With the Battle Fleet Part 26

Reading the Articles of War const.i.tutes a solemn occasion and when it is finished one realizes as never before what a serious thing it is to swear allegiance to Uncle Sam as part of his naval force.

The organization of the ship's force soon becomes well fixed in the mind. There is one head to it all, the Captain, on whom falls final responsibility for everything, discipline, safety of ship and men, work of every kind. He is a.s.sisted by about twenty-five commissioned subordinate officers and midshipmen and nearly a dozen warrant officers, besides numerous petty officers and their mates. The ship has several large departments just as a big store in the city. The executive officer is the right hand man, the general manager, if you please, of the ship, and he sees that the Captain's orders are carried out and he also keeps the vessel shipshape.

One of the departments is that of the navigator. Another is the department of ordnance. A third is that of the engineer, a fourth that of the medical officer, a fifth that of the Paymaster and a sixth has to do with the Marine Corps.

The executive officer not only runs almost everything on the ship but is in charge of all equipment and stores. He is the man who can do most to make a ship happy or h.e.l.lish. He looks after the daily routine, drills, repairs, cleaning up, issuing of stores, and the like. He is the man to whom all other officers, big and little, report. He is busy from early morning until late at night. When he isn't keeping things in order he is writing reports. He almost never has time to sit down at ease except at the head of the wardroom table at meal time, where he is a sort of social arbiter, as well as general manager.

The executive officer is also the housekeeper of the vessel. At one time he is in consultation with the bandmaster over a music programme and then he is consulting with a plumber about a drain. He runs the clothing establishment and varies that work with looking after the hoisting of ashes or the arranging of liberty parties. His work has no beginning and no end and a faithful and hard working man seldom has time to write to his family, to say nothing of reading a book occasionally or stealing away to his room for a quiet smoke or a siesta.

The navigator does the navigating, as might be expected. He relieves the officer on watch on the bridge when quarters are sounded. He has charge of all the electrical apparatus, and he is also instructor in navigation to the young midshipmen, who have to keep up their study and work along that line.

The ordnance officer has charge of the guns, ammunition, the work of target practice, the making of targets and everything that pertains to shooting. The Paymaster has charge of all money matters, payment of wages, the purchase of supplies, providing clothing and meals for the crew. He is the purser of the ship. The medical officer besides caring for the sick is responsible for sanitary conditions.

In addition to these commissioned officers there are Lieutenants and Ensigns who are watch officers; that is, they stand the watch of four hours on the bridge at sea, representing the Captain in seeing that the ship goes all right, and four hours on the after deck in port, where they direct and have charge of all that is going on.

There is besides the engineering division, which is a sort of world all to itself.

Then there are the warrant officers, the boatswain, gunner, electrical gunner, carpenter and machinists. They are what might be called the general foremen or superintendents. They are a.s.sisted by the petty officers, of whom there are three grades, and mates of various kinds, who are the foremen of the individual gangs of men in their work about ship. Pretty soon one begins to learn the signs and marks upon sleeves and other devices that tell the grade of this man and that. He also learns about seamen, ordinary seamen, yeomen (the clerks of each department), c.o.xswains, jacks-o-the-dust, lamplighters, gun pointers, hospital attendants, shipwrights, the printer and the numerous other cla.s.sifications into which the crew is divided.

He learns that the crew is split up into various divisions and each division into various sections. The officers are called division officers when the responsibility for handling the men by divisions comes up. Then the pa.s.senger also learns how the entire crew is split up into watches so that some of the men are on deck and other duty at every hour of the day and night. He soon learns all about the hammock netting, where the hammocks of the men are stowed, and he can even find the places where the ditty boxes of the men are kept when not in use. He knows what things are in those little square ditty boxes, writing paper, photographs of those at home, mending material, brushes, blacking, possessions of every kind, all subject to inspection by the officers.

