The Two Admirals (45 page)

"'Tis seven bells, Geoffrey," said the admiral, in an under tone. "Hold
on for half an hour longer, and then go dream of your dear mother."

Before the boy could recover himself to thank his superior, the latter
had disappeared.

"Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed."

SHAKESPEARE.

The reader will remember that the wind had not become fresh when Sir
Gervaise Oakes got into his barge, with the intention of carrying his
fleet to sea. A retrospective glance at the state of the weather, will
become necessary to the reader, therefore, in carrying his mind back to
that precise period whither it has now become our duty to transport him
in imagination.

The vice-admiral governed a fleet on principles very different from
those of Bluewater. While the last left so much to the commanders of the
different vessels, his friend looked into every thing himself. The
details of the service he knew were indispensable to success on a larger
scale, and his active mind descended into all these minutiæ, to a degree
sometimes, that annoyed his captains. On the whole, however, he was
sufficiently observant of that formidable barrier to excessive
familiarity, and that great promoter of heart-burnings in a squadron,
naval etiquette, to prevent any thing like serious misunderstandings,
and the best feelings prevailed between him and the several magnates
under his orders. Perhaps the circumstance that he was a
fighting
admiral contributed to this internal tranquillity; for, it has been
often remarked, that armies and fleets will both tolerate more in
leaders that give them plenty to do with the enemy, than in commanders
who leave them inactive and less exposed. The constant encounters with
the foe would seem to let out all the superfluous quarrelsome
tendencies. Nelson, to a certain extent, was an example of this
influence in the English marine, Suffren
[1]
in that of France, and
Preble, to a much greater degree than in either of the other cases, in
our own. At all events, while most of his captains sensibly felt
themselves less of commanders, while Sir Gervaise was on board or around
their ships, than when he was in the cabin of the Plantagenet, the peace
was rarely broken between them, and he was generally beloved as well as
obeyed. Bluewater was a more invariable favourite, perhaps, though
scarcely as much respected; and certainly not half as much feared.

On the present occasion, the vice-admiral did not pull through the
fleet, without discovering the peculiar propensity to which we have
alluded. In passing one of the ships, he made a sign to his coxswain to
cause the boat's crew to lay on their oars, when he hailed the vessel,
and the following dialogue occurred.

"Carnatic, ahoy!" cried the admiral.

"Sir," exclaimed the officer of the deck, jumping on a quarter-deck gun,
and raising his hat.

"Is Captain Parker on board, sir?"

"He is, Sir Gervaise; will you see him, sir?"

A nod of the head sufficed to bring the said Captain Parker on deck, and
to the gangway, where he could converse with his superior, without
inconvenience to either.

"How do you do,
Captain
Parker?"—a certain sign Sir Gervaise meant to
rap the other over the knuckles, else would it have been
Parker
."—How
do you do,
Captain
Parker? I am sorry to see you have got your ship
too much down by the head, sir. She'll steer off the wind, like a colt
when he first feels the bridle; now with his head on one side, and now
on the other. You know I like a compact line, and straight wakes, sir."

"I am well aware of that, Sir Gervaise," returned Parker, a gray-headed,
meek old man, who had fought his way up from the forecastle to his
present honourable station, and, who, though brave as a lion before the
enemy, had a particular dread of all his commanders; "but we have been
obliged to use more water aft than we could wish, on account of the
tiers. We shall coil away the cables anew, and come at some of the
leaguers forward, and bring all right again, in a week, I hope, sir."

"A week?—the d—l, sir; that will never do, when I expect to see de
Vervillin
to-morrow
. Fill all your empty casks aft with salt-water,
immediately; and if that wont do, shift some of your shot forward. I
know that craft of yours, well; she is as tender as a fellow with corns,
and the shoe musn't pinch anywhere."

"Very well, Sir Gervaise; the ship shall be brought in trim, as soon as
possible."

"Ay, ay, sir, that is what I expect from every vessel, at
all
times;
and more especially when we are ready to meet an enemy. And, I say,
Parker
,"—making a sign to his boat's crew to stop rowing again—"I
say,
Parker
, I know you love brawn;—I'll send you some that Galleygo
tells me he has picked up, along-shore here, as soon as I get aboard.
The fellow has been robbing all the hen-roosts in Devonshire, by his own
account of the matter."

