I was not long in discovering that he had good reasons for his gloomy opinions. The hands, whom presently I piped on deck, were as ill- assorted and ill-conditioned a lot as boatswain ever was called upon to overhaul. Many were raw hands, who did not know one end of a mast from the other. Others, who knew better, appeared to be the refuse of crews which had rejected their worst men. And the few old salts of the right kind were evidently demoralised and dissatisfied, both at their enforced association with their present messmates and with the abrupt termination of their leave ashore. As to the officers, with the exception of the first lieutenant and a few of the petty officers who took their cue from him, they seemed a decent and fairly smart set, although few of them had been tried in active service, and fewer still, I fancy, had had charge of so ill-found a ship as the _Zebra_. One of the first complaints I was called upon to hear and report to my officers was as to the ship's food, which was truly as scurvy and unsavoury a provision as I ever saw. Biscuits and grog and pork were such as the lowest slop-shop in Letterkenny would have been ashamed to sell. "It's good enough for hounds like them," was all I could get out of the lieutenant. "They can take it or leave it." The next complaint I made was on my own account, and referred to the ship's stores. We had barely our complement of anchors and cables, still less any to come and go on. For reserve spars and sails and other tackle we were almost as badly off; while the ammunition and arms were certainly not enough for a service involving any considerable action. The officer in charge received all these representations with the utmost indifference. "Get better if you can," said he; "it's all of a piece, and quite proper for a service that's gone to the dogs. Hark at those demons now! The rum seems good enough, anyhow." And indeed all that night the _Zebra_ was more like a madhouse than one of his Majesty's ships. What authority there was was maintained at the end of the cat-o'-nine-tails. As for the enthusiasm and patriotic ardour which are usually supposed to hail the prospect of close-quarters with the enemy, one would have had to listen long and hard for any sign of either below decks that night. "The best that can happen to us," said I to myself, as I turned in at last, "is a hurricane up Channel, and the Dutch fleet at the end of it. These may hold us together; nothing else will."