{"id":"01KG8AMH2QYS7JXHY1625DGC58","cid":"bafkreiam6oqtj5ittoe3kec4wvxcb2amou6pfqltjqvjxed2gwrn5c4bme","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4370,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":4305,"text":"In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience,\r\nirrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to\r\ncommand. The truth of this seemed evinced in the case of Mad Jack,\r\nduring the gale, and especially at that perilous moment when he\r\ncountermanded the Captain’s order at the helm. But every seaman knew,\r\nat the time, that the Captain’s order was an unwise one in the extreme;\r\nperhaps worse than unwise.\r\n\r\nThese two orders given, by the Captain and his Lieutenant, exactly\r\ncontrasted their characters. By putting the helm _hard up_, the Captain\r\nwas for _scudding_; that is, for flying away from the gale. Whereas,\r\nMad Jack was for running the ship into its teeth. It is needless to say\r\nthat, in almost all cases of similar hard squalls and gales, the latter\r\nstep, though attended with more appalling appearances is, in reality,\r\nthe safer of the two, and the most generally adopted.\r\n\r\nScudding makes you a slave to the blast, which drives you headlong\r\nbefore it; but _running up into the wind’s eye_ enables you, in a\r\ndegree, to hold it at bay. Scudding exposes to the gale your stern, the\r\nweakest part of your hull; the contrary course presents to it your\r\nbows, your strongest part. As with ships, so with men; he who turns his\r\nback to his foe gives him an advantage. Whereas, our ribbed chests,\r\nlike the ribbed bows of a frigate, are as bulkheads to dam off an\r\nonset.\r\n\r\nThat night, off the pitch of the Cape, Captain Claret was hurried forth\r\nfrom his disguises, and, at a manhood-testing conjuncture, appeared in\r\nhis true colours. A thing which every man in the ship had long\r\nsuspected that night was proved true. Hitherto, in going about the\r\nship, and casting his glances among the men, the peculiarly lustreless\r\nrepose of the Captain’s eye—his slow, even, unnecessarily methodical\r\nstep, and the forced firmness of his whole demeanour—though, to a\r\ncasual observer, expressive of the consciousness of command and a\r\ndesire to strike subjection among the crew—all this, to some minds, had\r\nonly been deemed indications of the fact that Captain Claret, while\r\ncarefully shunning positive excesses, continually kept himself in an\r\nuncertain equilibrio between soberness and its reverse; which\r\nequilibrio might be destroyed by the first sharp vicissitude of events.\r\n\r\nAnd though this is only a surmise, nevertheless, as having some\r\nknowledge of brandy and mankind, White-Jacket will venture to state\r\nthat, had Captain Claret been an out-and-out temperance man, he would\r\nnever have given that most imprudent order to _hard up_ the helm. He\r\nwould either have held his peace, and stayed in his cabin, like his\r\ngracious majesty the Commodore, or else have anticipated Mad Jack’s\r\norder, and thundered forth “Hard down the helm!”\r\n\r\nTo show how little real sway at times have the severest restrictive\r\nlaws, and how spontaneous is the instinct of discretion in some minds,\r\nit must here be added, that though Mad Jack, under a hot impulse, had\r\ncountermanded an order of his superior officer before his very face,\r\nyet that severe Article of War, to which he thus rendered himself\r\nobnoxious, was never enforced against him. Nor, so far as any of the\r\ncrew ever knew, did the Captain even venture to reprimand him for his\r\ntemerity.\r\n\r\nIt has been said that Mad Jack himself was a lover of strong drink. So\r\nhe was. But here we only see the virtue of being placed in a station\r\nconstantly demanding a cool head and steady nerves, and the misfortune\r\nof filling a post that does _not_ at all times demand these qualities.\r\nSo exact and methodical in most things was the discipline of the\r\nfrigate, that, to a certain extent, Captain Claret was exempted from\r\npersonal interposition in many of its current events, and thereby,\r\nperhaps, was he lulled into security, under the enticing lee of his\r\ndecanter.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQSQFERRZ4XYJRVBK8C4","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMH2QHGG1A0XYQR3X7SC5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.023Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:46.060Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}