“The metamorphosis being completed to the lieutenant’s satisfaction—though not at all to mine, for my neat chest had become an unshapely piece of lumber—he pointed out the ‘lubberliness of shore-going people in not making keyholes where they could most easily be got at,’ viz., at the end of a chest instead of the middle!” Lord Cochrane took it easily, and acknowledges warmly the service Jack Larmour rendered him in teaching him his profession.
Later, Lord Cochrane, when promoted to a lieutenancy, was dining with Admiral Vandepat, and being seated near him, was asked what dish was before him. “Mentioning its nature,” says he, “I asked whether he would permit me to help him. The uncourteous reply was—that whenever he wished for anything he was in the habit of asking for it. Not knowing what to make of a rebuff of this nature, it was met with an inquiry if he would allow me the honour of taking wine with him. ‘I never take wine with any man, my lord,’ was the unexpected reply, from which it struck me that my lot was cast among Goths, if no worse.” Subsequently he found that this apparently gruff old admiral assumed some of this roughness purposely, and that he was one of the kindest commanders living.
In 1798, when with the Mediterranean fleet, ludicrous examples, both of the not very occasional corruption of the period, and the rigid etiquette required by one’s superior officer, occurred to Lord Cochrane, and got him into trouble. The first officer, Lieutenant Beaver, was one who carried the latter almost to the verge of despotism. He looked after all that was visible to the eye of the admiral, but permitted “an honest penny to be turned elsewhere.” At Tetuan they had purchased and killed bullocks on board the flagship, for the use of the whole squadron. The reason for this was that the hides, being valuable, could be stowed away in her hold or empty beef-casks, as especial perquisites to certain persons on board. The fleshy fragments on the hides soon decomposed, and rendered the hold of the vessel so intolerable that she acquired the name of the “Stinking Scotch ship.” Lord Cochrane, as junior lieutenant, had much to do with these arrangements, and his unfavourable remarks on these raw-hide speculations did not render those interested very friendly towards him. One day, when at Tetuan, he was allowed to go wild-fowl shooting ashore, and became covered with mud. On arriving rather late at the ship, he thought it more respectful to don a clean uniform before reporting himself on the quarter-deck. He had scarcely made the change, when the first lieutenant came into the ward-room, and harshly demanded of Lord Cochrane the reason for not having reported himself. [pg 219]His reply was, that as the lieutenant had seen him come up by the side he must be aware that he was not in a fit condition to appear on the quarter-deck. The lieutenant replied so offensively before the ward-room officers, that he was respectfully reminded by Cochrane of a rule he had himself laid down, that “Matters connected with the service were not there to be spoken of.” Another retort was followed by the sensible enough reply, “Lieutenant Beaver, we will, if you please, talk of this in another place.” Cochrane was immediately reported to the captain by Beaver, as having challenged him: the lieutenant actually demanded a court-martial! And the court-martial was held, the decision being that Cochrane should be admonished to be “more careful in future.”
Lord Cochrane was soon after given a command. The vessel to which he was appointed was, even eighty years ago, a mere burlesque of a ship-of-war. She was about the size of an average coasting brig, her burden being 158 tons. She was crowded rather than manned, with a crew of eighty-four men and six officers. Her armament consisted of fourteen 4-pounders! a species of gun little larger than a blunderbuss, and formerly known in the service as “minion,” an appellation quite appropriate. The cabin had not so much as room for a chair, the floor being entirely occupied by a small table surrounded with lockers, answering the double purpose of store-chests and seats. The difficulty was to get seated, the ceiling being only five feet high, so that the object could only be accomplished by rolling on the lockers: a movement sometimes attended with unpleasant failure. Cochrane’s only practicable way of shaving consisted in removing the skylight, and putting his head through to make a toilet-table of the quarter-deck!
