Chapter III: On Board a Man O' War

In January, 1883, the big troop-ship bearing reinforcements for the Mediterranean Squadron steamed into Malta Harbour and we were transferred to our respective ships. The _Alexandra_ was supposed to be the most powerful ship in Victoria's navy at that time. She carried the flag of Admiral Lord John Hay. She was a little city of the sea with her divisions of labour, her social distinctions, her alleys and her avenues. She had a population of about one thousand inhabitants. These were divided into officers, petty officers, bluejackets and marines. Around the flagship lay half a dozen other ships of the fleet. I was fascinated with the variety of things around me in that little city, and for the first few days on board spent all my leisure time in exploring this mysterious underwater world. Her guns were of the heaviest calibre. Her steel walls were decorated with ponderous Pallasier shot and shell. I was struck with the marvellous cleanliness. Her decks were white. Every inch of brasswork was shining; everything in order; everything trim and neat; neither slovenly men nor slovenly conditions.

Malta Harbour is one of the finest in the world. The old City of La Vallette looks like an immense fortress, which it really is, and the next thing to explore was the Island.

It seemed as if I had entered an entirely new world. My heart was full of joy, my mind full of hope, and my uniform for the time being was more the uniform of a student than of a fighter. My first great discovery on the ship was the thing I had prayed for--a school. I hid myself behind a stanchion out of sight of the instructors and took my bearings. Later, I found a place where I could sit within hearing distance, but was discovered and forced to explain. The chief instructor was interested in my explanation and in my story, and gave me valuable advice as to how to proceed in my studies. Once again my brogue militated against my advancement. Being the only Irishman in the mess, I had to bear more than my share of its humour. I made application to be employed as a waiter in the officers' wardroom, so that I might improve my pronunciation and add to my vocabulary. I had a little pad arranged on the inside of my jacket with a pencil attached, and every new word I heard I jotted down; and every night I gathered together these new friends, looked up their origin, meaning, and pronunciation. I was appointed bodyservant to the paymaster of the ship, a bucolic old Bourbon of the most pronounced aristocracy. This excused me from military and naval duty, and I was privileged to wear plain clothes. I attached myself to a small group of pietists called Plymouth Brethren, orthodox theologians, literalists in interpretation of the Scriptures and exceedingly straight-laced in their morality. They were fine Bible students, indeed, Bible experts. This was a great joy to me at first, but the atmosphere to a red-blooded, jubilant nature like mine was rather stifling after a while. I was fond of a good story and was full of Irish folklore and fairy stories, and I noticed my brethren did not relish my outbursts of laughter. It was explosive, spontaneous and hearty, but not contagious among them. Their faces assumed a rather pained expression, a kind of notice of emotion that a sense of humour and religious beliefs occupied different compartments in the human mind. It was intimated to me that such "frivolousness" was out of kelter with the profession of a Christian. It was merely by accident that I pulled out of a shelf in the library "Adam Bede" by George Eliot. When I was discovered eagerly devouring its contents under the glare of the fighting lamp one night after the crew had "piped down," I was upbraided for spending such precious time on such "worldly trash."

"Suppose the Lord should come now and find you reading that; what would you say to Him?"

My reply added to their sorrow.

"I should say, 'Begorra, Yer Honour, it's a bully good story!'"

The judgment of my brethren was that there was good stuff in me for a Christian if I had only been born somewhere else, a judgment I could not be expected to agree with. My disagreement with these men on various lines was no barrier to my participation in their propaganda. There was only one thing in the world to do--get men converted. Each man in this small group picked out another man as a subject of prayer and solicitation and persuasion. At our weekly meetings we reported on our work. Then we worked for each other. Of course, I was a subject of prayer myself. When these men shook hands in parting, they usually said, "If the Lord tarry," for the Lord was expected to come at any moment. This they could not get into my speech or mind. As I looked around me, I got the idea that there was a good deal of work to be done before the Lord came, and I put emphasis rather on the work than on the expectation. The ship was a beehive of activity, not merely the activity of warlike discipline or preparation, but social activity. Of course, this activity was largely for the officers. We had to go ashore for most of ours, and the social activity of the rank and file was rather of a questionable character ashore, but the officers had their dinners, their dances, and their afternoon receptions.

