Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851. Various
rather suited to an hospital than the duties of active service; and several lay with bloodless faces and white lips, the handcuffed wrists seeming a very mockery of a condition so destitute of all chance of resistance.
The sympathies of the bystanders were very varied regarding them. Some were full of tender pity and compassion; some denounced the system as a cruel and oppressive tyranny; others deplored it as an unhappy necessity; and a few well-to-do-looking old citizens, in drab shorts and wide-brimmed hats, grew marvelously indignant at the recreant poltroonery of "the scoundrels who were not proud to fight their country's battles."
As I was wondering within myself how it happened that men thus coerced could ever be depended on in moments of peril and difficulty, and by what magic the mere exercise of discipline was able to merge the feelings of the man in the sailor, the crowd was rudely driven back by policemen, and a cry of "make way," "fall back there," given. In the sudden retiring of the mass, I found myself standing on the very edge of the line along which a new body of impressed men were about to pass. Guarded front, flank, and rear, by a strong party of marines, the poor fellows came along slowly enough. Many were badly wounded, and walked lamely; some were bleeding profusely from cuts on the face and temples, and one, at the very tail of the procession, was actually carried in a blanket by four sailors. A low murmur ran through the crowd at the spectacle, which gradually swelled louder and fuller, till it burst forth into a deep groan of indignation, and a cry of Shame! shame! Too much used to such ebullitions of public feeling, or too proud to care for them, the officer in command of the party never seemed to hear the angry cries and shouts around him; and I was even more struck by his cool self-possession than by their enthusiasm. For a moment or two I was convinced that a rescue would be attempted. I had no conception that so much excitement could evaporate innocuously, and was preparing myself to take part in the struggle, when the line halted as the leading files gained the stairs, and, to my wonderment, the crowd became hushed and still. Then one burst of excited pity over, not a thought occurred to any to offer resistance to the law, or dare to oppose the constituted authorities. How unlike Frenchmen! thought I; nor am I certain whether I deemed the disparity to their credit!
"Give him a glass of water!" I heard the officer say, as he leaned over the litter, and the crowd at once opened to permit some one to fetch it. Before I believed it were possible to have procured it, a tumbler of water was passed from hand to hand till it reached mine, and, stepping forward, I bent down to give it to the sick man. The end of a coarse sheet was thrown over his face, and as it was removed, I almost fell over him, for it was Santron. His face was covered with a cold sweat, which lay in great drops all over it, and his lips were slightly frothed. As he looked up I could see that he was just rallying from a fainting fit, and could mark in the change that came over his glassy eyes that he had recognized me. He made a faint effort at a smile, and, in a voice barely a whisper, said, "I knew thou'd not leave me, Maurice."
"You are his countryman?" said the officer, addressing me in French.
"Yes, sir," was my reply.
"You are both Canadians, then?"
"Frenchmen, sir, and officers in the service. We only landed from an American ship yesterday, and were trying to make our way to France."
"I'm sorry for you," said he, compassionately; "nor do I know how to help you. Come on board the tender, however, and we'll see if they'll not give you a passage with your friend to the Nore. I'll speak to my commanding officer for you."
This scene all passed in a very few minutes, and before I well knew how or why, I found myself on board of a ship's long-boat, sweeping along over the Mersey, with Santron's head in my lap, and his cold, clammy fingers grasped in mine. He was either unaware of my presence or too weak to recognize me, for he gave no sign of knowing me; and during our brief passage down the river, and when lifted up the ship's side, seemed totally insensible to every thing.
The scene of uproar, noise, and confusion on board the Athol is far above my ability to convey. A shipwreck, a fire, a mutiny, all combined, could scarcely have collected greater elements of discord. Two large detachments of marines, many of whom, fresh from furlough, were too drunk for duty, and either lying asleep along the deck, or riotously interfering with every body; a company of sappers en route to Woolwich, who would obey none but their own officer, and he was still ashore; detachments of able-bodied seamen from the Jupiter, full of grog and prize-money; four hundred and seventy impressed men, cursing, blaspheming, and imprecating every species of calamity on their captors; added to which, a crowd of Jews, bum-boat women, and slop-sellers of all kinds, with the crews of two ballast-lighters, fighting for additional pay, being the chief actors in a scene whose discord I never saw equaled. Drunkenness, suffering, hopeless misery, and even insubordination, all lent their voices to a tumult, amid which the words of command seemed lost, and all effort at discipline vain.
How we were ever to go to sea in this state I could not even imagine; the ship's crew seemed inextricably mingled with the rioters, many of whom were just sufficiently sober to be eternally meddling with the ship's tackle; belaying what ought to be "free," and loosening what should have been "fast;" getting their fingers jammed in blocks, and their limbs crushed by spars, till the cries of agony rose high above every other confusion. Turning with disgust from a spectacle so discordant and disgraceful, I descended the ladders which led, by many a successive flight, into the dark, low-ceilinged chamber called the "sick bay," and where poor Santron was lying in, what I almost envied, insensibility to the scene around him. A severe blow from the hilt of a cutlass had given him a concussion of the brain, and, save in the momentary excitement which a sudden question might cause, left him totally unconscious. His head had been already shaved before I descended, and I found the assistant-surgeon, an Irishman, Mr. Peter Colhayne, experimenting a new mode of cupping as I entered. By some mischance of the machinery, the lancets of the cupping instrument had remained permanently fixed, refusing to obey the spring, and standing all straight outside the surface. In this dilemma, Peter's ingenuity saw nothing for it but to press them down vigorously into the scalp, and then saw them backward the whole length of the head, a performance, the originality of which, in all probability, was derived from the operation of a harrow in agriculture. He had just completed a third track when I came in, and by great remonstrance and no small flattery induced him to desist. "We have glasses," said he, "but they were all broke in the cock-pit; but a tin porringer is just as good." And so saying, he lighted a little pledget of tow, previously steeped in turpentine, and, popping it into the tin vessel, clapped it on the head. This was meant to exhaust the air within, and thus draw the blood to the surface, a scientific process he was good enough to explain most minutely for my benefit, and the good results of which he most confidently vouched for.
"They've a hundred new conthrivances," said Mr. Colhayne, "for doing that simple thing ye see there. They've pumps, and screws, and hydraulic devilments, as much complicated as a watch that's always getting out of order and going wrong; but with that ye'll see what good 'twill do him; he'll be as lively as a lark in ten minutes."
The prophecy was destined to a perfect fulfillment, for poor Santron, who lay motionless and unconscious up to that moment, suddenly gave signs of life by moving his features, and jerking his limbs to this side and that. The doctor's self-satisfaction took the very proudest form. He expatiated on the grandeur of medical science, the wonderful advancement it was making, and the astonishing progress the curative art had made, even within his own time. I must own that I should have lent a more implicit credence to this pæan if I had not waited for the removal of the cupping vessel, which, instead of blood, contained merely the charred ashes of the burnt tow, while the scalp beneath it presented a blackened, seared aspect, like burned leather. Such was literally the effect of the operation, but as from that period the patient began steadily to improve, I must leave to more scientific inquirers the task of explaining through what agency, and on what principles.
Santron's condition, although no longer dangerous, presented little hope of speedy recovery. His faculties were clouded and obscured, and the mere effort at recognition seemed to occasion him great subsequent disturbance. Colhayne, who, whatever may have been his scientific deficiencies, was good-nature and kindness itself, saw nothing for him but removal to Haslar, and we now only waited for the ship's arrival at the Nore to obtain the order for his transmission.
If the Athol was a scene of the wildest confusion and uproar when