The navigation officer, notebook in hand, is with the captain in the conning-tower, and his thoughts are not far different. His attention is riveted on the course of the ship and any impending manœuvre that he may presume to be imminent or advisable. In some of the older ships, where the quartermaster steers from the conning-tower, his observation is often made more irksome by salt-water spray getting into his eyes and preventing him from seeing the compass clearly. With the commander and others who may be below in the ammunition passages in the depths of the ship, the one thought obsessing the mind to the exclusion of almost everything else will be: "What is happening, and how are we getting on?" Passing up ammunition is no sinecure; it is invariably a warm job down below. Stripped to the waist, hard at it, and perspiring freely, many a joke is cracked in much the same spirit as inspires Tommy in the trenches. Now and again a bit of news comes down and is passed along like lightning from mouth to mouth. For example, in one case a shell hits one of our ship's funnels, and it has gone by the board with a frightful din, as if hell were suddenly let loose; the news is passed down to the commander in the ammunition passage, to which he cheerily replies: "That's all right; we have plenty left, haven't we?" Again, a shell strikes the hull of the ship, making her quiver fore and aft and almost stop her roll; naturally the effect of this is felt down below far more than on deck, and though some may wonder whether it has struck on the waterline or not, there is merely a casual remark that the enemy is shooting a bit better. The engineer officers in the engine-rooms are constantly going to and fro along the greasy steel floors, watching every bearing and listening intently to every sound of the machinery in much the same way as a motorist listens to hear if his engine is misfiring. They, too, are longing for news of how the fight is going on as they keenly watch for any alteration of the engine-room telegraphs, or of the hundred and one dials showing the working of the various engines under their charge. The stokers, stripped to a gantline, and digging out for daylight, are in much the same position as those passing up ammunition, save that they seldom, if ever, get a lull in their work in which to indulge their thoughts. Those trimming the coal in the boxlike bunkers have perhaps the most unenviable task. Breathing in a thick haze of coal dust, black from head to foot, they work on at full pressure in these veritable black holes, without the chance of hearing any news of what is going on "up topsides."