Sustained honor Part 21

They could have no privacy, hardly a moment seclusion. In fact, it was almost a physical impossibility ever to be alone. The three impressed Americans dined at a vast _table d'hote_, slept in commons and made their toilet when and where they could. Their clothes were stowed in a large canvas bag, painted black, which they could get out of the "rack"

only once in twenty-four hours, and then during a time of utmost confusion, among three hundred and fifty other sailors, each diving into his bag, in the midst of the twilight of the berth-deck.

Terrence, in order to obviate in a measure this inconvenience, suggested that they divide their wardrobes between their hammocks and their bags, stowing their few frocks and trowsers in the former, so that they could change at night when the hammocks were piped down. They knew not whither they were bound, and they cared little about the object of the voyage.

"How are we to get out of this any way?" asked Sukey one day, when the three were together for a moment.

"Lave it all to me!" said Terrence.

"I am perfectly willing to leave it all to you, Terrence. Do just as you will, so you get me on sh.o.r.e."

Before they had been a month on the ship, they chased a French merchantman for twenty-four hours, and at times were near enough to fire a few shots with their long bow-chaser; but a fresh breeze sprang up, quickly increased to a gale, and the Frenchman escaped.

This was the nearest approach to a naval engagement they experienced during their stay on the war frigate. They cruised along the coast of Ireland and Scotland, went to Spain, entered the waters of the Mediterranean for a few weeks, and then returned to the Atlantic, sailing for the West Indies.

Not only were the officers of the _Macedonian_ brutal; but the crew was made up of a motley cla.s.s of human beings of every cla.s.s of viciousness and brutality.

"Now boys, if ye want to kape out of trouble," said Terrence, "do'nt ye get into any fights with thim divils, or ye'll be brought up to the quarter-deck and flogged."

His advice was appreciated, and both Fernando and Sukey did their best to avoid trouble with any of their quarrelsome neighbors. They submitted to insults innumerable; but at last Sukey was one morning a.s.sailed by a brutal sailor whom he knocked down. Two other sailors were guilty of a similar offence, and all four were put under arrest. Fernando was shocked and alarmed for his friend, and hastened to ascertain the facts concerning the charge.

"I couldn't help it," declared Sukey, whom he found in irons. "Plague take him! he hit me twice before I knocked him down. I didn't want to be in the game."

The culprits could expect nothing but a flogging at the captain's pleasure. Toward evening of the next day, they were startled by the dread summons of the boatswain and his mates at the princ.i.p.al hatchway,--a summons that sent a shudder through every manly heart in the frigate:

"_All hands witness punishment, ahoy_!"

The hoa.r.s.eness of the cry, its unrelenting prolongation, it being caught up at different points and sent to the lowest depths of the ship, produced a most dismal effect upon every heart not calloused by long familiarity with it. However much Fernando desired to absent himself from the scene that ensued, behold it he must; or, at least, stand near it he must; for the regulations compelled the attendance of the entire ship's company, from the captain himself to the smallest boy who struck the bell.

At the summons, the crew crowded round the mainmast. Many, eager to obtain a good place, got on the booms to overlook the scene. Some were laughing and chatting, others canva.s.sing the case of the culprits. Some maintaining sad, anxious countenance, or carrying a suppressed indignation in their eyes. A few purposely kept behind, to avoid looking on. In short, among three or four hundred men, there was every possible shade of character. All the officers, midshipmen included, stood together in a group on the starboard side of the mainmast. The first lieutenant was a little in advance, and the surgeon, whose special duty it was to be present at such times, stood close at his side. Presently the captain came forward from his cabin and took his place in the centre of the group, with a small paper in his hand. That paper was the daily report of offenses, regularly laid upon his table every morning or evening.

"Master-at-arms, bring up the prisoners," he said. A few moments elapsed, during which the captain, now clothed in his most dreadful attributes, fixed his eyes severely upon the crew, when suddenly a lane formed through the crowd of seamen, and the prisoners advanced--the master-at-arms, rattan in hand, on one side, and an armed marine on the other,--and took up their stations at the mast.

"You, John, you, Richard, (Richard was Sukey) you Mark, you Antone,"

said the captain, "were yesterday found fighting on the gun-deck. Have you any thing to say?"

