The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
29. All her ratings were regularly practised in all her boats, each
boat racing against the other. In {373} order to equalise chances, the
boats started in rotation, the time allowance being given at the start,
instead of being calculated at the end as in yacht racing, so that the
boat first across the line at the end of the course won the race. The
launch, being the heaviest boat, started last, manned with four men to
the midship oars, three men to the after oars, and two men to the
foremost oars. The boats would often all come in together. The
enthusiasm of the men was immense. At that time the island of Crete
was in a state of chronic agitation, which culminated in the troubles
of 1897, and their suppression by the Council of Admirals, of which
Admiral Sir Robert H. Harris, who represented Great Britain with so
great ability and resource, gives an excellent account in his book,
_From Naval Cadet to Admiral_. In the meantime, Christians and
Mohammedans were joyfully shooting one another, while the Turkish
garrison endeavoured to keep order by shooting both parties
impartially. Riding up from Suda Bay to call upon a certain
distinguished Turkish Pasha, an old friend, I passed several corpses,
both of Christians and Mohammedans, lying on the roadside.
"Cannot you stop these murders?" I said to the Pasha. "It is really
very distressing to see so many dead bodies."
"Yes, Lord," said the Pasha (he always called me Lord). "Very sad,
Lord. I am sure you must feel it very much, Lord. It must make you
think you are back in your own country."
The retort was apposite enough, for moonlighting was then the joy of
Ireland.
Not that the Turkish soldiers neglected musketry practice. Riding up
to Canea, I was met by bullets whistling past my head. I pulled off
the road, and was joined by an old Turk, who was riding a donkey and
carrying a large white umbrella. Presently we perceived a pot placed
in the middle of the highway, and then we came upon a party of Turkish
soldiers lying in a row and firing at it; whereupon the aged Turk
climbed from his donkey, rolled up his umbrella, and belaboured the
soldiers with it.
{374}
I once asked my friend the Pasha why he had not ere then been promoted.
"I do not know, Lord. The Government does not know. God Almighty does
not know. Even his Imperial Majesty the Sultan does not know!" quoth
the Pasha.
The _Undaunted_ visited Sorrento in 1891, when Lord Dufferin was
staying there. None who had the privilege of his acquaintance will
need to be reminded of the singular charm of a talented, witty and
urbane personality. Lord Dufferin had the unconscious art of
impressing upon those whom he met that he had been waiting all his life
for that moment. The small sailing yacht, _Lady Hermione_, which he
kept at Sorrento, was a marvel of ingenious contrivance. She was a
decked boat, with a well into which the ropes and gear were led and
were attached to all sorts of levers, tackles and winches, to enable
her to be sailed single-handed. Lord Dufferin, accompanied by Lady
Dufferin, frequently sailed her in the Bay of Naples. On one such
voyage, wishing to tauten up the peak halliards, he told Lady Dufferin
to heave upon a certain lever. She seized the wrong handle, and away
went the anchor with 130 fathoms of chain, which ran out to the clinch.
Then the rest of the equipment became really useful, Lord Dufferin
rigging up purchase on purchase with it, and so heaving up the anchor.
After four hours' incessant toil he succeeded in getting it berthed,
and returned in a state of exhaustion.
The _Lady Hermione_ persuaded Lord Dufferin to learn Morse and
semaphore. She was moored at the foot of the cliff, beneath Lord
Dufferin's hotel, from whose balcony he used to shout his orders for
the day to the boy who was in charge of her, and who often
misunderstood his instructions. I suggested that he should learn to
communicate with his ship's company by signal, and drew up both the
Morse and semaphore codes for his benefit. In six weeks he sent
letters to me written in both codes; an instance of determined
application. During that time he insisted on practising for so many
hours every day with his wife and daughter, so {375} that at the end of
it the whole family were proficient in signals.
An interesting example of the manoeuvres of those days occurred at
Volo, when Captain Wilson, V.C., disguised his ship, the _Sanspareil_,
in olive trees. The _Undaunted_ was told off to make a torpedo attack
at night in the narrow channel where lay the _Sanspareil_. Captain
Wilson (now Admiral of the Fleet Sir A. K. Wilson, V.C., G.C.B., O.M.,
G.C.V.O.) had constructed a dummy ship on the side of the channel
opposite to which lay the _Sanspareil_, completely clothed in olive
trees. I sent a midshipman to cut the cable of the searchlight playing
upon the entrance to the channel. The _Undaunted_ steamed into the
channel, discovered first the wrong ship, and then the right one, at
which I discharged two torpedoes, which were found next morning under
the bottom of the _Sanspareil_.
At the conclusion of all manoeuvres, Sir George Tryon invariably gave a
critical lecture upon them to his officers; a method which I adopted in
later years. No practice can be more useful; for, while the events are
fresh in mind, it demonstrates what was wrong, and why. Often what
looks wrong at first, turns out to have been a good idea. But for
years all reports of manoeuvres remained locked in the Admiralty. Many
of the manoeuvres were useless; but for lack of information admirals
afloat continued to repeat them.
