Franklin Matthews

“ Nature smiled at Hampton Roads; nature not only sulked but made a pitiable exhibition of her uncontrolled anger and grief at Rio. The fresh breezes crinkled out the flags and made them beautiful at Hampton Roads; the driving gusts tore ensigns to ribbons at Rio and made a prolonged job of mending bunting on all the ships.
When darkness was beginning to fall and speed cones [131] had been lowered and masthead and other lights had been turned on a steamship was noticed coming out of the mist behind the fleet. She was alive with bunting and ran straight toward the middle of the fleet. ”

“ Why, even the officers can hardly be civil to one another, and as for the men they get saying things to one another in their disputes and heat and anxiety that would make a stranger think they were dangerously near an uprising. The ordnance officer loses all his friends and the division officers glare at him and one another as if each felt sorry that the earth in general and the ship in particular was encumbered with such pitiful specimens of humanity. ”

“ Probably the first impression that a stranger to all this ship routine gets is that a warship is one of the most discordant places in the world. They are everlastingly blowing bugles, each bugle out of key with all the others. One bugler will sound a lot of hippety-hoppity notes and then another will take up the same refrain with a blare and a mean half note or quarter note variation and then two or three others will join in, on decks, below decks, and the jangling jumble rolls in on your ear drums in such a discord that you feel as if you'd like to punch the man who told 'em to do it. ”

“ The warm and fraternal welcome which the people of the capital of the republic have given to the American fleet which is now visiting us ought to prove how deep and sincere the sympathy and friendship which the Brazilian nation feels for its great and prosperous sister of North America.
These are no fleeting or transitory sentiments, since they date from the hour of our birth as a nation and are ever growing in strength. Every day the bonds of friendship and of trade between the two nations are drawn closer. ”

“ After the signal is hoisted you take a hasty look around, and you grin as this or that ship hasn't got hers up yet, and you say to yourself that it was pretty smart work. When the first sign of a flutter comes from the flagship that the pennants are coming down the hoarse yell of "Haul down!" comes like a thunderclap; and woe betide the clumsy signal boy who gets the halyards foul and doesn't have the signals out of sight before the flagship has hers hidden. ”

“ Nothing has been left undone that would add to our convenience, comfort or happiness, and, permit me to say, as military men, with the instinct of organization, we have been impressed with the perfection of every detail and the artistic taste displayed at every entertainment from the time the fleet dropped anchor in Callao Bay to the occasion of the brilliant garden party at the exposition grounds. But most important of all, and that which has touched our hearts deeply, is the warmth and sincerity of the welcome that has been accorded to us, so patent to all. ”

“ A stiff northwest wind seized hold of the great streamers of smoke that poured over the tops of smoke-pipes, and as these streamers frayed themselves out against the blue sky and the bright sun the breeze seemed to lift them toward the southeastern heavens, where some power wove them together to pull the ships along and give them a fine sendoff. All of Monday and Tuesday whoever it was in the kingdom of Old Boreas that was doing the tugging on the ships made a good job of it, for practically every vessel in the fleet had to check speed constantly. ”

“ For a mile or two beyond the Chacabuco led the fleet and then it turned and fired a salute to the American flag as it headed back to Valparaiso. The Connecticut answered with twenty-one guns for the Chilean flag, signalled to resume the cruising speed of ten knots—and the spectacular call on the President of Chile and the people of its chief seaport was over. Altogether nearly 800 guns were fired in the saluting. It was like the roar of a battle. ”

“ The unofficial welcome was everywhere. It began as soon as the ships entered Callao Bay. There are no headlands or hills surrounding the harbor, which is practically an open roadstead. The fleet had to anchor two miles out. The harbor was crowded with all sorts of little craft laden to the danger point. Every tug, every launch, all the sailboats that could be found, rowing barges, dories, two large ocean-going steamers, came out to say howdy and bearing cheering people by the thousand. Some of the little craft fired national salutes with toy cannon. ”

“ And so the voyage went on placidly with the usual drills and daily ceremonies until Cape Frio, some sixty miles east of Rio, was sighted and then there came the journey along the coast, the entrance into the magnificent harbor, the splash of the mud hooks and the feeling that one-third of the voyage to San Francisco was over, and the fleet was shaking itself down into a smooth working condition better and better with every day at sea. ”

“ With a fleet you are not on the bridge five minutes before you are aware that a peculiar kind of game is being played. It is "Watch the Flagship." The watch officer, the signal officer, the quartermasters, the signal boys, are all engaged in the work. Let a signal go up from the flagship. There is a hasty peep through glasses and then a hoarse cry for certain flags, a rush for the bunting, a quick bending of it on the halyards and then a mad rush by half a dozen lads across the bridge as the signals are hoisted. Hurry; be the first to answer, is the sentiment inspiring all. ”

“ When the South American peoples proclaimed their independence, at that moment so fraught with misgivings and uncertainty as to the future, the young American republic gave them strength by solemnly declaring the intangible unity of the peoples of the new world through the declaration of their great President Monroe, whose name figures in history with brilliance as a statesman of great perception and of rare political foresight. ”

