Pike & Cutlass: Hero Tales of Our Navy

by George Gibbs

The wardroom usually bought off in rum, money, or tobacco, but forward it was the roughest kind of rough man-handling; and the victims were happy indeed when they got their deep-water credentials. The details of procedure in this remarkable rite differed somewhat on different ships, but the essential elements of play and torture were the same in all cases.

The day before the line was to be reached both wardroom and forecastle would receive a manifesto setting forth the intention of the god of the seas to honor their poor craft and ordering all those who had not paid tribute to him to gather forward to greet him as he came over the side. At the hour appointed there was a commotion forward, and a figure, wearing a pasteboard crown that surmounted a genial red face adorned with oakum whiskers, made its appearance over the windward nettings and proclaimed its identity as Neptune. Behind him was a motley crew in costumes of any kind and all kinds—or no kind—who had girded itself for this ungentle art of bull-baiting. The deep-water men intended to have an ample return for what they themselves had suffered, not many years back, when they had rounded the Horn or Cape of Good Hope.

The unfortunates, stripped to the waist, were brought forward, one by one, to be put through their paces. After a mock trial by the jury of buffoons, the king ordered their punishment meted out in doses proportioned directly to the popularity of the victims as shipmates. The old long boat, with thwarts removed and a canvas lining, served as a ducking-pond. After vigorous applications, of “slush,”—which is another name for ship’s grease,—or perhaps a toss in a hammock or a blanket, they were pitched backward into the pool and given a thorough sousing, emerging somewhat the worse for wear, but happy that the business was finally done for good and all.

To-day the roughest sort of bullying no longer takes place, and much of the romance seems to have passed out of the custom.

The punishments, too, have lost their severity. The “gray mare” swings to an empty saddle, the “spread eagle” is a thing of the past, and the “cat” is looked upon as a relic of barbarism. Things are not yet Pinafore-like, but the cursing and man-handling are not what they used to be. There are a few of the old-timers who still believe the “cat” a necessary evil, and would like to see an occasional “spread eagle,” but the more moderate punishments of to-day have proved, save in a few hardened cases, that much may be done if the morale of the service is high.

The fact of the matter is, that the standard of the man behind the gun has kept up with the marvellous advance of the ships and the ordnance. To-day, the naval service of the United States is worthy of any seaman’s metal. As a mode of living, sea-faring on American men-of-war attracts as many good men as any other trade. Machinists, electricians, carpenters, gunners, and sail-makers, all have the chance of a good living, with prizes for the honest and industrious.

The seaman himself, in times of peace, may rise by faithful service to a competency and a retiring pension more generous than that of any other nation in the world. The discipline is the discipline of right relations between superior and inferior men of sense, and the articles of war govern as rigorously the cabin as the forecastle. Republican principles are carried out, as far as they are compatible with perfect subordination, and there exists no feeling between the parts of the ship, except in extraordinary instances, but wholesome respect and convention. There is little tyranny on the one side or insubordination on the other.

The training of the young officer of the old navy was the training of the larger school of the world. “Least squares” and “ballistics” were not for him. He could muster a watch, bend and set a stun’sail, work out a traverse, and pass a weather-earing; but he toyed not with the higher mathematics, like the machine-made “young gentleman” of to-day. What he knew of navigation he had picked haphazard, as best he might.

At the age of twelve his career usually opened briskly in the thunder of a hurricane or the slaughter of a battle, under conditions trying to the souls of bronzed, bearded men. Physical and even mental training of a certain kind he had, but the intellectual development of modern days was missing. The American officer of the days before the Naval Academy was founded was the result of rough conditions that Nature shaped to her own ends with the only tools she had. Though these “boys” had not the beautiful theory of the thing, they had its practice, and no better seamen ever lived.

At the beginning of the century, the crusty Preble, commodore of the blockading fleet before Tripoli, was sent a consignment of these “boys” to aid him in his work. The names of the “boys” were Decatur, Stewart, Macdonough, Lawrence, and Perry. Excepting Decatur, who was twenty-six, there was not one who was over twenty-four, and two or three of them were under twenty. The commodore grew red in the face and swore mighty oaths when he thought of the things he had to accomplish with the youngsters under his command. But he found before long that though youth might be inconvenient, it could not be considered as a reproach in their case.