GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”Lt. Hon. S. FortescueH.R.H. Duchess of EdinburghCom. Hon. M. BourkeAdmiral H.R.H. Duke of EdinburghLady Mary Fitzwilliam
GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”Lt. Hon. S. FortescueH.R.H. Duchess of EdinburghCom. Hon. M. BourkeAdmiral H.R.H. Duke of EdinburghLady Mary Fitzwilliam
GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”
TheSurpriseand her sister ship, theAlacritywere built to replace respectively the old dispatch boatsHeliconandVigilant, which had been serving for years on the Mediterranean and China Stations. Commander Charles le Strange, a very old friend of theSultandays, was in command of theSurprise. He had recentlybecome an Equerry to H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, who had already taken over the command of the Mediterranean Station.
TheSurprisewas a fairly useful vessel in many respects and could have been made much better had not the Admiralty thought fit to arm her with four or five 4½-inch guns, which she really was unfit to carry; the weight might well have been utilised in other directions. The accommodation aft for distinguished passengers was very good, and when in harbour, as far as they were concerned, she was a very nice yacht; but at sea, when steaming at any speed, the vibration was so terrific, that very few of them could stand being aft, and they generally used to come on the bridge and camp out there, which was not always very convenient to the officers who were carrying out their duties. However, the sea trips were generally short, and on the whole she answered very well, and only disappeared from service a few years ago. Having commissioned her, I was of course on board during her steam trials. With picked coal, and, moreover, with (what is more important still) picked stokers, she succeeded in going about eighteen knots on the measured mile, and under the same favourable circumstances did quite well on her six hours’ full-speed trial, averaging nearly sixteen knots. But we were to be bitterly disappointed in her performances later on. Without adventitious aids she turned out to be a very moderate steamer and not the best of sea boats. The first distinguished passenger we were ordered to embark was the Duke of Connaught. His Royal Highnesswas about to start for India, and wishing to curtail the length of his journey, decided to travel to Marseilles overland, from thence to be conveyed to Malta in theSurprise, where he could hit off the P. & O. steamer which was to take him to his destination. It became a question of accurate timing, as the P. & O. boats were in the habit of staying but very few hours at Malta. Consequently, the question arose of the number of hours it would take theSurpriseto go from Marseilles to Malta. The Captain and I put our heads together, and though we were much too old hands at the game to place very implicit reliance in full-speed trials as conducted by the Admiralty, we thought we could safely guarantee an average speed of thirteen knots, which seemed to leave a very fair margin up our sleeves. About the end of August we left the port of Marseilles with our Royal passenger on board, steaming gaily some fourteen and a half knots. The heat was very great, and the stokers, though very willing, were mostly young hands, the coal was very far from being picked, so the speed of the ship, in spite of every effort, gradually got lower and lower, and we finally crawled into Malta at the ignoble speed of about ten knots, a good many hours late. It was a very mortifying début to make on our station, and it was a long time before we heard the last of it.
People interested in the Navy, who read the official accounts of the trials of new ships that always used to be published inThe Times, may gather from this sad experience what a difference there is in actual practice between the performances that are published,and what is apt to be realised later on under normal conditions. (Eye-wash again!)
From 1886 to 1888, during my term of service on board theSurprise, the Mediterranean Station was at its zenith as regards strength and importance. It had been looked upon for many years as the Blue Ribbon of the Navy, and as regards the person of the Commander-in-Chief, it naturally gained additional éclat from the fact that no less a personage than H.R.H. Vice-Admiral the Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, was Commander-in-Chief, with the local rank of Admiral. His Royal Highness had hoisted his flag in February 1886 in theAlexandra, and in addition to her had seven of the most modern of our armour-clad ships under his command, with a considerable number of small craft, principally employed on service in the Red Sea. The Admiral and many of his Captains have joined the majority, but amongst others who are still with us, are the present Admiral Sir Compton Domville, then Captain of theTemeraire, and subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Station; Admiral Sir Henry Stephenson,[2]now Usher of the Black Rod, then commanding theDreadnought, had under his orders our present King, serving as a Lieutenant on board that ship; Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, then Commander Lambton, in command of theDolphinsloop; another Admiral, now the Marquis of Milford Haven, was, as Prince Louis of Battenberg,Commander of theDreadnought; while prominent among the Lieutenants serving in the different ships were the late Admirals Sir George Warrender, and Sir Frederick Hamilton, and the late Captain the Hon. Hugh Tyrrwhitt. Admirals Sir Cecil Colville, Sir Colin Keppel and Sir James Startin, all of whose names have already occurred in these notes, Midshipman David Beatty of theAlexandra, now Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, are still, I am rejoiced to think, very much alive.
Malta, where I was to spend a great deal of my life for the next two years, was very gay. The Duchess of Edinburgh passed the whole of the winter there. The Governor had temporarily made over the palace of San Antonio, with its wonderful orange gardens, to the Duke and Duchess during their stay at Malta, so it was there that I first had the honour of making the acquaintance of Her Imperial Highness and her children. Her two eldest daughters were then only about eleven and twelve years of age, but already gave promise of great beauty; indeed, the eldest, the present Queen of Roumania, was, and still is, one of the most beautiful and attractive women in the world. The Duchess herself, if I may take the liberty of saying so, was, and is, a very remarkable woman. For the only daughter of the Emperor Alexander (in those days the greatest potentate in the world), it was in some ways rather a step downwards to marry a second son, even though he was the son of Queen Victoria; and, moreover, to be in a certain sense merely the wife of an Admiral when the Duke was employedon the duties of his profession; but she certainly succeeded, in her position as wife to the Commander-in-Chief, in making herself extremely popular with the Naval Officers at Malta. The dinners at San Antonio were infinitely more agreeable and less stiff than the sort of entertainments which were generally given at the various Admiralty Houses that I have known, and a command to dine there was not only an honour but a very distinct pleasure into the bargain.
Her Imperial Highness, like most of her compatriots, adored the South. She was devoted to Italian art, and lost no opportunity of seeing everything that was worth seeing in Italy and Sicily, and were I to catalogue all the interesting places that theSurprisevisited in the course of two years, sometimes in company with the rest of the Fleet, and sometimes on detached cruises “on her own,” the result would be like nothing in the world so much as a portion of “Baedeker” on Italy.
But before saying anything more about trips, the main interest of which consisted in seeing some of the wonders of Italy, I must write of two or three cruises that were nothing if not official.
