Chapter Thirty Two.
I am claimed by Captain Kearney as a relation—Trial of skill between first lieutenant and captain with the long bow—The shark, the pug dog, and the will—A quarter-deck picture.
As the admiral was not one who would permit the ships under his command to lie idle in port, in a very few days after the dignity hall which I have described, all the squadron sailed on their various destinations. I was not sorry to leave the bay, for one soon becomes tired of profusion, and I cared nothing for either oranges, bananas, or shaddocks, nor even for the good dinners and claret at the tables of the army mess and gentlemen of the island. The sea breeze soon became more precious to us than anything else; and if we could have bathed without the fear of a shark, we should have equally appreciated that most refreshing of all luxuries under the torrid zone. It was therefore with pleasure that we received the information that we were to sail the next day to cruise off the French island of Martinique. Captain Kearney had been so much on shore that we saw but little of him, and the ship was entirely under the control of the first lieutenant, of whom I have hitherto not spoken. He was a very short, pock-marked man, with red hair and whiskers, a good sailor, and not a bad officer; that is, he was a practical sailor, and could show any foremast man his duty in any department, and this seamen very much appreciate, as it is not very common; but I never yet knew an officer who prided himself upon his practical knowledge, who was at the same time a good navigator; and too often, by assuming the Jack Tar, they lower the respect due to them, and become coarse and vulgar in their manners and language. This was the case with Mr Phillott, who prided himself upon his slang, and who was at one time “hail fellow, well met” with the seamen, talking to them, and being answered as familiarly as if they were equals, and at another, knocking the very same men down with a handspike if he were displeased. He was not bad tempered, but very hasty; and his language to the officers was occasionally very incorrect—to the midshipmen invariably so. However, on the whole, he was not disliked, although he was certainly not respected as a first lieutenant should have been. It is but fair to say that he was the same to his superiors as he was to his inferiors; and the bluntness with which he used to contradict and assert his disbelief of Captain Kearney’s narratives often produced a coolness between them for some days.
The day after we sailed from Carlisle Bay I was asked to dine in the cabin. The dinner was served upon plated dishes, which looked very grand, but there was not much in them. “This plate,” observed the captain, “was presented to me by some merchants for my exertions in saving their property from the Danes, when I was cruising off Heligoland.”
“Why, that lying steward of yours told me that you bought it at Portsmouth,” replied the first lieutenant: “I asked him in the galley this morning.”
“How came you to assert such a confounded falsehood, sir?” said the captain to the man who stood behind his chair.
“I only said that I thought so,” replied the steward.
“Why, didn’t you say that the bill had been sent in, through you, seven or eight times, and that the captain had paid it with a flowing sheet?”
“Did you dare say that, sir?” interrogated the captain, very angrily.
“Mr Phillott mistook me, sir,” replied the steward. “He was so busy damning the sweepers, that he did not hear me right. I said, the midshipmen had paid their crockery bill with the fore-topsail.”