For at that period "close action" was always expected. Boarders were told off when the ship "went to quarters for action", and boarding-pikes and cutlasses were provided for their use, while the small upper-deck guns--usually breech-loading Armstrongs--were mounted on carriages which enabled them to be fired downward to repel a boat attack or the rush of a steamboat with a spar torpedo. The ideas of an action at sea were practically the same as those which obtained in the days of Nelson. "Masts and yards" were the source of yet another danger. The "smartness" of a ship was still generally gauged by her "smartness" aloft. All evolutions in the Navy are done "against time", and for a ship to get her "royal yards across" some seconds before any other ship in the squadron was a notable feat of which every soul on board was proud to a degree. These ideas were those of the old sailing navy, and in spite of the advent of steam, ironclads, rifled guns, and torpedoes, the conservatism of our great sea service rendered them still paramount, so that even gunnery took a second place. There were regulation quantities of ammunition to be fired--"expended" was the usual term--at regulated periods, there were orders that torpedoes were to be run at stated intervals, that bluejackets and marines should be landed for drill ashore every week when in harbour. But in most ships these things were regarded as secondary and annoying performances, to be got over and done with as soon as possible, if they could not be avoided altogether, so that all hands might be set to their "games with sticks and string", as, in course of time, irreverent observers began to call the cherished evolutions with mast and yards, and the important business of cleaning paintwork, burnishing "brightwork", and generally making the ship as spick and span as possible. "Spit and polish" were the idols worshipped in those days by captains and more especially commanders, for it was almost universally recognized that their promotion depended more on the brilliant appearance of their ships at an inspection than on any other earthly matter. But for all that the days of "sticks and string" were numbered, as were those of broadside ironclads and box batteries.