The first important duty which devolved on theSurprise, very shortly after her arrival on the station, was to convey the Admiral, in his dual capacity as a son of Queen Victoria and also as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean, to pay an official visit to the Sultan. This visit was a very interesting one, and though I do not pretend to any inside knowledge of the motives which inspired it, or made its recurrencenecessary, the following year, I have a shrewd suspicion that what was evident to any spectator, was not very far remote from the truth. The late Sir Edward Thornton, who was then our Ambassador to the Sublime Port, had served his country with great distinction and held many important posts. He had been Ambassador both at Washington and Petersburg, but none the less it is possible that, being a remarkably straightforward English gentleman, that hotbed of intrigue and lies, the Turkish Capital, was not exactly the place for him. At any rate, it was noticeable, even to an outsider like myself, that the Duke’s reception was distinctly of a cold nature. The last function of the visit consisted in a dinner at the Yildiz Kiosque, at which the Duke was the guest of the evening, most of his officers, I being one of the number, being included in the dinner party. There was considerable delay when the Englishmen arrived at the palace, and finally the Sultan sent a message to say that he was unwell and unable to be present. There was nothing for it but to dine, and it certainly seemed to me as if the honours of the house were done by Monsieur Nelidoff, the Russian Ambassador, who was known to be all-powerful at that moment, and having been there for a good many years, was the natural doyen of the Corps Diplomatique. Apparently, the Government at home were distinctly dissatisfied with the reception that had been accorded to an English Prince, who was also holding a very high official position, and the upshot of it was that Sir Edward Thornton was withdrawn and Sir William White, to whom allusionhas already been made, was appointed in his place. The Duke, to make the outgoing Ambassador’s departure more dignified, placed theSurpriseat his disposal, so, later in the year, towards the end of October, we found ourselves in Turkish waters again. The Ambassador was still at his summer residence at Therapia, and embarked from there with Lady Thornton and his daughters. His departure was certainly impressive enough, for all the “chers collègues” came in their state caïques to see him off, and the multitude of floral offerings reminded me of nothing so much as a very expensive funeral. Anyhow, one is glad to think that a very distinguished public servant, under such circumstances, had at any rate a more fitting conveyance than an ordinary mail steamer, though I am not sure that for the long passage, as it was to Marseilles, a mail steamer might not have been a more comfortable ship in which to travel.
Next year theSurpriseagain conveyed the Duke to Constantinople on a similar mission, and this time there was no mistake about the way in which he was received. We had hardly anchored in the Golden Horn, and the usual official callers had barely arrived on board when a huge caïque, with one of the Sultan’s Aides-de-Camp, came alongside laden up with every sort of thing—sheep, Turkish sweetmeats, countless cigarettes and cases of champagne—with a message to say that not only was the Duke the Sultan’s honoured guest, but that His Majesty wished every officer and man serving on board theSurpriseto consider himself as a guest as well. The Sultan was, on this occasion,present at the dinner at Yildiz and all went well.
Sir William White had lived the greater part of his life in the Middle East and thoroughly understood how to handle the Turk. A diplomatist of that nation once told me the following story which I believe to be absolutely true. On one occasion, during Sir William’s reign at Constantinople, the Grand Vizier had come to see him on some business, and the interview had not been a very peaceable one. The Grand Vizier was insisting rather peremptorily on his point when he was suddenly interrupted: “Monsieur le Grand Vizier, je vous defends de me parler sur ce ton là—à la porte!”—and “à la porte” the Grand Vizier went, to return next day in a very chastened spirit to make his submission.
Some of theSurprise’scruises are worth mentioning. One of the earliest, with the Duchess on board, after commencing at Naples extended itself to Leghorn and Genoa, from the first of which ports Florence could easily be reached. At Naples in those days the Consul was Mr. Neville-Rolfe. He was intended by Nature to be a Norfolk Squire and to live at his place, Heacham Hall, but fate and falling rents decreed otherwise, so he took up his residence at Naples, where he was Consul for many years. Naturally a keen lover of art, he had in addition made a close study of the late Greek, and early Roman periods, and a more delightful guide to Naples it was impossible to meet. Under his auspices, the Duchess, and we of the ship who were privileged to accompany her, saw Naples ina most interesting way. Excavation work was going on (as indeed it nearly always is) at Pompei, and for the benefit of such a distinguished visitor a very promising portion of a Pompeian house was excavated. Talk about sport! Nothing is really more exciting than digging, and I can remember the breathless way we hung over the digger when his delicately handled trowel had obviously met with something worth exhuming. The something was generally a fragment of one of the inevitable amphoræ that are dug up literally by the dozen, (as indeed befits vessels that once contained wine,) and are so common as to be valueless. The result of the investigation that we witnessed was very disappointing, like many another day’s sport. The only thing of the smallest interest that we discovered was an ivory make-up box that probably had belonged, some eighteen hundred years ago, to some Pompeian beauty. Baiæ was also visited. It was easy for theSurpriseto run round and anchor in the bay there, and in fine weather there was no difficulty in landing passengers on the beach in the immediate vicinity of that splendid series of temples.
It is difficult to imagine a more agreeable place for a ship to winter in than was Malta at that time, especially in theSurprise’scase when a long stay there could be broken by cruises to Sicily and the mainland of Italy. Polo was our principal amusement, and besides a number of keen naval players, among whom must be included our present King, then Prince George of Wales, there were the officers of two or three very sporting regiments, (the Gordon Highlanders in particular,) whotook an active part in the game, the result being that we were all hard at it two or three times in the week. Fortunately for me, theSurprisebeing looked upon as a sort of tender to the flagship, I generally made one of theAlexandrateam in ship against ship, and fleet against garrison, matches. I am afraid in those days I was heathen enough to prefer polo to art, and so, much as I liked the cruises, I have to confess that it was a pleasure to get back to Malta and my ponies again. The pony racing, too, was capital fun. Hedworth Lambton, who had then, and still retains, his family’s love for the sport, had some good ponies, and many of the officers of the garrison went in for racing very seriously; any betting that was necessary, could be done on the Indian system of the selling lottery.
But in addition to ponies the Navy had a very valuable racing possession, which amounted almost to a monopoly, namely the best light-weight jockey in the island, in the person of Midshipman David Beatty, who, being of a riding family, had been well brought up by his father—the Major of that name. Major Beatty knew, and no man better, not only all about the animal, horse, but how he should be ridden, and his son had profited to the full by the lessons he had received as a small boy.
And so the winter slipped pleasantly away. The summer of 1887 was made memorable in England by the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. It was, of course, necessary for the Duke of Edinburgh to be present in England during the period of the festivities, so in June theSurpriseconveyed him to Marseillesenrouteto London. TheSurprisewas directed to remain at Marseilles until his expected return in a week’s time. Meanwhile, the Fleet was ordered to the Balearic Islands, where he could rejoin it and continue the summer cruise which had just begun. The port of La Joliette where we lay was somewhat malodorous and stuffy in the month of June, so, as soon as the Admiral had left the ship, the Captain and I decided to take a few days’ leave, he being bent on going to Paris, whilst I selected Monte Carlo. I duly returned the night before theSurprisewas timed to sail, and, arriving on board heard, rather to my surprise, that the Captain had not yet appeared. However, as he had talked of going to Paris I came to the conclusion that he had arranged to meet the Duke there and would travel back with him. TheSurprisewas made ready for sea in the morning to move out the moment the Admiral was on board, and the officers were duly fallen in to meet him at the gangway, when it was noticed that the Captain was not in the boat. As he stepped on board the Admiral’s first question was the very natural one: “Where’s the Captain?” Of course no answer was forthcoming; the only things to do were to inform the Consul in case there had been any foul play, and to acquaint the Admiralty, both of which were done.
