Orders were given to turn on searchlights in case the ships were obscured from one another. It wasn't long before each ship was cut off from the rest. Then came the turning on of searchlights. One naturally would think that this would be almost farcical when the sun was shining, but not so. Those bright little suns could be seen on the ships near by, gleaming through the mist, when the outlines of a ship only 400 yards away could not be made out. You could keep your distance easily in this way. You knew where your nearest neighbor was, and often you could make out the position of two or three of your neighbors. The lights looked like reflections of the sun in a mirror, only slightly obscured. You can see that, you know, any time a looking glass is used in daylight, as many a small boy has found out when he plays pranks. The glare from the ships was truly a beacon in the gloom, and it made you feel comfortable as you thought of the dangers of navigating those immense ships in close proximity in a treacherous fog.
Sometimes the fog would lift and you could get a view of the ships of your own division. Occasionally the ships of the division behind you would be revealed in the same way. Then would come another thick bank and you would be shut out from the rest of the world, and then you would take particular notice of the signalling by whistles. Each ship would sound its own letter by the toots which made the number corresponding to its letter. This is the way it would go:
Connecticut—Letter F—Toot, toot—toot, toot—toot, toot—t-o-o-t!
Kansas—Letter S—Toot, toot—t-o-o-t—toot, toot.
Vermont—Letter R—Toot, toot—t-o-o-t—t-o-o-t.
Louisiana—Letter W—T-o-o-t—t-o-o-t—toot, toot—t-o-o-t.
The Connecticut would sound her signal. Then across the line could be heard the signal of the Kansas, and then the Vermont would sound hers and then the Louisiana would get busy. After a short interval the whistling would be repeated. This and the searchlights made it possible to keep the line well fixed. The quartermasters were taking special pains to steer the exact course that had been set. You saw how nicely it all worked out when the fog lifted, and there would be the leading ships almost exactly in line, ploughing their ways to the southwest, just as if there had been no interception of vision. One glimpse of this really fine work reassured you at once and you began to think that a fleet of warships all huddled close together in a thick fog was not in the unsafe predicament you had fancied it to be. About noon the fog lifted entirely as the sun burned it away. One evening later there was about twenty minutes of fog, but that was the end of this kind of experience on the Atlantic coast.
For five days before Cape Virgin was sighted at the eastern end of the Strait of Magellan the change in the temperature became marked. The thermometer went down to the fifties. The air became bracing. Gradually all white was eliminated from the uniforms. You put on your overcoat and sweater when you went on the bridge to stay. You slept under a blanket at night. Then you closed your port. You rubbed your fingers together to warm them up in the morning. Preparations were made for turning on steam. Only the cranks took a cold shower bath in the morning.
The men showed the change from the enervating climate of the tropics to the bracing one of the lower temperate zone by their sprightly movements. All hands felt good, as the saying is. We had gone from the beginning of winter at home, with the snowstorms, into the oppressive heat of the equator, and now we were back in the weather conditions of the Nova Scotia coast in midsummer, only the cold winds were from the south off the Antarctic ice, instead of from the frozen north, as at home.