Sea life in Nelson's time

by John Masefield

A midshipman’s mess was not a pleasant place. It was generally below the water, in the after cockpit, in a dingy den, lit partly by a lantern, and partly by a thick glass scuttle, crusted with filth, let into the ship’s side. From deck to beam it measured, perhaps, 5 feet 6 inches, so that its inhabitants had to uncover as they entered it to avoid crushing their hats against the ceiling. Twelve feet square was reckoned fairly large for a berth. Any berth big enough for a fight when the chests had been cleared away was looked upon as roomy. The atmosphere so far below water and the upper air was foul and noisome. The bilges reeked beneath the orlop in a continual pestilential stench, unlike any other smell in the world. Near the berth, as a sort of pendant to the bilges, was the purser’s store-room where the rancid butter and putrid cheese were served out once or twice a week to the ship’s company. Farther forward were the cable-tiers, with the tarry, musty smell of old rope always lingering over them. In many ships a windsail or ventilator led from the deck to the berth to relieve the midshipmen with a little fresh air.

There was not much furniture in the midshipmen’s mess. Nearly all had a table, not from any generosity of the Government, but because the table was wanted for the surgeons in their operations after battle. This table, at meal-times, was covered with a cloth or old hammock, which had to last a week. The cloth was used at meal-times as a dish-cloth and knife-and-fork cleaner. At meals the table was lit by tallow dips or purser’s glims, stuck in beer or blacking bottles. After meals, and for state occasions, “the green cloth,” a strip of dirty baize, was substituted. For seats the “young gentlemen” used their chests. There was no decoration on the walls or bulkheads of a berth. Nails hung with clothing, quadrants, boxing gloves, single-sticks, hangers, etc. etc., were the only decorations ever known there. Some berths may have had lockers to contain their gear, bread-barge, table utensils, and sea-stores. Some may have had a tank to hold the allowance of fresh water. The berth was kept clean by a mess-boy, a dirty, greasy lad, unfit for anything else. This worthy washed the weekly table-cloth, and saw to the cooking. All midshipmen were blessed with other servants, known as “hammock men.” These were either old sailors or marines, who compounded to lash and stow, and carry down and unlash, the “young gentleman’s” hammock for the sum of a glass of grog, payable each Saturday night. For further considerations of grog or tobacco the hammock man sometimes washed the young gentleman’s shirts while the ship was at sea. In port, the linen went ashore to some reputable, or disreputable, washerwoman, who was lucky indeed if she saw the colour of her money.

The berth was the home of the elder midshipmen, the master’s mates, the captain’s clerk, and, at times, the assistant surgeons. As some of the midshipmen, in nearly all ships, were nearer forty than twenty, and as many of the master’s mates were grey-headed men, the berth was not the place for little boys, especially when the rum was flowing towards 8 P.M. The elders seem to have understood as much, for they had a custom of sticking a fork in the table, or in the beams above it, directly the first watch was set. As soon as the fork was in its place every youngster and youth at once retired to his hammock, so that the old grizzled veterans had the board to themselves. Probably they were good-hearted fellows in the main, if a little rough from the life, and a little soured by their long and unrewarded service. But, if one or two writers may be trusted, their conversation was not well calculated to improve the mind. Indeed, in one or two ships, the veterans had a rule that no one should join their nightly rum-drinkings till he had passed an examination in vice. Youngsters who disregarded the signal of the fork were given a few minutes’ grace, after which the signal was repeated. If “the geese” remained “in the berth” after the second signal, they were colted (or whipped with a knotted cord) and flicked with twisted handkerchiefs till they scattered out to their hammocks.

The food served out to the young gentlemen was the same as that issued to the men. The King’s provisions were generally supplemented by little niceties, purchased in port by the caterer of the mess. This worthy was usually a master’s mate of some authority in the berth. Each member of the mess paid him from £3 to £5 on joining the ship, and about £1 a month while the ship was in commission. The caterer expended this money as he thought fit. Before leaving England he used to lay in a great supply of potatoes and onions, which he stowed in the lockers, or under the table, or in strings dangling from the beams. Dutch cheeses, for the manufacture of a midshipman’s luxury called “crab,” were also purchased, together with tea and coffee and small stores, such as pepper and sugar. In port the caterer purchased “soft Tommy” (or shore bread) and boxes of red-herrings. The ship’s allowance of spirits was so very liberal that it was not necessary to add to it. A pint of navy rum a day was sufficient, or should have been sufficient, for any man.

Captain Chamier, Captain Marryat, Jack Mitford, Captain Sinclair, Captain Glascock, Augustus Broadhead, and the author of “The Navy at Home,” have all painted vivid pictures of the life in the midshipmen’s berth. It was rough and ready, and sufficiently brutal. There was a good deal of noisy horseplay, a good deal of vice and cruelty, and a little fun and sea philosophy, to allay its many miseries. A midshipman lived on “monkey’s allowance—more kicks than halfpence,” and had to put up with bullying and injustice unless he was strong enough to hold his own. A weakling was robbed of his fair allowance of food, and imposed upon in other ways, as by tardy relief at night, after keeping his watch on deck, etc. A thin-skinned or sensitive boy was out of his element in such a place. There was no privacy aboard a man-of-war. A student or scholar had little opportunity for reading. Down in the berth, during the daytime, there was a continual Dover Court (“all talkers and no hearers”) so that study there was out of the question. A midshipman was continually fighting, quarrelling, or playing the fool. The berth was a sort of bear-garden, a kind of “sea-Alsatia,” which not even the captain would control or keep in order. From the central darkness of the steerage many cutting-out expeditions were organised against the captain’s steward or the purser, or anyone with anything eatable or drinkable. The berth was always the noisiest and most lawless place aboard. With fiddling, singing, shouting, and fighting[18] the mid. passed his leisure. He was careless of all things save his dinner and his sleep. As for his duty one has but to consult the authorities to see how he regarded that.

