The Two Admirals

by James Fenimore Cooper

Down to the moment when the first tap of the drum was heard, the Plantagenet had presented a scene of singular quiet and unconcern, considering the circumstances in which she was placed. A landsman would scarcely credit that men could be so near their enemies, and display so much indifference to their vicinity; but this was the result of long habit, and a certain marine instinct that tells the sailor when any thing serious is in the wind, and when not. The difference in the force of the two fleets, the heavy gale, and the weatherly position of the English, all conspired to assure the crew that nothing decisive could yet occur. Here and there an officer or an old seaman might be seen glancing through a port, to ascertain the force and position of the French; but, on the whole, their fleet excited little more attention than if lying at anchor in Cherbourg. The breakfast hour was approaching, and that important event monopolized the principal interest of the moment. The officers' boys, in particular, began to make their appearance around the galley, provided, as usual, with their pots and dishes, and, now and then, one cast a careless glance through the nearest opening to see how the strangers looked; but as to warfare there was much more the appearance of it between the protectors of the rights of the different messes, than between the two great belligerent navies themselves.

Nor was the state of things materially different in the gun-room, or cock-pit, or on the orlops. Most of the people of a two-decked ship are berthed on the lower gun deck, and the order to "clear ship" is more necessary to a vessel of that construction, before going to quarters seriously, than to smaller craft; though it is usual in all. So long as the bags, mess-chests, and other similar appliances were left in their ordinary positions, Jack saw little reason to derange himself; and as reports were brought below, from time to time, respecting the approach of the enemy, and more especially of his being well to leeward, few of those whose duty did not call them on deck troubled themselves about the matter at all. This habit of considering his fortune as attached to that of his ship, and of regarding himself as a point on her mass, as we all look on ourselves as particles of the orb we accompany in its revolutions, is sufficiently general among mariners; but it was particularly so as respects the sailors of a fleet, who were kept so much at sea, and who had been so often, with all sorts of results, in the presence of the enemy. The scene that was passing in the gun-room at the precise moment at which our tale has arrived, was so characteristic, in particular, as to merit a brief description.

All the idlers by this time were out of their berths and cotts; the signs of those who "slept in the country," as it is termed, or who were obliged, for want of state-rooms, to sling in the common apartment, having disappeared. Magrath was reading a treatise on medicine, in good Leyden Latin, by a lamp. The purser was endeavouring to decipher his steward's hieroglyphics, favoured by the same light, and the captain of marines was examining the lock of an aged musket. The third and fourth lieutenants were helping each other to untangle one of their Bay-of-Biscay reckonings, which had set both plane and spherical trigonometry at defiance, by a lamp of their own; and the chaplain was hurrying the steward and the boys along with the breakfast—his usual occupation at that "witching time" in the morning.

While things were in this state, the first lieutenant, Mr. Bury, appeared in the gun-room. His arrival caused one or two of the mess to glance upward at him, though no one spoke but the junior lieutenant, who, being an honourable, was at his ease with every one on board, short of the captain.

"What's the news from deck, Bury?" asked this officer, a youth of twenty, his senior being a man ten years older. "Is Mr. de Vervillin thinking of running away yet?"

"Not he, sir; there's too much of the game-cock about him for that."

"I'll warrant you he can crow! But what is the news, Bury?"

"The news is that the old Planter is as wet as a wash-tub, forward, and I must have a dry jacket—do you hear, there, Tom? Soundings," turning to the master, who just then came in from forward, "have you taken a look out of doors this morning?"

"You know I seldom forget that, Mr. Bury. A pretty pickle the ship would soon be in, if I forgot to look about me!"

"He swallowed the deep-sea, down in the bay," cried the honourable, laughing, "and goes every morning at day-light to look for it out at the bridle-ports."