George Elliott (AP 105) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 23 text:

In Jifxfz. 5 ug'-v UM .-,l-fm, 1 , av .- ' QA., f N f ., gf' v ,,., 9.-. . - .. . iv., ...A ..4..,,...:..1g.4,,,.,,,,,g,3 4 40 ... M... ..X,. A-.4 Y

Page 22 text:

af? IST DIVISION I-lello Fox, who's the character with you? Fel- lows, l want you to meet Joe Boot, he's ship's company now, so let's give him the low down. Well Fox, l see that you brought him to the right place because this is where the ship really starts. You see the men start out here as sea- man. Maybe you would like to know the mean- ing of seaman . The seaman is the man who soys Who-me? after the Captain tells the first Lieutenant, the first Lieutenant tells the Boatswain, the Boatswain tells the Boatsvvain Mate, the Boatswain Mate tells the Coxswain, and the Coxswain points to the lone seaman, who, you see, is at the bottom of a long ladder of orders. The seaman awakes in the morning to the horrid sound of the boatswain pipe. Par- don me, but before vve go any further, maybe we ought to explain the boatswoin pipe. lt is wiilv Before the Mast an instrument about so long, and reminds you of a police whistle which you vvould have liked to have had as a kid. By the way, you'll prob- ably find out that the guy blowing it is also an overgrown kid. lt is blown at different times during the day to notify us that it's time for chow, watch, lights out, etc. At O6l5 we hear the shrill of the kid's whistle ordering the Seaman to give it a clean sweep dovvn fore and aft. Half asleep, we all stagger up to the main deck for- ward, where we hear O hell of a roar from about four Boatswain MateS and a couple CoxswainS telling us to take the sleep out of our eyes and get the brooms to work- ing. lf you think yOUf mother-in-law is bad yOU ought to hear the Boat- swain Mate. I-le reOllY beats his gums. That done we rush down to our compartments to

Page 24 text:

,. kygiggzl Y . ' tw . f'hrH--TR. t -4 x , x 'M sprinkle our foces. About the time wet get our foces dry there is o rush to chow, where we stond in line for minutes thot seem like hours, only to reoch the steom toble ond find thot our time hos been wosted in voin. l-lere we toke o piece of breod ond o cup of Joe ond moke our stomoch believe it's breokfost. At the lost gulp of our Joe, which some of us never reoch, due to our tender stomochs, we ore summoned to quorters. Here our gentlemonly Division Officer wolks out of the luxurious wordroom, ofter o hecirty meol of sunnyside up eggs ond hom, ond colls us to on unnecessory ottention while he leons ogoinst the bulkheod ot eose. Here we stond for fifteen minutes, o couple of which ore token up by mus- tering. Frequently to our dislike, Rocks ond Shools ore reod, but more often the time is token up by unnecessory lectures on squoring of hots ond weoring of regulotion shoes. Also ot quor- ters we receive our lobors for the doy. Then Turn To sounds ond we merrily stroll to our work filled with wild onticipotion. Boy, Boot, here is where you see o working bunch of fools. lt seems thot this first division does everything but cook, ond some of our old men ore even doing thot, os we hove representotives in olmost every division on the ship. Our work consists of keeping the forword port of the ship in reodiness ond condition. We're not soying whot kind of condition, becouse if you knew the First Division you would know thot the condition would olwoys be good. lWhot the hell ore you loughing ot?l ln keeping our ship cleon we use quite o few pieces of moteriol, including point brushes, chippers, scropers ond wire brushes, ond, brother, you will wish you hod never seen these once you get to using them. A seomon is never o seomon until he is entirely fomilior with these tools ond l'm sure thot you will get to be quite fomilior with them on our next voyoge. Don't let us discouroge you though. There ore o lot of other interesting things to be done. You might like rigging booms, which proves to be on interesting operotion with Simon Legree ond his henchmen spouting words of wisdom into your eors. About this time we heor Sweepers ogoin, so we mon our brooms ond sweep her down ltroops ond olll. Then comes the glorious birdlike coll of our kiddie pipe, so we trot on down to Tobor's vitomin shop. Believe me there ore C1 lOT of vitomins in Tiger's stew. Thot is if you con