The social centre for a portion of the rank and file was a sailors' institute. As this was a temperance institution, it was only patronized by a small percentage of them. Here we had frequent receptions, afternoon teas, lectures, and religious meetings. Here the secret societies met--the Free Masons, Odd Fellows, Foresters, Orangemen, etc. Thursday afternoons we had a half-holiday on board. It was called "Make-and-Mend-Clothes Day." The upper decks belonged to the crew that afternoon, and every conceivable kind of activity was in operation. It looked something like an Irish fair. It was a day on which most men wrote home; but there were sewing, boxing, fencing, and on this afternoon at least almost every man on the ship worked at his hobby. My hobby at this time was mathematics and I could not do that in the crowd, but on Thursday afternoons I rather enjoyed watching the boxing and fencing. My experience in the game had given me at least a permanent interest in it, and as I stood by the ropes the blood tingled in my veins. I was anxious many a time for a rough and tumble, but my religious friends saved me from this indulgence. There were sixteen men in my mess. It was in a corner of the main gun battery alongside one of the big "stern-chasers." We had a table that could be lowered from the roof of the gun battery, and eating three times a day with these men, I knew them fairly well and they knew me. Each man-of-war's man is allowed a daily portion of rum, and I was advised by the small group of Christians to follow their example and refuse to permit anybody else to drink my portion. It took me a long time to make up my mind to follow their advice. It was, of course, considered an old-womanish thing to do, but I finally came to the point when I asked the commissariat department to give me, as was the custom, tea, coffee, and sugar instead. I took very good care, however, not to indulge myself in these things. I handed them over to men on the night watches. This did not save me from the penalty for such an offence. It brought down on my head the curses of a good many men in the mess, but especially of one man who was a sort of a ship's bruiser. It came his turn to be cook about once in ten days. The cook of the mess had as his perquisite a little of each man's ration of rum. With the others, the abuse was mixed with good-humour, for on the whole I managed to lead a fairly agreeable life with my messmates. They looked upon me as a religious fanatic, but my laughter, my funny stories, and my willingness to oblige offset with most of them my temperance principles and religious fanaticism. The insults of the bruiser I usually met with a smile and passed off with a joke; but when they were long continued, they irritated me.

There is a monotony in the life of the average soldier or sailor which has a very deadening effect upon character--seeing the same faces, hearing the same things, performing the same routine in the same kind of way every day, year in and year out, makes him a sort of automaton. Kipling has told us something of the effect of this thing in "Soldiers Three." There came a time when I broke under the strain of this man's continued insults. For nearly a year I got comfort from the advice of the brethren. We had a weekly meeting where our difficulties were considered and prayed over, but the consolation of my brethren finally refused to suffice, and, being a healthy, normal, vigorous animal with some little experience of looking after myself, I began to resent the insults and make some show of defence. This change of front incensed the bully, and one day he hurled an exceedingly nasty epithet at me--one of those vulgar but usual epithets current in army speech. The reference in it to my mother stirred me with indignation and I announced in a fit of anger my willingness to be thrashed or thrash him if the thing was repeated. It was not only repeated at once, but seizing a lump of dough, he hurled it at my head. I ducked my head and it hit another man on the jaw, but the gauntlet was on the floor and an hour afterward the port side of the gun deck was a mass of solidly packed sailors and marines. My brethren came to me one after another. They quoted scores of texts to make me uncomfortable. I tried to joke, but my lips were parched and my tongue unwilling to act. I was pale and trembling. I knew what I was up against, but determined to see it through. One text only I could remember in this exigency and I quoted it to Lanky Lawrence, the big sailmaker who was the leader of our sect. "Lanky, m' boy," I said to him, "I'm goin' to hing m' hat on one text fur the space of a good thrashin'."

"What is it?" asked the sailmaker.

"'As much as lieth in ye, live peaceably wid all men.' Now I have done that same, and bedad, I have done it to the limit and I'm goin' to jump into this physical continshun so that of out it I will bring pace!"

"Ye're all wrong!" said the sailmaker.

"I know it, but from the straight-lacedness of your theology I want a vacation, Lanky, just for the space that it takes to get a lickin' wan way or th' other." So the thing began. My chief endeavour was to escape punishment, but the space was exceedingly small between the two big guns and I didn't succeed very well. During the first five minutes I was very badly bruised and beaten. One of my ribs was broken and both eyes almost closed. Half the time I could not see the bully at all. In one of the breathing spells, the sailmaker, who, despite his quotations of Scripture, had remained to see the proceedings, whispered something in my ear. It was a point of advice. He told me that if I could stand that five minutes longer, my opponent would be outclassed. The support of Lanky was a great encouragement to me, and a good deal of my fear disappeared. I began to think harder, to plan, and to plant blows as well as to avoid them. This excited the crowd and it became frenzied.

