“Brandy!” shouted the major. “Brandy—he’s a craven who shirks the call.” There was no one there craven but myself. My youth excused my apostacy from the night’s orgies. The major resumed, his red face intensely hot and arid:
“Yellow Jack! Yellow Jack! hie thee back! hie thee back
To the helldam, Corruption, thy mother;
For with brandy I’ll save
My heart, and thus brave
Thee, and fell Death, thine own brother
Yellow Jack!
“To brandy I took, then Jack took his leave,
Brandy-punch and neat brandy drink morn, noon, and eve,
At night drink, then sleep, and be sure, my brave boys,
Naught will quell Yellow Jack but neat brandy and noise.”
The Chorus (most uproariously).
“Yellow Jack! Yellow Jack! hie thee back! hie thee back!
To the helldam, Corruption, thy mother;
For with brandy we’ll save
Our hearts, and thus brave
Thee, and fell Death, thine own brother,
Yellow Jack!”
At last “Yellow Jack” was thundered out loud enough to awake his victims from the palisades. The company were just then fit for anything, but certainly most fit for mischief. Our first-lieutenant intimated to me that our jolly-boat was waiting to take the junior officers on board—considerate man—so I took the hint, marvelling much upon the scene that I had just witnessed.
Whether or not there was any mystic virtue in the exorcisory cantation of the previous night I cannot determine; but it is certain that, next morning, though headaches abounded among our officers, indications of the yellow fever there were none.
Chapter Forty Five.
Insubordination followed by elevation—A midshipman triced up in mid-air, affording a practical lesson on oscillation—All truck and no barter.
But as it is not my intention to write a diary of my life, which was like all other midshipmen’s lives in the West Indies, I shall pass over some months, during which we remained tolerably healthy, took many prizes, cut out some privateers, and spent money so rapidly gained, in a manner still more rapid.
Of my own messmates I remember but little. They were generally shockingly ignorant young men, who had left school too early, to whom books were an aversion, and all knowledge, save that merely nautical, a derision. I had to go more often to fisty-cuffs with these youths, in defending my three deckers—words of Latin or Greek derivation—than on any other occasion. I remember well that the word “idiosyncrasy” got me two black eyes, and my opponent as “pretty a luxation” of the shoulder by being tumbled down the main hatchway at the close of the combat, as any man of moderate expectations might desire. I was really obliged to mind my parts of speech. I know that instead of using the obnoxious word “idiosyncrasy,” I should have said that Mr So-and-so had “a list to port in his ideas.” I confess my error—my sin against elegance was great; but it must be said in extenuation that then I was young and foolish.