How about "Last Cigar"?

Real pathos should come from the pen and voice of one who's been there and done it. This ancient (and anonymous) midshipmen, perhaps a year into a two year cruise in 1860, is out of cigars. How bad can it get?

Maybe he went on to force those damn torpedoes at Mobile Bay or face down the iron-cladded Merrimac on Hampton Roads behind nothing but wooden walls. But what pained him the most? No cigars while patroling the Bight of Benin, that's (probably) what!

"I watched the ashes as they came fast drawing to an end. I watched them as a friend would watch beside a dying friend." Now that's sad.

KC