THE COMING FLEET

New Zealand Graphic, 1 July 1908, Page 24

THE COMING FLEET

DAILY LIFE ON BOARD AN AMERICAN BATTLESHIP

I By

FRANKLINN MATHEWS, on Board U.S.S. Louisiana.)

b W N USUAL and attractive as an ex- | I tended cruise on a war ship is 1 ■ to a civilian, amd however it may cause him to be envied by his acquaintances, it must also be set down, if one would chronicle the truth amd nothing rise, that it has its drawbacks. Probably the first that the supernumerary cargo discovers is that there is practically no place on the decks where he may sit down. He soon realises that a war ship is not a passenger steamship, with steamer chairs, smoking rooms, deck stewards, and all the other appurtenances that go to advance the t ra vr Iler's comfort. The next drawback that forces itself upon one's attention, after the novelty of looking around weal's oil’ to some extent, is that the war ship passenger is a mighty lonely, person, and. unless he can amuse himself, or is maturally one of the reserved kind, and lives in his own shell, he’ll find time hanging heavy on his hands. You see, you can’t go up to an ollicer and gossip when he’s drilling a crew in loading shells in a gun. You can’t pounce upon the captain whenever you see him on the deck and make him (dial to you. Ytm can’t exercise conversational powers w hen general quarters or lire drill is on. 'l'he work on hand is to move a floating fort of steel weighing nearly 20.000 tons more or less swiftly through the Water in complete synchrony with a lot of other floating ports af nearly the same size, and then to prepare those who are engaged in work in this fort for just one thing, and that ;is to destroy and kill. Everything is subservient to one idea -to bo ready to fight at the swiftest pace for just about one hour; for be it known that if one of the war ships in this great battle fleet were fought at its swiftest and fullest capacity, it would be all over, one way or the other, in an hour or less. THE St TIEDULE OF ROUTINE. It's.all a matter of course, part of the day's work, with these sea dogs and gun lighters. And when you suggest that you are thinking of writing a piece for the paper telling about the routine on a war ship they are surprised that any such topic could be interesting, and tell you that it's nothing new, and is going on all the time just as it has been going on for decades and centuries. Then they'll admit, perhaps, that the general public doesn’t realise the amount of work done on a war ship, and they’ll produce this schedule of hours and tasks that sums it up: 3.0 a.m.- ( all ship's cook. 3.45 —Call the section of the watch, relieve wheel and lookouts.

4.0 —Relieve the watch on deck. 4.3o—Turn to, out smoking lamp, pipe sweepers, clear up deck. 4.50 —Call music, masters-at-arms, and boatswain’s mates. 5.0 —Reveille, bugles and drum; call all sections except midwatch sections.

6.30 —Break up and send below to be burned all boxes and articles that will float. 6.4o—Trice up six bell hammock cloths. 6.so—Up all hammocks, serve out water, hoist ashes. 7.0 —Time and uniform signal; mess

5.15 —Execute morning orders. 5.30 —Trice up clothes line. At sunrise station masthead lookouts, take in deck lookouts and put out running lights.

gear for sections below. 7.ls—Breakfast for sections below, light smoking lamp; ditty boxes.allowed. 7.30 —Mess gear for watch on deck. 7.40 —Relieve wheels and lookouts.

