The sailor, with others, was "setting up" the fore rigging.
Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had three good-conduct stripes, and possessed the Victoria Cross for distinguished service in battle; so he could not have been such an altogether bad sort of a sailorman.

The lieutenant was irritable; the lieutenant called him a name--well, not a nice sort of name.

It referred to his mother.

When I was a boy it was our boys' code to fight like little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and many men have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.
However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name.

At that moment it chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his hands.