Up to that point it was a one-sided thing. Now, I was not only taking but giving; and not only giving, but giving with laughter and ejaculations. Our Bible study for that month was the memorizing of the names of the minor prophets; and once when I managed to toss my opponent's head to one side with a blow on the point of the chin, I shouted full of glee, "Take that, you cross-eyed son of a seacook--take it in the name of Hosea!" The crowd laughed, but above the roar of laughter rang out the voice of a Scotchman who was one of our best Bible students: "Gie him brimstone, Sandy!" A few minutes later I ejaculated, "And, bedad, that's for Joel!" In this new spirit and in this jocular way, I pounded the twelve minor prophets into him one after another, while the rafters of the ship rang with the cheers of the crew. By the time I had exhausted the minor prophets, I was much the stronger man of the two. My opponent was wobbling around in pretty bad shape. Once he was on his knees, and while waiting, I shouted, "I want to be yer friend, Billy Creedan. Shake hands now, you idiot, and behave yourself!"

The only answer I got was a string of vile oaths as he staggered to his feet. I pleaded with him to quit, but that is not the way that such fights end. Men fight while their senses last, while their legs keep under them, and at such a moment a blood-thirsty crowd becomes crazed for the accomplishment of something that looks like murder. The injection of the minor prophets made a ludicrous ending of a thing that had at the beginning almost paralyzed me with fear. So the thing ended with the bully of the mess lying prostrate on his back. I was not presentable as a waiter for several days, but inside of an hour everybody on the ship knew what had happened, and for the second time in my life I was hailed as a bruiser.

To impress a thousand men in such a manner creates an egotism which is very likely to be lasting. I had not accomplished very much in my studies. I was nothing in particular among my religious brethren. My general reputation up to this moment in the ship was that of a simple-minded Irish lad, who was a religious fanatic, a sort of sky pilot or "Holy Joe." I became flushed with the only victory worth while in the army or navy, and the second experience lasted twice as long as the first.

The next thing to be done, of course, by my friends and admirers, was to pit me against the bruisers of other ships. Two of the officers wanted to know my plans. This recognition heightened my vanity. Prayer-meeting night came along, and I was ashamed to attend. A committee was sent to help me out, and the following week the prodigal returned. The proper thing to do on my return was to confess my sin and ask the brethren to pray for me; but when I failed to do this, I became a subject of deep concern and solicitude. I tried to cultivate a sense of conviction, but succeeded indifferently. The deference paid me by the men of the mess was not calculated to help me out. I felt very keenly the suspicion of my brethren, but it was compensated for by the fact that among the ordinary men I had now a hearing on matters of religious interest. I was rather diffident in approaching them on this subject, since, from the viewpoint of the pietists, I had fallen from grace. At the end of a month, a loathing of this cheap reputation began to manifest itself. The man I had beaten became one of my closest friends. I wrote his letters home to his mother. A few weeks later, he entrusted me with a more sacred mission--the writing of his love letters also.

Creedan was a Lancashire man, as angular in speech as in body, and lacking utterly a sense of humour. As we became acquainted, I began to suggest some improvements, not only in his manner of writing, but in the matter also. I could not understand how a man could make love with that kind of nature. One day I suggested the idea of rewriting the entire epistle. The effect of it was a huge joke to Creedan. He laughed at the change--laughed loud and heartily. The letter, of course, was plastered all over with Irish blarney. It was such a huge success that Creedan used to come to me and say:

"Hey, Sandy, shoot off one of them things to Mary, will ye?"

And the thing was done.

The summer cruise of 1883 was up the Adriatic. All the Greek islands were visited. I knew the historical significance of the places, which made that summer cruise a fairyland to me.

There were incidents in that summer cruise of more than ordinary interest. One morning, while our ship was anchored in the harbour of Chios, the rock on which our anchor lay was moved by a sudden convulsion: the mighty cable was snapped, and the ship tossed like a cork by the strain. The guns were torn from their gearing and the shot and shell torn from their racks. Men on their feet were flung prostrate, and everything loose scattered over the decks. The shrill blast of the bugle sounded the "still." Such a sound is very seldom blown from the bugles, but when it is, every man stops absolutely still and awaits orders. The boatswain blew his whistle which was followed with the Captain's order, "Port watch on deck; every other man to his post!" Five minutes later, on the port side of the ship, I saw the British Consul's house roll down the side of the hill. I saw the people flock around a priest who swung his censer and called upon God. The yawning gulf was there into which a part of the little town had sunk. A detachment of marines and bluejackets went ashore, not knowing the moment when the earth would open up and swallow them. The boats were lowered, and orders were given to stand ready to pack the ship to the last item of capacity and carry away the refugees from what we supposed to be a "sinking island." Of course, in a crisis like this, the sentiment of religion becomes dominant. Some of my comrades at once jumped to the conclusion that it was the coming of the Lord, and in the solemnity of the moment I could not resist the suggestion for which I was derided for months:

"Gee, but isn't He coming with a bang!"