During my time in the _Undaunted_, my knowledge of signalling saved
Captain Harry Rawson (afterwards Vice-Admiral Sir H. H. Rawson, K.C.B.)
and myself a deal of trouble on one occasion. We had been out shooting
all day, had missed the way, and as darkness fell, found ourselves on
the wrong side of the bay in which the Fleet lay at anchor, with the
prospect of a further tramp of twelve or fourteen miles. Rawson used
to chaff me for doing what he called "boatswain's work."
"You always want," he used to say, "to go down to the store-room and
cut off 30 fathoms of rope yourself."
To which I used to reply that I wanted to do nothing of {376} the sort;
but what I did want to do was to see that a piece of 30 fathoms of rope
_was_ cut off. On the same principle, Rawson used to deride my
acquaintance with signals. Now that we either had to attract the
attention of the Fleet or walk for another three or four hours, I told
Rawson that if I could find a shepherd's hut I would get a boat over.
He did not believe me.
But we found a hut, and in the hut, an oil lamp and a bucket, out of
which I constructed a signalling apparatus. I had hardly made the
_Undaunted_ pennant, when it was answered from the ship, and inside a
quarter of an hour the boat waiting for us on the other side of the bay
had been recalled, and another boat was rapidly approaching us. Rawson
left off chaffing me after that.
It was at this time that my old friend, Captain Gerard Noel (now
Admiral of the Fleet Sir G. H. U. Noel, G.C.B., K.C.M.G.), one of the
smartest seamen in the Service, performed a brilliant feat of
seamanship. Captain Noel commanded the twin-screw, rigged ironclad
_Téméraire_, of 8540 tons displacement, one of the types in which
sail-power was employed as well as steam. She was brig-rigged, and I
think her main-yard measured 104 feet, or about four feet longer than
the main-yards of the sailing line-of-battleships of, say, 1850-60. On
the 3rd October, 1890, Captain Noel beat her under sail alone against a
head wind up Suda Bay, a long narrow arm of the sea, with shoal water
in places, which added to the difficulty of handling the ship. If I am
not mistaken, that occasion was the first and last time an ironclad
beat her way under sail into an anchorage. The _Téméraire_ made
thirteen tacks and anchored within two cables (400 yards) of her
appointed berth with the Fleet. By that time the wind had failed and
it was useless to attempt to tack again.
It was early in the commission of the _Undaunted_ that I read Captain
(now Admiral) A. T. Mahan's admirable book, _The Influence of Sea Power
upon History_; of which it is not too much to say that it has changed
the whole trend of {377} modern thought in respect of the relation of
sea warfare to land warfare. Preparation for war now turns upon a new
pivot. The result has been that extraordinary increase of foreign
navies which necessarily imposes upon us a proportionate increase of
our own Navy. I was so greatly impressed with the work of Captain
Mahan, that I wrote to him to express my admiration for it. I received
in reply the interesting letter which follows, and which Admiral Mahan
has kindly permitted me to quote:
"75, EAST 54TH STREET, NEW YORK
7_th February_, 1891
"DEAR LORD CHARLES BERESFORD,--I thank you very much for your letter,
which was received a few days since. The reception my book has had on
your side of the water has been very grateful to me. Commendation is
pleasant, but there has been a degree of thoughtful appreciation in
England, both by the Press and naval officers which has exceeded my
expectations and, I fear, the deserts of the work. That it will
produce any effect upon our people is unlikely; too many causes concur
to prevent a recognition of the truth that even the most extensive
countries need to make themselves outside. After our own, nothing will
give me greater pleasure than that it should contribute in your country
to a sense of your vital interest in this matter. Your naval officers
have an inducement to study those great questions which is almost
wanting in ours; for if your Fleet is not all that you could wish, you
still have some instruments to work with, a force superior to any other
if not adequate to all your needs, and the inadequacy can be greatly
remedied by judicious and careful planning and preparation.
"... The number and dissemination of your external interests throws
England largely on the defensive, necessarily so. It was so in the
great days of Pitt and Nelson, though the fact is obscured by the great
naval preponderance you then had. You have now greater and more
extensive interests to defend....--Believe me to be, very truly yours,
"A. T. MAHAN"
{378}
CHAPTER XXXVIII
H.M.S. UNDAUNTED (_Continued_)
II. THE SALVING OF THE SEIGNELAY
The _Undaunted_, lying at Alexandria in 1891, was being rigged up for a
ball; when a telegram arrived ordering her to go to the rescue of the
French cruiser _Seignelay_, which had gone ashore near Jaffa, on 26th
April. The telegram arrived at one o'clock in the morning of the 28th
April. Before daylight, the ball-room was unrigged, the decorations
were taken down, 300 guests were put off by telegram, and we were
steaming at full speed to the _Seignelay_, distant 270 miles. In a
private letter printed in _The Times_ of 20th October, 1894, describing
the affair, the anonymous writer says: "It was a good sample of the
vicissitudes of naval life, and I think we all rather enjoyed it." (I
do not know who wrote the letter, but it must have been one of my
officers; who, without my knowledge, published it, or sanctioned its
publication, more than a year after the _Undaunted_ had paid off. The
proprietors of _The Times_ have kindly given me permission to quote
from the document, which was written at the time of the occurrence of
the events which it describes, and which contains details I had
forgotten.)
At daylight on 29th April, we found the _Seignelay_ driven high up on a
sandy beach, embedded in five and a half feet of sand in shallow water.
She had parted her cable in a gale of wind, had driven on shore, and