The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
August and September; and the officers and men of those ships which
were at Malta during the summer, were sent upon long {513} route
marches and were afforded plenty of exercise to keep them fit. These
measures reduced the number of cases of Malta fever from 197 of the
previous year (1905) to 137.
But the main evil remained. A large number of cases contracted fever
in the Royal Naval Hospital, to which they had been sent to be treated
for other maladies, often requiring surgical treatment only. Great
credit is due to Deputy-Inspector-General Robert Bentham for the
improvements effected by his care and foresight. In order to prevent
infection, every cot was furnished with mosquito curtains; the traps of
all drains were kept clean and disinfected; and all milk supplied to
the hospital was boiled. The patients disliked boiled milk; and as
infected milk was smuggled in, the use of milk was forbidden
altogether. An isolation ward for fever cases was provided. All
openings were fitted with wire gauze and double doors.
The result was that in May, June and July, 1906, there were no cases of
fever contracted in the hospital.
Finding that fever patients recovered so soon as they were to the
westward of Gibraltar, the practice of sending all such cases away in
the _Maine_ hospital ship was instituted with excellent results. For
example, of sixty-two cases sent away, all but fourteen had recovered
by the time the ship reached England.
Deputy-Inspector-General Bentham was recommended by me for his services
to the Admiralty; but his services did not meet with the recognition
they deserved.
Shortly afterwards, the Malta Fever Commission completed the work, by
discovering the bacillus of the disease, and by abolishing the goats,
whose milk was the chief source of infection.
In October, 1905, the Prince and Princess of Wales, on their way to
India in the _Renown_, were met at the Straits of Messina by the
Mediterranean Fleet.
The centenary of the battle of Trafalgar, 21st October, 1905, was
celebrated by the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta. A naval review was
held on shore in the forenoon, three {514} thousand officers and men
taking part in it. Those captains of guns, including the Royal
Marines, who had made five hits or more in the gunlayers' competition,
117 in number, were formed into a company on the right of the line and
marched past first. At four o'clock in the afternoon, flags were
half-masted. At half-past four o'clock, guards and bands being paraded
facing aft, officers and men fallen in on the quarter-deck facing aft
and uncovered, the colours of His Majesty's ships were dipped slowly
and reverently; the bands played the Dead March, and at its conclusion
the colours were slowly rehoisted.
His Majesty King Edward VII honoured the flagship with a visit on 14th
April, 1906. About an hour before the King came on board, the awning
over the quarter-deck caught fire, owing to a short circuit of the
electric light. Lieutenant Gibbs, with great pluck and presence of
mind, instantly climbed upon the awning and extinguished the flames
with his hands, which were severely burned.
In March, 1906, the historic International Conference summoned to deal
with Moroccan affairs, was assembled at Algeçiras. Conversing with
some of the delegates, it seemed to me that an informal and a convivial
meeting might cheer them up and perhaps help to cement a friendly
understanding; and I invited them all to dine on board the flagship.
In order to avoid the bristling difficulties connected with
arrangements of precedence, the delegates were all embarked at the same
time in the s.s. _Margherita_, lent to me for the occasion; and were
all disembarked at the same time upon a platform erected at the level
of the upper deck, being received by the full guard and saluted. For
the same reason, no national anthems were performed. The President of
the Conference the Duke of Almodovar, was given the place of honour at
the dinner, the rest of the delegates sitting in the order of their
seniority. The single toast of the evening was to "all Sovereignties
and Republics," which needed no reply. After dinner, during which the
massed bands of the Fleet played {515} on the upper deck, the company
adjourned to the quarterdeck. I was informed by one of the
distinguished guests that the meeting had done much good, as the
delegates had not hitherto had an opportunity of meeting informally
together.
Upon the return of the delegates, magnesium lights arranged upon the
ends of the breakwater were lighted as the _Margherita_ passed between
them, and a searchlight display of 140 lights was given by the Fleet.
Vice-Admiral Sir Harry Grenfell, second in command, was a most
distinguished officer, a great sportsman, an accomplished athlete, and
a charming friend. His premature death was a sad loss to the Service.
Grenfell was so powerful a man that he could take a small pony under
one arm and walk about with it. I saw him perform this feat at a
luncheon party given by the Governor of Algeria, to whom the pony
belonged.
Grenfell told me the story of his extraordinary adventure in Albania.
The country is infested with wild and savage dogs, which are apt to
attack the traveller. The Albanians do not resent the dogs being
killed, if they are slain with a knife in self-defence; but to shoot
them the Albanians consider a mortal offence. Being aware of their
sentiments, I used to take with me a couple of Marines armed with
boarding pikes when I went shooting in Albania.
But when Grenfell went, he was accompanied by another naval officer,
named Selby, who, upon being attacked by a native dog, shot it. A
party of Albanians thereupon closed in upon Grenfell and Selby and
attacked them. There was a fierce struggle, in the course of which one
of the guns went off, the charge killing an Albanian. The accident so
infuriated the rest that they beat Selby, as they thought, to death.
