The U-boat hunters Part 16

THE NAVY AS A CAREER

A young fellow reading all this stuff about the doings of our destroyers might be inclined to look on the navy as pure adventure, which would not be to get it quite right. The adventure is there, but there is something more.

The navy will take a young man, feed and clothe him, give him a good all-round training, and while he is yet in middle age retire him with at least $60 a month for the rest of his life. No matter how low his rating has been, that $60 a month is certain after his thirty years of service; while, if he has shown moderate intelligence and ambition, he can count on close to $100 a month, and this without his having ever been a commissioned officer. The years after his retirement he may spend as he pleases--go into business, get another job, and make another wage on top of his pension. He can go to jail if he prefers: whatever he does, always there is that sheet-anchor of a pension to windward.

Apart from the fighting end of it, most of us possibly do not know just what navy life means to-day. We all know that man-of-war's men no longer lie out on rolling yard arms to reef salt-crusted sails in gales of wind; but in what else lies the difference? Some of us, possibly, do not know that.

The navy still wants men with the seagoing instinct--men who can sailorize, who can hand, splice, and steer; but more than ever the navy is looking for men who can do other things. The navy wants ship-fitters, blacksmiths, plumbers, electricians, wireless operators, carpenters, boiler-makers, painters, printers, store-keepers, bakers, cooks, stewards, drug clerks; even as it wants gunners, boatmen, quartermasters, sailmakers, firemen, oilers, and it will take clarinet, trombone, and cornet players and the like for the ship's band.

If a man has no trade the navy will teach him one. There are navy schools for electricians, shipwrights, ship-fitters, carpenters, painters, coppersmiths, ship's cooks, bakers, stewards, and musicians.

There are schools where yeomen (ship's clerks) are taught all about departmental papers; there is a Hospital Corps school; an aeronautic school; a school for deep-sea diving. (There are no schools for blacksmiths or boiler-makers; these must have mastered their trades before enlistment.)

When a young fellow enlists he is sent to one of several naval training-stations. Here they are quartered in barracks--well-aired, well-lighted, well-heated buildings. At one place, where the climate is mild, the boys sleep in barracks in bungalows with upper sides of canvas, which are rolled down to let in sun and air in fine weather and laced up against bad weather.

At all training-stations there are mess-halls, reading-rooms, libraries; also gymnasiums, athletic fields, and ball parks. At all stations there are setting-up drills, gymnastic, swimming and signal exercises, ship and boat training. The men go on hikes, fight sham battles, dig trenches.

Line-officers give them advice which will be of use to them on shipboard later; service doctors and chaplains hand them hygienic and moral truths that will be of use to them anywhere at any time.

A recruit goes from the training-school to a cruising ship, where he may find himself--according to his work--doing watch duty four hours on to eight hours off; or working at hours like a man ash.o.r.e--turning to at eight or nine o'clock and knocking off at four or five or six o'clock in the afternoon.

War-ships formerly meant close living quarters; and ships formerly went off on cruises on which the men sometimes did not set foot on sh.o.r.e for six months or a year, and quite often they had to go for months without taste of fresh meat or vegetables. Those days are gone. Ships still make long cruises from home, but they do not keep the sea as they used to.

Service regulations require that men now be given a run ash.o.r.e once in three months; and "beef boats" travel with all fleets.

The everlasting holystoning of wooden decks and the dim lanterns hung at intervals from low-hanging beams--they are gone. The only dim lanterns now are the "battle-lanterns" in use at night war practice; and they are swung to steel bulkheads by electric wires. Quarter-decks, forecastle heads, and bridges are still planked on the big ships, and such do still have to be holystoned on special days; but the great stretches between decks are now laid in linoleum on the hard steel itself; electric lights are all over the ship, and, as for the low beams, the new big ships are so high-girdered that hammock-hooks on the berth-deck have to be made extra long so the men won't have to get stepladders to turn in. A battleship nowadays is about 600 feet long, 100 feet wide, has seven or eight decks, with turrets, bridges, military masts, and smoke-pipes topside. Between decks are magazines, storerooms, engine-rooms, boiler-rooms, dynamo-rooms, mess-rooms, ice-rooms, repair-shops, staterooms, office-rooms, sick-bays, galleys, laundries, pantries--but only ship-constructors can tell you offhand how many hundreds of compartments are below decks of a present-day big war-ship.

She is a great workshop, an office-structure, a big power-plant, a floating hotel--and a few other things. But above all she is meant to be a home for ten or twelve hundred officers and men.

A man may not be given duty on a battleship or battle cruiser; he may be sent to a scout cruiser or a beef boat or a gunboat, which, being smaller, will bounce and roll around more in heavy weather and not offer so much room to move around in; but he will get used to the bouncing around, and always he will find some variety and some comfort in his daily life.

