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Updated: June 25, 2025
Yankee skippers have far too much NOUS to allow their hands to grow saucy in consequence of division among the after-guard. So now a sort of court-martial was held upon the unfortunates who had dared to attack Goliath, at which that sable hero might have been the apple of Captain Slocum's eye, so solicitous was he of Mistah Jones' honour and the reparation to be made.
The dogs find the day work terribly heavy and Meares is going to put them on to night work. The framework of the hut is nearly up; the hands worked till 1 A.M. this morning and were at it again at 7 A.M. an instance of the spirit which actuates everyone. The men teams formed of the after-guard brought in good loads, but they are not yet in condition.
If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which have long ceased. Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and undefined position of the midshipman.
When a fresh ship arrived, the damsels would bind these around their pretty little foreheads after the manner of phylacteries and they were always read with deep interest by the blubber-hunting skippers and mates and the after-guard generally. Bully's "characters" ran somewhat in this wise:
There was a fair division of labour in carrying out the operation, the topmen and after-guard scouring the planks with sand; after which the decks were flushed fore and aft with floods of water pumped up by the "idlers."
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.
I’ll sheet you home most handsomely for all past favours.’ I then gave it to him thick and thin. ‘Now, my lad,’ said I, ‘chalk this down in your log, that when you have the thievish inclination to take what does not belong to you, remember my cane, if you do not your God.’ This rum gentleman belonged to the after-guard, and I did not forget him.”
The feeling of insecurity concerning one's possessions in the Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford, a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early made the acquaintance of Lemsford.
Not a few of the ship's company had also bestowed great pains upon their hair, which some of them especially the genteel young sailor bucks of the After-guard wore over their shoulders like the ringleted Cavaliers.
"He died as he had lived, a very courtly gentleman. It was at the great sea-battle upon the Norman coast, and your father was in command of the after-guard in the King's own ship. Now the French had taken a great English ship the year before when they came over and held the narrow seas and burned the town of Southampton.
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