H. M. S. Cockerel
“Cockerel: The Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures, #6 /**/ C H A P T E R 3 Lewrie was required to visit the men’s mess daily. Some days, he made it breakfast—today was dinner. The hands dined eight to a mess, on either side of a plank table which hung from the overhead by stout ropes, seated on sea chests or short, hand-crafted stools. With the artillery overhead, instead of between mess tables, they had more elbow room, which was why most sailors preferred frigates. More room to swing a hammock at night, too, even if headroom was a bare five feet.
It was not a happy mess, though, no matter that dinner was salt beef, cheese, biscuit and small beer; not a meatless “Banyan Day,” and lumpy dogs of pease pudding, boiled in net bags in the steep tubs like duffs, each with numbered brass tabs for the individual messes.
As soon as he set foot on the mess deck, the grumbling and the joshing died away to a low murmur, and men watched him warily, cutty-eyed, as he made his way aft.
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