TheSurpriseat once proceeded on her way, and I received an acting-commission as Commander, pending the time when a new one could be appointed and join. Of course it was very pleasant to be in command, and I could only hope that the Admiralty would be a longtime considering who they could appoint to supersede me; but meanwhile we were all greatly distressed about our missing Captain. Personally, I was devoted to him. Clever and agreeable, with a strong artistic sense which he had inherited from his father, the Squire of Hunstanton, who had been himself no mean frescoist in his time, I am deeply indebted to him for giving me my first introduction to the great painters and sculptors of Italy, of whose work he had made an intimate study, and a more interesting and amusing cicerone never existed. It turned out that instead of going to Paris he had betaken himself to Avignon, to visit the numerous antiquities there. The weather was very hot, and a sunstroke had been followed by brain fever. Many days passed before his family succeeded in tracing him, and, though he recovered, and served again as Commander of an iron-clad in the Mediterranean, he was never quite the same man again. It was not many years later that I was one of the mourners at his graveside when he was buried in the churchyard that lay close to his beautiful old home in Norfolk.
The Admiral, having rejoined his Fleet and been transhipped to his flagship, continued the summer cruise; but theSurprisewas ordered off to Cadiz to be placed at the disposal of our Ambassador to Spain, the late Sir Clare Ford. The King of Spain had decided to open a maritime exhibition which was to be held at Cadiz, and there being a tremendous run on all the hotel accommodation there, the Duke, with his usual kindness, lent his dispatch boat to the Ambassador to be used as a temporary residence. Accordingly, Sir Clare and his son, Mr. Johnny Ford, took up their abode on board for a few days, while the festivities were taking place. The rest of the personnel of the Embassy had, I believe, billeted themselves on the many hospitable Englishmen connected with the Xeres wine trade, who lived in the neighbourhood. Sir Clare and his son were both very agreeable guests, and I continued to see a good deal of Johnny (as he was always called) until the time of his death, a short time ago. He served for some years in the Diplomatic Service, but his health broke down completely, owing, I have always heard, to some mysterious ailment which he was unfortunate enough to contract whilst serving at our Legation in Persia. He was very clever, and a well-known figure in the more artistic side of London Society. Sir Clare, at Madrid, was very much the right man in the right place, for he knew the country well; his father had lived there many years, and was responsible for that delightful book,Wanderings in Spain, which I have always heard was the precursor of all the Murray Guide Books. Would that all guide books were written with such a light and amusing pen.
The “Festa” at Cadiz came to an end like all other “Festas,” and so did my brief term of command, for in the first days of August our newly appointed Captain, Commander the Honourable Maurice Bourke, superseded me, and I reverted to my old duties of First-Lieutenant. Again Providence had been kind to theSurprise, as our new Captain was one of the most charming and beloved of men. At one time his careerwas almost a synonym for good luck. Everything had gone well with him. Very good-looking, with all the charm of the best sort of Irishman, one of the smartest and ablest officers afloat, he seemed inevitably destined to hold in turn every high command that the Navy in those days could offer. And then came a run of the most persistent ill-fortune. Not long after I left theSurpriseshe was badly in collision with a merchant steamer. It was not in the very remotest way the fault of the Captain, but at the same time it was an unpleasant incident. A very few years afterwards he was Flag-Captain to Sir George Tryon, when that terribleVictoriaandCamperdowncollision occurred, which cost so much loss of life, and, moreover, so much loss of reputation. Again, poor Maurice Bourke could not be blamed, but none the less he was the Captain of the ship in fault. He was unlucky for the third time later on, when Senior Officer in theNewfoundland, though the mishap to his ship was trifling. Unfortunately, his health had suffered greatly by the long immersion he had undergone, and the shock he had sustained, at the sinking of theVictoria, and he died, alas! at a comparatively early age. If it is ever true to write of a man, that he died regretted by all who knew him, I think it might be written of him. To me he was the kindest of friends and captains, and I was one of the very many who mourned his loss sincerely.
AT VENICE, 1887"GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”Hon. Mrs. MensonH.R.H. Duke of EdinburghH.R.H. Prince George of WalesMarquis of LorneCom. Hon. M. BourkeH.R.H. Duchess of EdinburghLt. Hon. S. FortescueH.R.H. Princess Charlotta of Saxe-Meiningen
GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”Hon. Mrs. MensonH.R.H. Duke of EdinburghH.R.H. Prince George of WalesMarquis of LorneCom. Hon. M. BourkeH.R.H. Duchess of EdinburghLt. Hon. S. FortescueH.R.H. Princess Charlotta of Saxe-Meiningen
GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “SURPRISE”
One of our new Captain’s earliest jobs was to convey the Duke and Duchess to Venice, and we lay, I think, for nearly a fortnight off the Lido. It really was an ideal way of visiting Venice, and though I had beenthere before, and have seen it many times since, it certainly was one of my happiest remembrances of that most entrancing of cities. To begin with, the surroundings of the Lido make an ideal berth for a yacht. Being outside the mouth of the Grand Canal, there is plenty of air, and the open water is clearer and cleaner than that in the narrower parts of the canal system. It is not only a convenient place from which to go sight-seeing, but it is near the famous bathing-place. Moreover, there was a very pleasant party on board. The guests were Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Saxe Meiningen, and the late Duke of Argyll; Lady Monson, then the Honourable Mrs. Monson, being in attendance on the Duchess.
Another very delightful trip theSurprisemade was to the Riviera, to enable the Duchess to see something of her numerous relations and friends who were wintering there. Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo at that time literally swarmed with Russians. It seemed as if half the Imperial Family had quartered themselves on that sunny coast. The Russian aristocracy, like any other conglomeration of individuals, may not have been a faultless institution; but, individually and collectively, I have always found the members of it the most agreeable people in the world. Free from prejudice, very cosmopolitan, speaking every language with equal facility, and entirely (to use an American expression) “without frills.” No foreigners I have ever met are so easy to get on with, for they have the knack of putting even the shyest and most insular of Englishmen at his ease, and it is an additional comfortto Englishmen, who, as a rule, know no language except their own, to be dealing with people who speak our language like natives. It was at Cannes that I first came much into contact with Russians, but since then I have been attached to several Russian Missions that have been in London, and even now I have a few good friends left who have managed to escape from the Bolsheviks. I remember being attached to the Russian suite of one of the Royalties who came on a Mission here. There being no room at Buckingham Palace, they were quartered at the hotel of that name, but of course were expected to take their meals at the palace, together with the suites of the other missions who were representing their various countries. I thought it my duty to go to the hotel every day to see if my friends required any attention, but I might just as well have saved myself the trouble. The invariable answer to my questions as to whether they would like to dine or take luncheon at the palace, or required carriages to take them about, was a polite one to the effect that they could quite well look after themselves, and as far as conveyances were concerned they infinitely preferred hansoms to royal carriages. The principal reason why the men of the upper classes in Russia are so easy to get on with, is, that they are, with rare exceptions, gentlemen, and it is as uncommon to meet a vulgar snob among them as it would be to meet a gentleman among the same number and class of Germans.
