The engineering branch, at any rate, stands as good a chance of casualties as even the executive or marine portions of the ship's complement, and it is perhaps partly for this reason that its officers have recently been allowed to wear the much-prized executive "curl" of gold lace on their sleeves. The engineer commander has charge of all the engines on board, the number of which runs to several dozen, for besides the big main engines for propelling the ship there are smaller engines for almost every conceivable purpose. There are engines to work the steering-gear, the winches and hoists, the dynamos to produce electric light, for the magazine refrigerating machinery, and many others, to say nothing of those in the steamboats belonging to the ship. He and the carpenter are also responsible for the hull of the ship, the expenditure and replenishment of coal and oil, and goodness knows how many other things! To assist him in all this mass of work and responsibility he has two or three engineer lieutenants and a number of artificer engineers, engine-room artificers, mechanicians, chief stokers, and, in a big ship, hundreds of stokers. [Illustration: UNIFORMS OF THE ROYAL MARINES Gunner, R.M.A. Colour-Sergeant, R.M.L.I. Major, R.M.A.] The duty of senior engineer lieutenant is no sinecure either, since he occupies much the same position in regard to his chief as the commander does to the captain of the ship. The remaining engineer lieutenants keep watch down in the engine-room in the same way as the other lieutenants do on deck. Still following the order of the Navy List, we come to the officers of marines. In the old days there were, perhaps, five or six of these in a line-of-battleship, but the biggest "Dreadnought" of to-day never carries more than two, unless, perhaps, there is another one attached to the admiral's staff--supposing it to be a flagship--for special duties in connection with the Intelligence Department, &c. Generally in a flagship there is a major and a subaltern. Of the two, one, probably, will be a marine artilleryman. Other big ships will have a captain and a subaltern, and in smaller ones a captain or subaltern alone. Their duties are considerably more onerous than they used to be, since they are wisely made of much more use in the general work of the ship, instead of being relegated to the unsatisfactory rôle of being "lookers on at life".