The copper era and Morenci leader., 1917-07-06

but water and blue sky, closeup battleShip which resembled ours as one pea resembles another, and sew eral far-Off battleships that looked as if they had been cut out of cardboard.
 All the time that we were out l kept away from charts and com passes. Only the sun by day and the stars by night gave me any notion of our whereabouts.
 It was a restful feeling.
 We were moving at the rate of 15 knots an hour. There was noth- ing vague about this. That was our speed to the inch and second. It was also the leisurely rate maintained by the closeup battleship, and his dis tance from us at the end of given hour was within inches of what it had been at the beginning.
 A marvel of battleships is the pre- cision with which they move and keep their distances and mind their man. ners. It is only less marvellous than the mobility of their turrets and their great guns. A turret revolveS with out sound. It may be turned so fast that if you got in the way the business end of the gun would knock your head off, or it may be turned so slowly that to the eye it is not turn ing at all. .r
 That day I attached myself to a group of boys who were learning to be a gun crew and who that after noon would hear gun fired for the first time in their lives, would fire one and would try to hit target. Although did none of the hard work, I think that I shared as an equal In all their mental processes and I know that I suffered just as much as they did when, after rehearsals and dress rehearsals, the gun finally and very suddenly and horribly went off.
 Learning to Shoot.
 First, they were taught how to load. For this business short dum- my gun with a genuine brush, screw box and plug is provided. I am not now speaking of great turret guns but of lesser guns, whose bark, how ever. is much higher pitched and less tolerable to the ears, eyes, nose, spleen, liver toes, spine and scalp. I am speaking of gun which has the highest muzzle velocity of any gun in the world, and much the most disagreeable voice.
 This is how you load it: The plug man with his right hand swings a lever, the plug swings out of the breech or screw box, and to one side. With his left hand the plugman slips into it's chamber in the plug primer (possibly a .44-caliber blank cartridge) to replace the exploded one which, has been automatically extracted. Then the plugman swings his lever again and closes the breech of the gun.
 That is what the plugman does. While he is doing it five other men are doing other things of equal importance. The moment the gun is | open the trayman slaps into the. form box metal cOntrivance which pro- i tects it's fine gears and edges from being injured by the sharp point of the heavy wheel. and which guides l the shell itself into the bore of the l gun.
 The brush being open and the tray in place, the first shellman with all i his might hurls into the opening the l shell that he has been holding, the l first powderman hurls after it bag l of powder, and then even as the | tray comes out and the breech closes ] the first shellman has turned, without ! using his feet, and received from the ! second shellman a fresh shell, and | the first powderman has turned and i received from the second powderman fresh bag of powder.
 l That is how the gun is loaded. II is a matter of seconds. In practice the shell and the powder bag (omis- i sion by censOrO to keys the junction of two lines that cross each other at i a right angle on the exact center of
 the bulrs-eye. A third pointer does ] the same thing with another pair of i crossed lines, but the wheel elevates the muZZle of the gun end or He {! presses it. And of all the men tn the compartment of that particular
 gun he is the luckiest, for he is the
 only one who knows the exact mo-
 ment when the bang is coming. He
 causes it by pressing a button. Al
 any moment while certain buzzer is
 buzzing, and the crossed lines are on
 the bull's-eye, he is at liberty to fire
 the gun.
 Blast of the Guns.
 We steamed slowly down the range
 number of times, and all the com
 pertinent guns on our side of the
 ship swung slowly from left to right
 as the pointers kept the crossed lines
 on the bull's-eye. And we all got 6
 line because we knew that each prac
 tice run brought us nearer to that
 real run when the awful blasts that
 we anticipated would have to be en
 dured somehow.
 We turned and steamed slowly to
 ward the range. We were in the
 compartment, the gun crew and the