Marines and sailors dispersing after an assembly aft for instructions

Marines and sailors dispersing after an assembly aft for instructions

14250

At nine o'clock every morning, the men assemble for inspection. As at this time everyone must appear in clean whites, and may be called out at any other time of the day to appear in like manner, each sailor usually has one suit in process of drying on a line. Some time is spent every morning in cleaning the ship and scrubbing clothes. The men lay their suits out on the deck floor and scrub them with brush and soap and water. After being rinsed, they are tied with strings to a clothes line stretched on the deck. The men are quite apt to spend any spare time they have in scrubbing their clothes. Every part of the ship is thoroughly cleaned, even to the funnel to clean which the men sit on chairs suspended by ropes and are raised or lowered by the men on deck by ropes working through pulleys. The men are required to be neat as well as clean. Every article of clothing must be folded and stowed uniformly. Even in stowing away the hammock for the day, the sailor is taught to roll it up into a big sausage and to lash it with just seven turns of rope, no more, no less. The sailor's hammock in which all the seamen but the officers sleep, is a sheet of canvas caught at the ends into a metal ring and slung from hooks in the beams of the supporting deck. It has a mattress and blanket and a pillow if desired. The hammocks are hung so close together that they sometimes touch.

1 stereograph : b&w

1 gelatine silver print stereograph (8 x 15 cm) mounted on card (9 x 18 cm)

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World War through the stereoscope