How the men did step around and the anchor engines tug! The division officer watched until the anchor was clear of the mud, when he reported it to the executive officer, who takes a ship in and out of port. Finally the anchor was sighted, the "All ready" signal made, the engines began to throb and the ships turned on their heels and got under way.
It was a pretty manœuvre in the crowded Roads with the swift tide sweeping the ships seaward. In the chains the leadsman was swinging his plummet and calling out such things as "By the mark seven," "By the deep six," "By the quarter less six," while the ships slowly paraded down the bay. The channel was so shallow that the ships stirred up the mud and some of it got into the machinery, and there were hot bearings that were cooled down with the hose. It would not do to falter or make a blunder of any kind, for the President was looking on and no excuses would be tolerated.
It was a far different story from the old days. The old sloop of war Jamestown lay in the Roads, and if the fleet could have stopped to listen she would have spun a yarn on how they used to leave port. She would have remarked upon the change. When she set sail capstan bars would be shipped and all that part of the ship's company manning the bars would bring the anchor chain "up and down, sir," as the officer in charge of the fo'c's'le would report. The captain and First Luff (the executive officer who "had to have the ship working like a chronometer, no thanks if he did and his hide scorched by his superiors if he didn't") would stand on the quarter block on the weather side and the navigator and officer of the deck on the lee side.
Then would come the sharp commands, "Aloft light yardmen!" "Aloft topmen!" "Aloft lower yardmen!" "Lay out!" "Let fall!" and a cloud of snowy canvas would drop loose and limp. Then would come the commands, "Topsail sheets and halyards!" "To'gallant sheets and halyards!" "Set taut!" "Haul away!" with the shrill sound of the bos'n's whistle to the tramp of hundreds of feet.
When a band was on board there would be a martial air. If not the officer would shout "Stamp and go!" and this noise with the feet meant so much extra pulling, and the good ship was soon on her course. Sometimes a chanty would be sung instead of the "Stamp and go," and when the ship was bound for Rio, just as this fleet is, one could hear the light hearted, and the heavy hearted ones too, singing a refrain that the men of this fleet might well have sung if the days of the chanty had not gone to limbo:
Heave away for Rio!
Heave away for Rio!
My bonny young girl,
My head's in a whirl,
For I'm bound for the Rio Grande.
The old days have gone, but many a bluejacket's head (bluejacket, mind you; not Jackie, for many of Uncle Sam's tars and sea dogs don't like that term) was in a whirl over some bonny young girl, as witness the hundreds of letters that were sent ashore on the mail orderly's last trip.
And so the ships passed out to sea. The matter of fact officers occasionally cast their eyes about and when they had time to give expression to their feelings about all that one would hear from them would be:
"Mighty fine, sight, this. Wonder what they're doing back there? Distance seems wrong. Better get up his position pennant or the Admiral may get after him. What's that? We're fifty yards too close? Give her three revolutions slower. Only twenty-five now? Give her only one slower. Get her distance now? Standard speed."