rk, also had a good deal to do with the granting of
it.

"I already had several well-trained machine-gunners in the crew, so that
about the only addition I had to make to the ship's company was a
half-dozen boys to masquerade as ladies. As they were not meant to stand
inspection at close range, nothing elaborate in the way of costume or
makeup was necessary. They wore middy jackets, with short duck skirts,
which gave them plenty of liberty of action. Most of them (as there was
nothing much below the waist going to show anyway) simply rolled up
their sailor breeches and went barelegged, and one who went in for white
stockings and tennis shoes was considered rather a swanker. Their
millinery was somewhat variegated, the only thing in common to the
motley units of head-gear being conspicuousness. There was a much
beribboned broad-brimmed straw, a droopy Panama, a green and a purple
motor veil, and a very chic yachting effect in a converted cap of a
lieutenant of Marines with a red band round it. Less in keeping, if more
striking, was a Gainsborough, with magenta ostrich plumes, a remnant
from some 'ship' theatricals.

"Hair wasn't a very important item, but they all seemed to take so much
pleasure in 'coiffeuring' that I took good care not to discourage their
efforts in that direction. The spirit that you enter that kind of a game
in makes all the difference in the world in its success, and these
lads--and, indeed, the whole lot of us--were like children playing
house. All of them were blondes--even a boy born in Durban, who had more
than a touch of the 'tar brush,' and one--a roly-poly young Scot, who
had made himself a pair of tawny braids from rope ravellings--looked
like a cross between 'Brunnhilde' and 'The Viking's Daughter.'

"It was only during rehearsals, of course, that these lads were 'ladies
of leisure.' The rest of the time I kept them on brass polishing and
deck-scrubbing, with the result that the little old '----' regained,
outwardly at least, much of her pristine ship-shapiness. The 'gentlemen
friends' of the 'ladies' were even more of a 'make-ship' product than
the latter.

"Indeed, they were really costumes rather than individuals. I don't mean
that we used dummies, but only that there were eight or ten flannel
jackets and boater hats laid ready, and these were to be worn more or
less indiscriminately by any of the regular crew not on watch. Their
role was simply to loll on the quarterdeck with the 'l