Sir Gervaise waved his hand,
Parker
smiled and bowed his thanks, and
the two parted with feelings of perfect kindness, notwithstanding the
little skirmish with which the interview had commenced.

"Mr. Williamson," said Captain Parker to his first lieutenant, on
quitting the gangway, "you hear what the commander-in-chief says; and he
must be obeyed. I
don't
think the Carnatic would have sheered out of
the line, even if she is a little by the head; but have the empty casks
filled, and bring her down six inches more by the stern."

"That's a good fellow, that old Parker," said Sir Gervaise to his
purser, whom he was carrying off good-naturedly to the ship, lest he
might lose his passage; "and I wonder how he let his ship get her nose
under water, in that fashion. I like to have him for a second astern;
for I feel sure he'd follow if I stood into Cherbourg, bows on! Yes; a
good fellow is Parker; and, Locker,"—to his own man, who was also in
the boat;—"mind you send him
two
of the best pieces of that
brawn—hey!—hey!—hey!—what the d—l has Lord Morganic"—a descendant
from royalty by the left hand,—"been doing now! That ship is kept like
a tailor's jay figure, just to stuff jackets and gim-cracks on
her—Achilles, there!"

A quarter-master ran to the edge of the poop, and then turning, he spoke
to his captain, who was walking the deck, and informed him that the
commander-in-chief hailed the ship. The Earl of Morganic, a young man of
four-and-twenty, who had succeeded to the title a few years before by
the death of an elder brother,—the usual process by which an
old
peer
is brought into the British navy, the work being too discouraging for
those who have fortune before their eyes from the start,—now advanced
to the quarter of the ship, bowed with respectful ease, and spoke with a
self-possession that not one of the old commanders of the fleet would
have dared to use. In general, this nobleman's intercourse with his
superiors in naval rank, betrayed the consciousness of his own
superiority in civil rank; but Sir Gervaise being of an old family, and
quite as rich as he was himself, the vice-admiral commanded more of his
homage than was customary. His ship was full of "nobs," as they term it
in the British navy, or the sons and relatives of nobles; and it was by
no means an uncommon thing for her messes to have their jokes at the
expense of even flag-officers, who were believed to be a little ignorant
of the peculiar sensibilities that are rightly enough imagined to
characterize social station.

"Good-morning, Sir Gervaise," called out this noble captain; "I'm glad
to see you looking so well, after our long cruise in the Bay; I intended
to have the honour to inquire after your health in person, this morning,
but they told me you slept out of your ship. We shall have to hold a
court on you, sir, if you fall much into that habit!"

All within hearing smiled, even to the rough old tars, who were
astraddle of the yards; and even Sir Gervaise's lip curled a little,
though he was not exactly in a joking humour.

"Come, come, Morganic, do you let my habits alone, and look out for your
own fore-top-mast. Why, in the name of seamanship, is that spar stayed
forward in such a fashion, looking like a xebec's foremast?"

"Do you dislike it, Sir Gervaise?—Now to our fancies aboard here, it
gives the Achilles a knowing look, and we hope to set a fashion. By
carrying the head-sails well forward, we help the ship round in a sea,
you know, sir."

"Indeed, I know no such thing, my lord. What you gain after being taken
aback, you lose in coming to the wind. If I had a pair of scales
suitable to such a purpose, I would have all that hamper you have stayed
away yonder over your bows, on the end of such a long lever, weighed, in
order that you might learn what a beautiful contrivance you've invented,
among you, to make a ship pitch in a head sea. Why, d—e, if I think
you'd lie-to, at all, with so much stuff aloft to knock you off to
leeward. Come up, every thing, forward; come up every thing, my lord,
and bring the mast as near perpendicular as possible. It's a hard
matter, I find, to make one of your new-fashioned captains keep things
in their places."

"Well, now, Sir Gervaise, I think the Achilles makes as good an
appearance as most of the other ships; and as to travelling or working,
I do not know that she is either dull or clumsy!"