On this little vessel—the Speedy—Cochrane took a number of prizes, and having on one occasion manned a couple of them with half his crew and sent them away, was forced to tackle the Gamo, a Spanish frigate of thirty-two heavy guns and 319 men. The exploit has hardly been excelled in the history of heroic deeds. The commander’s orders were not to fire a single gun till they were close to the frigate, and he ran the Speedy under her lee, so that her yards were locked among the latter’s rigging. The shots from the Spanish guns passed over the little vessel, only injuring the rigging, while the Speedy’s mere pop-guns could be elevated, and helped to blow up the main-deck of the enemy’s ship. The Spaniards speedily found out the disadvantage under which they were fighting, and gave the orders to board the little English vessel; but it was avoided twice by sheering off sufficiently, then giving them a volley of musketry and a broadside before they could recover themselves. After the lapse of an hour, the loss to the Speedy was only four men killed and two wounded, but her rigging was so cut up and the sails so riddled that Cochrane told his men they must either take the frigate or be taken themselves, in which case the Spaniards would give no quarter. The doctor, Mr. Guthrie, bravely volunteered to take the helm, and leaving him for the time both commander and crew of the ship, Cochrane and his men were soon on the enemy’s deck, the Speedy being put close alongside with admirable skill. A portion of the crew had been ordered to blacken their faces and board by the Gamo’s head. The greater portion of the Spanish crew were prepared to repel boarders in that direction, but stood for a few moments as it were transfixed to the deck by the apparition of so many diabolical-looking figures emerging from the white smoke of the bow guns, while the other men rushed on them from behind [pg 220]before they could recover from their surprise at the unexpected phenomenon. Observing the Spanish colours still flying, Lord Cochrane ordered one of his men to haul them down, and the crew, without pausing to consider by whose orders they had been struck, and naturally believing it to be the act of their own officers, gave in. The total English loss was three men killed, and one officer and seventeen men wounded. The Gamo’s loss was the captain, boatswain, and thirteen seamen killed, with forty-one wounded. It became a puzzle what to do with 263 unhurt prisoners, the Speedy having only forty-two sound men left. Promptness was necessary; so, driving the prisoners into the hold, with their own guns pointed down the hatchway, and leaving thirty men on the prize, Cochrane shaped the vessel’s course to Port Mahon, which was reached safely. Some Barcelona gun-boats, spectators of the action, did not venture to rescue the frigate.
The doctor on board a man-of-war has, perhaps, on the whole, better opportunities and, in times of peace, more leisure than the other officers for noting any circumstances of interest that may occur. Dr. Stables, in his interesting little work,[122] describes his cabin on board a small gun-boat as a miserable little box, such as at home he would have kept rabbits or guinea-pigs in, but certainly not pigeons. He says that it might do for a commodore—Commodore Nutt. It was ventilated by a small scuttle, seven inches in diameter, which could only be raised in harbour, and beneath which, when he first went to sea, he was obliged to put a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately, the bottom rotted out, and he was at the mercy of the waves. This cabin was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, and other “crawling ferlies,”
“That e’en to name would be unlawfu’.”
His dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To it he gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing himself past a large brass pump, edging in sideways. The sick would come one by one to the dispensary, and there he saw and treated each case as it arrived, dressing wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores. There was no sick berth attendant, but the lieutenant told off “a little cabin-boy” for his use. He was not a model cabin-boy, like the youngster you see in the theatres. He certainly managed at times to wash out the dispensary, in the intervals of catching cockroaches and making poultices, but in doing the first he broke half the bottles, and making the latter either let them burn or put salt into them. Finally, he smashed so much of the doctor’s apparatus that he was kicked out. In both dispensary and what Dr. Stables calls his “burrow,” it was difficult to prevent anything from going to utter destruction. The best portions of his uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp, while his instruments required cleaning every morning, and even this did not keep the rust at bay.
And then, those terrible cockroaches! To find, when you awake, a couple, each two inches in length, meandering over your face, or even in bed with you!—to find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot!—to have to remove their droppings and eggs from the edge of your plate previous to eating your soup! and so on, ad nauseam. But on small vessels stationed in the tropics—as described by the doctor—there were, and doubtless sometimes are now, other unpleasantnesses. For instance, you are looking for a book, and [pg 221]put your hand on a full-grown scaly scorpion. Nice sensation! the animal twining round your finger, or running up your sleeve! Dénoûment: cracking him under foot—joy at escaping a sting!
