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Updated: April 30, 2025
The smell of the good boiled beef or pork very different from what our sailors once had seemed to give them appetites, for they hastened back with the smoking viands to their mess-tables slung from the deck above. Here the men sat in rows, with their brightly-polished mess utensils before them, and soon gave proof that the heat had had no serious effect on their health.
The mess-tables, which are kept so bright you would suppose them whitewashed, are hooked to the ship's side at one end, while the other is suspended by small ropes covered with white canvas. Against these lines rest the soup and grog kids, shining in a double row along the deck, which is lighted up, fore and aft, for the captain's visit, by a candle in each berth.
"Depend upon it, if `Harry Cane' has made up his mind to come aboard us, come he will; but whether or no he will take the masts out of us, or send us to the bottom, is another thing." The sky still remained overcast, and the heat increased. The men were piped to dinner, and many a joke was cut at the mess-tables about the expected hurricane. "Oh!
Their village architecture was more elaborate than any we had yet seen. In the Colonel's "dugout" a long table decked with lilacs and tulips was spread for tea. In other cheery catacombs we found neat rows of bunks, mess-tables, sizzling sauce-pans over kitchen-fires. Everywhere were endless ingenuities in the way of camp-furniture and household decoration.
Many bloodless battles were thus fought over mess-tables and around camp-fires. "For my part," said John, "I want to get done with this mole business and do anything in the open Oh, here comes Blake! You know our clergyman from home, the Rev. Mr. Rivers? No! Well, then I make you the Christmas gift of a pleasant acquaintance. Sit down, there is some turkey left and plum-pudding."
There was an old rail-fence about the place, and a large pile of boards in front. I immediately engaged four carpenters, and set them at work to make out of these boards mess-tables, benches, black-boards, etc.
The said Mary B being unable to read English or for that matter any other language holds up her paper in triumph. Happy, ignorant Mary! When the can is run out "nanny" is milked, and sent about to look for a feed under the mess-tables, a locality she is thoroughly acquainted with from frequent experience.
"Just taking in provisions in case I have to spend the week-end on a raft. What's your action station?" "Fore-top," was the reply. "Taking notes of the action. Now, have I got everything? Thermos flask watch note-book glasses right! En avant, mon brave!" Thorogood reached the 6-inch battery breathless, and found the guns' crews busy tricing up their mess-tables overhead.
I am aware that the story is often told at mess-tables and in barrack-rooms, so that there are few in the army who have not heard it, but modesty has sealed my lips, until now, my friends, in the privacy of these intimate gatherings, I am inclined to lay the true facts before you. In the first place, there is one thing which I can assure you.
I ought also to have mentioned that the bags of the watch below are piped up at ten o'clock, so that nothing remains between decks but the mess-tables, stools, and the soup and grog kids.
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