One of the methods of smartening up the Crabs was an evolution known as 'fork in the beam.' This was a time-honoured custom which must have started in the days of wooden sailing-ships, since it is hardly possible to stick an ordinary table-fork into the steel beams of a modern vessel. It generally took place during dinner, when the younger members of the mess had been making too much noise.
The sub, standing up at his place at the end of the table, would insinuate a fork into the electric wires overhead, and at this signal all the junior midshipmen and the assistant-clerk had to leave the mess, scamper twice round the boat-deck, and return in the shortest possible time. In the old-time evolution itself the 'snotties' used to run up the rigging and over the masthead, but Cook substituted the race round the boat-deck as being less dangerous. The last officer back had to repeat the performance; and, as the loser generally found that somebody had drunk his beer during his absence, there was always great competition to be away first. It usually started by a seething mass of seven Crabs being stuck in the doorway. After much struggling and pushing, they would eventually fall through into the flat amidst shrill yelps from the young gentlemen who happened to be underneath, and remarks of 'Get off my face!' 'Ow! let go my leg, you beast!' Then, sorting themselves out one by one, they would dart off, to return a few minutes later flushed and breathless after their exercise.
They were also organised as what were known as the 'dogs of war,' with the idea, as the sub explained, of instilling them with martial ardour and making them fierce. On the order, 'Dogs of war out—so and so!' they were expected to growl viciously, hurl themselves upon the person named, and cast him forth from the mess. Sometimes the assistant-clerk was the victim, sometimes one of the 'snotties' themselves; but, to make things really exciting, the 'dogs' were occasionally divided into two sides, Red and Blue, and each party endeavoured to expel the other. It always meant a frantic struggle, for the victim or victims resisted violently. They were none too gentle either, for clothes were torn, shirts and collars were destroyed, and bruises were by no means infrequent. Sometimes people's noses bled, and the fight waxed really furious; but cases of lost temper were comparatively rare, and the 'dogs' usually enjoyed the fun as much as any one else. Their parents, had they been present during the strife, might not have been quite so amused. They paid for the clothes.
The star turn, however, was the Crabs' corps de ballet, and it occasionally disported itself on guest nights for the amusement and edification of any strangers who happened to be present. Trevelyan, the senior midshipman, was the stage manager, and what the ballet lost through lack of histrionic power on the part of the performers it more than made up for by its originality. Their attire was sketchy, to say the least of it. It consisted mainly of bath-towels, sea-boots, and straw hats; and the songs and dances, to the strains of the elderly, asthmatic piano, and bagpipes played by a Scots midshipman, MacDonald, usually brought down the house. If by any chance the performance fell at all flat through a lack of energy on the part of the performers, they were promptly converted into 'dogs of war,' with the inevitable result. So, taking it all round, the occupants of 'the 'Orrible Den' managed to amuse themselves.
But because they sometimes became riotous and irresponsible in the gunroom, it must not be imagined that the younger officers were not learning their trade. Far from it; they worked really very hard, on deck, in the engine-room, and in pursuit of the wily and elusive x. Their day started at six-fifteen, and between six-forty and seven o'clock they were either away boat-pulling or at physical drill or rifle exercise. After this came baths, and from seven-forty-five till eight instruction in signals. Breakfast was at eight; and from nine till eleven-forty-five, and again in the afternoon from one-fifteen to three-fifteen, they were at instruction in seamanship, gunnery, torpedo, navigation, or engineering. Voluntary instruction in theoretical subjects took place for one and a half hours on three evenings of the week, and those more backward youths who did not volunteer were compelled to attend. Two nights a week, from eight-thirty till nine, there were signal exercises with the Morse lamp, and these had to be attended by all the midshipmen until they attained a certain standard of proficiency.
In addition to this, they had their regular watches to keep—day and night at sea, and from eight-thirty A.M. till eight P.M. in harbour; while no boat ever left the ship under steam or sail without a 'snotty' in charge. Their days, therefore, were pretty busy.
They generally managed to get ashore between three-thirty and seven P.M. about two days out of every four, and on Saturdays and Sundays from one-thirty; but no late leave was granted save in very exceptional circumstances. They amused themselves with hockey and football in the winter, and golf, tennis, and cricket in the summer; and at places where games could not be played, solaced their feelings by borrowing one of the ship's boats on Sunday afternoons, stocking her with great hampers containing provender of all kinds, and then sailing off for a picnic. There is an irresistible fascination in cooking sausages and boiling a kettle over a home-made fire on some unfrequented island or beach which appeals to the most sober-minded of us.
Your modern midshipmen are no longer the rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little cherubs of fiction. Many of them are over six feet, some of them shave, and nobody but their aunts and female cousins refer to them as 'middies.' To call them by that diminutive term to their faces would make them squirm. They refer to themselves as 'snotties,' and 'snotties' they will remain till the end of the chapter. The name, rather inelegant perhaps, owes its origin to the three buttons on the cuffs of their full-dress short jackets, which ribald people used to say were first placed there to prevent their sleeves being put to the use generally delegated to pocket-handkerchiefs. Any schoolboy will tell you what a 'snot rag' is; but I have never yet heard of a modern midshipman being without this rather important article of dress.
'Snotties' are a strange mixture. They possess all the love of fun and excitement of schoolboys, but once on duty are very much officers. They have to undertake responsibility very young, and at an age when their shore-going brothers are still at public schools their careers in the service have started.
Seamanship is not an exact science; it is an art. It comprises, amongst other things, experience, sound judgment, good nerve, a vast deal of common-sense, and a happy knack of knowing when risks are justifiable and when they are not. It is a subject which cannot be taught by rule of thumb after the first groundwork of elementary knowledge has been assimilated, and circumstances alter cases so greatly that no preceptor on this earth could lay down hard-and-fast rules for each of the thousand-and-fifty contingencies which may arise at sea, and which may one day have to be guarded against or overcome. The sea, moreover, is a fickle mistress. The navy is always on active service, in peace or in war, for its men and its ships are for ever pitting their skill and strength against the might of the most merciless of enemies—the elements. From the very moment that midshipmen join their first ship they are expected to take part in the great game, and sometimes it is a game of life and death. They start off by being placed in charge of boats in all weathers. They may be steamboats, or boats under sail; but whichever they are, the 'snotties' are learning their trade. If they do something foolish they may cause great damage to valuable property, may even be the means of men losing their lives; but they generally succeed in getting out of scrapes and difficulties with some credit to themselves.