“I’m deucedly sorry, now, that I did not refuse.”
“Are you?” says the soldier, relapsing into his loyal tune again.
By and by, however, comes two o’clock; the ward-room dinner is placed on the table; the drum beats the ‘Roast Beef;’ the officer of the forenoon watch is sent for, as usual, to relieve his messmate on deck, as I have before described; and, in due course, after strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, in ‘full togs,’ nursing his anger, in order to let the captain see that he is hurt, he is told that dinner is ready in the cabin. In he marches, accordingly, and there takes his appointed seat as doggedly as if he were nailed to the chair. The pea-soup is discussed in pretty solemn silence; but while the remove is under adjustment, the captain says to his offended officer, “Come, Mr. Haultight, shall you and I have a glass of wine? What shall it be?” By these few magical words, and in this single glass of sherry, is forgotten, for ever and ever, all the previous irritation. It is not by the words, so much as by the tone and manner of saying them, that the captain makes the officer feel how anxious he is to have the good understanding restored, or that he regrets what has passed. Of course, if the officer be not one of those pig-headed and inflexible fellows, upon whom all sense of kindness is wasted, he seizes the bottle, and filling his glass, replies,
“With all my heart, sir.”
And there, in all probability, is an end of a matter which, but for this early opportunity of putting things to rights, might perhaps have rankled long in the mind of the officer, and given rise to acts of insubordination, as injurious to himself as to the public service.
It may not be useless to suggest here, to young people, that in most cases of dispute that arise between gentlemen, the smallest voluntary apology is beyond calculation more satisfactory, from its affording a far more complete reparation to wounded honour, than any conceivable amount of compulsory acknowledgment. The rough savage, who is acquainted with no measure in these things, takes his revenge at the point of the scalping-knife. But a gentleman, in a widely-different spirit, and who knows that even the slightest admission of error causes more pain than he can ever deliberately wish to inflict, will always catch with eagerness at the first symptoms of regret on the part of his antagonist, being quite certain that the less he exacts, the more of what is really worthy of his acceptance will be given him. Besides which, instead of urging another into permanent mortification and perhaps enmity, he may manage to secure, by well-timed moderation, both the gratitude and the respect of a man who might otherwise become permanently his foe.
I am not aware that, by any other means, the numerous misunderstandings which occur on board ship could be arranged without great risk of injuring discipline. In cases where the matter in dispute is small, or where the fault is equally shared between the parties, formal explanations are not only useless, but often ridiculous, and generally prove as annoying to one side as to the other. Where the dispute, on the other hand, is really of consequence, there may often be a serious and hurtful loss of official dignity, on the part of the superior, if he make too express an apology. These occasional, but uniformly-recurring opportunities of meeting at table, however, furnish not only ready but very ample means of finally accommodating such things in every case which can fall within the proper range of compromise. If officers be only influenced by a right spirit of public duty, and always recollect what is due to private dignity of character, it will rarely happen that arrangements, creditable alike to both parties, and useful to the service, may not be easily effected.
The above example is one in which the superior is supposed to have been in the wrong; but, as may be imagined, the opposite case will often happen likewise. I have seen an officer go on, for several days together, purposely teasing his captain, but all the time taking the greatest possible care to keep within the law. Who, I may ask, that has had to do with command of any kind, whether afloat or on shore, in the navy or in the nursery, has not felt the provocation of such petty hostility? For my part, I can compare it to nothing but the stinging of a mosquitto, which you spend half the night in trying to catch, losing your rest and your temper to no purpose, owing to the dexterity of your antagonist, who thus shews that, though he be small, he is far from insignificant.
But if, while this sort of snapping and snarling is going on, Sunday comes about, all is settled. On this day the captain invariably dines in the ward-room; and when once there, he is received, as a matter of course, with attention by all—Mr. Mosquitto inclusive. It is the general custom, on these occasions, to unbend a little of the straight-lacedness of our discipline, so that a kind of regulated, starched familiarity is permitted to appear above the surface. This the captain rather encourages, though, of course, in a cautious way, but more than he ever permits himself to allow at his own table.
During dinner, all the officers drink wine with their guest; and when this office of hospitality is performed by the tormenting officer, above alluded to, the captain, if he be a man of sense, will not fail to play off a little of his agreeableness upon the person who has been buzzing round him during the preceding week. By this means, or some one of the numberless little devices by which people who are met together professedly to be social, and wish to be on good terms with one another, always know how to hit upon, all such scores as this, and many others, may be wiped off. Without some safety-valve of this kind to the high pressure of naval discipline, I really do not know how so enormous and complicated a contrivance could go on at all. I believe, accordingly, it is now pretty generally allowed in the Navy, that, in those ships where the captain either lives altogether alone, or altogether with his officers, or where they sometimes dine with one another, and sometimes not, instead of following the established routine of the service, and meeting at regular periods, the discipline is found greatly wanting, and all parties, high and low, speedily become discontented.