Mark and Antone, two steady, middle-aged men, who had been admired for their sobriety, replied that they did not strike the first blow; they had submitted to much before they yielded to their pa.s.sions; but as they acknowledged that they had at last defended themselves their excuse was overruled. John--a brutal bully, who in fact was the real author of the disturbance was about entering into a long harangue, when the captain cut him short, and made him confess, irrespective of circ.u.mstances, that he had been in the fray. Poor Sukey, the youngest and handsomest of the four, was pale and tremulous. He had already won the good will and esteem of many in the ship. That morning Fernando and Terrence had gone to his bag, taken out his best clothes and, obtaining the permission of the marine sentry at the "brig," had handed them to him, to be put on before he was summoned to the mast. This was done to propitiate Captain Snipes, who liked to see a tidy sailor; but it was all in vain. To all the young American's supplications, Captain Snipes turned a deaf ear.

Sukey declared he had been struck twice before he had returned a blow.

"No matter," cried the captain, angrily, "you struck at last, instead of reporting the case to an officer. I allow no man to fight on this ship but myself. I do the fighting. Now, men," he added fixing his dark stern eye on them, "you all admit the charge; you know the penalty. Strip!

Quartermaster, are the gratings rigged?"

The gratings were square frames of barred woodwork, sometimes placed over the hatches. One of these squares was now laid on the deck, close to the ship's bulwarks, and while the remaining preparations were being made, the master-at-arms a.s.sisted the prisoners to remove their jackets and shirts. This done, their shirts were loosely thrown over their shoulders as a partial protection from the keen breeze, until their turn should come.

At a sign from the captain, John, with a shameless leer, stepped forward and stood pa.s.sively on the grating, while the bareheaded old quarter-master, with his gray hair streaming in the wind, bound his feet to the cross-bars and, stretching out his arms over his head, secured them to the hammock netting above. He then retreated a little s.p.a.ce, standing silent. Meanwhile, the boatswain stood solemnly on the other side with a green bag in his hand. From this he took four instruments of punishment and gave one to each of his mates; for a fresh "cat," applied by a fresh hand, was the ceremonious privilege accorded to every man-of-war culprit. Through all that terrible scene, Fernando Stevens stood transfixed with horror, indignation and a thousand bitter, indescribable feelings. At another sign from the captain, the master-at-arms, stepping up, removed the shirt from the prisoner. At this juncture, a wave broke against the ship's side and dashed the spray over the man's exposed back; but, though the air was piercing cold, and the water drenched him, John stood still without a shudder.

Captain Snipes lifted his finger, and the first boatswain's-mate advanced, combing out the nine tails of his "cat" with his fingers, and then, sweeping them round his neck, brought them with the whole force of his body upon the mark. Again, and again, and again; at every blow, higher and higher and higher rose the long purple bars on the prisoner's back; but he only bowed his head and stood still. A whispered murmur of applause at their shipmate's nerve went round among the sailors. One dozen blows were administered on his bare back, and then he was taken down and went among his messmates, swearing:

"It's nothing, after you get used to it."

Antone, who was a Portuguese, was next, and he howled and swore at every blow, though he had never been known to blaspheme before. Mark, the third, was in the first stage of consumption and coughed and cringed during the flogging. At about the sixth blow he bowed his head and cried: "Oh! Jesus Christ!" but whether it was in blasphemy or supplication no one could determine. He was taken with a fever a few days later and died before the cruise was over, as much perhaps of mortification as from the inroads of the disease.

The, fourth was poor Sukey. When told to advance, he made one more appeal to the captain, avowing that he was an American. The captain, with an oath, said that was the more reason for flogging him. He appealed until the marine guard was ordered to prod him with his bayonet. They had to actually drag Sukey to the gratings. Sukey's cheek, which was usually pale, was now whiter than a ghost. As he was being secured to the gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his dazzling white back were revealed, he turned his tear-stained face to the captain and implored him to spare him the disgrace, which he felt far more keenly than the pain.

"I would not forgive G.o.d Almighty!" cried the brutal captain. The fourth boatswain's mate, with a fresh cat-o-nine-tails swung it about his head and brought the terrible scourge hissing and crackling on the young and tender back. Fernando turned his face away and wept.

"_My G.o.d! oh! my G.o.d_!" shouted Sukey, and he writhed and leaped, until he displaced the gratings, scattering the nine-tails of the scourge all over his person. At the next blow, he howled, leaped and raged in unendurable agony.

