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Royal Naval College, Greenwich. After seamanship came gunnery. Each of the different types of heavy but finely made weapons had to be learned in detail--a feat of memory when it came to the watch-like mechanism of the Maxim. Guns were disabled and had to be put right. They missed fire and were made by the instructors--old naval gunners--to play every dastardly trick conceivable. The final test which had to be successfully passed was the dismantling of each type of gun used in the auxiliary fleet and the reassembling of it. With gunnery came also the marks and uses of the different kinds of ammunition, the systems of "spotting" and "range-finding." Every gun had its officer crew and the rapidity of fire was recorded. Each man in turn was chosen to give the necessary orders and to judge the ranges and deflections. In this way not only was the practical work learned by heart, but also the theory of naval gunnery, so far as it related to the smaller types of weapon. The use of the depth charge, both mechanically and tactically, was expounded and practically demonstrated, together with that of the torpedo, the mine, mine laying and sweeping, and the peculiarities of various explosives. Rifle and revolver practice was encouraged, and morse and semaphore signalling formed part of the daily routine. The training was not entirely preparatory for work afloat. Squad and company drill, rifle and bayonet exercise, and manoeuvring in extended order formed a part of the comprehensive training. One day, not many weeks after their arrival, the officers whose fortunes have been followed found themselves shouting orders and directing by arm and whistle lines of dusty _camarades_ advancing over a common in the most approved military fashion. The training was not all hard work. The gathering of so many men from all quarters of the world, with a wealth of experience and adventure behind them, was in itself a source of mutual interest--and incidentally an education in modern British Imperialism. Scarcely any part of the world went for long unrepresented in either the wardroom or gunroom of the old cruiser _Hermione_ in those days of war, and many were the yarns told of Alaska days, hunting in Africa, experiences in remote corners of North America, pearling in the Pacific and life on the Indian frontier, to say nothing of wild nights on the seven seas. Grey heads and round, boyish faces, the university and the frontier, with a camar
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