_May 30._ To-day we spent washing the ship. We turned loose the hose for four hours and it looks better, but is not clean by a long shot. I have caught a rotten cold. To-day more of the crew got fired. Thirty-two regulars from the _South Carolina_ came aboard to fill up the crew. We now have a full complement.... _31st._ Still raining. I have never known such beastly weather. We are still loading stores and I don’t understand where all the stuff is put. We are carrying the fleet paymaster and the fleet postmaster, so it looks as if we would also be the fleet dispatch boat on the other side. Heaven only knows when we will sail. We have been expecting to go every night. Liberty is very scarce these days. _June 1st._ Still more rain. I don’t expect a decent day this summer. We are still loading, loading, loading. Food, clothes, and ammunition. A hundred and fifty pounds on my back is nothing any more. They first announced that we were to have liberty to-morrow and then cancelled it. Haven’t been mess cook or on watch for five days. Hope my good luck continues. The regulars are a good bunch, with few exceptions, and I am surprised that most of them are so young. They run from nineteen to twenty-two on an average, barring the petty officers who are older. _June 4th._ We sail definitely to-morrow, nobody knows where. In the afternoon I went to the Subtreasury with the paymaster to get money. We both carried guns and brought back $10,000 in gold to the ship. It was some load to carry.... _5th._ We shoved off from the Navy Yard at 8.30 A.M. and are now heading north in Long Island Sound. No idea yet where we are heading for. We cruised in the Sound all day and anchored at Whitestone for the night. Got our battle billet to-day. I am as follows: _Fire._ Extinguisher in crew quarters. _Boat._ Big motor sailer. _Gun._ Fire control aft. _Arm and away._ Fire control aft. This is a joke on me. It was raining the other morning and we were getting under way. Everybody was dressed in dirty working whites. The bos’n yelled at me, “Hey, get the messenger for’ard.” I immediately rushed down to my locker, broke out a clean suit of whites, and reported to the bridge for messenger watch. I could hear the bos’n cursing all over the deck. The mate finally spotted me and asked what I was doing on the bridge. I told him the bos’n had put me on messenger watch, and the mate said, “Messenger watch! Hell! The messenger is a rope, you poor boob!” It turned out that the “messenger” was a long line which was stowed forward and he was wondering what in Sam Hill had happened to me. The “messenger” is used to hoist the motor sailer.