As if impressed with a befitting sense of the awfulness of his calling, our gunner always wore a fixed expression of solemnity, which was heightened by his grizzled hair and beard. But what imparted such a sinister look to him, and what wrought so upon my imagination concerning this man, was a frightful scar crossing his left cheek and forehead. He had been almost mortally wounded, they said, with a sabre-cut, during a frigate engagement in the last war with Britain.
He was the most methodical, exact, and punctual of all the forward officers. Among his other duties, it pertained to him, while in harbour, to see that at a certain hour in the evening one of the great guns was discharged from the forecastle, a ceremony only observed in a flag-ship. And always at the precise moment you might behold him blowing his match, then applying it; and with that booming thunder in his ear, and the smell of the powder in his hair, he retired to his hammock for the night. What dreams he must have had!
The same precision was observed when ordered to fire a gun to _bring to_ some ship at sea; for, true to their name, and preserving its applicability, even in times of peace, all men-of- war are great bullies on the high seas. They domineer over the poor merchantmen, and with a hissing hot ball sent bowling across the ocean, compel them to stop their headway at pleasure.
It was enough to make you a man of method for life, to see the gunner superintending his subalterns, when preparing the main- deck batteries for a great national salute. While lying in harbour, intelligence reached us of the lamentable casualty that befell certain high officers of state, including the acting Secretary of the Navy himself, some other member of the President's cabinet, a Commodore, and others, all engaged in experimenting upon a new-fangled engine of war. At the same time with the receipt of this sad news, orders arrived to fire minute- guns for the deceased head of the naval department. Upon this occasion the gunner was more than usually ceremonious, in seeing that the long twenty-fours were thoroughly loaded and rammed down, and then accurately marked with chalk, so as to be discharged in undeviating rotation, first from the larboard side, and then from the starboard.
But as my ears hummed, and all my bones danced in me with the reverberating din, and my eyes and nostrils were almost suffocated with the smoke, and when I saw this grim old gunner firing away so solemnly, I thought it a strange mode of honouring a man's memory who had himself been slaughtered by a cannon. Only the smoke, that, after rolling in at the port-holes, rapidly drifted away to leeward, and was lost to view, seemed truly emblematical touching the personage thus honoured, since that great non-combatant, the Bible, assures us that our life is but a vapour, that quickly passeth away.
CHAPTER XXXII
A DISH OF DUNDERFUNK
In men-of-war, the space on the uppermost deck, round about the main-mast, is the Police-office, Court-house, and yard of execution, where all charges are lodged, causes tried, and punishment administered. In frigate phrase, to be _brought up to the mast_, is equivalent to being presented before the grand- jury, to see whether a true bill will be found against you.
From the merciless, inquisitorial _baiting_, which sailors, charged with offences, too often experience _at the mast_, that vicinity is usually known among them as the _bull-ring_.
The main-mast, moreover, is the only place where the sailor can hold formal communication with the captain and officers. If any one has been robbed; if any one has been evilly entreated; if any one's character has been defamed; if any one has a request to present; if any one has aught important for the executive of the ship to know-straight to the main-mast he repairs; and stands there-generally with his hat off-waiting the pleasure of the officer of the deck, to advance and communicate with him. Often, the most ludicrous scenes occur, and the most comical complaints are made.
One clear, cold morning, while we were yet running away from the Cape, a raw boned, crack-pated Down Easter, belonging to the Waist, made his appearance at the mast, dolefully exhibiting a blackened tin pan, bearing a few crusty traces of some sort of a sea-pie, which had been cooked in it.
"Well, sir, what now?" said the Lieutenant of the Deck, advancing.
"They stole it, sir; all my nice _dunderfunk_, sir; they did, sir," whined the Down Easter, ruefully holding up his pan. "Stole your _dunderfunk!_ what's that?"
"_Dunderfunk_, sir, _dunderfunk_; a cruel nice dish as ever man put into him."
"Speak out, sir; what's the matter?"
"My _dunderfunk_, sir-as elegant a dish of _dunderfunk_ as you ever see, sir-they stole it, sir!"
"Go forward, you rascal!" cried the Lieutenant, in a towering rage, "or else stop your whining. Tell me, what's the matter?"
"Why, sir, them 'ere two fellows, Dobs and Hodnose, stole my _dunderfunk_."
"Once more, sir, I ask what that _dundledunk_ is? Speak!" "As cruel a nice-"
"Be off, sir! sheer!" and muttering something about _non compos mentis_, the Lieutenant stalked away; while the Down Easter beat a melancholy retreat, holding up his pan like a tambourine, and making dolorous music on it as he went.
"Where are you going with that tear in your eye, like a travelling rat?" cried a top-man.
"Oh! he's going home to Down East," said another; "so far eastward, you know, _shippy_, that they have to pry up the sun with a handspike."
To make this anecdote plainer, be it said that, at sea, the monotonous round of salt beef and pork at the messes of the sailors-where but very few of the varieties of the season are to be found-induces them to adopt many contrivances in order to diversify their meals. Hence the various sea-rolls, made dishes, and Mediterranean pies, well known by men-of-war's-men-_Scouse, Lob-scouse, Soft-Tack, Soft-Tommy, Skillagalee, Burgoo, Dough- boys, Lob-Dominion, Dog's-Body_, and lastly, and least known, _Dunderfunk_; all of which come under the general denomination of _Manavalins_.
_Dunderfunk_ is made of hard biscuit, hashed and pounded, mixed with beef fat, molasses, and water, and baked brown in a pan. And to those who are beyond all reach of shore delicacies, this _dunderfunk_, in the feeling language of the Down Easter, is certainly "_a cruel nice dish_."
Now the only way that a sailor, after preparing his _dunderfunk_, could get it cooked on board the Neversink, was by slily going to _Old Coffee_, the ship's cook, and bribing him to put it into his oven. And as some such dishes or other are well known to be all the time in the oven, a set of unprincipled gourmands are constantly on the look-out for the chance of stealing them. Generally, two or three league together, and while one engages _Old Coffee_ in some interesting conversation touching his wife and family at home, another snatches the first thing he can lay hands on in the oven, and rapidly passes it to the third man, who at his earliest leisure disappears with it.
In this manner had the Down Easter lost his precious pie, and afterward found the empty pan knocking about the forecastle.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A FLOGGING
If you begin the day with a laugh, you may, nevertheless, end it with a sob and a sigh.
Among the many who were exceedingly diverted with the scene between the Down Easter and the Lieutenant, none laughed more heartily than John, Peter, Mark, and Antone-four sailors of the starboard-watch. The same evening these four found themselves prisoners in the "brig," with a sentry standing over them. They were charged with violating a well-known law of the ship-having been engaged in one of those tangled, general fights sometimes occurring among sailors. They had nothing to anticipate but a flogging, at the captain's pleasure.