Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/105

 several hundred men of all branches together on a ship quite new to them is a slow one. The process begins at once and moves steadily, but a deal of training and instruction is necessary, and the machinery of a modern warship is complex indeed. Officers must learn to know each other and their men, and the men, in the same way, must learn to know their officers and each other. Every soul on board has a particular and personal duty, or set of duties, to perform. When a member of the crew goes aboard he receives his station billet which tells him his rating, his watch number, his part of the ship, his mess, his boat and his station at quarters and fire quarters. He finds himself immediately under the authority of a leader who is, in turn, subordinate to a higher authority. A battleship has six departments: Gunnery, Navigation, Engineering, Construction, Medical and Pay. These, in turn, are subdivided into seventeen divisions, as, in the Engineering Department, Main Engines Division, Boilers Division and Auxiliaries Division. Each division is a government itself responsible to the Executive Officer.

Smaller ships follow the same plan of organization, but have fewer divisions, the chief difference being in the Gunnery Department owing to fewer guns and, frequently, absence of torpedo 83