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As a matter of course, the ordinary commercial wires along the railways form the usual telegraph-lines for an army, and these are easily repaired and extended as the army advances, but each army and wing should have a small party of skilled men to put up the field-wire, and take it down when done. This is far better than the signal-flags and torches.
We could hear him walking above, and soon the hatches slid away and we all could look freely out to sea again. "All right below?" called out Johnnie. "Not yet," answered Peter. He was standing by the rail of the balcony and untwisting the halyards that served to hoist the signal-flags to the mast-head.
A string of signal-flags soared aloft to the Blanco's mainyard-arm, and half an hour later her screw began to revolve as she led the way out of the harbour, with the other ships following, in column of line ahead. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of October 1, 1879, and the cruise had begun which was to prove so eventful for at least two of the ships comprising the squadron.
To be an old Téméraire decked out in signal-flags after thunderous work well done, and settling down, is one thing. But we, to-day, when one would think every woman in the land should wear the sackcloth and ashes of mourning, we break into a splendor of apparel that defies the butterflies and boughs of the dying year."
The foremast of the Satsuma with its multicolored signal-flags appeared in the field of vision.... A final quick correction for elevation ... a slight pressure of the electric trigger. Fire!
Two brass-bound sea-chests and a pile of signal-flags were lying on her deck aft, and she had not been touched, apparently, since she was sunk by the guns of our battle-ships on the night of July 4. Three hundred or three hundred and fifty yards farther in we passed what the sailors of the fleet call "Hobson's choice," the steam-collier Merrimac.
Not till she was well outside them did they begin to suspect the character of the stranger which had paid them a visit that morning, when their signal-flags were seen run up to the mastheads, answered by two or three of the outermost frigates. Just then a schooner was seen entering under Russian colours.
"Were there any signals then to rouse the coast in case of wreck?" "Lord save you! no: every man warned his neighbor. There weren't but a few scattered folks along the coast then, but in time of a wrack you'd see them in the dead of night ready and waiting along the beach. No need of your signal-flags for them, I reckon.
While a man sprang below for the books named, the others hooked together the signal-flags forming the ship's number, and Poop-deck resumed the glasses. "Q. T. F. N.," he exclaimed. "Look it up." The books had arrived, and while one lowered and hoisted again the code signal, which was also the answering pennant, the others pored over the shipping-list. "Steamer Aldebaran of New York," they said.
Their thousands of white oars moved like the onward march of an army as they trampled down the foam. From the masts of their many admirals flew innumerable gay signal-flags.
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