y that something stirring
was going to happen, and to happen soon, they stood there grinning
widely and waiting for the ball to open. It may have been their childish
innocence, it may have been their untutored ignorance, but when that
sheeted rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval College, and a
solid squad or two of our lads went down, and following that the snipers
began to get them in ones and twos and threes--when that happened there
was no distressing confusion in their ranks. When, later, it became
necessary for the _Prairie_ and _Chester_ to fire just over their heads
to batter the walls of that same War College, it made no difference. The
ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent--they knew it would be--and when
the shells went whistling through the walls of the second story, the
marines and bluejackets stood under the first story and let them
whistle. Plaster and bricks from the shaken walls came tumbling down
upon them. They ducked beneath the falling mortar, some of them, but
they all took their shells standing.

They are not the sailors of classic tradition, these battleship lads of
the twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in--it must be so.
The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk
as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great
seaport--Boston--and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the
harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the
pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from
long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short
liberty. Great-hearted men, who gave truth to the phrase--"and spending
his money like a drunken sailor"--and knowing, usually, but two
inescapable obligations--to do his duty aboard ship and to stand by a
shipmate in trouble ashore. Almost any of the old-time policemen of the
large seaports can tell you many fine tales of the riotous hours along
the water-front in the old days.

Such is the passing tradition. The present lad of the navy is creating a
new one. For one thing, he no longer gets drunk--that is, he does not
get drunk by divisions. To illustrate:

During that greatest steaming stunt in all maritime history--the cruise
of our sixteen battleships with their auxiliaries around the world--all
naval records were broken in the number of enlisted men allowed ashore.
Every day in large foreign ports saw 4,000 of our bluejackets and
marines