Ship’s telegraphs are devices used to send written orders from a command station, usually the captain’s bridge, to some remote part of the vessel where the mechanics of the order are carried out – typically in the engine room or docking machinery at the stern. The engine-movement orders were coded. If the engineer mis-counted the gong strokes, the ship could easily go in the wrong direction. The signal was transient, engine room staff had to remember for long periods and pass along verbally what speed order had come down.
The action usually depicts emergency engine reversals because of plot demands, even though in real life this occurs in only one-in-ten-thousand telegraph orders. Plot and casting considerations usually require the star to run breathlessly and fling the handles over himself. Technical advice may either be unavailable, overruled, or lost in the movie-machine pecking order. This makes relying on any detail of outfit or operation problematic.
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