Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/192

 clearing away rubbish, and preparing to receive the enemy's fire, which was sure to recommence at daylight. These avocations, together with a constant and most vigilant watch against surprise, took up so much of our time, that little was left for repose, and our meals required still less.

There was some originality in one of our modes of defence, and which, not being secundum artem, might have provoked the smile of an engineer. The captain contrived to make a shoot of smooth deal boards, which he received from the ship; these he placed in a slanting direction in the breach, and caused them to be well greased with cook's slush: so that the enemies, who wished to come into our hold, must have jumped down upon them, and would in an instant be precipitated into the ditch below, a very considerable depth, where they might either have remained till the doctor came to them, or, if they were able, begin their labours de novo. This was a very good bug-trap; for,