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With the flag in his hand, the soldier ashore looked like a butterfly. “Are you waiting for us to begin?” was the signal made by Rear-Admiral Sampson to the army. “General Duffield is ahead with the scouts,” came the answer from the shore to the flag-ship. By this time it was seven A. M. The admiral ran the flag-ship’s bow within three-quarters of a mile of the beach.
It was as if every American vessel was put in motion at the same instant, and even as the flag-ship’s signal appeared, the clouds of dense smoke from their stacks told that the men in the furnace-rooms had already begun their portion of the task so unexpectedly set for all the fleet.
I was welcomed to the mess by the master’s mate, who held in his hand a dirty, empty bottle, with a farthing candle lighted in the neck of it. “Take care,” said he, “you don’t break your shins over the youngsters’ chests.” “Thank you,” said I; “but I always thought a flag-ship’s cockpit too well regulated to have chests athwartships.” “Why, to tell you the truth,” replied he, “those d——d youngsters are so often changing ships, being here to-day and promoted to-morrow, that it is impossible to keep either chests, mess or them in anything like order.
She was a most tender and attentive nurse. It was a month before I was sufficiently strong to go on board, and nearly another before I could resume my duty. I was so reduced that I was literally a walking skeleton, or, if my reader pleases, the shadow of a ghost, and, had a purser’s candle been placed within me, I might have made a tolerably good substitute for the flag-ship’s top light.
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