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."
Hewasa 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(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 heads outwards; and it was the custom of the wilder spirits to go round the tents at night, and playfully to rap the heads of the sleepers with shillelaghs. One of the sleepers was most unfortunately killed by a blow, and his slayer was brought before the magistrate, who condemned him. Hereupon the policeman who had arrested the prisoner addressed the magistrate:
"Your Honour," says he, "sure it is very well known that the deceased had a terrible thin skull upon him, and I would be wanting in my duty not to be telling your Honour the way the poor man's skull was dangerous to him."
"'Tis the truth," broke in the prisoner eagerly. "Sure your Honour's honour will be letting me off, for everyone knows that no man having a thin skull does be having anny business to be at Cahirmee Fair."
During the paper-chases which we got up at Valparaiso, I met with a nasty accident. My horse rose at some posts and rails, and crashed through the top bar; after which I knewno more except a shower of stars and darkness. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself being borne home on horseback, lying face down on the Chilian saddle, which is made of thick rugs. The horse was being led by a Chilian farmer, who was, I thought, taking me to the mortuary. But he was really a good Samaritan. He had bathed my wounded face withaquadente, and placed me on his horse. The scent and sting of theaquadenterevived the moribund, and by the evening I was all right again.
In theResearch, in 1867, we had a quartette of hunting men, Cæsar Hawkins, Lascelles, Forbes and myself. We used constantly to hunt together. Lascelles was one of the best riders I have ever known. He could take a horse through or over anything. TheResearchwas stationed at Holyhead at that time, because it was believed that the Fenians had planned to destroy the steamers running from Holyhead to Ireland and back. I used to go across to Ireland from theResearchto hunt with the Ward Union near the Curragh, and return the same night. A long way to cover.
"The Three Brothers'" race is still remembered in Ireland It was ridden by Lord William, Lord Marcus, and myself. Each of us had his backers, but the crowd was at first firmly convinced that the result of the race had been arranged between us. I believe I had the best horse, but he was unfortunately taken with an attack of influenza while he was coming over from England in the boat. Lord William won by a short head from Lord Marcus, and I was a length behind. Lord Marcus reminds me that each of us, while secretly fancying himself intensely, enthusiastically eulogised the other.
I quote the enthusiastic account of the race written by an eye-witness, which appeared inThe Waterford Newsat the time. (The Waterford News, 4th January, 1901. Account by Mr. Harry Sargant, from hisThoughts upon Sport, and description inThe Waterford News, The Three Brothers' Race, 30th April, 1874.)
"Lords Charles, William, and Marcus Beresford had a sweepstake of 100 sovs. each, p.p., three miles, over the Williamstown Course, twelve stone each, owners up. Lord Charles rode Nightwalker, a black thoroughbred horse, and bred by Billy Power, the sporting tenant of the course; Lord William rode Woodlark, a grey mare; and Lord Marcus was on a bay gelding called The Weasel. They each wore the Beresford blue, Lord Charles with the ancestral black cap, while the others had white and blue caps as distinguishing emblems.
"No racecourse in Ireland, except Punchestown and Fairyhouse, ever had more people on it than Williamstown had on that, the most memorable day in its annals. Old men and women who had never before seen a race came 50 miles to see 'the Brothers' race.'" (Many persons slept on the ground on the preceding night.) "Not a person, except the too aged and incapacitated, was in a farmhouse within 10 miles of the course, while the city was as deserted as if plague-stricken—all, all, flocked to Williamstown. Excitement rose to boiling pitch as the three brothers filed out of the enclosure and did the preliminary. I fancy now I see them jogging side by side to the starting-post, where poor Tom Waters awaited them, ready with ensign in hand to send them on their journey. The only delay was while he delivered a short but sporting speech to these three lads, when away they went, boot to boot. The pace was a cracker from the start, but none made the running more than another, for all three were girth to girth most of the journey, and at no time did two lengths divide the first and last till just before the finish. Yes, every post they made a winning-post; and ding-dong did they go at each other, though, of course, riding like sportsmen. Fence after fence was charged and cleared by them locked together, and it was not until Nightwalker was beaten, just before the last fence, they separated. A determined struggle between Woodlark and The Weasel then ensued; and, after a desperate finish, old Judge Hunter gave the verdict to the former 'by a short head.'
"Never was seen a better race of its class, nor was any ever ridden more determinedly for victory. The scene of excitement on Williamstown Course before and after it beggars description. Not a mouth was shut or a voice lower than its highest pitch."
Two Irishmen who came from Australia, used to ride with our hounds, the Curraghmore, in County Waterford. They were both very hard riders and both so short-sighted as to be nearly blind. For these reasons they used closely to follow my brother and myself; and we used to do our best to get out of their way, as they were always on the top of us, but in vain. For whenever they saw us sheering off they used to shout out,
"Go on, Lord Charles,"—or Lord William, or Lord Marcus, as the case might be—"go on, I can't see but I can ride."