But I must return to Cannes. No sooner had the Duchess arrived at Cannes than she was surrounded byher relatives, who not only entertained her, but were more than kind to the officers on board. I remember a dinner party given for her at the Villa Venden, then the property of the late Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had married the Grand Duchess Anastasie of Russia, sister to the Grand Duke Michael, who has lived for so many years in England, and is so well known and popular here. Among many other distinguished guests was the Duke of Mecklenburg’s sister, the Grand Duchess Vladimir, who is also very well known in London and Paris. The Duke of Mecklenburg, who was compelled by ill-health always to winter on the Riviera, was, though a German, a gentleman, an almost unique case so far as my experience is concerned. It has been my misfortune to meet a great many Boches in my time, but I can truthfully say that one of the only gentlemen that I ever met amongst them was our host of that evening.
After dinner there was dancing, which went on until very late, and eventually we, the officers of theSurprise, got on board our ship in the dawn, thinking that anyhow after three or four hours’ sleep there would be a lazy morning. But we were reckoning without our hosts. At eight o’clock in the morning the Duchess of Mecklenburg and her sister-in-law were alongside to tell us that they had persuaded our Duchess to take them all round to Monte Carlo in theSurprise, and that meanwhile they wanted some breakfast, so these undefeated ladies, who could not possibly have been in bed before four o’clock, were four hours later making themselves extremely agreeable to their guests of thenight before in the tiny wardroom of theSurprise. But apparently, however lightly Russians may take life (they perpetually use the word “nitschevo,” which corresponds exactly to the Spanish “mañana,” and practically means that “nothing matters”), they certainly do not waste it in sleep! Even now I can recall the luncheon party a few hours later at the Hôtel de Paris. Besides the Royalties, there were present a number of agreeable people of every nationality, so what with the brightness of the surroundings, the gaiety of the party, and the number of different languages in which the general conversation was carried on, there resulted a sort of babel, that was very amusing and almost bewildering to the ordinary young naval officer.
On another occasion when theSurprisewas in these waters the little ship was anchored in that lovely harbour of Ville-franche, midway between Nice and Monte Carlo, and for the moment we happened to have no distinguished visitors on board. Our Boatswain, Mr. Cunningham (he is such an old friend of mine that I am sure he will forgive me for relating a story about him), had, I thought, been cooped up too long on the ship, for so keen a worker was he that he would remain for months on board without ever going ashore. With great difficulty I persuaded him to come to Monte Carlo with me on the plea that he would see a new side of life that would enlarge his mind (this was certainly true!), and on the understanding that I would give him dinner and not desert him. I duly introduced him to the gambling-roomsand gave him dinner, and then, as usually happens at Monte Carlo, we managed to miss each other and I lost sight of him. Of course he could not speak a word of anything but English, but somehow or another, after a series of adventures, he managed to find his way back to the ship just in time to get the anchor up next morning, and all was well. He was a splendid sailor, and it was a great pleasure to meet him again many years afterwards, first as Chief Boatswain of the Royal Yacht, and still later as Lieutenant Cunningham at Osborne College, where he directed the Seamanship Instruction of the Naval Cadets. But though he rose to those giddy heights I feel convinced that he never forgot his trip to Monte Carlo.
Yet another of theSurprise’scruises to the Riviera has to be mentioned. Shortly after the New Year of 1888 our little ship anchored off San Remo, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh being both on board. They had come to visit (and unhappily their visit turned out to be a final one) the Crown Prince of Prussia who was spending the winter there. He left San Remo shortly afterwards to become German Emperor for a reign of three months. The Crown Prince was too ill to return the visit in person, but I can remember the Crown Princess arriving on board and the manifest pleasure that it gave her to find herself once more on board a British man-of-war. Well might the odious people with whom she had been fated to live, call her, in derision, the “Engländerin”; we English, who have grown to know the Germans better, can now appreciate the fact that whatwas intended as an ill-natured sneer was, virtually, a compliment. By the middle of June her husband, the man who, had he lived, might possibly have changed the fate of Europe, was unfortunately dead; to be succeeded on the throne by his son, that half-megalomaniac, half-mountebank, who, as I write, has taken refuge in a foreign country from those who were once his subjects.
Before temporarily quitting the topic of the German Royal Family, I must mention that some time afterwards, when suffering acutely from one of the numerous German Invasions of Cowes which had become annual visitations during Regatta week, I prophetically offered to take £100 to £1 that I should live to see the German Empire broken up, and it is a lasting regret to me to feel that, now the cataclysm has come, I have altogether forgotten the layer of the bet, who, more than likely, is now not even alive!
Another Mediterranean summer was passed pleasantly enough in cruising, the greater part of the time in company with the Fleet, and then, in early September, I heard, to my great joy, that I had been appointed to the Royal YachtVictoria and Albert. This meant not only certain promotion at the end of two years, but also a very pleasant time in England.
At the age of thirty-two, except for my term of service at Greenwich and for a few short turns of weeks or months, I had hardly been in England since I first went to sea as a midshipman, so I was naturally delighted at getting a good spell at home before going abroad again as a Commander, with the prospect of attaining Post rank before I was forty. At that time, I had not the smallest intention of doing anything but serve steadily on in the Navy, with a fair chance of eventually hoisting my flag; however, as every philosopher knows, nobody has any idea of what may be in store for him, and instead of further spells of foreign service it turned out that I had practically returned to England for ever.
The officers of the Royal Yacht were, by tradition, ear-marked for promotion, the Sub-Lieutenants, who were appointed for one season, which practically amounted to only a couple of months, were duly promoted at the end of that time, and generally packed off to sea very soon, as the long half-pay period which existed when I was a young Lieutenant had mercifully come to an end. The two Lieutenants of the Yachtremained for two years, and were then promoted, whilst the Commander became a Post-Captain at the end of three years.