Having mastered something of the personnel of the ship it is surprising how soon one falls into the drill routine. This is a more or less delicate subject about which to write, for the reason that tactical matters and certain drills the details of which are kept secret are not proper subjects for publication, and all correspondents with the fleet have bound themselves by written pledge never to reveal what they may learn about them. There are certain drills, however, which are common to all navies and a matter of ordinary routine, in reference to which there is no inhibition, inasmuch as the Navy Department has even authorized and approved publication of these details. You will find them all written out in the book "The American Battleship in Commission," written by an enlisted man.

On certain mornings of the week certain drills are always gone through with. You know when it is ordinary quarters, when fire, collision and abandon ship practice is to be gone through with, when certain kinds of gun practice are tried out. You know just how often this and that division goes through with "pingpong" shooting, the work with what are known as Morris tubes, the kind of shooting that has superseded to a large extent the former sub-calibre practice on shipboard.

You then learn all about hammock and bag inspection days, you even get to know when the flagship will probably order hammocks or bags scrubbed and you get to know just about how often the clotheslines will be strung up over the fo'c'stle and just how often bedding will be hung on the rails for airing and when it will be taken in and all that. You get used to seeing the lanterns put in the lifeboats at night for emergency use.

You know that every half hour when the ship's bell is struck the sentry on the quarter deck will turn toward the after bridge and will sing out:

"Life buoys, aft; all's well!"

You know that up on the forward bridge with every "bell" the port and starboard side lights will be reported burning in the same manner. You know how often the marine guard is changed and what the stations are.

You know that on Sat.u.r.day morning there will be no quarters and that all hands will be set to cleaning the decks with sand and holystones and that the mud, if a combination of sand and water can be called mud, will be so thick that for nearly all the morning you will have to wear rubbers if you want to get about in comfort. You know when bright work will be cleaned and you know when the smoking lamp will be lighted, which means at just what hours smoking will be permitted, for there is no real lamp in these days when nearly everything on a warship is run by electricity.

You get to know just when the awkward squad of marines will be drilled and you know when the patent log, which is watched most carefully and which nearly everybody scoffs at because one never can depend much upon it, will be read. You know soon from the color of the water when you are on soundings, and you gather about the little contrivance far back on the quarter deck which unreels the wire for the lead that goes swishing hundreds of fathoms into the sea and finally brings up on the bottom and then records the depth. You gather about the chief quartermaster as he has the line pulled in and you look with him at the thermometerlike arrangement which by discoloration shows the depth of the water. You know just how often the temperature of the sea will be taken and how often the temperature of the air will be recorded in the log and the height of the barometer set down.

And then perhaps your mind turns again to the housekeeping of this home of 1,000 men. You visit the cook's galley, where the head cook and several a.s.sistants are busy night and day preparing the meals for the men with redhot stoves and great caldrons. You see the copper coffee and tea tanks, the soup tanks, the bean tanks and the rest. You see the electrically operated potato paring machine, just like the one used in the model kitchen of the world at West Point. You visit the butcher's shop, where about 2,000 pounds of meat is served out and cut up each day.

Then you go to the scullery and see the dishwashing machines, also copied from those in use at West Point and all large hotels. You visit the bake shop with its intense heat and the bake rooms store shop where the loaves of bread are piled up like so many cords of wood. You go to the sick bay and see a hospital in operation comparable favorably in every way with the best appointed hospital on land. You visit the operating room with its fullest set of surgical appliances. You even go to the brig and you see where men can be confined in cells or left out in the open so that they may have company and simply be restrained, the latter being the prevalent form for light punishments. You may attend the "mast," where the Captain every day holds his police court for light offences, and you may read in the log what has been done in each case.

You may attend the summary courts-martial, where more or less serious cases are tried by a board of officers, but you must leave the room when the board goes into executive session to form its judgment on the case and fix the penalty if the accused is found guilty.

You may see the tests of powder and guncotton at regular intervals, and if you wish to go around at night with the carpenter's force you may see them making soundings of the hold every hour. You may see the tests of electrical machinery and you may watch the operation of closing all watertight doors every evening at 5 o'clock, and always in going in or out of port or in time of fog. You can even solve that mystery to every civilian as to why there is a sailmaker, with a.s.sistants, on a craft that carries no sail. When you find men working over canvas targets for days and days, making awnings and windsails, working at hammocks and the like, and when you realize that the ship carries more cordage than the old Const.i.tution, you understand it all. The work of the sailmaker is no cinch. You can see the men once a month paid off in long lines, each man's signature attested by the division officer.

