The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
catch his bulls, when he required them for branding. The dogs seized
the bulls by the nose and held them while they were lassoed by the
guachos.
When we touched at Montevideo, I remember conversing with various
persons, who foretold the immense profit which must eventually accrue
if the land there was purchased at that time. Their opinion has since
proved true. But I had no money to invest; so that the opportunity was
only another instance of what might have been.
The _Galatea_ was badly strained in a gale of wind, her deck seams
opening so that the water streamed into the cabins beneath. One
lieutenant used to say to another:
"How did you sleep last night? It was pretty rough.
"Woke at one o'clock and saw them reefing tops'ls"--meaning that, lying
in bed, he could see clear through the seams.
I used my sail-making ability to make a canvas awning {108} for my bed;
fitted it with a ridge rope, laced it down and hauled it taut, led a
trough from it to take the water into the slop-pail; and slept dry
under it.
It was during the visit of the _Galatea_ to Australia that I was made a
Freemason; and I have always regretted that I have never been able to
devote as much time to Masonry as I should have liked to give to the
Craft. The Australian Lodge into which I was admitted was under the
impression that I was the most timid neophyte who had ever joined it.
When the ceremony was ended, one of the members of the Lodge said to me:
"You are safely through it. But do you know that of all the men we
have had through this lodge, we never had one so paralysed with fear as
yourself. You were shivering like an aspen!"
The fact was that during the initiatory ceremonies something
unaccountably struck me as extraordinarily funny. The effort to subdue
my emotions caused me to tremble all over.
One of our diversions in the _Galatea_ when she was at sea, was to
listen to the conversations which used repeatedly to occur between a
certain worthy member of the Duke's suite and the old quartermaster.
The member of the staff in question had endeared himself to us by his
high seriousness. He dealt with the most trifling incidents of life in
a spirit of preternatural and wholly sincere solemnity. Supposing that
you told him that a common friend had fallen off his horse and bruised
his leg, our member of staff would instantly ship a countenance of
intense concern.
"Bruised his leg? You don't say so! Good God! Has he indeed?"
"Yes--he's bruised his leg!"
{109}
"Has he now? Well, well. Bruised his leg! I hope it's not serious.
I do hope it's not serious. Tut-tut! Bruised his leg, you say?"
"It's not serious. But he's bruised his leg."
"I'm delighted to hear it's not serious. But--bruised his leg. I am
really distressed."
And so on.
Among other matters, our friend took his family very seriously. One of
his ancestors had been an admiral; and it was this distinguished
officer who made the link between the member of staff and the
quartermaster. The member of staff used to stroll on the quarterdeck
in the evening, and fall into talk with the seamen.
"Well, Jones. Good evening, Jones. I suppose, now, you've heard of my
uncle, the admiral?"
"Heard of 'im, sir? I should think I 'ad heard of 'im. Ah, he was a
_man_, he was. He could handle a ship, he could--ah, and handle the
men, too!"
"Why, where did you serve with him, Jones?"
"Where, sir? Where not? All over the world, sir. Ah, he was a man!"
"I'm delighted to meet anyone who knew a member of my family so well,
Jones--delighted, I assure you."
"Knew 'im? Why, sir, to know 'im was to admire 'im, as the saying is.
Many a time I've seen the men turn out _for_ to admire 'im, sir.
"Have you indeed, Jones--have you indeed! Dear me. Most interesting,
I am sure. I daresay a glass of grog would not come amiss to you,
Jones?"
"Wery kind of you, I'm sure, sir. It 'ud be a pleasure to drink your
health, and the admiral's too, sir. Ah, he was a man!"
Mr Jones, afterwards, forward on the lower deck, to envious friends:
"Pretty sweet conversation that, mates. I wonder 'oo the b----y h--l
'is uncle might 'a been!"
There was another member of the suite who surely deserves record--the
elephant. He was really a member of the ship's company, for he could
do, and did, the work of twenty men. He joined the ship in India, when
he was quite small, and he grew enormously on board. He lived in {110}
a house built aft, and fed upon branches of trees and bran and biscuits
and anything he could get. I trained him myself. I taught him to obey
the words of command, and he would do anything for me. He would hoist
me upon his shoulders with a fore foot, or upon his back with a hind
foot. In the dinner hour, when most of the men were below, he used to
take his share in working the ship. We slung the rope in a bowline
round his neck, and he would clew up the mainsail by walking on till he
was told to stop. He was never seasick. He used to balance himself,
swaying to and fro as the ship rolled. One night when the midshipmen
and I, having supper on deck aft, were called forward to trim sails,
the elephant finished the meal for us. He ate everything on the table,
put his foot on the plates and smashed them, and squashed the big
coffee-tin quite flat. Then he looked at us like a naughty child.
I was the only person who could persuade him to leave the ship or to
come on board again when he had been ashore. When we reached home, he
was put in a railway truck and directed to the Zoological Gardens. His
keeper, a marine artilleryman, went with him in the truck. Elephants
have a habit of rolling on their feet and squirming their vast bulk.
When the marine was trying to pass the elephant, the great beast
unconsciously pinned his keeper against the side of the truck, and
against a projecting bolt, which broke the man's rib, forcing it into
his heart. He was taken out dead.