"She's pretty well, Morganic, considering how many Bond-street ideas you
have got among you; but she'll never do in a head sea, with that
fore-top-mast threatening your knight-heads. So get the mast
up-and-down, again, as soon as convenient, and come and dine with me,
without further invitation, the first fine day we have at sea. I'm going
to send Parker some brawn; but, I'll feed
you
on some of Galleygo's
turtle-soup, made out of pig's heads."

"Thank'ee, Sir Gervaise; we'll endeavour to straighten the slick, since
you
will
have it so; though, I confess I get tired of seeing every
thing to-day, just as we had it yesterday."

"Yes—yes—that's the way with most of these St. James cruisers,"
continued the vice-admiral, as he rowed away. "They want a fashionable
tailor to rig a man-of-war, as they are rigged themselves. There's my
old friend and neighbour, Lord Scupperton—he's taken a fancy to
yachting, lately, and when his new brig was put into the water, Lady
Scupperton made him send for an upholsterer from town to fit out the
cabin; and when the blackguard had surveyed the unfortunate craft, as if
it were a country box, what does he do but give an opinion, that 'this
here edifice, my lord, in my judgment, should be furnished in cottage
style,'—the vagabond!"

This story, which was not particularly original, for Sir Gervaise
himself had told it at least a dozen times before, put the admiral in a
good humour, and he found no more fault with his captains, until he
reached the Plantagenet.

"Daly," said the Earl of Morganic to his first lieutenant, an
experienced old Irishman of fifty, who still sung a good song and told a
good story, and what was a little extraordinary for either of these
accomplishments, knew how to take good care of a ship;—"Daly, I suppose
we must humour the old gentleman, or he'll be quarantining me, and that
I shouldn't particularly like on the eve of a general action; so we'll
ease off forward, and set up the strings aft, again. Hang me if I think
he could find it out if we didn't, so long as we kept dead in his wake!"

"That wouldn't be a very safe desait for Sir Jarvy, my lord, for he's a
wonderful eye for a rope! Were it Admiral Blue, now, I'd engage to
cruise in his company for a week, with my mizzen-mast stowed in the
hold, and there should be no bother about the novelty, at all; quite
likely he'd be hailing us, and ask 'what brig's that?' But none of these
tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of
a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about
the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and
set every thing as straight up-and-down as the back of a grenadier."

Lord Morganic laughed, as was usual with him when his lieutenant saw fit
to be humorous; and then his caprice in changing the staying of his
masts, as well as the order which countermanded it, was forgotten.

The arrival of Sir Gervaise on board his own ship was always an event in
the fleet, even though his absence had lasted no longer than twenty-four
hours. The effect was like that which is produced on a team of
high-mettled cattle, when they feel that the reins are in the hands of
an experienced and spirited coachman.

"Good-morning, Greenly, good-morning to you all, gentlemen," said the
vice-admiral, bowing to the quarter-deck in gross, in return for the
'present-arms,' and rattling of drums, and lowering of hats that greeted
his arrival; "a fine day, and it is likely we shall have a fresh breeze.
Captain Greenly, your sprit-sail-yard wants squaring by the lifts; and,
Bunting, make the Thunderer's signal to get her fore-yard in its place,
as soon as possible. She's had it down long enough to make a new one,
instead of merely fishing it. Are your boats all aboard, Greenly?"

"All but your own barge, Sir Gervaise, and that is hooked on."

"In with it, sir; then trip, and we'll be off. Monsieur de Vervillin has
got some mischief in his head, gentlemen, and we must go and take it out
of him."

These orders were promptly obeyed; but, as the manner in which the
Plantagenet passed out of the fleet, and led the other ships to sea, has
been already related, it is unnecessary to repeat it. There was the
usual bustle, the customary orderly confusion, the winding of calls, the
creaking of blocks, and the swinging of yards, ere the vessels were in
motion. As the breeze freshened, sail was reduced, as already related,
until, by the time the leading ship was ten leagues at sea, all were
under short canvass, and the appearance of a windy, if not a dirty
night, had set in. Of course, all means of communication between the
Plantagenet and the vessels still at anchor, had ceased, except by
sending signals down the line; but, to those Sir Gervaise had no
recourse, since he was satisfied Bluewater understood his plans, and he
then entertained no manner of doubt of his friend's willingness to aid
them.