And now to say something of my new brother officers, and the ship,—or rather ships,—in which we served. I joined the Royal Yacht in the autumn of 1888 at Portsmouth, where I found my old Admiral, Sir J. Edmund Commerell, installed with his family at Admiralty House as Commander-in-Chief. I was delighted to have the opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with him and making that of Lady Commerell and their daughter. My old Commander of theNarcissus, the late Admiral Sir John Fullerton, was in command of Her Majesty’s YachtVictoria and Albert, with theAlberta,Elfin, andRoyal Georgeas tenders. He remained in charge of Queen Victoria’s Yachts as Captain and Admiral from 1884 to the day of Queen Victoria’s death, and the last duty he performed afloat was when, in charge of the tinyAlberta, he brought the mortal remains of the Great Queen from Osborne, where she died, to Portsmouth on the way to her last resting place at Windsor. He was, for some years afterwards, a Groom-in-Waiting to King Edward, and subsequently an extra Groom-in-Waiting to King George, and died a little over a year ago at his lovely little home at Hamble. Hamble lies up its own little river, which empties itself into the Southampton Water; it is now a fishing village, but, during the old wars, was a famous ship-building place, and many were the line-of-battleships that were launched from the slips there, of which traces canstill be seen. It was an ideal place for an old sailor to end his days in.
TheVictoria and Albertwas my old Madeira acquaintance, and, still as beautiful as ever, and though some thirty years of age when I joined her, nothing more perfect in the way of “lines” had yet been produced by any Naval architect. Our Commander was Richard Poore, now Admiral Sir Richard Poore, and the fourth baronet of that name. In after years, besides being Second-in-Command of the Channel Fleet, he was twice a Commander-in-Chief, namely in Australia and at the Nore. The other Lieutenant was Gerald King-Harman, a splendid specimen of an Irishman, and brother to the well-known Member of Parliament of that name. He, poor fellow, knowing that he was suffering from a mortal disease, did his best to break his neck out hunting, all to no purpose; he died shortly after his promotion in 1889.
In those days theVictoria and Albertwas only inhabited by a small party of caretakers except when she was actually on some cruise, or when the Queen was paying her summer visit to Osborne, during which time the Royal Yacht lay at Cowes in full commission. During the winter stay of the Court at Osborne and during the greater part of the year the officers lived on board theRoyal George, the old hulk that had been the Royal Yacht in the days of George IV and King William, and all communication with Cowes was carried on either by the tenders,AlbertaandElfin, or by picket-boat. I loved the old hulk. We were very comfortable, as the officers messed in what hadbeen the Royal apartments. She was tiny, but had been built as a miniature copy of the frigates of her day, and had been full rigged. I believe that the last time she was in use as a Royal Yacht was in 1842, when Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort paid their first visit to Scotland. On that occasion the Royal Party embarked on board theRoyal Georgeat Woolwich, and were towed round in her to the port of Leith. I am not surprised, however, that Queen Victoria preferred to make the return voyage on board a steamer belonging to the General Steam Navigation Company, where Her Majesty found that the accommodation was better and more spacious than on board theRoyal George.
During the Queen’s winter residence at Osborne no leave was given, as it was never known when we might be required, and when the Royal Yacht lay at Cowes, in the summer, the officers were not allowed ashore until it had been finally ascertained that Her Majesty had no further commands for that day; but when the Court was not at Osborne we had a very easy time. The two Lieutenants used to take it in turn to go on leave, one of them having to live on board theRoyal George, but as soon as Morning Prayers had been read there was little or nothing more to do, and there was no trouble about attending such Race Meetings as Sandown and Kempton, which, being on the South-Western Railway line, were easily reached, as indeed was London. At that time I belonged to the Naval and Military Club, and a very cheerful place it was, especially for a sailor. There was one corner of thehuge smoking-room,—which is still, I believe, called Besika Bay Corner,—where one was sure to meet one’s old comrades and their soldier friends who had garrisoned Malta in the late ’seventies and early ’eighties. And so the time passed agreeably enough, interspersed, as it was, with a good many trips across the Channel. In the middle of November the Prince of Wales embarked on board the Royal Yacht and was conveyed to Flushing to meet, the then, recently widowed Empress Frederick. Her Imperial Majesty arrived on board with her three daughters and crossed to Port Victoria, where she was met by Queen Victoria and most of the members of the Royal Family, and travelled with them to Windsor. The winter season, commencing, as was general, in the middle of December, was a busier one than usual, for the Empress Frederick had accompanied her mother to Osborne, and there was a great deal of running to and fro to convey the various members of the Royal Family backwards and forwards.
In the middle of February 1889 the Queen left Osborne, and some ten days later the Empress Frederick crossed in the yacht to Flushing, with her daughters, on her way home. In early March Queen Victoria embarked for Cherbourgen routeto Cimiez. TheVictoria and Albertwas escorted across the Channel by a veritable procession of yachts, including theOsborne,Alberta,Enchantress(the Admiralty Yacht), and theGalatea(the Trinity House boat). Her Majesty returned to England in April.
Our next trip was at the end of June when we weresent to Antwerp to embark the Shah. I remember the late King of the Belgians came to Antwerp to see him off, so I suppose that Oriental Potentate had been officially visiting Belgium before coming to England.
The Shah was attended by Sir H. Drummond Wolff, then H.M. Minister at Teheran, and Sir H. Rawlinson, who were with him during the whole of his visit. He also had an enormous retinue of Persians for us to embark. Some of them, such as Ali Asmer Asgher Khan, Amin us Sultan, the Grand Vizier, and Prince Malcom Khan, the Persian Minister, and a few others, were no doubt very distinguished men; but the tail end of the suite seemed to me to consist principally of what the Bluejackets used to call “scallawags.”
On the 1st July we duly arrived at Gravesend, where the Prince of Wales boarded us, to welcome the Shah, and then up the Thames we went and the real fun began. The river, of course, swarmed with excursion steamers, and the one idea of the excursionists was to try and keep alongside the Royal Yacht, and as near as possible, so as to get a sight of the Shah. This congestion of passenger boats, all overcrowded with sight-seers was extremely dangerous, and as the smallest collision would have sunk any of those lightly-built craft, an accident would have resulted in an appalling loss of life. As usual the men in charge of these boats behaved very badly and took great risks, but it meant a harvest for them in the shape of tips from their passengers, and human nature being what it is, it would be ridiculous to blame them, and as,moreover, thanks to good luck, no accident happened, there was no harm done. The Royal party eventually landed in a sort of glorified steam-launch at Westminster Steps.