{111}
CHAPTER XIII
FLAG-LIEUTENANT AT PLYMOUTH
In 1871, I was appointed flag-lieutenant to Admiral (afterwards Admiral
of the Fleet) the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, commander-in-chief at
Plymouth. His flag was flown in the _Royal Adelaide_. Sir Harry, as
already recorded, had been commander-in-chief upon the China station
when the Duke of Edinburgh visited Japan, and had accompanied his Royal
Highness upon his visit to the Mikado. It was at Plymouth that I first
had the honour of serving under Sir Harry Keppel: a splendid seaman, a
most distinguished officer, a fine sportsman, one of the best and
kindest of men.
Admiral the Hon. Victor Montagu, who served as a midshipman under Sir
Harry, relates in his _Reminiscences_ some interesting actions of his
old captain, which I may be permitted to quote. Commodore Keppel
distinguished himself by his personal gallantry and skilful leadership
in the battle of Fatshan Creek, 1st June, 1857; of which a full account
is given in Laird Clowes' _The Royal Navy_; and Admiral Montagu records
his own recollections of the affair:
"During the many years in which I knew him I never once Sir Harry lose
his temper, except when the Chinese war-junks beat us back on the first
attack we had made on them.... John Chinaman, seeing us retire, took
the hint, and began making off himself, which so infuriated Harry
Keppel that he jumped up on our paddle-box, shook his fist at the
war-junks, some 500 or 600 yards away, and shouted out: 'You d----d
rascals! I'll pay you out for this! Man the boats, boys--man the
boats at once! The beggars are {112} trying to escape!' I never saw
such a rush. At no regatta could men have rowed faster."
Commodore Keppel commissioned the _Raleigh_ frigate, 50 guns, for the
China station. Admiral Montagu states that she was "the last
man-of-war that ever sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour." Keppel would
have none of your steam-tugs. "We ran out with a fair wind with
studding-sails set on both sides." Alas! the _Raleigh_ never came back
any more. On 14th April, 1857, she struck a sunken rock in the China
Seas, near Macao. Keppel's indomitable conduct turned a disaster into
an achievement.
"Shortly afterwards," writes Admiral Montagu, who was a midshipman on
board at the time, "we descried a French squadron lying at anchor in
Macao Roads, with an admiral's flag flying, and, though we were firing
minute guns of distress as the water gained on our pumps, Keppel,
nothing daunted, called out: 'Up with the French flag. Give him his
salute. Sinking or not, let the Frenchmen hear us.'"
A French frigate coming to the assistance of the _Raleigh_, her captain
asked permission "to go below to see how high the water had risen in
the ship. 'Oh,' said Keppel, 'don't go below; look down the hatchway.'
'Ah! mon Dieu!' exclaimed the captain." ...
Keppel kept the pumps going, crowded sail on the ship, and finally
beached her off Macao, just in time. He landed the ship's company, but
himself stayed aboard the vessel, sleeping on the bridge. The stores
and guns were saved. Keppel was deeply distressed at the loss of his
fine ship, "which," he wrote, "brings my career as a captain to an
end." Fortunately he was mistaken. In after years, when I told him
that the Admiralty were about to build a second _Raleigh_, Keppel
replied, "Very glad to hear it, my dear boy. I had the honour of
losing the first one."
Admiral Montagu records that Keppel, while in command of the _Raleigh_,
challenged an American clipper ship to race from Penang to Singapore.
"We were constantly going at a speed of thirteen knots, during heavy
squalls, close-hauled, {113} and trailing the muzzles of our main-deck
guns through the water on the lee side, and I sometimes used to turn
into my hammock in abject terror, fearing that at any moment we might
capsize."
Sir Harry Keppel was famous throughout the Service when I was appointed
his flag-lieutenant. One of my first recollections of that office
concerned an old-fashioned "Eighteen-hundred-and-war-time," peppery,
strict-service captain, who, having just come home from the West Coast
of Africa, asked to see the commander-in-chief. It happened that Sir
Harry and myself were on the point of going out hunting when the old
captain called, and the admiral was attired in hunting kit.
"Tell him I'll see him to-morrow," said Sir Harry.
But that wouldn't do at all, nor would any other excuse serve.
"I insist on seeing the admiral," said the captain. "I have just come
home and it is my duty to see him at once."
"Bring him in, then," said Sir Harry impatiently, "Now, sir," said he,
"my flag-lieutenant informed you that I was engaged. Why couldn't you
see the secretary?"
"The secretary, sir? The secretary!" says the old captain wrathfully
staring at Sir Harry's informal attire. "Indeed I am told, sir, that
the secretary _is_ the Commander-in-chief here. That's what they say,
sir--that's what they say!"
"Do they?" returned Sir Harry placidly. "And a d----d good
commander-in-chief too!" says he.
When, in later years, I became commander-in-chief, I made it a rule
that all admirals and captains should have direct access to myself, no
matter how trifling the occasion.
In those days, there was a turnpike-gate outside the town. I was
driving a brother officer home late one night, after dining at a house
some distance away and when we came to the toll-gate, the keeper was in
bed, and all my knocking and shouting failed to wake him up. So I
{114} proceeded to heave a large stone through his window. That
fetched him; and down he came, grumbling and swearing. I thrust a
sovereign--the only coin I had--into his hand to pay for his broken
window and the toll. It was bad tactics, for he promptly retreated