{"id":"01KG8AME7AN2F5C07XXP9EQHQD","cid":"bafkreigztnrjsdtn66q2uz4vng6x46n5r5unebsfffqvguqpjr23vtfi2e","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":12901,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":12829,"text":"CHAPTER LXXIX.\r\nHOW MAN-OF-WAR’S-MEN DIE AT SEA.\r\n\r\n\r\nShenly, my sick mess-mate, was a middle-aged, handsome, intelligent\r\nseaman, whom some hard calamity, or perhaps some unfortunate excess,\r\nmust have driven into the Navy. He told me he had a wife and two\r\nchildren in Portsmouth, in the state of New Hampshire. Upon being\r\nexamined by Cuticle, the surgeon, he was, on purely scientific grounds,\r\nreprimanded by that functionary for not having previously appeared\r\nbefore him. He was immediately consigned to one of the invalid cots as\r\na serious case. His complaint was of long standing; a pulmonary one,\r\nnow attended with general prostration.\r\n\r\nThe same evening he grew so much worse, that according to man-of-war\r\nusage, we, his mess-mates, were officially notified that we must take\r\nturns at sitting up with him through the night. We at once made our\r\narrangements, allotting two hours for a watch. Not till the third night\r\ndid my own turn come round. During the day preceding, it was stated at\r\nthe mess that our poor mess-mate was run down completely; the surgeon\r\nhad given him up.\r\n\r\nAt four bells (two o’clock in the morning), I went down to relieve one\r\nof my mess-mates at the sick man’s cot. The profound quietude of the\r\ncalm pervaded the entire frigate through all her decks. The watch on\r\nduty were dozing on the carronade-slides, far above the sick-bay; and\r\nthe watch below were fast asleep in their hammocks, on the same deck\r\nwith the invalid.\r\n\r\nGroping my way under these two hundred sleepers, I entered the\r\nhospital. A dim lamp was burning on the table, which was screwed down\r\nto the floor. This light shed dreary shadows over the white-washed\r\nwalls of the place, making it look look a whited sepulchre underground.\r\nThe wind-sail had collapsed, and lay motionless on the deck. The low\r\ngroans of the sick were the only sounds to be heard; and as I advanced,\r\nsome of them rolled upon me their sleepless, silent, tormented eyes.\r\n\r\n“Fan him, and keep his forehead wet with this sponge,” whispered my\r\nmess-mate, whom I came to relieve, as I drew near to Shenly’s cot, “and\r\nwash the foam from his mouth; nothing more can be done for him. If he\r\ndies before your watch is out, call the Surgeon’s steward; he sleeps in\r\nthat hammock,” pointing it out. “Good-bye, good-bye, mess-mate,” he\r\nthen whispered, stooping over the sick man; and so saying, he left the\r\nplace.\r\n\r\nShenly was lying on his back. His eyes were closed, forming two\r\ndark-blue pits in his face; his breath was coming and going with a\r\nslow, long-drawn, mechanical precision. It was the mere foundering hull\r\nof a man that was before me; and though it presented the well-known\r\nfeatures of my mess-mate, yet I knew that the living soul of Shenly\r\nnever more would look out of those eyes.\r\n\r\nSo warm had it been during the day, that the Surgeon himself, when\r\nvisiting the sick-bay, had entered it in his shirt-sleeves; and so warm\r\nwas now the night that even in the lofty top I had worn but a loose\r\nlinen frock and trowsers. But in this subterranean sick-bay, buried in\r\nthe very bowels of the ship, and at sea cut off from all ventilation,\r\nthe heat of the night calm was intense. The sweat dripped from me as if\r\nI had just emerged from a bath; and stripping myself naked to the\r\nwaist, I sat by the side of the cot, and with a bit of crumpled\r\npaper—put into my hand by the sailor I had relieved—kept fanning the\r\nmotionless white face before me.\r\n\r\nI could not help thinking, as I gazed, whether this man’s fate had not\r\nbeen accelerated by his confinement in this heated furnace below; and\r\nwhether many a sick man round me might not soon improve, if but\r\npermitted to swing his hammock in the airy vacancies of the half-deck\r\nabove, open to the port-holes, but reserved for the promenade of the\r\nofficers.\r\n\r\nAt last the heavy breathing grew more and more irregular, and gradually\r\ndying away, left forever the unstirring form of Shenly.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVA5ZZ974GX4DXFCSWXZ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AME7A7CNJRR6EQH0XPEMS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.098Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.186Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}