The Three Lieutenants

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The fat bacon was brought. Tom tried to lift a piece to his mouth at the end of his fork, but his hips curled, he could not have done it to save his life. Gerald essayed to do likewise with the same result.

They were not alone in their misery. The assistant-surgeon, two clerks, and another midshipman looked equally pale and miserable.

“Come, come, youngsters, munch away,” said Hickson; “it’s time to finish breakfast.”

“I wish to be a sailor,” cried Tom, again manfully lifting the piece of pork towards his loathing lips, but though his spirit was high his feelings overcame him, and he bolted out of the berth, followed by Gerald and several others, amid the laughter of the seasoned hands.

Tom’s misfortunes did not end here, for the frigate giving a violent roll he butted head foremost right between the legs of Mr Jennings, the tall lieutenant of marines, who not being especially firm on them just then, was upset in a moment. The rest of the party, including McTavish, the assistant-surgeon, escaping from the berth now came tumbling over them, and there the whole lay stretched on the deck, kicking frantically, as if knocked over by a dose of canister fired into their midst.

The prostrate officer, utterly unable to rise, shouted for some time in vain for assistance; at length his cries were heard by the corporal of marines and two of his men, who hurrying aft to his rescue, hauled off the superincumbent midshipmen and McTavish, and set Lieutenant Jennings, foaming with indignation, on his legs.

“Beg pardon, sir, I didn’t intend it,” cried Tom; “I won’t do it again.”

But Tom was counting without his host, for at that instant the ship, giving another roll, threw him once more against the luckless lieutenant, who grasping at the corporal, over they all went, McTavish and Gerald, who had been thrown against the other jollies, bringing them again right over Lieutenant Jennings to the deck.

“This is unbearable,” he spluttered out, “I’ll have you youngsters put under arrest. Marines, can’t you keep your legs? Help me up. Get off me, all you, I say.”

But as the marines could not help themselves, it could scarcely be expected that they could assist their officer, still less could the medico and the midshipmen. The serjeant, however, hearing the uproar, followed by a couple of his men, with a faint idea that a mutiny of some sort had broken out, hurried aft, and with the assistance of Higson amid the other oldsters who came out of the berth to see what was the matter, quickly got the mass of struggling humanity disentangled and placed in as upright position as circumstances would allow. The lieutenant ought really to have been much obliged to Tom, for his anger completely overcame the nausea from which he had been suffering; but ungrateful, like too many others, as Higson observed, he went back into the gunroom demanding condign punishment on the head of his benefactor and his messmates. He was saved thereby from witnessing the effect of that leveller of mankind, sea-sickness, on nearly half his men, who lay about the deck unable to move, and only wishing that the ship would go down and bring their misery to an end. Jack soon soothed the temper of his brother officer, who was a brave and really a good-natured man, and then went to look after Tom and Gerald. He advised them to lie down with their eyes shut in the berth which was now vacated, the occupants being called off to their respective duties, and the assistant-surgeon having retired into the dispensary to concoct a specific against sea-sickness of his own invention, which made him and those he persuaded to take it ten times worse.