“No, no! they’ll never sing out, ‘All hands bury the dead!’ for him, my hearties!” cried a fourth.
“Silence,” said the officer, “and look along your oars.” But the sixteen oarsmen still continued their talk; and, after pulling about for two or three hours, we spied the recall-signal at the frigate’s fore-t’-gallant-mast-head, and returned on board, having seen no sign even of the life-buoys.
The boats were hoisted up, the yards braced forward, and away we bowled—one man less.
“Muster all hands!” was now the order; when, upon calling the roll, the cooper was the only man missing.
“I told you so, men,” cried the Captain of the Head; “I said we would lose a man before long.”
“Bungs, is it?” cried Scrimmage, the sheet-anchor-man; “I told him his buoys wouldn’t save a drowning man; and now he has proved it!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MAN-OF-WAR FULL AS A NUT.
It was necessary to supply the lost cooper’s place; accordingly, word was passed for all who belonged to that calling to muster at the main-mast, in order that one of them might be selected. Thirteen men obeyed the summons—a circumstance illustrative of the fact that many good handicrafts-men are lost to their trades and the world by serving in men-of-war. Indeed, from a frigate’s crew might he culled out men of all callings and vocations, from a backslidden parson to a broken-down comedian. The Navy is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin. Bankrupt brokers, boot-blacks, blacklegs, and blacksmiths here assemble together; and cast-away tinkers, watch-makers, quill-drivers, cobblers, doctors, farmers, and lawyers compare past experiences and talk of old times. Wrecked on a desert shore, a man-of-war’s crew could quickly found an Alexandria by themselves, and fill it with all the things which go to make up a capital.
Frequently, at one and the same time, you see every trade in operation on the gun-deck—coopering, carpentering, tailoring, tinkering, blacksmithing, rope-making, preaching, gambling, and fortune-telling.
In truth, a man-of-war is a city afloat, with long avenues set out with guns instead of trees, and numerous shady lanes, courts, and by-ways. The quarter-deck is a grand square, park, or parade ground, with a great Pittsfield elm, in the shape of the main-mast, at one end, and fronted at the other by the palace of the Commodore’s cabin.