“ A sense of confident security comes over you and you soon have the feeling that nobody in the world can beat the Yankee sailor man for man in fighting and no ship of equal capacity in the world can beat the one on which you are sailing in a fight. You may be overconfident, but it's a comfortable kind of feeling to have.
You watch the rivalry among the various ships of the fleet in such matters as they can show rivalry in during a cruise as you begin to have confidence in the one on which you are a passenger. When target shooting comes this rivalry will take an impressive form. ”

“ Just before the shooting begins a calm, a stillness, comes over the ship. Men steady themselves with a supreme effort to keep cool, and the spirit of do or die takes possession of the ship, and as the guns go bang, bang and boom, boom you'd think these officers and men had done nothing else all their lives but shoot off projectiles and it was as much a matter of course with them as getting their breakfasts. ”

“ The members of the crew were slung in their hammocks, but numerous noises of catcalls and horns and shouts told that no one was asleep. At every section of every division on every deck the sailors were greeted with song. They sat up and cheered. It was fine to have a party of officers come around and wish you a happy New Year. Every mess of the ship received a call. When the warrant officers' mess was reached there was a brilliant display of pajamas and—well, in print one musn't go into particulars too fully. Regulations must be obeyed strictly even when you're having a good time. ”

“ You don't feel like asking for what is called a gabfest when the other fellow is figuring out problems in navigation. It is not the time to be chummy when every man on the bridge is watching signals from a flagship and hurrying things so as not to be the last to send up the proper pennant or to haul it down. When the red and white lights of the ardois signal system are flashing at night or the stiff arms of the semaphores are throwing themselves about in a helter-skelter fashion day or night it is not wise to ask what they are saying. ”

“ Yes, gentlemen, the peaceful commission of your fleet waving the star spangled banner of the great Republic of the United States of [109] America around this continent of ours and training the crews of her men-of-war across the largest and deepest oceans, is certainly an act of very right naval policy, chiefly on the behalf of order and discipline of industry, labor and trade, of diplomacy and fraternal comity, and, at last, it means an exchange of civilisation amongst the peoples of the several countries of the young, immense and futurous continent of both Americas. ”

“ Of course the winds blew fiercely at times, but they do that every day in the year in the Magellans. Of course the tide rips caught the ships at certain critical places and twisted and turned them somewhat. Of course the rain fell occasionally and now and then shut out from view a most beautiful glacier or snow field just when you wanted to see it most. Of course the clouds obscured the mountain tops from time to time. Of course the currents and tides swept through the various reaches like mill races. Of course a willywaw or two came out and smote us, and of course there was fog. ”

“ We can't lavish wealth upon you, but such as we have is yours, all yours. We have remembered."
And so it was that Peru's entertainment of the fleet was not extravagant or burdensome. It was delicate rather than effusive. It was the welcome and hospitality of high breeding. From the first gun of the cruiser Bolognesi, sent 250 miles out to sea to escort the fleet in to Callao, to the last "Eep! Eep! Eep! Oorah!" on the tug that followed us furthest to sea as we left this morning every act of hospitality was in perfect taste and in a spirit utterly foreign to vulgar display. ”

“ Kim, who has sailed the high seas in the United States Navy for a quarter of a century and knows so much about the ships and officers that he wouldn't dare to tell it all and ought to be made an Admiral for his knowledge and his discretion; Kim, who has to salute many a man with a star on his sleeve and some of them with two stars, the minute he sees them, and then can call them Bill and Jim and Tom in private; Kim, the best beloved, all around good fellow on the ship; yes, everybody knows Kim. ”

“ A warship is not intended to be a poetry factory. It's a fighting machine and with the best guns that you can get you need the best men available to shoot them.
No longer is the navy the last refuge of the scum of town and country, the receptacle of jailbirds temporarily at large, the resort of men not fit for any decent toil on land. The navy needs men of intelligence and good character, the bright boys from the farm; young lads from the city, who otherwise would have to spend their lives in factories. The navy needs these men, and it is getting them all the time. ”

“ He seizes his mate and he dances wildly, madly or slowly and gracefully, as he pleases. You see as fine dancing there as you can see in a fashionable ballroom in any capital of the world. He has his cards, his pets—dogs, cats, birds—and he foregathers from time to time to sing. He likes to box and play baseball and to row, and the Government provides for suitable athletic equipment for his sports. He loves a boxing contest on the quarter deck with all the officers looking on and the rules of the ring enforced rigidly. ”

“ Well, there are lots of things that can be told about target shooting, things that every naval man knows about and are no secret and that the ordinary person doesn't know about. There's no inhibition on writing about noise, and the flare of guns and the puffs of smoke, and the geysers that shoot up out of the water as the shots ricochet far out to the horizon. Oh, yes, the old adage is still true that there are a good many ways to skin a cat.
As has been said, the preparations for this target practice began as soon as the fleet was out of Hampton Roads. ”