My brother Bill and I got a real good start one day with the Curraghmore hounds. We led the field till we came to the river Clodagh. The hounds swam the river, and we followed them, with the water over our horses' girths. In jumping out, Bill got on the hard bank, but in the place where I went, the water had undermined it. I was on a little horse called Eden, which was not 15 hands, but which had won the jumping prize at the Horse Show in Dublin. He was "a great lepped harse," as the Irish say. He did his best, but the bank gave under him, and he came right back on me in the water. When I got up, both my stirrup leathers had slipped, and I saw the irons showing at the bottom of the river. I had to go down under water to recover them. I got out and rode to a public-house, the landlord of which was a tenant of my brother Waterford.
"For the love of God, Lord Char-less, how did ye get that way at all at all?" says he.
I told him, and,
"Can you give me a suit of clothes, as they will draw Ballydurn in the afternoon, and I must be there?" said I.
"Divil a suit have I got," says he. "But there, hisRiverence is just afther changing his clothes within, and I'm sure he'll be glad and proud if you esconced yourself in his clothes, and he big enough to cover two of yez."
I went upstairs, and there I found his Reverence's clericals on the bed, and with that I stripped and put on his vest, shirt, trousers and clerical coat. His great boots were elastic-sided, and I had to put two copies of theCork Examinernewspaper in each to make them fit me. He was a big man, over six feet high and weighing about twenty stone; and his trousers were so long that when I turned them up half-way to the knee, they still could go into the top of the boots, in which I stowed them, tying string round the boots to keep the trousers in. The trousers were so wide round the waist, that I had to button the top button round on the opposite side brace button behind. The coat was so long that it reached down half-way between my knees and ankles.
Thus ecclesiastically garbed, I rode to the cover, and waited under a bank for nearly an hour, hoping to hear the hounds. My teeth were chattering with cold, and all I had on of my own was my hat. At last I heard the horn, and at once a fine old fox broke. I waited till he got afield and then knocked a bawl out of myself that would terrify a neighbourhood. Out came the hounds and me on top of them, with two fields' start, as I was wrong side of the cover down wind concealed under a big bank. Then came over twenty minutes as hard as legs could lay on to ground, and all the field wondering who his Reverence could be that was leading the field, and where in God's name did he come from—all except Bill. He knew that I had fallen in the river, he knew Eden, and he laughed so that he could hardly sit his horse. When the field came up, fox to ground, they nearly fell off their horses with laughing. One farmer said to me:
"Begob, your Riverence, you will never be so near heaven again as on the top of that terror of a high bank ye lepped!"
There was a lady, a very hard and jealous rider, who often hunted with our hounds, and who was told one day that she must hold her own with the Curraghmores, as some ladies from the neighbouring packs were out.
"Show me a Tipperary or a Kilkenny woman till I lep on the shmall of her back," quoth she.
Every sportsman knows the delight of getting a good start and of keeping it. I was riding with the Tipperaries, when Eden jumped a tremendous big mearing (boundary); the others who faced it either fell or refused; and thus we got three fields ahead of the rest of the field, and ran the fox straight to ground in thirty-five minutes, Eden keeping right on the tail of the hounds the whole way. Two or three times I have got such a start and kept it, another occasion being in Leicestershire, when I was riding a horse belonging to my sister-in-law.
Once with the Meath I got a long start by seeing which way the wind was; and cutting a corner, I observed a man with a green collar doing the same, and we both kept our lead. A fortnight later, stag-hunting upon Exmoor, I got well away, when I saw a man ahead of me on my left. At the end of the run, I observed that he had a green collar, and found it was the same man. A curious coincidence.
Riding another of my Irish horses, Sea Queen, we were going down a by-road, the hounds being on the right, when we came to an iron gate, nearly 6 feet high. I was bending down to pull back the bolt, when the mare suddenly jumped. She got her fore-part over, and it took me half an hour to clear her. I was obliged to break the gudgeon of the gate.
Hunting at home at Curraghmore, I used to tell my brothers, all of whom were cavalry officers, that I would engage to pick a hundred seamen from the Fleet, who had never been on a horse, and to make them in six weeks as fine a troop of cavalry as any in the kingdom. Naturally they did not believe me, and chaffed the life out of me. But when my brother Lord William went to South Africa,to the Zulu war of 1879, he commanded three troops of irregular cavalry, the men of which had been recruited straight from the merchant service. His troop sergeant-major had been a mate. When my brother returned, he acknowledged that my boast was justified. The fact was that in the old sailing days, the sailor was so agile, athletic and resourceful a creature, so clever with his hands, and so accustomed to keeping his balance in every situation, that he could speedily acquire the seat and the skill which other men must as a rule learn in childhood or not at all. Anyhow, the seamen could stick on.
