mall-arm marks-man in the
enemy's tops might put a bullet through _me_ instead of the Commodore?
If they hit _him_, no doubt he would not feel it much, for he was used
to that sort of thing, and, indeed, had a bullet in him already.
Whereas, _I_ was altogether unaccustomed to having blue pills playing
round my head in such an indiscriminate way. Besides, ours was a
flag-ship; and every one knows what a peculiarly dangerous predicament
the quarter-deck of Nelson's flag-ship was in at the battle of
Trafalgar; how the lofty tops of the enemy were full of soldiers,
peppering away at the English Admiral and his officers. Many a poor
sailor, at the guns of that quarter-deck, must have received a bullet
intended for some wearer of an epaulet.

By candidly confessing my feelings on this subject, I do by no means
invalidate my claims to being held a man of prodigious valour. I merely
state my invincible repugnance to being shot for somebody else. If I am
shot, be it with the express understanding in the shooter that I am the
identical person intended so to be served. That Thracian who, with his
compliments, sent an arrow into the King of Macedon, superscribed "_for
Philip's right eye_," set a fine example to all warriors. The hurried,
hasty, indiscriminate, reckless, abandoned manner in which both sailors
and soldiers nowadays fight is really painful to any serious-minded,
methodical old gentleman, especially if he chance to have systematized
his mind as an accountant. There is little or no skill and bravery
about it. Two parties, armed with lead and old iron, envelop themselves
in a cloud of smoke, and pitch their lead and old iron about in all
directions. If you happen to be in the way, you are hit; possibly,
killed; if not, you escape. In sea-actions, if by good or bad luck, as
the case may be, a round shot, fired at random through the smoke,
happens to send overboard your fore-mast, another to unship your
rudder, there you lie crippled, pretty much at the mercy of your foe:
who, accordingly, pronounces himself victor, though that honour
properly belongs to the Law of Gravitation operating on the enemy's
balls in the smoke. Instead of tossing this old lead and iron into the
air, therefore, it would be much better amicably to toss up a copper
and let heads win.

The carronade at which I was stationed was known as "Gun No. 5," on the
First Lieutenant's quarter-bill. Among our gun's crew, however, it was
known as _Black Bet_.