So you wander about hither and thither without any well developed plan and run across this and that form of employment and hard daily toil and you wonder how it can be, with so much to do and so little time in which to do it, that proficiency in any one line of work can be secured.

Familiarity with it, however, shows that such a condition is approximated, and you begin to feel absolutely confident that if the ship ever did get into a sc.r.a.p all this work and drill would show its effects at once in a way that would make you proud of the men and the ships of the navy. A sense of confident security comes over you and you soon have the feeling that n.o.body in the world can beat the Yankee sailor man for man in fighting and no ship of equal capacity in the world can beat the one on which you are sailing in a fight. You may be overconfident, but it's a comfortable kind of feeling to have.

You watch the rivalry among the various ships of the fleet in such matters as they can show rivalry in during a cruise as you begin to have confidence in the one on which you are a pa.s.senger. When target shooting comes this rivalry will take an impressive form. At present the rivalry consists largely in keeping distances, in making turns accurately, in making and responding to signals. Every morning you watch the flags go up at 10 o'clock, when the signals are hoisted on the second recording the number of sick and absentees on each ship. The officers and men read these flags off quick as a flash and you speculate about the condition of things on this and that vessel.

At 11:20 in the morning you watch the flags go up to catch the change of time for all clocks. At noon every one is keen to see the flags sent up telling how much coal has been used and how much each ship has on hand.

Then come the flags which give the reckoning of the navigator on each ship as to lat.i.tude and longitude, either by observation or dead reckoning, and you comment upon the variations in the reports.

So the routine goes on and you get used to it and in some respects become part of it. You even fall into a certain station at certain times. The Sun man, for example, has one place where he is expected to report when the call is made. No other duties are a.s.signed to him as a pa.s.senger. He has a certain station when the abandon ship drill takes place. He goes to his station, reports and then is excused. Otherwise he is free to do pretty much as he pleases, always observing as well as he can the little proprieties on shipboard, which are simply those governing the ordinary actions of gentlemen.

Every man on a warship has his little or big place that is his own and you must not cross its confines without permission. For instance, the starboard side of the quarter deck is the Captain's. You don't walk there unless he indicates that he would like to have you join him. The port side of the deck belongs to the other officers. The Captain almost never goes there, although, being the Captain, he can go where he pleases. Each officer's room is sacred when the curtain is drawn. And so on through the ship there is a little piece of territory sacred to each man or set of men. The fo'c'stle deck is the men's.

Launch etiquette, however, is peculiar. One of the first things to learn about travelling in a naval launch is that it is a little ship of itself. You salute its deck, so to speak, when you enter it if you observe the niceties. The highest ranking officer sits in the stern and goes into the boat last. All the others stand until he seats himself. He is the first to leave and the others go in the order of their rank. You mustn't smoke in a launch in the daytime, and if you do so on the sly you must be sure not to show your cigar in pa.s.sing the flagship, for the quartermaster on watch on the after bridge will report you and there'll be trouble. You mustn't smoke at night except by permission of the ranking officer on board. If you see him light a cigar or cigarette all the rest of you may do so. Otherwise you will please throw away your cigar or cigarette when you enter the boat.

As you go out to your ship at night you hear the quartermaster on some other ship call out, "Boat ahoy!" and the c.o.xswain of your boat answers with a yell, "Pa.s.sing!" When you approach your ship or another to make a stop the c.o.xswain must be particular about his answers to the boat ahoy call. If he has the President of the United States aboard, as c.o.xswains on the Louisiana have had repeatedly, he calls out:

"United States!"

If an Admiral is on board the answer to the hail is:

"Flag!"

If a Captain is on board the answer is the name of his ship.

If other commissioned officers above the grade of midshipmen are on board the answer is "Aye! aye!" and if the launch contains only midshipmen or other officers of lower grade the answer is, "No! No!" as if to say you needn't bother about this bunch. If it has only enlisted men on board the call is "h.e.l.lo!" By these answers the officer of the deck is informed as to who is approaching. Of course they are used only in the night, for in the day time observation will reveal the situation.

