[CHAPTER XII]
ROUTINE OF A BATTLESHIP
Life and Work on U. S. Battleship—Every Day Crowded With Duties and Drills for All on Board—The Overworked Executive—Responsibility for Everything Finally Culminates With the Captain—All Effort Has in View the Efficiency of the Ship as a Fighting Machine—Minute Care in Seemingly Minor Details Makes for Perfection in Case of Crisis—Standing Watch and General Quarters—Catering and Hygiene—Smart Signal Work—Launch Etiquette—Reverence for Quarter Deck and National Anthem.
On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,
Punta Arenas, Chile, Jan. 31.
UNUSUAL and attractive as an extended cruise on a warship from the Atlantic to the Pacific is to a civilian, and however it may cause him to be envied by his acquaintances, it must also be set down, if one would chronicle the truth and nothing else, 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 realizes that a warship is not a passenger steamship, with steamer chairs, smoking rooms, deck stewards and all the other appurtenances that go to advance the traveller's comfort.
The next drawback that forces itself upon one's attention, after the novelty of looking around wears off to some extent, is that the warship passenger is a mighty lonely person, and, unless he can amuse himself or is naturally 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 officer 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 chat to you. You can't exercise conversational powers when general quarters or fire drill is on. You don't feel like asking for what is called a gabfest when the other fellow is figuring out problems in navigation. It is not the time to be chummy when every man on the bridge is watching signals from a flagship and hurrying things so as not to be the last to send up the proper pennant or to haul it down. When the red and white lights of the ardois signal system are flashing at night or the stiff arms of the semaphores are throwing themselves about in a helter-skelter fashion day or night it is not wise to ask what they are saying.
There is so much going on entirely foreign to the average man that he feels as if he were in a new world with busy people all about him speaking a strange language and doing strange things and he's literally alone. Gradually it is borne in on him that he's a cat in a strange garret. There's plenty of civility all around, but for hours and hours a day there is no companionship; no one with whom he can form a pool on the day's run, or sit down with a steward at his elbow to play a friendly game, or one for blood; no yarn spinners handy when you want 'em; no luxuries in travelling.