Many men never become easy on horseback. My experience in the hunting field taught me that a man who is always fussily shouting, "Where the devil are the hounds, sir?" and so forth, is always nervous. I have sometimes answered, "Keep calm, sir, keep calm. It's not a general action."
For a short time I was acting-Master of the Buckhounds, in place of my brother Waterford, when he was laid up with an accident in the hunting field, from which, poor fellow, he never recovered. As he was galloping through an open swinging gate, the gate closed on his horse as the horse was level with it. The jerk injured the base of the spine.
One day with the Buckhounds we were hunting a very twisting, slow stag, when, observing a charming country-woman of mine, I asked her if she had another horse out. As she said she had not, I advised her to go to a certain spot, where the deer-cart held another stag, wait there for me, and we would have a good run, and with luck we could get back to the station and catch a train. Sure enough, we had a splendid run, half an hour as hard as we could go; the stag ran into the lost property office in Slough railway station, and a train bound for London came in at the same moment: a prophecy fulfilled.
I was one of the original number that first played polo at Lillie Bridge, in the early days of polo in England. We played on little 13-hand ponies, with a bamboo root roundedoff as a ball. I do not think that there are many of the original number now (1913) alive; but among them is Lord Valentia, who very kindly sent me the following account of the introduction of polo into England:
"The first polo match ever played in Europe was between the 9th Lancers and 10th Hussars at Hounslow, July, 1871, but the 10th had played polo for years then. The first game ever played was at Aldershot, on Cove Common, in 1870; where Colonel Liddell says in hisMemoirs of the 10th Royal Hussars: 'The game was introduced into England by the officers of the 10th, from a description of the game as played by the Manipuri tribe in India which appeared inThe Fieldnewspaper. Lord Valentia, Mr. Hartopp, and Mr. George Cheape of the 11th attached to the 10th, were the originators.' I believe the Lillie Bridge Club was formed in 1872. I well remember a day at Lillie Bridge when I think you, Bill, and Marcus were playing, and your mother was looking on. Bill Was knocked out by a crack on the head, and carried into the dressing room, where he lay unconscious for a short time. Your mother was in the room with him, and heard Tom Fitzwilliam in the next room shouting out so that everyone in both rooms could hear, 'Oh, it's only Bill knocked out. No matter, you can't kill a Beresford!'"
I had entered to ride my horse Nightwalker in the steeple-chase at Totnes, which is the most difficult course in England, up hill and down dale, and along a narrow path beside and across the river. Just before the race, I was warned that a plan had been formed for the jockeys to ride me out at a post on the river at the bottom of the hill. Had I been ridden out, I could never have recovered the ground. I kept a vigilant look-out accordingly. Riding along the tow-path, a jockey began to hustle me. I told him to pull back, warning him that unless he kept clear I would have him in the river. He returned no answer, but continued to hustle me: whereupon I pulled my horse on to him, cannoned into him, and over he went, horse and all,into the water. Falling on a rock, he broke his thigh. I won the race. Then I went to look after the injured jockey. Nightwalker was one of the best horses I ever owned. I sold him to Lord Zetland, who told me that "the horse was one of the best he had ever had, and no price would buy him."
In 1882, while I was in command of theCondor, a gymkhana was arranged which had the unfortunate and wholly unforeseen result of bringing me into serious disfavour with an agitated husband. We rode upon side-saddles, dressed in ladies' attire: habits, chignons, and tall hats complete. I had a capital pony, and had won the race, my chignon and hat blowing off on the way, when up comes an indignant gentleman, to accuse me of insulting his wife. I had, he said, dressed up to imitate the lady, on purpose to bring ridicule upon her.
Naturally, I assured him that he was mistaken, and that nothing would have induced me to commit so discourteous an action. But my gentlemen waxed hotter than before, and violently demanded an apology. He declined to accept my assurance; his language was highly irritating; and I became angry in my turn.
"You don't appear to understand the situation," I told him. "How dare you come to me and tell me that I looked like your wife? Either you apologise to me at once for that most improper suggestion, or..."
He saw reason. He apologised. The biter was bit.
While I was commanding theCondorin 1882, a famous Italian long-distance runner came to Malta, and issued a challenge, of which the conditions were that he would run on foot any mounted man over a twenty-mile course, himself to go any pace he chose, but the horse to trot, canter, or gallop, not to stop or to walk. I accepted the challenge, and went into hard training.
I trained on ponies, confiding the pony which I was to ride in the race to a midshipman of light weight, and reduced my weight to 10 st. 8 lb. The greater proportion of theMaltese, whose dislike of the English was still strong in those days, were in favour of the Italian. They assembled in vast crowds on the Marsa upon the day of the race. We ran and rode round and round the great open space—afterwards the parade-ground—and although my adversary tried every trick of his trade, such as suddenly stopping, or lying down, I succeeded in winning the race.
