In addition to this, they had their regular watches to keep--day and night at sea, and from eight-thirty A.M. till eight P.M. in harbour; while no boat ever left the ship under steam or sail without a 'snotty' in charge. Their days, therefore, were pretty busy.
They generally managed to get ashore between three-thirty and seven P.M. about two days out of every four, and on Saturdays and Sundays from one-thirty; but no late leave was granted save in very exceptional circumstances. They amused themselves with hockey and football in the winter, and golf, tennis, and cricket in the summer; and at places where games could not be played, solaced their feelings by borrowing one of the ship's boats on Sunday afternoons, stocking her with great hampers containing provender of all kinds, and then sailing off for a picnic. There is an irresistible fascination in cooking sausages and boiling a kettle over a home-made fire on some unfrequented island or beach which appeals to the most sober-minded of us.
Your modern midshipmen are no longer the rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little cherubs of fiction. Many of them are over six feet, some of them shave, and nobody but their aunts and female cousins refer to them as 'middies.' To call them by that diminutive term to their faces would make them squirm. They refer to themselves as 'snotties,' and 'snotties' they will remain till the end of the chapter. The name, rather inelegant perhaps, owes its origin to the three buttons on the cuffs of their full-dress short jackets, which ribald people used to say were first placed there to prevent their sleeves being put to the use generally delegated to pocket-handkerchiefs. Any schoolboy will tell you what a 'snot rag' is; but I have never yet heard of a modern midshipman being without this rather important article of dress.
'Snotties' are a strange mixture. They possess all the love of fun and excitement of schoolboys, but once on duty are very much officers. They have to undertake responsibility very young, and at an age when their shore-going brothers are still at public schools their careers in the service have started.
Seamanship is not an exact science; it is an art. It comprises, amongst other things, experience, sound judgment, good nerve, a vast deal of common-sense, and a happy knack of knowing when risks are justifiable and when they are not. It is a subject which cannot be taught by rule of thumb after the first groundwork of elementary knowledge has been assimilated, and circumstances alter cases so greatly that no preceptor on this earth could lay down hard-and-fast rules for each of the thousand-and-fifty contingencies which may arise at sea, and which may one day have to be guarded against or overcome. The sea, moreover, is a fickle mistress. The navy is always on active service, in peace or in war, for its men and its ships are for ever pitting their skill and strength against the might of the most merciless of enemies--the elements. From the very moment that midshipmen join their first ship they are expected to take part in the great game, and sometimes it is a game of life and death. They start off by being placed in charge of boats in all weathers. They may be steamboats, or boats under sail; but whichever they are, the 'snotties' are learning their trade. If they do something foolish they may cause great damage to valuable property, may even be the means of men losing their lives; but they generally succeed in getting out of scrapes and difficulties with some credit to themselves.