CHAPTER XIV.
A DRAUGHT IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
We were not many days out of port, when a rumour was set afloat thatdreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this: that, owing to someunprecedented oversight in the Purser, or some equally unprecedentedremissness in the Naval-storekeeper at Callao, the frigate's supply ofthat delectable beverage, called "grog," was well-nigh expended.
In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of spirits per day toevery seaman. In two portions, it is served out just previous tobreakfast and dinner. At the roll of the drum, the sailors assembleround a large tub, or cask, filled with liquid; and, as their names arecalled off by a midshipman, they step up and regale themselves from alittle tin measure called a "tot." No high-liver helping himself toTokay off a well-polished sideboard, smacks his lips with more mightysatisfaction than the sailor does over this _tot_. To many of them,indeed, the thought of their daily _tots_ forms a perpetual perspectiveof ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding in the distance. It istheir great "prospect in life." Take away their grog, and lifepossesses no further charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted, thatthe controlling inducement which keeps many men in the Navy, is theunbounded confidence they have in the ability of the United Statesgovernment to supply them, regularly and unfailingly, with their dailyallowance of this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals,shipping as landsmen, who have confessed to me, that having contracteda love for ardent spirits, which they could not renounce, and having bytheir foolish courses been brought into the most abjectpoverty--insomuch that they could no longer gratify their thirstashore--they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the asylumfor all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives by regular hoursand exercise, and twice every day quench their thirst by moderate andundeviating doses.
When I once remonstrated with an old toper of a top-man about thisdaily dram-drinking; when I told him it was ruining him, and advisedhim to _stop his grog_ and receive the money for it, in addition to hiswages as provided by law, he turned about on me, with an irresistiblywaggish look, and said, "Give up my grog? And why? Because it isruining me? No, no; I am a good Christian, White-Jacket, and love myenemy too much to drop his acquaintance."
It may be readily imagined, therefore, what consternation and dismaypervaded the gun-deck at the first announcement of the tidings that thegrog was expended.
"The grog gone!" roared an old Sheet-anchor-man.
"Oh! Lord! what a pain in my stomach!" cried a Main-top-man.
"It's worse than the cholera!" cried a man of the After-guard.
"I'd sooner the water-casks would give out!" said a Captain of the Hold.
"Are we ganders and geese, that we can live without grog?" asked aCorporal of Marines.
"Ay, we must now drink with the ducks!" cried a Quarter-master.
"Not a tot left?" groaned a Waister.
"Not a toothful!" sighed a Holder, from the bottom of his boots.
Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum was no longer heardrolling the men to the tub, and deep gloom and dejection fell like acloud. The ship was like a great city, when some terrible calamity hasovertaken it. The men stood apart, in groups, discussing their woes,and mutually condoling. No longer, of still moonlight nights, was thesong heard from the giddy tops; and few and far between were thestories that were told. It was during this interval, so dismal to many,that to the amazement of all hands, ten men were reported by themaster-at-arms to be intoxicated. They were brought up to the mast, andat their appearance the doubts of the most skeptical were dissipated;but whence they had obtained their liquor no one could tell. It wasobserved, however at the time, that the tarry knaves all smelled oflavender, like so many dandies.
After their examination they were ordered into the "brig," a jail-housebetween two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners are kept. Here theylaid for some time, stretched out stark and stiff, with their armsfolded over their breasts, like so many effigies of the Black Prince onhis monument in Canterbury Cathedral.
Their first slumbers over, the marine sentry who stood guard over themhad as much as he could do to keep off the crowd, who were alleagerness to find out how, in such a time of want, the prisoners hadmanaged to drink themselves into oblivion. In due time they wereliberated, and the secret simultaneously leaked out.
It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, who had sufferedseverely from the common deprivation, had all at once been struck by abrilliant idea. It had come to his knowledge that the purser's stewardwas supplied with a large quantity of _Eau-de-Cologne_, clandestinelybrought out in the ship, for the purpose of selling it on his ownaccount, to the people of the coast; but the supply proving larger thanthe demand, and having no customers on board the frigate but LieutenantSelvagee, he was now carrying home more than a third of his originalstock. To make a short story of it, this functionary, being called uponin secret, was readily prevailed upon to part with a dozen bottles,with whose contents the intoxicated party had regaled themselves.
The news spread far and wide among the men, being only kept secret fromthe officers and underlings, and that night the long, crane-neckedCologne bottles jingled in out-of-the-way corners and by-places, and,being emptied, were sent flying out of the ports. With brown sugar,taken from the mess-chests, and hot water begged from the galley-cooks,the men made all manner of punches, toddies, and cocktails, lettingfall therein a small drop of tar, like a bit of brown toast, by way ofimparting a flavour. Of course, the thing was managed with the utmostsecrecy; and as a whole dark night elapsed after their orgies, therevellers were, in a good measure, secure from detection; and those whoindulged too freely had twelve long hours to get sober before daylightobtruded.
Next day, fore and aft, the whole frigate smelled like a lady's toilet;the very tar-buckets were fragrant; and from the mouth of many a grim,grizzled old quarter-gunner came the most fragrant of breaths. Theamazed Lieutenants went about snuffing up the gale; and, for once.Selvagee had no further need to flourish his perfumed hand-kerchief. Itwas as if we were sailing by some odoriferous shore, in the vernalseason of violets. Sabaean odours!
"For many a league, Cheered with grateful smell, old Ocean smiled."
But, alas! all this perfume could not be wasted for nothing; and themasters-at-arms and ship's corporals, putting this and that together,very soon burrowed into the secret. The purser's steward was called toaccount, and no more lavender punches and Cologne toddies were drank onboard the Neversink.
White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Page 15