Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-10
TO MAKE A GOOD LEGS"

Atlantic, was court-martialed and SEN
! fenced to three years in a naval prison
for killing a Jap mess attendant with a
| blow OF his fist" said an official of the
Navy Department who made several cruises
| as a man-'o-war's man. OF course, the
J1mm Legs, as masters-at-arms are term
ed by bineJackets on warships, had no
right, according to the regulations. to punch
the Jap, and equally, of course, he had no
! intention of killing the man. But the job
OF Legs on man-o'-war is about the
hardest one in the service, and my SYM
pathy is generally with a master-at- arms
VINO gets into trouble of this sort The
master-at-arms is the most important chief
petty ofncer on board warship, and it's
ms business 70 preserve order among the
members of the crew and see that they be-
have themselves When you reflect upon
the character of the personnel of the en-
listed force of our navy, and keep it in
mind that a great majority of the blue
jackets are scrappers from away back,
particularly when they're in drink, you'll
be willing to grant that a Legs has got
his work cut out for him from all hands
IN the morning till pipe down at night
The court-martialed master-at-arms of the
Indiana has been criticised good deal by
minimizing persons for hitting AN inof
fensiye Japanese as they put it. Now
that sounds humane and sympathetic
enough but there are several chances to
one that it may be wide of the mark. The
JdpdHeSe serving on our WarSn1pS make
admirable officers servants-galley cooks
mess room attendants, ward room bows
and so on. They are exceedingly cleanly
and quiet But there is no manner of doubt
that they are sullen under the discipline
of English-speaking petty officers. They
are Slow to obey the proper orders of the
petty officers. They imagine that, because
their work is personal attendance upon the
officers they are not subject to the neces-
sary orders of the petty officers, and they
render extremely grudging obedience to
these orders. This particular Jap who was
accidentally killed by the Indianas master
alarms was cook, and he had dropped
some grease on the deck just outside the
galley. Well, you know how spotlessly tidy
our warships are kept, and is one of the
duties of the master-at-arms to see that
his ship is kept clean. The Legs ordered
the Jap to swab the grease from the deck
a perfectly proper order. The Jap made
some sullen reply and virtually refused to
obey the command The Legs advanced
pose of escorting him to the mast to ex-
plain his conduct to the executive officer or
the officer of the deck-apd then the fatal
punch was delivered. 1t may have been
that the Legs shot out his fist in fear of
knife in the Jap's possession. Some
Japs are pretty nearly as handy with their
knives as are most Italians.
Il believe I'd rather be a night marshal
in a new mining camp than a man-o'-war
master-at-arms. In the first place, the
Legs Of a warship-he's called Legs
by the way, because ne 8 supposed TO be
everywhere on board the ship at the same
time-has little or no chance to become
popular with the enlisted force. The nature
of his ship-policing duties effectually pre-
vents that. Once in a while there is a
master-at-arms who contrives to do his
duty and at the same time get on well
with the bluejackets, but such cases are
rare exceptions, and, as a rule, the Legs
who is on hale and even terms with the
enlisted men isn't first-class master-at-
arms.
The Legs has an easy enough time of 1t
keeping on an even keel while his ship is
at sea, or even when the vessel is in a
port in which no shore liberty is granted
to the enlisted men. 1t is with the return
ing shore liberty parties that he has to get
busy if he has any regard for the tenure
of his job, not to say anything of the con-
sideration which he is naturally bound to
have for the Wilderness of his skull. A
haif-jagged bluejacket. returning to his ship
in that condition doesn't care much for the
eagle on the watch arm of a master-at-
arms. Neither, for the matter of that does
the rummed-up tar bother to any great ex-
tent over the stripes and stars on the
sleeve cuffs of the officers. properly
picked American man-o'-war's man will
go up against whole flock of grizzly bears
without any thought whatever as to how
he's going to emerge from such a melee,
and it is for this reason that the Legs has
many troubles of his own In handling re-
turning and returned shore liberty parties
of bluejackets. When he grabs hold of a
lar WHOI1 lie SDOlS DIS the HAL luHDerS
over the gangway. as a jag. for the pur-
pose of hustling him up to the stick to be
looked over by the officer Of the deck, he's
got to have his eyes wide open and both
hands decidedly ready for a repertoire of
swift punches and jabs straight from the
shoulder and there are plenty of cases on
record wherein a dozen or more of craZel
liberty tars have jumped the Legs stimuli
taneouSly. OF course, there are always ma
rines at hand to help a master-at-arms out
in such emergencies, but. all the same,
when anything of this sort occurs the
Legs has got to fight, and, 1 may add he
has got to know how to fight. No matter
how great the odds against him, when a
Legs fails to kin out in a scrap of this
sort and energies from the mix-up in poor
condition, his usefulness as a maSter-at-
arms on board that particular ship is vir-
tually at an end. The men have no fur
Their use for his busted prowess as a
rough -and-tumble proposition. and in cases
Of this sort a commanding officer usually
finds 1t desirable to request the transfer of
the whipped Legs
Il served one cruise on board a ship that
was notorious throughout the outfit for hav-
ing the toughest lot of tars in the Ameri-
can navy. They were all rafting good
sailor men. at that, but a great many of
them had Joined the navy from the mer-
away back. 1t seemed as if all hands of
them. whether they were drunk or SOBER |
would rather fight than eat That cruise |
was in Asiatic waters, and within less than
there wasn't any more discipline left on |
board than there is in a monkey cage
Three successive masters-at-arms, big and |
competent men, too, had gone by the board |
pummeled to smithereens by various |
mighty fighters in the crew. Half the ships |
company forward were going about all the |
time with a black eye or so. and broken |
heads were common on that man-owar |
as the spreading of mess gear. |
Then the skipper-he's now an admiral |
did very unusual but very wise thing. |
For some time he had had his eye upon a |
coal passer of very quiet demeanor who, |
upon enlisting. had given his occupation as |
that of a pugilist. This coal passer had |
never taken hand in solitary fight on |
shipboard or on shore since joining the |
service, being, as say, a quiet individual |
whose one desire seemed to be to be let |
alone. But the commanding officer shrewd-
ly saw the possibilities latent in that coal
passer. and he made him chief master-at-
arms of the ship. From the hour that the
coal HEAVIER got that rate discipline was re-
stored. The way he walked through the
buckos on board that man-o'war was some
thing lovely to contemplate. He never |
asked the marines to help him out in these
battles. but went it entirely alone. It was
Just pie for him to bang together the heads
of three or four rum-crazed giants, his
science as q prize fighter being something |