This kind of conduct always makes the captain suspicious, and is never pleasant in the end, to the men; they preferring to have an officer active, vigilant, and distant as may be, with kindness. Among other bad practices, he frequently slept on his watch, and having been discovered asleep by the captain, he was told that he would be turned off duty if he did it again. To prevent it in every way possible, the hen-coops were ordered to be knocked up, for the captain never sat down oh deck himself, and never permitted an officer to do so.
The second night after crossing the equator, we had the watch from eight till twelve, and it was “my helm” for the last two hours. There had been light squalls through the night, and the captain told Mr. Foster, who commanded our watch, to keep a bright lookout. Soon after I came to the helm, I found that he was quite drowsy, and at last he stretched himself on the companion and went fast asleep.
Soon afterward, the captain came very quietly on deck, and stood by me for some time looking at the compass. The officer at length became aware of the captain’s presence, but pretending not to know it, began humming and whistling to himself, to show that he was not asleep, and went forward, without looking behind him, and ordered the main-royal to be loosed. On turning round to come aft, he pretended surprise at seeing the master on deck.
This would not do. The captain was too “wide awake” for him, and beginning upon him at once, gave him a grand blow-up, in true nautical style—“You’re a lazy good-for-nothing rascal; you’re neither man, boy, _soger_, nor sailor! you’re no more than a _thing_ aboard a vessel! you don’t earn your salt! you’re worse than a _Mahon soger_!” and other still more choice extracts from the sailor’s vocabulary. After the poor fellow had taken this harangue, he was sent into his stateroom, and the captain stood the rest of the watch himself.
At seven bells in the morning, all hands were called aft and told that Foster was no longer an officer on board, and that we might choose one of our number for second mate. It is usual for the captain to make this offer, and it is very good policy, for the crew think themselves the choosers and are flattered by it, but have to obey, nevertheless.