According to Lord Cochrane’s lieutenant there was no “such a thing as a faultless midshipman.” According to others the breed thought of nothing but gormandising, and were so greedy that “though God might turn their hearts, the very devil could not turn their stomachs.” The young gentlemen were seldom out of hot water. The usual punishment inflicted on them was mast-heading, by which a lad was sent to the top-mast, or topgallant cross-trees, for several hours at a time. This punishment was often the cause of the loss of a meal, for no member of the berth thought of the absent one at the division of the meat or soup at dinner. In some cases a mid was mast-headed for a full twenty-four hours, during which time he had to depend on the topmen for his meat and drink, if he failed to steal down privily to lay in a stock. The punishment of mast-heading in sunny latitudes was not very severe. Most midshipmen used to look upon it as a pleasant relaxation. They could lash themselves to the cross-trees and fall asleep there during daylight in fine weather, while at night they could creep down unobserved to the top, to take a nap on the studding-sails, after telling the topmen to answer for them if hailed from the deck. Some lieutenants took a shorter way with midshipmen. They would lash or “spread-eagle” the offender in the weather rigging, some half-a-dozen ratlines above the hammock nettings. In this position, with his face to windward, and his arms and legs widely stretched, the midshipman cooled in the wind for an hour at a time, with the spray sprinkling him at brief intervals. This was severe punishment, usually given for sleeping while on watch. Another punishment for the same offence was dowsing, or drenching the offender with a bucketful of water poured from a height. This was known as “grampussing,” or “making him a soused gurnet.” Some captains even went so far as to order the boatswain’s mate to rig a grating in the cabin, and to lay the offending midshipman either on that grating or on a convenient gun, and to give him a dozen with a colt, or knotted rope’s end. Jack Mitford mentions a case of this sort, and a case occurred on the Australian station in the early forties. In the latter case the offending captain was court-martialled, and severely reprimanded, “which was nuts to every midshipman in the service.”

The midshipmen’s berth was governed partly by the strong arm and partly by certain laws designed to give an air of justice to the cruelty they recommended. Any member of the mess caught eating, or drinking rum, in the berth, on the day on which he dined in the cabin or ward-room, was sentenced to be firked or cobbed with a stockingful of sand, a knotted rope, or a cask’s bung stave. In extreme cases “faulty relief,” by which a lad was kept on deck after his watch was out, was punished in the same way. Anyone caught taking an unfair share of the rum was firked or cobbed, provided that he was not too big a man to tackle.

As for amusements, one did not come to sea for pleasure. It is significant that the chief amusement or game in use in the midshipmen’s berth, was “able whackets,” a pastime in which cards, blasphemy, and hard knocks were agreeably mingled. Other amusements they had none, save that old one, mentioned by Cervantes, of laughing at sea-sick persons. A green hand, or Johnny Newcome, was fair sport for his first few days aboard, but tying knots in a lad’s sheets, or putting a slippery hitch upon his hammock lanyard, or stowing round shot and swabs under his blankets, soon failed to amuse the jokers. Cutting a man down as he slept; hiding his trousers in the oven in the galley; sending him to the top to gather gooseberries or to hear the dog-fish bark, or to get the key of the keelson, or to find Cheeks the marine—all of these little tricks were jests of the sea humourist, designed to sharpen the wits of the greenhorn. Borrowing a new chum’s clothes was a more questionable piece of humour, for the lender seldom saw his gear again, unless he had sufficient strength to back his claim. Making a newcomer drunk on navy rum and sending him on deck, with a message to the officer of the watch, was yet another jest. There were one or two others, which we will forbear to mention.

A midshipman was expected to “turn out” of his hammock at half-past seven every morning. If he hesitated, and lingered on the order, and turned, like the sluggard, instead of showing a leg, he was very promptly cut down and hauled from his blankets by main force. When he had turned out he washed himself in a little tin basin, balanced on the lid of his chest. He was allowed to wash every day, unless the supply of fresh water was running short. He then dressed, and blacked his boots, and cleared up his sleeping quarters, so that the breakfast table should not be littered with blacking brushes, soap, or wet towels. At eight he took his breakfast of tea and biscuit, or cocoa and porridge. At nine he went to the schoolmaster.

Although many midshipmen were mere children they had “extraordinary privileges, which they abused extraordinarily.” They were officers, and therefore powerful. A midshipman had power to bully and maltreat all those beneath him. Aboard H.M.S. Revenge, just before Trafalgar, under a captain so strict and just as Robert Moorsom, there was a midshipman who amused himself by climbing on to gun-carriages, and calling to him the strongest and finest of the sailors. It was this little devil’s pleasure to kick and beat the poor fellows without cause. He was an officer, and to resent his cruelty would have been mutiny. A midshipman had but to complain to a lieutenant to get a man a flogging at the gangway. He had full leave and licence to curse and misname any seaman who displeased him. It was in his power to follow a man day after day, visiting him with every oppression that malice could suggest. The seaman had no remedy. Appealing to Cæsar, the captain, was worse than useless. The man had to grin and bear it, and count himself lucky if he escaped the cat-o’-nine-tails. “By the god of war,” said Sir Peter Parker to his seamen, “by the god of war, I’ll make you touch your hats to a midshipman’s coat, if it’s only hung on a broomstick to dry.” There was no redress to be gained from men holding opinions of that kind.