United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The prayer seemed answered: for shortly after being visited with a paralytic stroke at his breakfast-table, the First Lieutenant next morning was carried out of the ward-room feet foremost, dead. As they dropped him over the side so goes the story the marine sentry at the gangway turned his back upon the corpse.
I saw no more of them, however, except when they came to shake hands with us at the gang-way, as we were leaving the ship. After breakfast, next morning, we were all called aft to the ward-room, one at a time. I was pumped as to the force of the Americans, the names of the vessels, the numbers of the crews, and the names of the commanders.
All the officers that could be spared from the ship were invited to dine with the mess of the 60th Regiment, then doing duty at Kingston and Port Royal. That day, Captain Reud having been invited to dine with the admiral at the Penn, we were consequently deprived of his facetiousness. All the lieutenants and the ward-room officers, with most of the midshipmen, were of the party.
One block formed the barracks of the marines, another a hospital. The captain's own house was at the top of the street, and opposite to it one for the lieutenants, another for the rest of the ward-room officers, and a third on their side of the way for the midshipmen. Then came rows of huts, eight on each side, for the seamen.
"I have only two French officers on board; one was second captain of the Tonnant; they are both in the ward-room, and I occasionally invite them to my table. Of the six prizes four are fine ships, particularly the Franklin and Spartiate: the Souverain and Conquérant are both very old ships; Le Tonnant and L'Aquilon were built within these few years only. Both the former are quite new.
I crossed over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and told Lowell and the other watch-officers in the ward-room of my first attempt to obtain a job. They laughed until I hoped they would strangle. "Who the devil do you think you are, anyway," they cried, "going around, insulting millionnaires like that?"
Then came the big delay owing to ships changing stations during which mines set loose from up above had time to float down the current, when, by the Devil's own fluke, they impinge upon our battleships, and blow de Robeck and his plans into the middle of next week or later! These are ward-room yarns.
The master of an English merchant-vessel would hardly be considered a fit guest for either the cabin or ward-room of a British man-of-war. These masters informed us that they had paid three hundred dollars each, for the king's "dash," at this place; in addition to which, every merchant-captain must pay eight dollars on landing, and if from Bristol, twenty-four dollars.
Captain Breaker walked up to him and began to question him. "If you are a Southern gentleman, as I heard you say you were, don't you think it is a little irregular to be hid in the ward-room of this vessel?" was the first question the commander asked. "I am what I said I was, and I am proud to say it; and I don't allow any man to put his hands on me," blustered the prisoner.
For whereas, whilst we were cruising alone, our opportunities for social intercourse were limited to an occasional invitation to dine with the captain and that, Heaven knows, was poor entertainment enough! we now had frequent invitations to dine with the officers of the other ships, or entertained them in return in our own ward-room.
Word Of The Day