That item of comfort might as well be counted in as important. It is something to know that, no matter what else happens, there are hot meals waiting a man three times a day, and a dry change of clothing, and a dry hammock to turn into nights. Even on deck duty in bad weather a man can get into slicker, rubber boots, and rain-hat, and at the worst be almost comfortable.

Navy life is not meant to be a perpetual entertainment--not though they do hold regular smokers on the quarter-decks of the big ships. To lie for months off a tropic port waiting for something to happen--that is not exhilarating; and coaling ship, even with the band playing--that is no joy. But the watching of tropic ports pa.s.ses; and the ship has to steam many a mile before she must be coaled again. So, taking it in the long perspective, it is a moderately varied life, an outdoor life, and under hygienic conditions of the best. Right now, war with us, there is going to be some danger; but we are a.s.suming that any man who thinks of joining the navy is prepared for a little danger.

A man may enlist in the navy up to thirty-five years of age, provided he is at least 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 128 pounds, has a 33-inch chest, possesses normal vision, a moderate number of sound teeth, is free from disease or deformity, and is an American citizen. Sometimes men shy on some measurement are pa.s.sed if above average otherwise. A boy seventeen (the youngest enlistment age) must be 5 feet 2 inches and weigh 110 pounds. When a boy or a man enlists he goes at once on the payroll. With his pay goes a clothing allowance sufficient to cover all service demands; with his pay also goes nourishing and abundant food.

Enlistments are of four years for men. A boy's enlistment runs to his majority. A man may work up to be a C. P. O. (chief petty officer) in his first enlistment. The navy is full of men who have done that. During this war many a recruit should make his C. P. O. quickly, for there is nothing in the Regulations to prevent a recruit from making his C. P. O.

overnight. The habit of most officers is to rate up good men in their divisions as fast as vacancies will permit.

A C. P. O.'s base pay may run up to $77 a month. With re-enlistment that base pay is increased. A man re-enlisting without delay gets a bounty of four months' pay. (Figure that extra re-enlistment money--four months'

pay every four years, the same with interest at the navy savings-account rate of 4 per cent--and see what it amounts to after thirty years'

service.) That extra re-enlistment money is not figured into the pension probabilities, as stated in the beginning of this article. Consider that and then consider how many men have to work until they are too old to work any further and who, after all their years of labor, go on the sc.r.a.p-heap without a dollar against the poverty of their old age.

Besides the base pay of a man's rating there is extra money for men doing special work. (Neither has this been reckoned in the pension possibilities.) Certain gun-pointers, gun-captains, c.o.xswains, stewards, and cooks get extra money up to $10 a month. Men in submarines get $1 extra for every day their boat submerges up to $15 a month. Men acting as mail-clerks draw up to $30 a month extra; ship's tailors up to $20 a month extra. Men in the Flying Corps get 50 per cent more than the base pay their rating calls for. Every man in the service draws a small extra sum for good conduct.

A chief petty officer is not the highest rating of the enlisted service.

There is a most efficient body of men called warrant-officers, who wear a sword, are called "Mr.," and draw up to $2,400 a year. There are warrant boatswains, gunners, machinists, carpenters, pharmacists, and pay-clerks. But they must remain in service, even as most commissioned officers, till they are sixty-four, before they draw their pension of three-quarters pay. Also, like commissioned officers, they get no clothing allowance and have to pay for their food.

The matter of becoming a commissioned officer may interest the recruit.

One hundred appointments may be made to Annapolis every year from among the younger enlisted men of the navy. Young fellows who wish to try for this are given special opportunities for study. The proviso that an applicant must be under twenty years of age and have been at least one year in service to make Annapolis is going to bar the way to some. For such there is another way--warrant. A warrant boatswain, gunner, or machinist of four years' standing and still under thirty-five years of age may take an examination for ensign. Twelve warrant-officers may be made ensigns annually. If they pa.s.s, they thereafter go on up exactly as any Annapolis graduate. A warrant pay-clerk may go up to be junior paymaster, where he will rank with an ensign.

The foregoing is for the business or ambitious side. Somebody may ask: Will the young fellow who looks on the navy as a business proposition make a good fighting man?

Well, in the judgment of men who study the game, almost any young fellow you meet along the street has it in him to make a good fighting man. The fighting habit is more a habit of mind than of body. Habituating the mind to the fighting game is what makes our sailors, soldiers, and marines do the right thing almost automatically in crises; and this almost automatically correct action makes for the greater safety of shipmates or comrades in time of peril.

In this book only the work of our destroyers in this war has been spoken of. That is because only our destroyers have come in contact with enemy ships; but all along the line the personnel is of equal caliber.

Our navy is crowded with men who will face any danger. Some years ago one of our battleships was on the battle-range, with bags of powder stowed in her turrets to save time in loading and firing the guns. A spark got to the bags of powder. There was an explosion and a fire.