7.45 — On deck duty sections. Section on deck to breakfast. .B.ls—Turn to, elean gun and deck bright work. B.2s—Sick call. 8.45— Report at mast. B.so—Clear up decks; down towel lines and ditty boxes; sweepers. 8.55— Officer’s call. 0-0 Quarters for muster and inspection; setting up drill. If.3o—Drill call. 10.0—Relieve the wheel and lookouts. Signal (1) absentees, (2) number of sick. 11.0 —Hoist ashes. 11.30 Retreat from drill. Pipe down clothes, if dry; sweepers. 11.45— Mess gear for sections below. Noon Dinner; duty section remain on deck. Signal (1) coal on hand. (2) coal expended. (3) latitude. (4) longitude. P.M.— Mess gear for duty section. Dinner duty section. I.o—Turn to; out smoking lamp; down ditty boxes; sweepers; pipe down clothes if dry, then aired bedding, if up; start work about decks. 1.30 — Serve out provisions. 2.0 —Relieve wheel and lookouts. 3.o—Hoist ashes. 4.o—Relieve the watch. 4.30— Knock oil' all work. Clear up decks; sweepers: pipe down clothes. 5.15— Mess gear for sections going on watch. 5.30 — Supper for sections going on watch. 5.45— Mess gear for other sections. 5.55— Relieve wheel and lookouts. 6.0 Relieve section on duty. Other sections to supper. At sunset—Set running lights; lay down masthead lookouts; station deek lookouts; couple lire hose; muster lifeboats’ crews; coxswain report when crews are present and lifeboats ready for lowering. Test night signal apparatus. 6.30 — Turn to; sweepers; scrub clothes on forecastle (except Sunday). 7.o—Hoist ashes; clear deek for hammocks. 7.30— Hammocks. B.o—Relieve watch, wheel and lookouts; signal and searchlight drill as ordered; signal (1) latitude; (2) longitude. There is a daily port routine, similar in general outline to the one for cruising. It ealsl for the ceremony of colours, hoisting or lowering tile Hag, boat duty and other things which can only come when a ship is in port. But these two schedules only hint at the full story.

DISCORDS IN THE BUGLING. Probably the first impression that a stranger to all this ship routine gets is that a warship is one of the mast discordant places in the world. They are everlastingly blowing bugles, each bugle out of key with the others, There ore ninety-eight of these bugle calls on a nran-o’-war, and how the men differentiate them passes your understanding. It aggravates you that you cannot make tlip>'i out yourself. You begin to study i _-m, and you do get so that you ore able to recognise two or three, and then you get lost, and you begin to have an admiration for the men

who have mastered them all, just as you admire an ironworker who can walk a beam 400 feet in the air. He can do something that you can’t do, and you respect him for it. Still you keep trying to master those calls. Finally you learn the trick partly. You associate certain words wit.i certain jingles— perhaps it would be better to say certain jangles —and then you pat yourself on the back and feel that you are pretty nearly half as good as a sailormatr in Uncle Sam’s Navy. The trick is the same as with the Army calls artd many of the jingles are the same. For example, yorr soon learn reveille, for the refrain — “We can’t get ’em up; we can’t get ’em up; We ean’t get ’em up in the morning.” tits the Call so completely that one who has once learned it can never forget what it means. Again, when the bugles sound the sick bay call you lind yourself unconsciously saying to yourself—- “ Come and get your quinine, quinine.”

When the ofl’icers* for quarters is sounded yon feel like saying to the near • t you— M G<t your sword on: get your sword on.” W hen mess tall is blown yon know that the bluejackies ure saying to themselves as the notes blare out—- “ Soupy, soupy, soup, without a single bean; Porkv, porky, j>ork, without a streak of I an.” W hen assembly sounds you join with the rest in the warning—

“You’d better be hen* as the next roll call.” When the swimming call comes you say to yourself—- “ Bought a chicken for 50 cents; The sun of ta gun jumped over the fence!” W hen the call for pay day is made you know hoxv the men feel as they say—- “ Pay day, pay day; come and get your pay.” And when tattoo is over and then comes taps you feel drow.sy.4iS- the sweet notes, one of the very few in the army or navy calls are sweet, sing to you — “Go to sleep; go to sleep; go to sleep.” Oh, yes, you finally get to know many of these calls, and then somehow the discord seems to leave you, and, like the ship that found herself, you begin to find yourself on shipboard, and you feel that you are getting on. That bugling ceases to trouble you further.

