Chapter 16 - Page 2

there, a
word or two in explanation of a carronade may not be amiss. The
carronade is a gun comparatively short and light for its calibre.
A carronade throwing a thirty-two-pound shot weighs considerably
less than a long-gun only throwing a twenty-four-pound shot. It
further differs from a long-gun, in working with a joint and bolt
underneath, instead of the short arms or _trunnions_ at the
sides. Its _carriage_, likewise, is quite different from that of
a long-gun, having a sort of sliding apparatus, something like an
extension dining-table; the goose on it, however, is a tough one,
and villainously stuffed with most indigestible dumplings. Point-
blank, the range of a carronade does not exceed one hundred and
fifty yards, much less than the range of a long-gun. When of
large calibre, however, it throws within that limit, Paixhan
shot, all manner of shells and combustibles, with great effect,
being a very destructive engine at close quarters. This piece is
now very generally found mounted in the batteries of the English
and American navies. The quarter-deck armaments of most modern
frigates wholly consist of carronades. The name is derived from
the village of Carron, in Scotland, at whose celebrated founderies
this iron Attila was first cast.

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I did not fancy this station at all; for it is well known on
shipboard that, in time of action, the quarter-deck is one of the
most dangerous posts of a man-of-war. The reason is, that the
officers of the highest rank are there stationed; and the enemy
have an ungentlemanly way of target-shooting at their buttons. If
we should chance to engage a ship, then, who could tell but some
bungling small-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