- end_line
- 2683
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2633
- text
- once. After cutting and slashing at them a while, we jumped back to our
guns, and again went to jerking our elbows.
Meantime, a loud cry is heard of “Fire! fire! fire!” in the fore-top;
and a regular engine, worked by a set of Bowery-boy tars, is forthwith
set to playing streams of water aloft. And now it is “Fire! fire!
fire!” on the main-deck; and the entire ship is in as great a commotion
as if a whole city ward were in a blaze.
Are our officers of the Navy utterly unacquainted with the laws of good
health? Do they not know that this violent exercise, taking place just
after a hearty dinner, as it generally does, is eminently calculated to
breed the dyspepsia? There was no satisfaction in dining; the flavour
of every mouthful was destroyed by the thought that the next moment the
cannonading drum might be beating to quarters.
Such a sea-martinet was our Captain, that sometimes we were roused from
our hammocks at night; when a scene would ensue that it is not in the
power of pen and ink to describe. Five hundred men spring to their
feet, dress themselves, take up their bedding, and run to the nettings
and stow it; then he to their stations—each man jostling his
neighbour—some alow, some aloft; some this way, some that; and in less
than five minutes the frigate is ready for action, and still as the
grave; almost every man precisely where he would be were an enemy
actually about to be engaged. The Gunner, like a Cornwall miner in a
cave, is burrowing down in the magazine under the Ward-room, which is
lighted by battle-lanterns, placed behind glazed glass bull’s-eyes
inserted in the bulkhead. The Powder-monkeys, or boys, who fetch and
carry cartridges, are scampering to and fro among the guns; and the
_first and second loaders_ stand ready to receive their supplies.
These _Powder-monkeys_, as they are called, enact a curious part in
time of action. The entrance to the magazine on the berth-deck, where
they procure their food for the guns, is guarded by a woollen screen;
and a gunner’s mate, standing behind it, thrusts out the cartridges
through a small arm-hole in this screen. The enemy’s shot (perhaps red
hot) are flying in all directions; and to protect their cartridges, the
powder-monkeys hurriedly wrap them up in their jackets; and with all
haste scramble up the ladders to their respective guns, like
eating-house waiters hurrying along with hot cakes for breakfast.
At _general quarters_ the shot-boxes are uncovered; showing the
grape-shot—aptly so called, for they precisely resemble bunches of the
fruit; though, to receive a bunch of iron grapes in the abdomen would
be but a sorry dessert; and also showing the canister-shot—old iron of
various sorts, packed in a tin case, like a tea-caddy.
Imagine some midnight craft sailing down on her enemy thus; twenty-four
pounders levelled, matches lighted, and each captain of his gun at his
post!
- title
- Chunk 4