In the middle of July, the Queen went, as usual, to Osborne, but her visit there was broken by a journey she had to make to London to enable her to be present at the wedding of Princess Louise of Wales and the late Duke of Fife on the 27th. Two days after Her Majesty’s return to Osborne, the Royal Yacht conveyed the Shah there to take leave of the Queen, and thence to Cherbourg. Meanwhile, a large Fleet had assembled at Spithead, under the command of Sir J. Edmund Commerell, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, so that the Shah on his way to Cowes might be enabled to see something of the British Navy. I am bound to say that he did not appear to be in the least impressed. He firmly declined to come on deck, and obviously disliked the noise of the salute. In fact, he took no notice of the Fleet whatever. My old friend, the late Mr. Bennett Burleigh, the well-known War Correspondent of theDaily Telegraph, had by some mysterious means managed to smuggle himself on board the Royal Yacht. I have an idea that the late General Sir John McNeil, then on board as one of the Queen’s Equerries, had rather connived at his presence, for he and Sir John had been old cronies and campaigners together. However, being there, he behaved with the most commendable tact, and had not ventured near the saloon where the Shah had ensconced himself, and consequently had to rely on second-hand information. I, being on duty,was in the immediate vicinity, and so was duly pumped by my friend.
“What a splendid sight the salute was! I am sure the Shah must have been greatly impressed. What did he say?”
As I have already written, the Shah paid no attention whatever to the Fleet, but, thinking that he ought certainly to have made some sort of remark, I gravely answered that His Majesty had said: “Wah, Wah, Allah is great, and the English are a mighty nation,” which I thought would do just as well for the readers of theDaily Telegraphas anything else. I am rather afraid that Mr. Burleigh was too old a hand to be caught, and greatly doubt whether the imaginary ecstasies of the Shah were ever published.
That particular season at Cowes was an interesting one, for it was in 1889 that the Kaiser made his first descent on Cowes in the shape of a visit to his grandmother, Queen Victoria. He arrived on August 3rd, and with his usual arrogance, or perhaps to save himself from paying their board in Germany while he was in England, he brought over an immense and entirely unnecessary suite. Osborne, and all its little dependencies, were strained to the utmost to house this swarm of locusts, and even then an overflow party had to be put up on board the Royal Yacht. This was the first occasion that I had ever come into contact with any number of Germans, and I have heartily disliked them ever since. To my mind, even on a pre-war standard, there is nothing good to be said about them. I detest all their ways and works,their eternal bows, and clicking of heels, and the equally eternal shaking of hands, and impertinent inquiries about one’s digestion. Moreover, they have the odious habit of leaving sheaves of visiting cards in all directions. We were thirteen officers on board the Royal Yacht, and when our unbidden guests insisted on leaving a card apiece upon us it literally made up one or more packs to be littered about. In view of our present experience of them, I think that I can congratulate myself on a certain amount of prescience in the detestation with which they, one and all, inspired me so many years ago.
Other visitors, temporarily lodging on board the Royal Yacht, were Admiral of the Fleet Sir Geoffrey Hornby, who was in attendance on the young Kaiser during his visit, Sir Henry Keppel and Captain Stephenson, both of whom were in attendance on the Prince of Wales.
The whole visit was not only an interesting one, but made a very picturesque show from a naval point of view. The Emperor arrived in his yacht with an escorting squadron of the German Fleet (then very much in its infancy), one of the squadron, a cruiser named theIrene, being commanded by his brother, Prince Henry. There was a huge Fleet at Spithead, and Cowes was, if possible, more full of yachts than ever, and in addition there were anchored in the roads a few British battleships and torpedo-boats, one of these small craft being commanded by H.R.H. Prince George of Wales. The Prince and Princess of Wales were, of course, on board the Royal Yacht at Osborne,at the usual moorings just inshore of theVictoria and Albert.
The Prince of Wales went out in theOsborneto meet the Emperor and his squadron, and, on his way, his yacht was most shamefully mobbed by a horde of excursion steamers that had been hired for the occasion by the holiday folk who very naturally infest the Isle of Wight and South Coast at that season. The Commander of theOsborneonly succeeded in keeping them off at a less dangerous distance by threatening to pump water over them with the steam fire hose.
The Prince went on board the Kaiser’s yacht as soon as she arrived, and later landed at Osborne to be with the Queen when the Emperor arrived at Osborne House. The usual Cowes Regatta was in full swing during the week or so that the visit lasted, and such crowds filled the streets that there literally was barely standing room in the queer little town. The only functions I remember were a parade review of the German seamen that was held in the grounds at Osborne, a dinner party that was given by the Queen to the officers of the German Fleet on board theVictoria and Albert, and a review of the Fleet by the Emperor. As concerns the review, the Kaiser and his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, came on board theVictoria and Albert, where the Prince and Princess of Wales and all the members of the Royal Family at Osborne had already established themselves, and the yachts then proceeded to pass through the lines of the Fleet at Spithead. The ships were “manned” in the usual way and salutes were fired. The Royal Yacht thenanchored in the vicinity of theHowe, which battleship was flying the flag of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir J. Edmund Commerell, to enable the Admirals and Captains to come on board and be presented to the Emperor. It was a fine show for those days, and the Fleet, including, as it did, thirty-eight First Class Torpedo-boats, was flying altogether one hundred and twelve pennants. I remember well the ill-concealed envy exhibited by the Kaiser, his brother, and their surroundings, for in those days the German Navy was a very small affair. Meanwhile, Queen Victoria, on the littleAlberta, steamed through the lines of the German Fleet, an operation which did not take long, as they numbered just under a dozen, great and small.
The dinner on board was beautifully done by the servants who were sent from Osborne for the purpose, and during its progress I, as one of the least important of the hosts, found myself seated between two German officers, more or less of the same insignificant rank as myself. In the process of making conversation during the long dinner and evening, I did glean one piece of information that delighted me. Somehow, the topic of Marryat and his naval novels cropped up, and to my great astonishment I discovered that these Germans could have passed a very searching examination in Marryat, and had Mr. Midshipman Easy, and the immortal Boatswain, Mr. Chucks, at their finger-ends. When I expressed surprise at this, they confessed that, having no naval literature of their own, they had to fall back on ours. There was yet another surprise in store for me later on, when I was to see these perfectexamples of officers and gentlemen (?) filling their pockets with the cigars that were handed to them to smoke! However, all these little incidents are specimens, I suppose, of what their admirers call “German thoroughness.”
After the German Invasion had come to an end, Cowes began to empty itself, and the Royal Yachts and the guardship (there was always a guardship in the roads when the Queen was at Osborne), were left in almost solitary grandeur, and now that there was room to move about freely, Cowes became quite a pleasant place. Our duties were not very exacting. There were occasional return trips to Southampton and Portsmouth to bring over or take back the Queen’s visitors in one of the tenders, and every other day it was my duty to walk up to Osborne, take luncheon with the household and ascertain whether her Majesty had any commands.
About the middle of September the Court moved to Balmoral, the Queen crossing as usual in theAlberta, and we officers took up our quarters again on board theRoyal George, the great bulk of the ship’s company, as usual, going back to the dockyard to work as riggers. And so ended my first season at Cowes as a Lieutenant of Her Majesty’s Yacht.
