White Jacket | Page 8

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.
Having now descended from Commodore to Middy, we come lastly to
a set of nondescripts, forming also a "mess" by themselves, apart from
the seamen. Into this mess, the usage of a man-of-war thrusts various
subordinates--including the master-at-arms, purser's steward, ship's
corporals, marine sergeants, and ship's yeomen, forming the first
aristocracy above the sailors.
The master-at-arms is a sort of high constable and school-master,
wearing citizen's clothes, and known by his official rattan. He it is
whom all sailors hate. His is the universal duty of a universal informer
and hunter-up of delinquents. On the berth- deck he reigns supreme;
spying out all grease-spots made by the various cooks of the seamen's
messes, and driving the laggards up the hatches, when all hands are
called. It is indispensable that he should be a very Vidocq in vigilance.
But as it is a heartless, so is it a thankless office. Of dark nights, most
masters-of-arms keep themselves in readiness to dodge forty-two
pound balls, dropped down the hatchways near them.
The ship's corporals are this worthy's deputies and ushers.
The marine sergeants are generally tall fellows with unyielding spines
and stiff upper lips, and very exclusive in their tastes and predilections.
The ship's yeoman is a gentleman who has a sort of counting-room in a
tar-cellar down in the fore-hold. More will be said of him anon.
Except the officers above enumerated, there are none who mess apart
from the seamen. The "_petty officers_," so called; that is, the
Boatswain's, Gunner's, Carpenter's, and Sail-maker's mates, the
Captains of the Tops, of the Forecastle, and of the After-Guard, and of
the Fore and Main holds, and the Quarter- Masters, all mess in common
with the crew, and in the American navy are only distinguished from
the common seamen by their slightly additional pay. But in the English
navy they wear crowns and anchors worked on the sleeves of their
jackets, by way of badges of office. In the French navy they are known
by strips of worsted worn in the same place, like those designating the
Sergeants and Corporals in the army.
Thus it will be seen, that the dinner-table is the criterion of rank in our
man-of-war world. The Commodore dines alone, because he is the only
man of his rank in the ship. So too with the Captain; and the

Ward-room officers, warrant officers, midshipmen, the master-at-arms'
mess, and the common seamen;--all