LANGUAGE OE THE BOS’NS* PIPES. The pipes of the bos'n also pierce your ears. Always shrill, they all seem to end in a piercing shriek. At first they make* you grate your teeth. You feel as if you would prefer that some one would cuss you out. as the n.tv.il expression is, rather than give you orders in tb.it mean way. Ami when you hear these same mates, one of whom is s.ationcd at every place of importance where the men live and sleep, roar out something that seems to be a mixture of a blast of a cyclone, the trumpeting of an elephant, and the bray of anol her animal, you think that if you were the sailorman addressed you’d feel like tkiying to that mate, you be if you’d do it, whatever it was he was ordering you to do. Why such language as the bos'ns’ pipes employ is inort* ealculated to inspire profanity than was the term applied by Daniel ()*(*<>nnell to the fisherwoman when be called her out of her name by saying

she was a hypothenuse. But gradually you learn some of those calls too —there are no rhymes or jingles for them—and that worry blows over. The work on the bridge* also soon excites your admiration. W hen you are in

squadron or fleet formation it’s a different game from when you are aloue. Then all you have to do is to keep your course and go sailing along at the speed set for y< u. keep your eye on things, receive rejnirts. give this and that order, kind when you are through set down a re cord of what has happened in tin* d«*uk logbook. All that’s simple and ea-y uoai pared with cruising in a licet. With a fleet you are not on the bridge five min utes before you are aware that a |>eculkir kind of game is being played. It is “Watch tin* Elagship.” The watch officer, the signal ollicer. the quartermasters, the signal boys, are all engaged in the work. Let a signal go up from the flag ship. There is a hasty |>eep through glasses and then a hoarse cry for certain Hags, a rush for the bunting, a quick bending of it on the halyards, and then a mad rush by half-a-dozen lads across the bridge as the signals are hoisted. Hurry: be the first to answer, is the sentiment inspiring all. After tin* signal is

hoisted you take a hasty look around, and you grin as this or that ship hasn’t got. hers up yet, and you say to yourself that it was pretty smart work. W hen the first sign of a Hutter comes from the flagship that the pennants are coming down, the hoarse yell of “Haul down!” comes like a thunderclap; and wot* betide the clumsy signalboy who gets the halyards foul and doesn’t have tin* signals out of sight before the flagship has hers hidden. Or perhaps it is approaching sunset and the time comes to lower the speed cones for the night and start the masthead and truck lights to glimmering. Intent 1\ all hands watch the flagship and at the first tremor of the cone the box begins to haul down. In a jiffy not a cone is to be seen at the yards on the entire fleet. 1 hen there is the night signalling with the ardois red and white lights. There Hashes from the flagship a row of verti cal red lights, tour of them. “Cornet!” is the cry. It means that each ship must turn on the same signal as an answer to attention call. Then the flagship talks, with this and that combination of red and white lights, all Hashed so fast that before the impression of one combination fades from the eye two or three* others have followed, ami you won der how on earth air. one can make them out. But as each one is Hashed a box calls out the letter and another writes it down in the cubbyhole where the navigator's chart is sheltered,, and v<m find that these messages are recorded a> fast as a telegrapher could write out bi> dicks.