Directly underneath was the handling-room. Burning pieces of cloth fell from the turret down into the handling-room. The crew of that handling-room could have jumped into the pa.s.sageway, made their way up a ladder, and so on to the free and safe air of the open deck. What they did was to stand by to stamp out what fire they could.

Leading from the handling-room were the magazines. The doors of the magazines were open. Men jumped into the magazines and b.u.t.toned the keys of the bulkhead doors so that there would be no crevice for sparks. In doing that they locked themselves in; and once in they had to stay in.

Above them, they knew, was a turret full of men and officers dead and dying; they knew that fire was raging around them, too, and that the next thing would be for the people outside to flood the magazines. The magazines were flooded; when things were under control and the doors opened, the water in the magazines was up to the men's necks.

While that was going on below decks, in the turret were other men and officers, including the chaplain, not knowing what was going on below, and expecting every moment to be blown up into the sky; but there they were, easing the last moments of the men who were not already dead.

Thirty all told were killed in the turret. All concerned behaved well, but no better than they were expected to behave.

A few years ago there was a destroyer off Hatteras. It was before daybreak of a winter's morning in heavy weather. A boiler explosion blew out her side from well below the water-line clear up through to her main deck. Men were killed by the explosion; others were badly scalded. A steam burn is an agonizing thing, yet some of these scalded men went back into that h.e.l.l of a boiler-room and hauled out shipmates who, to their notion, were more badly burned than themselves. One such rescuer died of his burns. The hole in the deck and top side of that destroyer was twelve feet across, yet her commander and crew got her to Norfolk under her own steam. Commander and crew behaved well, but no better than they were expected to behave.

There is a chief boatswain in the navy who had the duty of taking a ship's steamer with a crew to look after the ship's target at battle practice. A target is a frame of canvas set up on a raft of logs. The duty of the steamer was to stand off to one side and make a record of the hits.

This boatswain likes to joke, to try out new men. On the run from the ship he called the roll and said: "Now, boys, in this work one of you will have to stay on the raft to count the hits. Of course it is dangerous work. I won't say that it isn't. The man going may not come back. The chances are"--he eyed them one after another--"that whoever goes will never come off the raft alive. Now, I can name the one who will have to do that work. But I don't want to have to name him. I'll let you draw lots."

He took a sheet of paper and cut it into strips. His crew--all apprentice boys, all fresh from the training-school--drew the slips. The lad who drew the short slip was no better or braver to look at than most of the others. He looked at his slip of paper and then in a sort of wonder at the sea and sky.

He came back to his short slip. His lips trembled. He prayed to himself.

Then he went down into his blouse pocket and fished out a stub of a pencil. He was whiter than ever, and shaking. "Can I have a sheet of paper, sir?"

"What do you want a sheet of paper for?"

"I'd like, sir, to write a note to my mother before I go."

To pick out a few isolated instances from service records and shout: "There is the proof of general efficiency, of courage, of--"

whatnot--that would be idle. These were not taken from the service records. Officers and men in the turret explosion, in the destroyer accident, in the raft incident, are mentioned here because the writer, at different times, has cruised with them.

They all behaved well; but no better than they were expected to.

When I asked the boatswain in the raft case if he expected the boy to quit, he said: "Quit! They never quit."

This talk of heroism and pensions in the same breath may not seem to jibe; somebody is going to wonder if the man who thinks of the money side of the navy in the beginning isn't going to think too much of it in the end. But there is a point of view which should be reckoned with, and a type of man, of a good fighting man, who should be listened to in this matter. Why should not a man who risks his life in his daily calling have the normal comforts and his family the ordinary necessities of life?

I know a fireman, an efficient, brave man--a man with a record. One night--we were in a drug store in a crowded city--he was answering the argument of a man working in a big factory.

Said the fireman: "You're making your five or six--yes, and eight--dollars a day, in lively times like now. All right. But the lively times will pa.s.s, and there'll come weeks when you won't make any four or five or six dollars a day, and there'll come weeks when you'll be on half-time.

Average it up and you won't get any more than I will in the long run. And when I'm through, when I'm fifty-five, I get a pension, and with a few good years left to me. And where are you then? Out on the street or some home for the aged--if they will take you.

"Save money as I go along? I don't figure on it--not with a family and trying to give them the kind of food they need and the little things that live boys and girls--especially girls--care as much for as the grub they eat and the clothes they wear. But if I do spend all my pay, my family are getting the good of it, I don't go into the discard at the end. And when I'm up on a shaky roof in a bad fire, maybe I'll be more ready to take a chance, knowing that if I go through and cripple myself, there's something coming to the wife and family after it."

The fireman's argument holds for the navy, except that in the navy they get through younger and with a bigger pension.