In December, when the Court as usual moved to Osborne, leave came to an end, and the constant trips across the Solent conveying Her Majesty’s numerous royal guests,—including, amongst many others, the Empress Eugenie,—kept us busy until the return of the Court to Windsor in the middle of January. A month later the Royal Yacht embarked Her Majestyfor her usual spring visit to the Continent, and at the end of April we were at Flushing again to embark the Queen on her return to Windsor.
Our next trip was on a rather more extended scale, as in the middle of July we were ordered to embark the Empress Frederick, and her two (then) unmarried daughters, Princesses Victoria and Margaret, and convey them to Gibraltar, where they proposed being transported to theSurprisefor conveyance to Athens, the reason for the visit being, I believe, the expected accouchement of the other daughter, the Duchess of Sparta, a lady of whom, as Queen of the Hellenes, the British public has heard a good deal since. By the 2nd of August we were back at Cowes again for the usual summer season, and two days later the Kaiser arrived in theHohenzollern, accompanied by the inevitable Prince Henry. This visit was of a more private nature than the one of the year before, and, I expect greatly to the relief of all concerned on this side of the North Sea, only lasted for four days. During a part of the season there was an Austrian squadron lying at Spithead, commanded by an Admiral Hincke, the Archduke Karl Stephan being in command of one of the ships of the squadron, theKaiser Franz Josef. While this squadron was in the vicinity of Cowes, Queen Victoria inspected it by steaming between the lines in theAlberta.
About the middle of August the Empress Eugenie arrived at Osborne on a visit to the Queen, and thereby hangs a tale:
The Queen had decided to have some privatetheatricals andtableaux vivants, organised at Osborne during the Empress’s stay there, and on the evening the performance was given a few notabilities in the neighbourhood and some of the officers of the Royal Yacht had the honour of being invited. The day before the entertainment took place I received a sudden order to go to Osborne, and on arriving there was told that one of the dramatis personæ had suddenly been taken ill, and that I was to take that gentleman’s place. Mercifully there were no words to learn, and I only had to dress up and form one of the representants of the various pictures. The three most elaborate displays, with which the performance ended, were a series of large set-pieces representing Twelfth Night (in a general and not a Shakespearean sense), Queen Berengaria interceding with King Edward for the Burghers of Calais, and the Garden Scene fromFaust. All these pictures were very beautifully “dressed,” and the great Mr. Clarkson arrived from London to make up the faces of the performers and arrange their wigs. In “Twelfth Night,” Princess Louise Marchioness of Lorne, Princess Henry of Battenberg, Lady Feodor Gleichen, and one or two other ladies were amongst the revellers, to say nothing of more than an equal number of men. This one I saw from the front, and though very pretty, I remember thinking it was a little crowded. In the next I took a part, and so can give no opinion upon it. Princess Louise again was in the Tableau, and made a very beautiful Queen Berengaria; the late Sir Henry Ponsonby, in a magnificent suit of armour from Windsor, was the King; Lord Stamfordham, then Colonel Arthur Bigge, wasone of the Burghers; Colonel Sir H. Legge, then Captain Harry Legge, and I were amongst the knights in attendance, and Mr. Victor Biddulph, who died quite recently, wonderfully made up as to tonsure, was the attendant priest.
In the Garden Scene fromFaust, Princess Beatrice took the part of Marguerite, with Lady Southampton as Martha; Harry Legge was Mephistopheles, whilst I, in my capacity as an understudy, had to represent Faust. I am afraid that this tableau was not altogether a success, for as soon as the curtain went up, I heard the Empress Eugenie, who was naturally seated next to the Queen, ask in a very audible voice, “Mais, qui est, donc, ce petit Faust?” The unfortunate “petit Faust” in question shook to such an extent with suppressed laughter that the whole stage quivered, and the picture in general could only be described as wobbly.
After the performance there was a great supper for the dramatis personæ and the guests in general, and I am bound to say that, though I went to Osborne with considerable trepidation, I finished up by spending an extremely agreeable evening.
A week or two later, at the end of August, the Queen left for Balmoral, and the following week I was promoted to the rank of Commander.
And so, in September 1890, after about twenty years’ service as boy and man, I became, for quite a considerable time, a free agent, as a Commander on the munificent half-pay of eight shillings per diem,—and a very pleasant time it was. In the spring of 1892 I had been fortunate enough to be elected amember of the Turf Club,—in those days, to my mind, much the most agreeable Club in London. The Turf Club was then, perhaps, at its very best. Socially it was extremely pleasant, the majority of the members being principally engaged in amusing themselves. All the best of the racing men belonged to it, and nearly all the men prominent in sport of all kinds made it a place of rendezvous, whilst in addition, it was much patronised by the leading Foreign Diplomatists, and our own Politicians of the best sort. A good deal of whist was played there, and nothing was more usual than to cut into a rubber where the other players might well be a Foreign Ambassador, some notable Politician, and the youngest-joined Guardsman, so altogether it was eminently many-sided. Though, from its name, most people had an idea that no conversation ever took place there except on the one topic of racing, nothing was further from the fact. When such men as the late Duke of Devonshire, Lord Russell of Killowen, and Lord James of Hereford (to mention only a very few) were constantly,—indeed almost daily,—to be met there, it was pretty obvious that there were other interests as well as racing connected with the Club, and that it was something more than merely a place for idle men of fashion. In those times it was a very late establishment, for, on most nights, returning from balls and parties, a number of us would put in there for an hour or so before going to bed.
Another very delightful Club that had just been established, though one of a very different nature, wasthe unfortunately short-lived Amphitryon Club in Albemarle Street. It was started by a number of well-known men, prominent amongst whom were the late Lord Randolph Churchill, the Marquis de Soveral, and the present Lord Chaplin. Though on the lines of the best sort of French Café, it was a Club to the extent that there was a small entrance fee and subscription, and a ballot for members. The Maître d’Hôtel, one Emile Aoust, had been at Bignon’s and thoroughly understood how to provide his clients with the best of everything. As well as the restaurant downstairs, there were several apartments upstairs, where large and small private dinner parties could be given, and had it only been really well managed it might have lasted for ever. Unfortunately Emile, though he thoroughly understood food, knew nothing about finance, and after about five years of existence the Club had not much to show except debts. Consequently the establishment had to be wound up, and a grievous pity it was. It was a delightful place for dinners or luncheons, and, moreover, members were allowed to entertain ladies there for meals, so it was an enormous convenience for the real Londoner. The worst of Emile’s system was that his prices were rather too varied. The regular habitués were not at all badly treated, for, though it was very expensive, the best foodisvery expensive, so there was not much to complain of; but occasionally, when dealing with members who did not understand his ways, his prices were really rather remarkable. I remember that he succeeded in losing the custom of a very good client by charging him sixteen shillings fora solitary baked apple. No doubt the apple was the very best of its sort, but even then, it was rather more than any man could stand who might happen to notice this detail, half-way down the long bill for a dinner for some eight or ten guests. However, with all his faults, Emile was a real artist, and I am by no means the only one of his old customers who constantly deplores the fact that he is no longer with us, and that the Amphitryon Club is a thing of the past.