"What the d---l are you stopping for?" cried the captain as the boatswain's-mate halted. "Lay on!" and the whole dozen were applied, though poor Sukey fainted at the tenth stroke.

Reader, this was on an English war vessel,--the vessel of a nation professing a high state of civilization. We blush to say it, it was no better on an American man-of-war, if nautical writers of high authority are to be believed, and, even to-day, the brute often holds a commission in the American army and navy. Although flogging is of the past, punishment equally severe is inflicted. The necessities of discipline are taken advantage of by men without hearts. An American naval officer in Washington City told the author that it was a common thing for officers on an American man-of-war to swing the hammock of the sailor or middy whom they disliked, where he would have all the damp and cold, ending in consumption and death. If this be true, it is far more brutal than flogging. Congressional investigations are usually farces.

Congressmen place their friends in the army and navy, and their investigations usually result in the triumph of their friends.

For several days, Sukey was too ill to leave his hammock. "I don't want to get well," the poor boy said. "I want to die. I never want to see home or mother again after that."

"Faith, me lad, live but to kill the d---d captain," suggested Terrence.

"I would live a thousand years to do that."

There was a negro named Job on the vessel, who was a cook. He early formed a liking for the three. He stole the choicest dainties from the officers' table for the sick youth.

"I ain't no Britisher," he declared. "Dar ain't no Angler Saxon blood in dese veins, honey, an' I thank de good Lawd for dat. I know what it am to be flogged. Golly, dey flog dis chile twice already. Nex' time, I spect dat sumfin' am a-gwine to happen."

"When and where were you impressed?" Fernando asked.

"I war wid Cap'n Parson on de _Dover_, den de _Sea Wing_ came, an' de leftenant swear dis chile am a Britisher, and he tuk me away. Den me an'

Ma.s.sa St. Mark, de gunner, were transferred to de _Macedonian_."

Sukey was sullen and melancholy. A few days after he was on duty, he breathed a threat against Captain Snipes. A tall, fine-looking sailor, who was known as the chief gunner, said:

"Young man, keep your thoughts to yourself. For heaven's sake, don't let the officers hear them!"

They were now in the vicinity of the West Indies and touched at Barbadoes. While lying here, Fernando witnessed another act of British cruelty. Tom Boseley, an American who had been impressed into the service of Great Britain deserted, but was pursued and brought back. He was flogged and, on being released struck the captain, knocking him down. For this act, he was tried by a "drumhead court martial" and sentenced to die. Tom had a wife and children in New York, but was not permitted to write to them. Only one prayer was granted, and that was that he might be shot instead of hung, and thrown into the sea.

Fernando, almost at the risk of his own life, visited Boseley the night before his execution. He seemed indifferent to his fate, declaring it preferable to service on an English war ship. "I would rather die a free man, than live a slave," he declared. Fernando asked if he would not rather live for his family.

"Oh! Stevens, say nothing about my family to-night!"

He then requested him to take possession of some letters he would try to write and, if possible, send them. Fernando said he would do so, and he then asked him to remain with him through the night. This Fernando declared was impossible. The young American was greatly weighed down by the terrible mental strain the whole affair had produced, and he had double duty to screen the unfortunate Sukey.

"Won't you be with me when it is done?" Boseley asked. Money would not have tempted him to witness that sight; but he could not refuse the dying request. He visited him early next morning and found him dressed in the best clothes his poor wardrobe could afford, a white shirt and black cravat. He was a fine-looking man in features as well as stature.

As Fernando gazed on him he thought, "_Dressed for eternity_!"

The doomed man gave him three letters, which Fernando secreted about his person and subsequently sent to their destination. Twelve marines were drawn as executioners. Four muskets were loaded with b.a.l.l.s and eight with blank cartridges. Then the party went ash.o.r.e. Boseley bore up well until the woods were reached, where he found an open grave. According to promise, Fernando went with him. Captain Snipes accompanied the sergeant of the marines to see that the prisoner was properly executed. He still stung under the blow he had received, and Boseley was slain more to gratify the vengeance of the captain than for any violated law. A number of Boseley's shipmates were permitted to come and witness the terrible scene.

The captain said to Boseley:

"What is your distance?"

"Twelve steps."