Stand By! Naval Sketches and StoriesDorling, H. Taprell (Henry Taprell)
History
Stand By! Naval Sketches and Stories
Dorling, H. Taprell (Henry Taprell)
Great Britain. Royal Navy; World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations
Next comes the engineer-lieutenant-commander, or the "chief," as we
call him. He, too, has his hands full, for besides being in charge of
the turbines, boilers, and all the machinery on board, he is also
responsible for practically all the stores except provisions. They
range in variety from what his store books call prenolphthaline,
solution of; cans, iron, tinned, 4 galls.; bits, brace, carpenter's,
centre, 1 1/4 inches; to flags, hand, nainsook, white, with dark blue
stripe, 2 ft. by 2 ft.; watches, stop; bolts, steel, screwed, bright,
hexagonal-headed, 1 in. by 2 in.; sealing wax, foolscap, paper
fasteners, and pencils; and paint, green, Brunswick, middling, whatever
that may be. This is just a small selection of the articles he keeps
and has to account for at stocktaking, and if you turned out his
various storerooms you would find he had sufficient articles to set up
a combined ironmongery, ship chandlery, and stationery emporium.
Occasionally he also is bothered with conundrums. For instance, the
naval store officer at one of the dockyard ports has a cheerful habit
of forwarding a communication to the effect that "brushes, paint, three
in number, and broomsticks, bundle of, one, demanded" on such and such
a date "are in No. 8 store awaiting removal. Kindly send for them as
soon as possible, or if ship has sailed kindly say where these articles
should be sent." The ship always has sailed, and by the time the
letter is received is usually hundreds of miles away in Scotland,
Ireland, or Timbuctoo. Moreover, as the censorship regulations
strictly forbid the ship's location to be mentioned, the chief curses.
His dilemma rather reminds us of the young and giddy naval officer who,
after a riotous night in London forgot whether he had been appointed to
H.M.S. Chatham at Dublin or H.M.S. Dublin at Chatham!
Then we have the first lieutenant, the executive officer of the ship
and the skipper's right-hand man. He is the go-between betwixt
officers and men, is responsible for the ship's interior economy,
cleanliness, and organisation, and has to be pretty shrewd and
levelheaded. Energetic as well, for though a destroyer is a small
vessel and carries under a hundred men all told, there is always
something going on. In addition to his other duties, too, he takes
turns in keeping watch at sea with the sub-lieutenant and gunner.
Next the sub-lieutenant. He is the veteran of our little party so far
as this war is concerned, for before he came to us he was in a
battleship in the Dardanelles. He is now the custodian of the charts,
and has to keep them up to date, no easy matter in these strenuous
times of Hun minefields. He also runs the ship's football team, which
goes ashore and disports itself in green jerseys whenever it gets the
opportunity. This, in itself, entails some work and an infinite amount
of tact, particularly as fully half the ship's company wish to play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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