- description
- # Midshipmen
## Overview
This section, titled "Midshipmen," is a textual document extracted from the file [white_jacket.txt](arke:01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY). It details the role and daily life of midshipmen, often referred to as "middies" or "reefers," aboard a man-of-war. The text describes their position as students learning to become lieutenants, their often-supernumerary status, and their youthful, sometimes boisterous, behavior.
## Context
This section is part of [CHAPTER VI. THE QUARTER-DECK OFFICERS, WARRANT OFFICERS, AND BERTH-DECK UNDERLINGS OF A MAN-OF-WAR; WHERE THEY LIVE IN THE SHIP; HOW THEY LIVE; THEIR SOCIAL STANDING ON SHIP-BOARD; AND WHAT SORT OF GENTLEMEN THEY ARE.](arke:01KG8AJPBQJ0Q2SB2WPXFS2KHD), a chapter within the larger collection [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW). It follows the section on [Warrant or Forward officers](arke:01KG8AKTGRBP5XZRV4PAC0A4FT) and precedes the section on [Berth-deck Underlings](arke:01KG8AKTGRSPZ5XMJYHSVH73T7).
## Contents
The text describes midshipmen as boys sent to sea to learn naval duties, often engaging in behaviors like chewing tobacco, drinking, and swearing. They are characterized as being frequently underfoot, leading to the proverb that a useless person is "as much in the way as a reefer." The description highlights their role as errand-boys for superior officers and their living quarters, the steerage, which is depicted as a noisy and sometimes chaotic environment, akin to a college dormitory. Despite some modern refinements in their dining arrangements, the text suggests their affairs could still fall into disarray. The section also touches upon the interactions between midshipmen and lieutenants, particularly in the early morning.
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- Midshipmen
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- In this part of the category now come the “reefers,” otherwise
“middies” or midshipmen. These boys are sent to sea, for the purpose of
making commodores; and in order to become commodores, many of them deem
it indispensable forthwith to commence chewing tobacco, drinking brandy
and water, and swearing at the sailors. As they are only placed on
board a sea-going ship to go to school and learn the duty of a
Lieutenant; and until qualified to act as such, have few or no special
functions to attend to; they are little more, while midshipmen, than
supernumeraries on board. Hence, in a crowded frigate, they are so
everlastingly crossing the path of both men and officers, that in the
navy it has become a proverb, that a useless fellow is “_as much in the
way as a reefer_.”
In a gale of wind, when all hands are called and the deck swarms with
men, the little “middies” running about distracted and having nothing
particular to do, make it up in vociferous swearing; exploding all
about under foot like torpedoes. Some of them are terrible little boys,
cocking their cups at alarming angles, and looking fierce as young
roosters. They are generally great consumers of Macassar oil and the
Balm of Columbia; they thirst and rage after whiskers; and sometimes,
applying their ointments, lay themselves out in the sun, to promote the
fertility of their chins.
As the only way to learn to command, is to learn to obey, the usage of
a ship of war is such that the midshipmen are constantly being ordered
about by the Lieutenants; though, without having assigned them their
particular destinations, they are always going somewhere, and never
arriving. In some things, they almost have a harder time of it than the
seamen themselves. They are messengers and errand-boys to their
superiors.
“Mr. Pert,” cries an officer of the deck, hailing a young gentleman
forward. Mr. Pert advances, touches his hat, and remains in an attitude
of deferential suspense. “Go and tell the boatswain I want him.” And
with this perilous errand, the middy hurries away, looking proud as a
king.
The middies live by themselves in the steerage, where, nowadays, they
dine off a table, spread with a cloth. They have a castor at dinner;
they have some other little boys (selected from the ship’s company) to
wait upon them; they sometimes drink coffee out of china. But for all
these, their modern refinements, in some instances the affairs of their
club go sadly to rack and ruin. The china is broken; the japanned
coffee-pot dented like a pewter mug in an ale-house; the pronged forks
resemble tooth-picks (for which they are sometimes used); the
table-knives are hacked into hand-saws; and the cloth goes to the
sail-maker to be patched. Indeed, they are something like collegiate
freshmen and sophomores, living in the college buildings, especially so
far as the noise they make in their quarters is concerned. The steerage
buzzes, hums, and swarms like a hive; or like an infant-school of a hot
day, when the school-mistress falls asleep with a fly on her nose.
In frigates, the ward-room—the retreat of the Lieutenants—immediately
adjoining the steerage, is on the same deck with it. Frequently, when
the middies, waking early of a morning, as most youngsters do, would be
kicking up their heels in their hammocks, or running about with
double-reefed night-gowns, playing tag among the “clews;” the Senior
lieutenant would burst among them with a—“Young gentlemen, I am
astonished. You must stop this sky-larking. Mr. Pert, what are you
doing at the table there, without your pantaloons? To your hammock,
sir. Let me see no more of this. If you disturb the ward-room again,
young gentleman, you shall hear of it.” And so saying, this
hoary-headed Senior Lieutenant would retire to his cot in his
state-room, like the father of a numerous family after getting up in
his dressing-gown and slippers, to quiet a daybreak tumult in his
populous nursery.
- title
- Midshipmen