"FORM DOUBLE COLUMN!"
Every ship knows her place, and in a few minutes the right wing is made of the Minneapolis, Montgomery, Cushing, and Stiletto, and the left of the others, the flag-ship at the head and in the centre. The speed is now up to the full cruising limit—ten knots an hour—and as the ships go rolling and bowing over the Atlantic swells, their keen prows send up fountains of silvery foam that spread away on either bow in streamers of snow on the living blue. The flag-ship signals the course, and again the others answer with the pennant of perpendicular red and white stripes. The quiet of an orderly sea-march settles down over the fleet, yet never for one instant, night or day, does vigilance relax, for at any moment signals may break out on the flag-ship, though they be nothing more than some vessel's number to warn her that she is out of position.
"All HANDS CLEAR SHIP FOR ACTION!"
But other signals do appear, for this is no holiday cruise, but one of practice and ceaseless drill. Fleet tactics are executed almost without rest. "Form line of battle, wings right and left front into line;" "By vessels from the right front into echelon," "Front into line," "Squadrons right turn," "Form line, left wing left oblique," "Form column, vessels right turn," and dozens of other orders are given by the flag-ship, and executed with precision and accuracy which would amaze a landsman, but which probably fall far short of the high ideal in the Admiral's mind. Empty, paradelike manœuvres these would seem to the ignorant, but it was the skill of his captains in the execution of such movements, combined with their knowledge of his plans, that enabled Nelson to hurl his fleet upon that of Villeneuve at Trafalgar with such fatal accuracy after hoisting only three signals to the yard-arm of the Victory.
In the darkness of a cloudy night one of the ships is detached with secret orders. She is to indicate an enemy's force, and to fall upon the fleet at some unexpected hour the next day. From the moment of her departure the lookouts on the remaining ships doubly strain their eyes, and not a spar rises above the horizon that is not studied with all a seaman's skill. In the first dog-watch of the next afternoon, when the sailors forward are amusing themselves with pipe and song, the lookout in the foretop cries,
In answer to the questions of the officer of the watch, he says the smoke looks like that of a cruiser. The New York has seen her too, and the next minute signals fly at her yard-arm. The Captain nods, and the hollows of the ship are filled with the sharp beating of a drum, the shrill screeching of boatswains' pipes, and the sound of heavy voices bawling, "All hands clear ship for action!" That is a thrilling cry, even in time of peace, and half-slumbering sailors spring to their feet with staring eyes and panting breath. Marines rush to the arm-racks to get their rifles, belts, and bayonets. Officers buckle on swords and revolvers, and spring to their stations.
