"Tell me," I said, "how many teeth you have left? For I make out that you have had forty-six teeth extracted in Scotland alone."
Many a delightful day have I had with the midshipmen of the ships and fleets in which I have served. We fished together, rode, shot, hunted and raced together. Memory does not always supply episodes in their chronological order; and I set these down as they occur to me.
When I was lieutenant in the Bellerophon, stationed at Bermuda, I used to take the midshipmen out fishing. In those seas, the water is so clear that one can watch the fish taking the bait. Once, deep down, I saw the head of a conger eel protruding from the cleft of the rocks in which he lay. I dropped the bait in front of his nose, and watched his head move back and forth, until he took the bait. Then I shifted the midshipmen to the farther side of the boat to counterweigh the strain and to get a purchase on the line, and hauled out the great eel, piece by piece, and we dragged him into the boat.
About that time, the midshipmen saved me from a highly disagreeable death. We were out fishing in my boat, and one of the midshipmen threw my housewife for snooded hooks at another, and missing him, it went overboard. Now my fishing housewife was a most valuable possession; I had made it myself; and when I saw it sinking slowly down through the clear water, I dived for it and caught it. By the time I rose to the surface, the boat had drifted away from me. Hailing the crew, I swam after the boat; and as I reached her, I was suddenly hoisted bodily inboard by the slack of my breeches. Almost at the same moment, the fin of a shark shot up beside the gunwale. The midshipmen, my saviours, observed that "it was a sell for the shark."
We sailed one day to North Rock, which lies about twenty-two miles from Bermuda, and there we fished. Towards evening, it came on to blow. The ship was invisible from North Rock, and it was impossible to return. We tried to secure the boat to the rocks, but failed. There was nothing to be done but to lay to and bale. As the dark fell, I found we had no light. By this time the midshipmen were utterly exhausted, and were lying helpless. I made a lantern out of the mustard-pot, using oil from a sardine tin, and fabricating a wick from a cotton fishing line, and slung it on the beam. It burned all night. And all night, one of the worst nights in my recollection, we tacked to and fro close-reefed. At dawn, we started on the return trip; and, so whimsical a thing is destiny, no sooner had we sighted the Fleet, than a puff of wind carried away the mast which had stood so stoutly all the night of storm.
My boat was what was called a "Mugian" boat, built in Bermuda. Her crew consisted of one man. His name was Esau, and he was a liberated slave of an incomparable obstinacy, a fault of which I cured him in one moment. When we took the boat for her first trip, I was persuaded that I could steer her among the reefs as well as Esau. But Esau was of another opinion. When argument failed, he tried to wrest the tiller from me, whereupon, unshipping it, I brought it down on Esau's head. I was a powerful youth, and I struck hard; yet it was not the head of Esau which was broken, but the tiller, though it was of oak. In trying to steer with a short piece of the tiller, we were nearly wrecked; but Esau ventured no further remonstrance, neither then nor afterwards.
There is a right way and there is a wrong way of dealing with midshipmen; and a little imagination may reveal the right way. When I was in command of the Undaunted, stationed at Malta, I noticed that the midshipmen, returning on board after taking violent exercise on shore, were often overheated, with the result that they caught a chill, and the chill brought on Malta fever, the curse of that island in those days. I issued an order that overcoats were to be taken ashore and worn while coming off to the ship; and I caused a room in the Custom House to be fitted with pegs, upon which the coats might be left until they were required.
The next thing was that a boy who came on board without his overcoat, had his leave stopped by the commander. There was a boxing match on shore, which I wished all the midshipmen to see. I intended that he should see the match; and it was also necessary that, without severity on the one hand or indulgence on the other, the occasion should be stamped upon his memory. So when the rest of the midshipmen had gone, I sent for the solitary youth, and bade him explain his case. When he had finished, I told him that I intended to inflict upon him an additional punishment. He regarded me with a face of alarm.
"You will go ashore," I said, "and you will write for me a full and an exact account of the boxing match."
He saw the match; and after the pains of literary composition, he would not so easily forget his overcoat.