The longer one remains on a warship, either as a member of the crew or as a guest, two things become more and more impressive. One is the reverence for the quarter deck and the other is the patriotic regard for the national hymn, "The Star Spangled Banner." The quarter deck seems to be almost a holy place. The officers salute it as they step upon it. No stain is allowed to remain upon it. If a man for instance were found spitting upon it--well, hamstringing would be the fitting penalty, if the feelings of those outraged by the performance were consulted. This regard for the deck has come down from the earliest naval traditions.

The soil of the country is represented there. The flag waves above it.

Sovereignty finds expression there. It is the place of all ceremonies, the one place sacred to all that is best in tradition, rules of conduct, liberty, national achievements on the sea, national hopes and aspirations. It must never be profaned.

The sound of the first bar of the national hymn brings every naval man who hears it to attention. The mental att.i.tude is one of intense respect as well. That anthem never becomes a bore to the officers and men. Its notes are a call to duty and the salute, when it is ended, is a public pledge of fealty to the flag. No music is played on ship more carefully and with more earnest effort to get every shade of feeling out of the notes. Reverence for the tune is a living thing, and after one has been on shipboard for a week he begins to feel ashamed of the public indifference to the tune ash.o.r.e.

Let one incident reveal the regard for the hymn on shipboard. We were steaming just below the equator on the way to Rio Janeiro one evening, when showers made it impossible for the band to play on deck. The concert was held in a casemate and the humidity added great discomfort to the intense heat. The members of the crew off duty had stripped to their undershirts and trousers. The musicians had also thrown off their coats. Their faces ran with sweat as they played.

Every concert ends with "The Star Spangled Banner." It was time to play it. All the musicians stood up and the men who had crowded in to hear the music came to attention, but not one move toward lifting his baton would the bandmaster make until every one of his men had put on his coat and hat. They might play Strauss waltzes and even Wagnerian selections in their undershirts, but no note of the national hymn could be played until every man was in dress befitting the occasion. All this is nothing unusual, but it is impressive to the man who sees it for the first time.

So although there is no place for comfortable loafing and sometimes it is lonely a civilian pa.s.senger on one of these ships after all can find entertainment and other things to interest him. Day by day he feels his patriotic impulses quickened. Day by day he is more and more glad that he is an American citizen. And when taps is sounded and he knows that the men not on duty are swinging quietly in their hammocks, tired out from their work, he can understand and appreciate the full significance and beauty of the refrain which soothes one and all with its soft good-night:

"Go to sleep! Go to sleep! G-o t-o s-l-e-e-p!"

CHAPTER XIII

SOCIAL LIFE ON AN AMERICAN MAN-O'-WAR

Manly, Free Entertaining and Ever Fruitful of Self-Control-- Organization of the Ship's Company Into Messes--Chaff Keeps the Wardroom Merry, but Never Pa.s.ses the Bounds of Good Nature-- Something Better Than Romance in the Ships of To-Day--Ships of To-Day--Man-o'-War Bill of Fare No Longer Includes Lobscouse or Bargoo--Fine Libraries for All Hands--The Canteen.

_On Board U. S. S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,_ AT SEA, OFF PANAMA, March 6.

Socially the modern man-o'-war houses a series of clubs, one large and several small ones. They are called messes. The large club's membership, the general mess, consists of the entire crew, with the exception of the officers. Uncle Sam, through accredited agents on board, runs that club.

The small clubs' membership consists entirely of officers, and these clubs are managed by the membership.

The officers' clubs are graded according to rank. On a flagship the Admiral may form a club all by himself, or he may enlarge the membership, as Admiral Evans does, by having his staff officers join his mess. The Captain is also a club of one member. The commissioned officers make up the wardroom mess. The midshipmen, junior paymaster, junior officers of the marines and the pay clerk form the steerage mess.

The warrant officers--bos'n, carpenter, machinists, gunners and the like--have another mess, and the largest of the small clubs is that of the chief petty officers.