordingly. This suspicion seemed the more natural, as the officers said not a word about the matter, nor even asked us what we had done with our
dog. While we were in this state of excitement, one of the midshipmen, who had some drollery in his composition, gave a new turn to the expression of our thoughts.

This
young
gentleman, who was more than twice as old as most of us, say about thirty, had won the affections of the whole of our class, by the gentleness of his manners, and the generous part he always took on our side. He bore among us the pet name of Daddy; and certainly he was as a father to those who, like myself, were adrift in the ship without any one to look after them. He was a man of talents and classical education; but he had entered the navy far too late in life ever to take to it cordially. He could not bend to the mortifying kind of discipline, which it is essential every officer should run through, but which only the young and light-hearted can brook; and our worthy friend, accordingly, with all his abilities, taste, and acquirements, never seemed at home on board ship. At all events, our old friend Daddy cared more about his books than about the blocks, and delighted much more in giving us assistance in our literary pursuits, and trying to teach us to be useful, than in rendering himself proficient in professional mysteries. This had secured our confidence. On all cases of difficulty, we never failed to cluster round him, to tell our grievances, great and small, with the certainty of always finding in him that great desideratum in calamity—a patient and friendly listener.

It will easily be supposed, that our kind Daddy took more than usual interest in this affair of Shakings, and that he was applied to by us at every stage of the transaction; like us, he felt sadly perplexed when the dog was finally missing; and, for some days afterwards he could afford us no comfort, nor suggest any mode of revenge which was not too dangerous to be put in practice. He prudently observed, that, as we had no certainty to go upon, it would be foolish to get ourselves into a serious scrape for nothing at all.

“There can be no harm, however,” he at last exclaimed, in his dry and slightly sarcastic way, which all who knew him will recollect as well as if they saw him now, drawing his hand slowly across his mouth and chin, “There can be no possible harm, my boys, in putting the other dogs in mourning for Shakings; for, whatever is become of him, he is lost to them as well as to you, and his memory ought to be duly respected by his old masters.”

This hint was no sooner given than a cry was raised for crape, and every chest and bag ransacked, to procure badges of mourning. Each of the pointers was speedily rigged out with a large bunch of black crape, tied in a handsome bow upon his left leg just above the knee. The joke took immediately, and even the officers could not help laughing; for, though we
considered them little better than fiends at that moment of excitement, they really showed themselves (except in this instance) the best-natured and most indulgent persons I remember to have sailed with. They ordered the crape, however, to be instantly cut off from the dogs’ legs; and one of them remarked very seriously, that “as we had now had our piece of fun out, there were to be no more such tricks.”

Off we scampered, to consult old Daddy what was to be done next, as we had been positively ordered not to meddle any more with the dogs.

“Put the pigs in mourning!” said he.

All our crape had been expended by this time; but this want was soon supplied by men whose trade it is to discover resources in difficulty. With a generous devotion to the memory of the departed Shakings, one of the juvenile mutineers pulled off his black neckerchief, and, tearing it in pieces, gave a portion to each of the circle; and thus supplied, away we all started to put into practice this new suggestion of our director-general of mischief.

The row which ensued in the pig-sty was prodigious, for in those days hogs were allowed a place on board a man-of-war, a custom most wisely abolished of late years, since nothing can be more out of character with any ship than such nuisances. But these matters of taste and cleanliness were nothing to us; we intermitted not our noisy labour till every one of the grunters wore his armlet of such crape as we had been able to muster; then, watching our opportunity, we opened the door and let out the whole herd of swine on the main-deck just at the moment when a group of the officers were standing on the fore part of the quarter-deck. Of course the liberated pigs, delighted with their freedom, passed in review under the very nose of our superiors, each with his mourning-knot displayed, grunting or squealing along, as if it was their express object to attract attention to their sorrow for the loss of Shakings. The officers now became excessively provoked; for they could not help seeing that these proceedings were affording entertainment, at their expense, to the whole crew. The men, of course, took no part in this touch of insubordination; but they (like the middies) were ready enough, in those idle times of the weary, weary peace, to catch at any species of distraction or devilry, no matter what, to compensate for the loss of their wonted occupation of pommelling their enemies.

The matter, therefore, as a point of discipline, necessarily became rather serious; and the whole gang of young culprits being sent for on the quarterdeck, were ranged in a line, each with his toes at the edge of a plank, according to the orthodox fashion of these gregarious scoldings, technically called “toe-the-line matches.” We were then given to understand that our proceedings were impertinent, and, after the orders we had received, highly offensive. It was with much difficulty that either party could keep
their countenances during this official lecture, for, while it was going on, the sailors were endeavouring, by the direction of the officers, to remove the bits of silk from the legs of the pigs; but if it be difficult—as most difficult we found it—to put a hog into mourning, it is ten times more troublesome to take him out again. Such at least is the fair inference from these two experiments, the only cases, perhaps, on record; for it cost half the morning to undo what we had effected in less than an hour; to say nothing of the unceasing and outrageous uproar which took place along the decks, especially under the guns, and even under the coppers, forward in the galley, where two or three of the youngest pigs had wedged themselves, apparently resolved to die rather than submit to the degradation of being deprived of their sable badges.