'The dangers of the sea,' 'the violence of the enemy,' 'a safeguard,' 'a security.' The words conveyed little to Martin's mind when first he heard them. Less than a year later, in the autumn of 1914, he had come to learn their true meaning.
The short service was over by nine-twenty, and was followed by a quarter of an hour's hard physical drill, conducted by the lieutenants of divisions. This strenuous exercise was a daily feature of the routine, and there was no doubt that it kept the men in excellent condition. At any rate, Pincher was generally perspiring freely by the time it was over.
This finished, both watches were piped to fall in, and the various parties of men were detailed for the day's work. The commander, with a notebook, would be present on the quarterdeck, and would hold a hurried conversation with the first lieutenant, the gunner, the boatswain, and the carpenter, all of whom required men for the performance of various odd jobs.
'Party painting on the mess-deck yesterday, fall in aft!' would come the first order. A group of about a dozen men and a petty officer, clad in ancient, paint-stained overalls, would detach themselves from the remainder. The first lieutenant, in charge of the mess-decks, gave his detailed orders to the petty officer, and he, in turn, doubled his men off to their work. 'Two hands from each part of the ship of the starboard watch, and a leading hand from the foretop, fall in aft!' The captain of the top told off the men, who were then taken charge of by the gunner--a warrant officer--who required them for restowing the small-arm magazine. Next the boatswain wanted a party, some for refitting rigging, and others for drawing stores from the dockyard; and, lastly, the carpenter took his toll for some purpose best known to himself.
The Royal Marines, meanwhile, had been sent down below to clean the flats, under the orders of their own non-commissioned officers; and when the various flat-sweepers and the mess-deck sweepers had been detached to their work, the remainder of the seamen were detailed for their labours, under the direction and supervision of their petty officers. There were always a hundred and one different jobs to be done. Nobody was ever idle in working-hours, and sometimes Martin found himself armed with a pot of gray paint and a brush to touch up bare portions of the superstructure. On other mornings he was detailed to scrape and red-lead rusty plates on the ship's side, or to holystone a particularly obstinate section of deck which was not quite up to the mark. At other times he found himself told off as assistant to a fully qualified A.B., one Joshua Billings, who was quite the best hand in the ship at splicing or putting an eye in a wire hawser, neither of which is a job for an amateur. Martin liked this sort of work, for he was keen and anxious to learn, and the able seaman taught him far more in an hour than he could pick up elsewhere in a fortnight.