Then the semaphore is lighted up and the arms of lights go jiggering this way and that way, just as the gaunt black and white automata do in the daytime, and you find the boys reading off the message as easily as a grown person can spell pat when the letters are big and the print is plain. You sometimes wake up in the night when you are at anchor and look out of your port. Rare is it that you do not see a semaphore or an ardois combination flashing. When you ask about it in the morning the officers will tell you that it probably was the signal boys talking with one another and that it is allowed because it is good practice to let them gossip when there is nothing else going on and the night watches are long and tedious. Invariably one boy will make the signal letter of another ship where he suspects a friend is on duty at the signals, and this is what he says: “How is it for a game of fiat ?” meaning an unofficial talk. “All right,” comes the answer; “go ahead.” Then those two boys chat over all sorts of things, chaff each other, and make appointments for the first liberty, talk of the latest ship gossip, and all that, but there’s one feature about it that’s peculiar, The messages are always in polite form. It’s always “Will you kindly?” or “Please be good enough,” or something in that fashion. No signal boy ever forgets himself or the dignity of his place in a game of talk. Besides, there might be officers observing things and it is never nice to have your name put on the report. You are brought up at the mast and you might get five days in the brig on bread and water or something like that if you exchanged language that was not seemly for use on a war ship’s signals. And then in bridge work in cruising there is that difficult job of keeping distances. The favourite cruising formation in this fleet before Rio was reached w’as at 400 yards distance from the preceding ship. The Louisiana was fourth in whatever line was formed. That meant 1,200 yards from the flagship. Now the engines of no two ships move the 18,000 tons of those ships at exactly the same speed through the water. You may know’ theoretically how' many’ revolutions of the propellers are needed to go at the rate of ten, eleven, tw’elve or even more knots an hour, but even then one ship will inch up, so to speak, foot up might express it better, and you nave got to correct this all the time or you will be crawling up on the quarter-deck of the ship in front of you, or lagging so behind that the ship after you will be in danger of crawling up on your own deck. You have a midshipman using the stadimeter all the time, every fifteen or twenty seconds or so, and then you are kept signalling to the engine r<«m to make one or two or three revolutions faster or slower, until you get your right place and you don’t have to fly your position pennant, confessing to the flagship that you are making a bad job of your work and have got more than forty yards out of your position. You see, coal varies in its steaming qualities from time to time, and sometimes the engineroom force gets a little slack or orders get mixed, and it is one perpetual struggle to keep exactly where you ought to be. Then you have to sail on the course announced, and the helmsman and quartermaster have to be continually moving the rudder back and forth to correct the yaws from the seas and other influences that throw’ you off that exact line. Then there is the routine bridge work, giving orders, receiving reports, making decisions, tasting the food of the crew that is brought always to the officer on watch, sighting ships and other things and always notifying the captain day or night of all important things going on. Oh, yes, there is plenty to do on a bridge in a fleet, and you watch its progress with fascination for hours until you suddenly begin to realise the presence of that drawback mentioned first in this article, that there is no seating place up there, and you go below to read or get some rest sitting down. CEREMONY OK GENERAL MUSTER. As one becomes accustomed to the naval routine there are some ceremonies that he skips as a matter of course, and

some that he does not. One of the latte! is the general muster of the officers ami crew on a Sunday morning one,- a month Quarters are sounded as usual, and thei conies the inspection of the ship and tin men in their stations, while the baud it playing lively airs. When this is over the entire ship's company not engaged in actual duty in running the ship is summoned aft. The officers and their divisions come to the quarter deck, and each officer reports his division “up and aft” to the executive officer, who in turn reports that fact to the Captain. The latter then orders the ship’s roll to 1>? called. The paymaster .steps out from the group of officers with the roll. On the Louisiana he calls: “Richard Wainwright!” Captain Wainwright responds: “Captain, United States Navy.” “E. W. Eberle!” “Lieutenant-Commander, United States Navy,” the executive officer responds. “C. T. Jewell!” “Lieutenant-Commander, United States Navy,” says the navigator,and so on down the roll of officers the Paymaster proceeds, each man saluting as he answers to his name. Then the Paymaster retires and the pay clerk steps up and takes up the call. He reads the names of th? members of the crew. As each man hears his name called he answers with his designation on the roll. John Jones will answer, “Coal passer, United States Navy,” and William Smith will declare that he is an ordinary seaman, and so on. As each man answers to his name he drops out of the ranks, proceeds aft ami walks by the Captain, hat in hand. When the name of a man on duty somewhere in the ship, in tae engine rooms or the bridge or elsewhere, is called, the ship’s writer, who stands beside the executive officer, says: “On duty, sir.” The absentee is marked “accounted for.” Men in the sick bay arc accounted for in the same way’. It requires almost an hour to go through the nearly 1,000 names, and when it is all over the paymaster reports to the executive officer that all are present and accounted for, and that fact is duly’ communicated to the Captain. By that time the deck is clear of the men and only the officers remain, and these are dismissed. It is a pretty’ ceremony, and originated, it is said, from the fact that before a com plete assembly of officers and crew was made from tune to time and the roll called there used to be padded rolls ;u the navy’, and the Captain and Paymaster shared the swag. You see, graft was known in the old days, as in the modern ones; but it must be added that the navy put a stop to the form of padde I payrolls decades and decades ago, an 1 made the work effective by’ providing a most impressive ceremony. It’s a fine thing to see a fine crew individually and size up each man. When the President was on the Louisiana, it is said, he took the keenest interest in this personal appearance of every man o:r the quarterdeck in answer to the call of his name and showed his satisfaction over the appearance of the men as h■ stood beside the Captain and watch?! each one of the husky lads pass by