At 5 a.m. on Friday we got under way to proceed into dry dock. At about ten yards from the mouth of the dock both engines were stopped, and our first and second cutters lowered. The ends of wire hawsers were then conveyed by the cutters from capstans, dotted at intervals round the dock, to the ship, where they were made fast inboard. These capstans had already been manned by parties of seamen attached to the dockyard, who were commanded by warrant officers. They stood by to back up the wire as soon as we gave the signal for the capstans to heave round, and in this manner the great ship was hauled into the dry dock. This seemed a ticklish business to the uninitiated, it being essential to get the ship exactly central in the dock, but the Captain controlled operations by signalling from the forebridge, and in due time it was accomplished. The ship floated motionless in the centre, the great caisson was hauled into place, sunk and locked, and the powerful centrifugal pumps began to drain the water away. After these two hours of hard work we went to breakfast with hearty appetites. On looking out of a scuttle a little later I saw that the water had already dropped some six feet and the ship was resting on the bottom with about four feet of her sides visible below the usual water-line. As she had been lying up in Milford Haven for a year before the outbreak of war, she was in a filthy state, and her sides were thickly coated with that long ribbon-like seaweed often seen thrown up in masses on the shore after a storm. Already the dockyard men were placing large pieces of timber between the ship’s sides and the sides of the dock, wedging them tightly so that she would remain upright when all the water had been pumped out. At 9 o’clock we had to go to “divisions.” Each of the watch-keepers had a division, and the messengers accompanied their officers on the rounds of their different departments. “Divisions” over, a lecture on first-aid was given by the Fleet-surgeon and occupied us until lunch-time. By 2 o’clock three-quarters of the water was out of the dock, and those of us who were not on duty went over the brow (_i.e._ the gangway) and down into the basin to explore and have a look at the bottom of the ship. A dry dock is constructed with two galleries at the top built into the stone-work, and is reached by a flight of steps usually standing back about twenty feet from the edge.