Reader Ron emailed yesterday asking if I knew the source of a particular quote. I thought I did, and had even posted on it, but it got me thinking about great but obscure sayings. Today's isn't so obscure, being the title of an absolutely cracking album by The Pogues.
Life in His Majesty's service was not easy. Even in peacetime, conditions were crowded, food was bad, disease was a fact of life until the groundbreaking voyages of Captain James Cooke found a solution to scurvy. Vitamin C was the secret; Cooke initially tried sauerkraut, but the Royal Navy found that the ratings preferred Grog - a mixture of water, lime juice, and rum.
Thus, Limey and the "rum" part of today's post title.
But peace was not the norm in the eighteenth century, the height of the age of Ships Of The Line. Britain was nearly denuded of her forests, used to construct hundreds of great sailing ships. The H.M.S. Victory (of Trafalgar and Nelson fame) alone required 6,000 trees for construction, most of them oak. The tendency of the oak to throw off limbs at right angle to the trunk meant that the wood was filled with cross fibers, and therefore much stronger when struck by cannon balls.
And since battles were fought mostly at close range - even 50 yards or less - the double-shotted cannon of the French fleet could tear through even tough English oak planking. Not for nothing were the fleets of the time described as comprising wooden ships and iron men.
And the last of that explains the remainder of today's post title. Discipline was harsh, and strict obedience was demanded. Mostly, it was obtained, if sometimes after public flogging. That discipline not only enabled the Royal Navy to win most of the engagements during the century, but to maintain a tight blockade on the French fleets in all sorts of weather, rain or shine or gale, winter or summer, for decades.
Boredom was the chief enemy aboard the ships tacking patiently back and forth across the Raz de Sein, the cat of nine tails kept the men's attention focused on their job - keeping the French bottled up in their harbor at Brest, and keeping their ship off the rocks. When weather blew, the ships would linger as long as they dared, and then dash across the channel to hole up in their own harbor in Tor Bay. But they didn't get much time to stand down. Admiral William Cornwallis was known to his sailors as "Blue Billy"; no sooner had ships dropped anchor than Cornwallis' flagship would run up the blue signal flag denoting immanent departure of the fleet.
And so thank you is in store to Ron, for making me think of an interesting topic. Well, interesting to me, at least.
As to The Pogues, my tastes are more to their more traditional offerings, like this one from their Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash album.
(Image source)
uh, I think I'll pass on the latter two...
ReplyDelete"Two Years Before The Mast" is a pretty good 1st-person account of American merchant marine in the 1840s. IIRC, seems the author felt discipline was harsh but not particularly resented if applied fairly.
ReplyDelete