ships; but all along the line the personnel is of equal caliber.

Our navy is crowded with men who will face any danger. Some years ago
one of our battleships was on the battle-range, with bags of powder
stowed in her turrets to save time in loading and firing the guns. A
spark got to the bags of powder. There was an explosion and a fire.
Directly underneath was the handling-room. Burning pieces of cloth fell
from the turret down into the handling-room. The crew of that
handling-room could have jumped into the passageway, made their way up a
ladder, and so on to the free and safe air of the open deck. What they
did was to stand by to stamp out what fire they could.

Leading from the handling-room were the magazines. The doors of the
magazines were open. Men jumped into the magazines and buttoned the keys
of the bulkhead doors so that there would be no crevice for sparks. In
doing that they locked themselves in; and once in they had to stay in.
Above them, they knew, was a turret full of men and officers dead and
dying; they knew that fire was raging around them, too, and that the
next thing would be for the people outside to flood the magazines. The
magazines were flooded; when things were under control and the doors
opened, the water in the magazines was up to the men's necks.

While that was going on below decks, in the turret were other men and
officers, including the chaplain, not knowing what was going on below,
and expecting every moment to be blown up into the sky; but there they
were, easing the last moments of the men who were not already dead.
Thirty all told were killed in the turret. All concerned behaved well,
but no better than they were expected to behave.

A few years ago there was a destroyer off Hatteras. It was before
daybreak of a winter's morning in heavy weather. A boiler explosion blew
out her side from well below the water-line clear up through to her main
deck. Men were killed by the explosion; others were badly scalded. A
steam burn is an agonizing thing, yet some of these scalded men went
back into that hell of a boiler-room and hauled out shipmates who, to
their notion, were more badly burned than themselves. One such rescuer
died of his burns. The hole in the deck and top side of that destroyer
was twelve feet across, yet her commander and crew got her to Norfolk
under her own steam. Commander and crew behaved well, but no better than
they were expected to behave.

There is a chief boats