The assembly beats, and the men again crowd the upper deck. Armed with a lantern, I grasp a slippery ladder, and go down into the dark, “between decks.” It is very still and almost empty there, much like a gloomy cave. The companies have been divided into four squads, and a sergeant and two corporals have charge of the quarters of each.
I begin with the first and poke the lantern up into the upper tier, over into the middle tier, down into the lower tier. Blankets out—knapsacks at the head—nothing lying loose. No crumbs betraying hard-tack smuggled in; the deck scrubbed clean. “Very good, Sergeant. Your quarters do you credit.” The next, a blanket not out—half a hard-tack in the upper tier, the crumbs scattered over the lower—the deck dingy with loathsome tobacco. “Look at this, and this, and this, Sergeant. Yours are the only dirty quarters in the ship.”
“Don’t you think the quarters pretty good on the whole, Colonel?” asks the Officer of the Day.
“Very good, Captain. If we except that sergeant’s, there is really nothing to find fault with.” And thus ends the first inspection.
“If the rebels hadn’t ha’ destroyed the light-house,” remarks my friend the first mate, as he looks with his glass toward Hampton Roads, “we could ha’ run right straight in last night, but seeing that the ship is light in ballast, and a good many souls aboard, why, it wasn’t safe.”
“So they destroyed the Cape Henry light, did they?”
“Yes indeed, they did, and it does seem to me that of all they’ve done that ought to ha’ set the hull civilized world against them, it’s the worst. Just think now how many a fine vessel must ha’ gone aground there, and never be got off again, just for want of the light; why, it does seem to me that it’s worse than a shooting women and children; at any rate, it’s just the same.”
“There comes the pilot-boat, and she has her signal set,” says some one.
Far up the Chesapeake the pilot-boat is seen, a small flag fluttering from her mast head. She comes straight as an arrow, like a greyhound rushing down upon us in his play. How beautifully she bounds along, looking as she mounts the waves as if she would leap from the water. The yards are backed and the ship stops and waits for the little craft. The pilot-boat circles round her, and coming into the wind, seems to settle down like a dog resting from his sport. A little cockle shell of a boat puts off, pulled by two black oarsmen, who buffet and dodge the waves, and make their way slowly against the wind toward the ship. There is much curiosity to see this Virginian pilot, and all hands crowd forward as he comes up the side. The Captain alone has not moved to meet him. He stands dignifiedly on the poop deck, his glass beneath his arm. The pilot does not ask for him, or pause or look around; he evidently knows the very spot on which the Captain stands. He bows to the crowd around him, pushes his way through, and mounts to the deck. He walks up to the Captain, and they shake hands. The Captain hands him his glass: the pilot takes it: it is the emblem of authority, and the Captain no longer commands the ship.
The pilot raises the glass and looks sharply in one direction; he takes a turn or two up and down the deck, and looks attentively in another. I am convinced that he knows as well where we are as I should, were I standing on the steps of the City Hall. All this looking is evidently done to impress beholders with the difficulty of being a pilot. “How does she head?” says the pilot. “Due west,” says the man at the wheel. “Keep her west by sou’ half sou’,” says the pilot. “Wes’ by sou’ half sou’,” responds the man at the wheel. “Set your jib, sir,” says the pilot to the Capt. “Set the jib, Mr. Small,” says the Captain to the first mate. “Set the jib, Mr. Green,” says the first mate to the second mate. “All hands man the jib halyards,” says the second mate. “Aye, aye, sir,” respond the sailors, and the soldiers look quite sober at finding themselves all of a sudden in so difficult and maybe dangerous a channel. Meanwhile the black oarsmen pull back to where the pilot-boat still lies at rest. The touch of the cockle shell upon her side startles her again into life. She shakes her white wings, and turning, bounds off toward another ship, whose sails are slowly rising from the waves far off toward the east.