Captain Kearney selected the officers who were to have the charge of the boats. He would not trust any of the midshipmen on so dangerous a service. He said that he had known so many occasions in which their rashness and foolhardiness had spoilt an expedition; he therefore appointed Mr Phillott, the first lieutenant, to the launch; O'Brien to the yawl; the master to the first, and Mr Chucks, the boatswain, to the second cutter. Mr Chucks was much pleased with the idea of having the command of a boat, and asked me to come with him, to which I consented, although I had intended, as usual, to have gone with O'Brien.
About an hour before daylight we ran the frigate to within a mile and a half of the shore, and the boats shoved off; the frigate then wore round, and stood out in the offing, that she might at daylight be at such a distance as not to excite any suspicion that our boats were sent away, while we in the boats pulled quietly in-shore. We were not a quarter of an hour before we arrived at the cape forming one side of the bay, and were well secreted among the cluster of rocks which were underneath. Our oars were laid in; the boats' painters made fast; and orders given for the strictest silence. The rocks were very high, and the boats were not to be seen without any one should come to the edge of the precipice; and even then they would, in all probability, have been supposed to have been rocks. The water was as smooth as glass, and when it was broad daylight, the men hung listlessly over the sides of the boats, looking at the corals below, and watching the fish as they glided between.
"I can't say, Mr Simple," said Mr Chucks to me in an under tone, "that I think well of this expedition; and I have an idea that some of us will lose the number of our mess. After a calm comes a storm; and how quiet is everything now! But I'll take off my great coat, for the sun is hot already. Coxswain, give me my jacket."
Mr Chucks had put on his great coat, but not his jacket underneath, which he had left on one of the guns on the main deck, all ready to change as soon as the heavy dew had gone off. The coxswain handed him the jacket, and Mr Chucks threw off his great coat to put it on; but when it was opened it proved, that by mistake he had taken away the jacket, surmounted by two small epaulettes, belonging to Captain Kearney, which the captain's steward, who had taken it out to brush, had also laid upon the same gun.