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Updated: September 5, 2025
I shouted to the reis to go where he liked as long as he kept clear of our propellers, which thereupon gave a ponderous flap or two as if to emphasise my remarks, and he bore away from us rejoicing. In the ward-room later on I rallied that cutter's officer on his error. "Well, it was just like the barley one sees in soup," was his defence.
The Vega still lay fast as in a vice. On July 18 Nordenskiöld made ready for another excursion on land. The captain had long had the engines ready and the boilers cleaned. Just as they were sitting at dinner in the ward-room they felt the Vega roll a little. The captain rushed up on deck. The pack had broken up and left a free passage open.
There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty; and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and there was not a married man among us.
Every man aboard would have followed him but for his sharp command to some of them to remain on deck with Hagthorpe. In the ward-room the three stern chasers were in position, loaded, their muzzles thrusting through the open ports, precisely as the Spanish gunners had left them.
"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow bred; and might have been a bar'net!" "No, but to look at?" I corrected him. "The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer: "not much to look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I never see him cleaned up." "How was that?" I cried.
Captain Rogers looked at him for a few seconds, then wringing his hand said, "How did you come into this plight, my dear fellow?" Tom of course explained what had happened, while Gerald and Billy were telling the same story to Captain Murray. Doctor Locock was of course well taken care of by the surgeon, and invited into the ward-room. Tom had a good deal to hear about family matters.
"It won't, if Cantor can manage to queer you in any way," murmured Denton to himself, as he moved on. In the ward-room that evening the "impertinence" of two new ensigns in capturing such prized details was commented upon with a great deal of chaffing. Even Lieutenant Cantor was declared to be much too young to be entrusted with such important work.
"The discipline of the cabin and ward-room officers is the discipline of the fleet," said the admiral; and savage, almost, were the punishments that fell upon officers who disgraced their cloth. The hoisting of the colors, the symbol of the power of the nation, from which depended his own and that of all the naval hierarchy, was made an august and imposing ceremony.
The corporal of the ward-room servants interrupted these amenities with the announcement that dinner was ready, and a general move was made to the table. Thereafter the conversation flowed evenly and generally. It was not confined to war. The men who make war, either afloat or ashore, do not talk about it over-much.
This imp, this Flibbertygibbet, was killing us by inches. At length, one of the master's mates, no longer being able to starve quietly and philosophically, as became a man of courage, was again determined, by one last effort, to dine, and breakfast, and sup, in the captain's cabin and ward-room as often as he could.
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