They smashed in his skull, so that the brains protruded, and left him
for dead. Then they took Grenfell, lashed his hands behind his back,
set him on a three-legged stool, put the bight of a rope round his
neck, {516} and secured the other end to the branch of a tree, hauling
it taut. There they left him, in the hope that the stool would slip
and that he would be strangled. He remained in that position for three
hours.
In the meantime the interpreter who had come with Grenfell had run to
fetch an official of the country. The official arriving, released
Grenfell. Selby, dreadfully wounded as he was, actually walked back to
the ship, and lived until the next day.
But strong as Grenfell was, his terrible experience left him with an
extraordinary optical affliction. He was constantly haunted by the
illusion of an enormous ape, which he plainly saw both by day and by
night. He used to behold the phantom enter the room and sit on a
chair; and if a visitor came to see him, he would ask the visitor to
take the chair upon which the ape was sitting; whereupon the spectre
would move to another place. I am glad to say that he was eventually
cured of this distressing affection.
An Irish lieutenant of a regiment at Malta told me the following
pathetic story in a broad Irish brogue, his natural way of speaking:
"Me little brother and meself were very fond of rhabitting. The
loikely place was the family cemetery. There were lashings of holes
within it. One day by-and-by the ferret himself laid up, and with that
we dug him (bad cess to the work). We out wid a shkull. Me little
brother he says, 'That's profanation; it will be the shkull of an
ancestor,' says he. 'Niver moind that,' says I, 'we'll have a joke wid
it.' I ensconced it in me pockut. On getting within, I passed through
the kitcher and dhropped me ancestor's shkull (God forgive me!) into
the stock-pot. All went very well till dinner and we through wid it,
when the cook burst in in great qualms, and sheloodering at haste to me
poor mother, says she,
"'Glory be to God and save us, Milady, we are all desthroyed intirely,
for there's a man in the soup,' she says."
{517}
The same lieutenant went out shooting quail at Malta with a revolver,
and hit a Maltese in the wrong place, for which error he was heavily
fined.
When children's picnic parties were given on board the _Bulwark_, a
quantity of sand was heaped in a well upon the quarter-deck; spades and
buckets were provided; and the children dug in the sand to find
presents. When that entertainment failed, the bluejackets, ensconced
in barrels, performed Aunt Sally, bobbing up their heads, at which the
children threw light sticks, and which they invariably missed. I
noticed a small boy of about seven years old, a Spaniard, who stood a
little way off, contemplating this performance with his large dark
eyes, his hands behind his back. Presently, with air of abstraction,
he strolled quietly to the back of a barrel, where the deck was
littered with thrown sticks. Suddenly he picked up a stick, dodged
swiftly to the front of the barrel, and as the seaman's head shot up,
hit the poor fellow right on the nose, making it bleed. Then the
little wretch roared with laughter and capered in his joy.
On the 19th January, 1907, I took leave of the Fleet with very great
regret, and left Malta in the _Bulwark_, homeward bound.
{518}
CHAPTER LIII
SPORTING MEMORIES
I. RIDING AND DRIVING
I rode my first race in Corfu, as a midshipman. An old colonel of
artillery, who knew my father, said to me:
"You are a Beresford, an Irishman, and a sailor, and if you can't ride,
who can? You shall ride my horse in the next race. He is a hard
puller, and if only you stick on he will win."
He _was_ a hard puller, and he did win. I rode in my midshipman's
uniform, and lost my cap, and won the race. But the horse ran three
times round the course before I could pull him up.
I have always said that you can do anything with horses if you
understand them. It was at a dinner party in my house in Eaton Square
that I offered to put that statement to the proof. The table at which
my guests were sitting was designed with a large tank in the centre,
which was filled with running water, in which grew ferns and aquatic
plants. Gold fish swam in the water, and little new-born ducklings
oared upon the surface. This miniature lake was diversified with
spirals and fountains fashioned of brass which I had turned myself.
Among the company was an old friend, Harry Chaplin, than whom there is
no finer sportsman in England and who was perhaps the best heavy-weight
rider to hounds in England.
I told my guests that I would bring in one of my horses {519} (a
bad-tempered thoroughbred), that I would lead him from the street, up
the steps into the hall, round the dining-table and so back to the
street without accident. Straw was laid on the steps and passages; and
I led in the horse. He lashed out at the fire with one leg, just to
show his contempt for everything and everybody; but there was no
casualty.
The next day, I was driving the same horse in a buggy, when something
annoyed the animal, and he kicked the buggy to pieces, upset us in the
road, and broke my old coachman's leg.
My uncle, Henry Lord Waterford, once made a bet that he would ride one
of his hunters over the dining-room table in his house at Melton, and
won his bet, the horse actually leaping the table towards the fire.
Horses are like Irishmen: they are easily managed if you know how to
handle them.
The famous horse-fair of Cahirmee is no more. But it was at Cahirmee,
according to tradition, that Irishmen acquired their habit of breaking
one another's heads. At Cahirmee Fair, the boys slept in tents, their