Whilst on the subject of London Clubs, it was about this time that I was fortunate enough to survive the ordeal by ballot and be elected a member of the Beefsteak Club. The activities of that charming little establishment have been terribly hampered by the paternal legislation rendered necessary by the war, but when I first joined, it used to begin to fill at a much later hour than that at which it now empties itself, in these supperless times. In the past it had been essentially a Night Club, the Annual General Meeting being held about midnight, that being the sort of hour when the majority of members used to arrive. Perhaps it was at its gayest and best when, after a first performance at some popular theatre, the “first-nighters” used to flock in to discuss the new play that had just been produced, and join up with the members who had remained on after dinner. I can hardly remember any place where I have heard such “good talk” as I have there, and “good talk” of the most varied kind, ranging from frank Bohemianism to the political history of England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The sort of typical gathering that occurs to my memory whenstill at our old home, where the new portion of Charing Cross Hospital now stands, would be composed somewhat as follows; and though many of them have joined the great majority, I am sure that they are not forgotten by their old Club-mates. To give them the names by which they were best known:—Archie Wortley, the principal founder of the Club; the “Pelican,” the name to which Pellegrini was expected to answer; Arthur Blunt; Corney Grain; the “Beetle,” otherwise Harry Kemble; Johnny Giffard; that most delightful of men, Joe Knight, then dramatic critic of theMorning Post, and also a great bibliophile; and Joe Comyns Carr, perhaps the wittiest of them all. These have all passed away, but amongst the habitués of the early ’nineties there are still left such men as Willie Elliot, Harry Higgins, Cecil Clay, Marshall Hall, and one or two others. I forget exactly when we moved into our new premises in Green Street, Leicester Square, but it must have been a good many years ago, and I do not know that the “talk” in the new house is not as good as it was in the former one, when the survivors of the old gang are reinforced by Leonard Courtney, John Scott Montagu (now Lord Montagu of Beaulieu), Seymour Hicks, Perceval Landon, Charles Whibley, and, until his death, the deeply regretted Harry Cust, perhaps the most brilliant man in England.
Another popular personage in London Society who died recently and was a great frequenter of the Beefsteak was the late Count Benckendorff, for many years Russian Ambassador in London. He did not often leave London, and there was hardly a night that he didnot come in for an hour or so for a cigar and a chat before going to bed. He was always a very kind friend to me, and I knew him pretty well. He made himself extremely agreeable at the Club, and besides being a wonderful linguist (he really spoke English like an Englishman), he was a mine of information about every sort of subject, and I am convinced would have taken “full marks” for any “English History Examination Paper,” if he ever saw such a thing. Outside his own family, I am sure that in no coterie was his death more sincerely mourned than in that, composed of the members of the Beefsteak Club.
In the course of that winter I managed to get a little hunting. Lord Manners, who had married one of my cousins, a Miss Hamlyn Fane,[3]had been lately Master of the Quorn, and was then living at Cold Overton, the well-known Leicestershire hunting-box. With the aid of a few hirelings and the kindness of my host I succeeded in condensing a good deal of sport into the ten days’ visit. It was at Cold Overton that I first made the acquaintance of the present Mrs. Asquith, then Miss Margot Tennant, who was hunting from there for the season. Our host always hacked to the meet, and used to place a dog-cart at the disposal of Miss Margot and myself. With such a companion the long drive to the various meets which we attended formed quite an agreeable part of the day’s sport. In those days Miss Margot Tennant was as brilliant aperformer over the country as she was a conversationalist, and her very numerous friends will, I am sure, fully endorse this statement.
My half-pay time came to an end in the spring of 1891, when I joined the Staff of the Naval Intelligence Department. This Department was quite new, and Captain Cyprian Bridge, my old Commander of theAudacious, the then Director, was only the second to hold the appointment, the first holder of that office having been Captain Hall. Curiously enough his son, Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, M.P., was one of the most conspicuous successes of the late war when in charge of that same Department. So completely civilian-ridden was the old Whitehall building then, that this very important Department was looked upon as a part of the Civil Service of the Admiralty, in spite of the fact that its Director was either an Admiral, or a very senior Captain, who had working under him two more Captains as Assistant-Directors, four Commanders as Naval Staff, and four Marine Officers as Marine Staff. When I went there first, I expected to find the work extremely interesting; but, as in all other offices, it soon turned out that it mainly consisted in a sort of regular routine. Indeed, during the two years which I spent there, I can only remember three or four really illuminating jobs which came my way. Towards the end of my time there, my particular business was to look after the Navies of France and Russia, as regards ships in commission and reserve, and building programmes. This entailed a great deal of reading of French newspapers and magazines,but with Russian literature I could not cope, and everything had to be translated for me. Lord Fisher was then on the Board as a Rear-Admiral, and in that capacity I suppose had to assist in the preparation of the Estimates. I remember being told to supply their Lordships with a statement of the combined strength of the Navies of France and Russia, against which had to be shown, ship by ship, our own Navy. I was given the hint that, the object being to wring more money for more ships out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I was to make out as formidable a list as I could of our then possible enemies. Naturally, I did as I was told, and no old lame duck was too obsolete to be trotted out for the occasion. Personally I was convinced that the device was too transparent to deceive a child, let alone such an old political hand as was Sir William Harcourt, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. To my secret delight, my precious report came back with the Chancellor’s own annotations on it, and very much to the point they were. I felt that with all the knowledge of those Fleets that I had at the moment, I could not have made a better selection of the obsolete and useless vessels than did the Chancellor with his blue pencil.
It is curious in these days to remember that in the early ’nineties our bugbear was a combination of France and Russia against us, especially from a Naval point of view, the German Navy being then still almost negligible.
One fine morning, on seating myself at my table, I found a new and rather formidable-looking volumeawaiting me, to be dealt with in the ordinary course of the day’s work. It turned out to be Mahan’sInfluence of Sea Power on History, and though the book itself had been completed at least a year before, I fancy that mine was almost the first copy to reach England from America. It being my duty to read it, I commenced at once, and except for a pause at luncheon time, never put it down until I had devoured the whole work. This task having been performed, I at once went to see my Chief and told him that, whether he could spare the time or not, it was absolutely incumbent upon him to read it himself, as, in my judgment, the general theory that the book inculcated was so admirably expounded that it was of the greatest value to any one who was entrusted with a portion of the care of the defences of the British Empire. My Chief complied with my request, and that great work and its successors have become classics, not only for the navies of the world, but also for the general readers of all nations.