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Updated: May 21, 2025
What with the rats, cockroaches, fleas, and other vermin with which the ship was overrun, to say nothing of the complication of stenches which poisoned the atmosphere, the midshipmen's berth aboard the Psyche was by no means an ideal place to sleep in, but it was luxury compared with the state of affairs in the gig.
The lower deck being also full of water, men and chests were rolling and tossing about, and Jack was sometimes in company with the chaplain, and at other times separated; at last they both recovered their legs, and gained the midshipmen's berth, which, although afloat, was still a haven of security. Mr Hawkins spluttered and spit, and so did Jack, until he began to laugh.
"Eat it!" exclaimed the steward, "look at that!" at the same time lifting off the cover, and showing a dish as well cleared as if it had previously been freighted with veal cutlets, and was now on its return from the midshipmen's berth. "Ho! ho!" sung out Jack, running back to the forecastle; "if the skipper eats porpoise, I don't see why we should be nice; so here goes!"
At a quarter past one, a ball fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable struck Nelson on the left shoulder, and he fell on his face. "They have done for me at last, Hardy," he said; "my backbone is shot through." He was carried below, laid on a pallet in the midshipmen's berth, and insisted that the surgeon should leave him "for you can do nothing for me."
I was down in the midshipmen's berth: a full hour after I had received the ward-room invitation, the captain's steward shoved his unlucky head within the door, and croaked out, "Captain Reud's compliments to Mr Rattlin, and desires his company to dinner today." I answered carelessly, rather flippantly, perhaps, "Tell the captain I'm going to dine in the ward-room."
HMS Seringapatam, Captain Leith, was lying off the island of Antigua, in August 1838, when, on Sunday, the 26th of that month, eight of her officers, three of whom were youngsters, and all belonging to the midshipmen's berth, with a gentleman, a resident in the island, and two seamen, started away from the ship in a pinnace on a cruise.
I was considerably bruised, and, before I got to the midshipmen's berth, two marines seized me and dragged me again to the quarter-deck. Once more I stood before my angry persecutor, looking hate and defiance. "To the mast-head, sir, immediately." "I will not. I consider myself a prisoner." "You refuse to go?" "I do." "Quarter-master, the signal halyards. Sling Mr Rattlin." Mr Rattlin was slung.
I took the hint thus given me and, without a word for indeed at that moment I was too deeply moved for speech made my way below to the midshipmen's berth, which I found opportunely empty, and there cast myself upon my knees and prayed earnestly for some minutes.
Very severe was the cross-questioning which the lads had to undergo in the midshipmen's berth as to the manner in which they came by their cut faces, and they were obliged to take refuge under the strict order of the first lieutenant that they were to say nothing about it.
The reader may think I was over fastidious when I inform him that I cannot describe the disgust I felt at the licentious impurity of manners which I found in the midshipmen's berth; for although my connection with Eugenia was not sanctioned by religion or morality, it was in other respects pure, disinterested, and, if I may use the expression, patriarchal, since it was unsullied by inconstancy, gross language, or drunkenness.
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