The King's Own

by Frederick Marryat

“Well now, Marshall, pray do. Come, sit down here—I am fond of proof positive. Now, let me hear what you have to say, and I’ll listen without interrupting you.”

The coxswain took his seat, as Macallan desired, and, taking the quid of tobacco out of his cheek, and laying it down on the rock beside him, commenced as follows:—

“Well now, d’ye see, Mr Macallan, I’ll just exactly tell you how it was, and then I leaves you to judge whether a cat’s to be sarved in that way. It was when I belonged to the Survellanty frigate, that we were laying in Cawsand Bay, awaiting for sailing orders. We hadn’t dropped the anchor more than a week, and there was no liberty ashore. Well, sir, the purser found out that his steward was a bit of a rascal, and turns him adrift. The ship’s company knew that long afore; for it was not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black cat—but it warn’t at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. It had quite lost its natur, as it were, and looked, for all the world, like a little imp of darkness. It always lived in the purser’s steward’s room, and we never seed him but when we went down for the biscuit and flour as was sarving out.

“Well, sir, when this rascal of a steward leaves the ship, he had no natural affection for his cat, and he leaves him on board, belonging to nobody; and the steward as comes in his place turns him out of the steward’s room; so the poor jury-rigged little devil had to take care of itself.

“We all tried to coax it into one berth or the other, but the poor brute wouldn’t take to nobody. You know, sir, a cat doesn’t like to change so he wandered about the ship, mewing all day, and thieving all night. At last, he takes to the master’s cabin, and makes a dirt there, and the master gets very savage, and swears that he’ll kill him, if ever he comes athwart him.

“Now, sir, you knows it’s the natur of cats always to make a dirt in the same place,—reason why, God only knows; and so this poor black devil always returns to the master’s cabin, and makes it, as it were, his head-quarters. At last the master, who was as even-tempered an officer as ever I sailed with, finds one day that his sextant case is all of a smudge: so being touched in a sore place, he gets into a great rage, and orders all the boys of the ship to catch the cat; and after much ado, the poor cat was catched, and brought aft into the gun-room. ‘Now, then, P—,’ said the master to the first-lieutenant, ‘will you help kill the dirty beast?’—and the first-lieutenant, who cared more about his lower deck being clean than fifty human beings’ lives, said he would; so they called the sargant o’ marines, and orders him to bring up two ship’s muskets and some ball cartridge, and they goes on deck with the cat in their arms.

“Well, sir, when the men saw the cat brought up on deck, and hears that he was to be hove overboard, they all congregates together upon the lee gangway, and gives their opinions on the subject,—and one says, ‘Let’s go and speak to the first-lieutenant;’ and another says, ‘He’ll put you on the black list;’ and so they don’t do nothing—all except Jenkins, the boatswain’s mate, who calls to a waterman out of the main-deck port, and says, ‘Waterman,’ says he, ‘when they heaves that cat overboard, do you pick him up, and I’ll give you a shilling;’ and the waterman says as how he would, for you see, sir, the men didn’t know that the muskets had been ordered up to shoot the poor beast.

“Well, sir, the waterman laid off on his oars, and the men, knowing what Jenkins had done, were content. But when the sargant o’ marines comes up, and loads the muskets with ball cartridges, then the men begins to grumble; howsomever, the master throws the cat overboard off the lee-quarter, and the waterman, as soon as he sees her splash in the water, backs astarn to take her into the boat, but the first-lieutenant tells him to get out of the way, if he doesn’t want a bullet through his boat—so he pulls ahead again. The master fires first, and hits the cat a clip on the neck, which turns her half over, and the first-lieutenant fires his musket, and cuts the poor hanimal right in half by the backbone, and she sprawls a bit, and then goes down to the bottom. ‘Capital shots both,’ says the first-lieutenant; ‘he’ll never take an observation of your sextant again, master;’ and they both laughs heartily, and goes down the ladder to get their dinner.

“Well, sir, I never seed a ship’s company in such a farmant, or such a nitty kicked up ’tween decks, in my life: it was almost as bad as a mutiny; but they piped to grog soon a’ter, and the men goes to their berths and talks the matter over more coolly, and they all agrees that no good would come to the ship a’ter that, and very melancholy they were, and couldn’t forget it.

“Well, sir; our sailing orders comes down the next day, and the first cutter is sent on shore for the captain, and six men out of ten leaves the boat, and I’m sure that it warn’t for desartion, but all along of that cat being hove overboard and butchered in that way—for three on ’em were messmates of mine—for you know, sir, we talks them matters over, and if they had had a mind to quit the sarvice, I should have know’d it. The captain was as savage as a bear with a sore head, and did nothing but growl for three days afterwards, and it was well to keep clear on him, for he snapped right and left, like a mad dog. I never seed him in such a humour afore, except once when he had a fortnight’s foul wind.