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You will be disrated, Corporal Jim, and Lieutenant Earle, in order to reward Bob for carrying tales and to encourage him to carry more, will give him your place. Why, he has just as good as got the stripes on his arm now."
The officers are divided into commissioned officers, namely, the captain and the lieutenants, the master, surgeon, and purser; the warrant officers, who are boatswain, gunner, and carpenter, and the midshipmen; and, lastly, the petty officers, who have their rating given them on board ship by the captain or first lieutenant, and may be equally disrated by them.
No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted!
"If you believe Mr Macdougall," I replied, in a rude, off-hand way, "there's nothing for me to say." "You ungrateful young hound!" cried out the skipper, who, if angry before, was now as mad as a hatter at my impudence. "That's the thanks I get, is it, for favouring you and promoting you out of your station! Listen; consider yourself disrated from this instant do you hear?"
"Don't you hear?" I said; "you are no longer captain of the foretop, you are disrated on the ship's books." I then turned to the clerk to see the entry properly made; but on looking again at the disrated seaman, I observed, to my astonishment, that he was in tears!
The broad bands of turquoise, worn usually on the forehead, were for the time disrated from their post of honour, and were suspended instead from the nape of the neck, over a square piece of stiff cloth, embroidered with strings of red beads.
They had no excuse to offer, so I disrated the naik or corporal, and sentenced the others to carry loads; if they behave well, then they will get fatigue pay for doing fatigue duty, if ill, nothing but their pay. Their limbs are becoming contracted from sheer idleness; while all the other men are well and getting stronger they alone are disreputably slovenly and useless-looking.
No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted!
A few of the petty officers were disrated, and various minor penalties inflicted, and on the 31st of January the court-martial, which had been employed on this unpleasant but necessary service, terminated its sittings and was dissolved.
I did not know the longitude; but I did know that we had sailed due east since I was disrated, and that then we were on the forty-seventh parallel. "I hardly know how it ended; I only knew that I found myself too weak to breast the current, and then I gave up, and drifted.
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