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Updated: September 5, 2025
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."
The captain, indeed, from a general sense of propriety, gave his support to the ward-room officers, knowing that, nine times in ten, midshipmen were in the wrong. Things worked as I wished; the midshipmen persisted in behaving ill remonstrated, and declared that the first lieutenant did not tell the truth.
Of the war that is, you will hear in every cluster of men round the little tables. Every day in the hour after luncheon battles are fought over again, personalities criticized, and decisions weighed with all the vigorous freedom of ward-room or the mess ante-room.
The steerage buzzes, hums, and swarms like a hive; or like an infant-school of a hot day, when the school-mistress falls asleep with a fly on her nose. In frigates, the ward-room the retreat of the Lieutenants immediately adjoining the steerage, is on the same deck with it.
The effect was dismal; it was heard in the ward-room, and the first lieutenant sent down to desire we should be quiet; on which we immediately gave three more, which sent him in a rage to the quarter-deck, where we were all summoned, and the reason of the noise demanded. I had, till then, kept myself in the background, content with being the primum mobile, without being seen.
We got up out of the rocking-chairs, and went out past the swinging meat-safe, under the big canvas of the ward-room, with its table piled with stuff to read. Trust the sailor to make himself at home. As we passed through the camp the bluejackets rose to a man and lined up trimly on either side. Trust the sailor to keep his self-respect, even in five weeks' beleaguered Ladysmith.
It was also my turn to dine in the ward-room, and, consequently, I was invited. The anticipated game at chess enhanced the value of the invitation. That same forenoon the captain and I had been very sociable. He gracious, and I facetious as I could. I had been giving him a history of my various ushers, and he had been pleased to be wonderfully amused.
The exigencies of the situation did not permit of the observance of such nice distinctions of rank in the matter of accommodation as exist under ordinary conditions, it therefore came about that we of the midshipmen's berth were lodged for the night in the same tent as the ward-room officers, and consequently we heard much of the conversation that passed between them, particularly at dinner.
This cabin is on a level with the quarter-deck, and is covered by the poop-deck. Going down below stairs, you come to the ward-room, a pretty large room, round which are the state-rooms of the lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, etc. A stationary table. The ship's main-mast comes down through the middle of the room, and Bridge's chair, at dinner, is planted against it.
Sitting among the officers in the ward-room, I endeavored to accustom my ear to the sound of the Russian language and learn to repeat the most needed phrases. I soon acquired the alphabet, and could count up to any extent; I could spell Russian words much as a schoolboy goes through his 'first reader' exercise, but was unable to attain rapid enunciation.
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