M. SHIP TORCH.
_A Fragment_.
I was the mate of the morning watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused
myself with other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and
other injuries sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting
the clean, sharp, well-defined apertures, made by the 24 lb. shot from
the long guns, with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32 lb.
carronades; but the men had begun to wash down the decks, and the
first gush of clotted blood and water from the scuppers fairly turned
me sick. I turned away, when Mr. Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady
old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of a favourite, came up to
me--"Mr. Cringle, the captain has sent for you; poor Mr. Johnstone
is fast going, he wants to see you."
I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried
below after the frigate's second broad-side; but the excitement of a
boy, who had never smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me
on deck the whole night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for
him, until the old gunner spoke.
I hastened down to our small confined berth, and there I saw a sight
that quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a
grape shot had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his
bloody hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already
departed, except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and
a convulsive contraction and distension of his nostrils.
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