The single word " Mobilise," telegraphed on Thursday to the
divisional officers of the Navy throughout the Kingdom, sufficed to put the whole machine in motion, and the actual work of commissioning the vessels, which began at about half-past 7 on Thursday morning, appears to have been got through both quickly and smoothly. The total amount of work done has been enormous. Sailors, stokers, and marines, and their officers, had each to be told-off to their own special ports of rendezvous ; crews had to be marched on board, ships pro- visioned, stores provided, and steam got up. The difficult task of finding which pieces in the mighty puzzle fitted on to which was cleverly managed. Each man, when he marched on board his ship, carried with him a card, " on which was printed the number of his mess, his place for sleeping and stowing his kit, his station in case of fire, action, or exercise aloft, the boat he is to row in, the gun he is to fight, his posi- tion in a landing party, and the numbers of the rifle and cutlass he is to carry."
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