I had a famous horse called Sudden Death, which I bought from Lord Norris; and the first time I drove him tandem in the lead was on Portsmouth Hard, where he cut across the first cab on the cab rank, whereupon all the cabs backed out on the top of one another with kickings, cursings and squealings. I sold Sudden Death for £15, a case of infamous sherry, and a life insurance ticket.
The greatest devil of a horse I ever owned I called The Fiend. He would carry me brilliantly for a day or two, and then, for no earthly reason, he would turn it up in a run, kick, back, rear and bite at my foot; and if he could not get me off, he would rub my leg against a wall or rush at a gate. Once, after carrying me beautifully in two runs on one day, he flew into one of his tantrums. We were crossing the bridge over the Clodagh River at Curraghmore, and he actually jumped upon the parapet of the bridge, balanced himself upon it for a moment, and then (thank God!) jumped into the road again.
We had a pad groom in the Curraghmore stables, Paddy Quin, called The Whisperer, because he could control any dangerous horse by whispering to him. I told Quin to sell The Fiend without bringing my name into the transaction. He sold the horse accordingly; and when the business was completed, he told me that he had represented to the purchaser that The Fiend "belonged to a lone widdy living by the say-side."
I believe that I am the only man who has ever ridden a pig down Park Lane. As I was returning home from a dance in the calm of a summer morning, accompanied by a friend, a herd of swine came by, and among them ahuge animal trotted pre-eminent. I wagered £5 that I would ride that great pig into Piccadilly; dashed into the herd, took a flying leap upon the pig's back, and galloped all down Park Lane, pursued with shouts by the swineherd. As I turned into Piccadilly, the swineherd caught me a clout on the head, knocking me off my steed. But not before I won my wager.
I was once prettily sold by a sportsman named Doddy Johnson. We were of a party at Maidenhead, and we laid £5 on the winner of a swimming race across the Thames, both to swim in our frock coats and tall hats.
My antagonist and I were to start from a line on the lawn at Skindle's, and the first to get ashore on the opposite bank was to be the winner. I raced down the lawn and plunged in. About half-way across the river, I looked back, and there was Doddy standing on the bank. He had his jest; presumably it was worth a fiver.
One year, three out of four horses in my coach being hunters, I was obliged to start with the leaders, for if I started in the proper way with the wheelers, the off wheeler invariably jumped into her collar and kicked. Being taken to task in the Park one day by a famous four-in-hand driver, who told me I did not know how to start a team, I said to him that as he was an authority on the subject, I should be very grateful if he would be so good as to start my coach for me, and thus to show me how it ought to be done; adding that if the coach were damaged or the horses were injured, he must hold himself responsible.
Gladly accepting these conditions, my friend mounted to the box and settled himself with great nicety and pulled off the leaders. Then he touched the off wheeler with his whip. The next moment she had kicked in the boot, and the leaders started kicking, and both fell—a regular tie-up. The mare capped her hocks and was laid up at a vet's for a week.
I was driving a coach up from Sandown Races along a crowded road, when a most unfortunate accident suddenly exposed me to the fury of the populace. Swinging the whipout in order to catch it up properly, the thong caught under a lady's chignon, and the whip was nearly pulled out of my hand. Chignon and hat came away together and remained dangling. The poor lady must have been sadly hurt. Instantly, of course, I tried to pull up in order to apologise, when the mob rushed to the very unjust conclusion that I had insulted the lady on purpose; there was a deal of shouting, and stones began to fly; the horses were hit and bolted, so that I never had the opportunity of making my apology. The Duke of Portland, Lord Londonderry and Lord Inniskillen were on the coach. We used each of us to horse one coach in stages for the race meetings near London.
Upon another occasion, when I was driving the Prince of Wales on my coach to a meet of the Four-in-Hand Club at the Magazine, Hyde Park, a man who was quite unknown to me shouted,
"'Ullo, Chawley, 'ow are yer? I see you've got 'Wiles' up alongside yer."
"Some of your friends seem very familiar," said the Prince, who took the remark with perfect good-humour.
I once laid a wager that I would drive round Rotten row, an exercise forbidden by the regulations. A party assembled to watch the event; and while they were looking out for me, a man driving the Park water-cart came by and turned the water on them. Then the company, looking closer at the driver, perceived that I had won my bet.
The first racehorse owned by the Prince of Wales was a horse named Stonehenge, which I bought for him. We were partners in the horse. Stonehenge had won one or two races, when I went away on leave for a few days. On my return I found that my groom, against orders, had been galloping him, and that one of his legs had filled. Having heard that my uncle, Lord Waterford, once trained a horse which filled his leg, by swimming him in the sea after a boat tried the experiment with Stonehenge. The admiral's coxswain, two hands, and myself swam Stonehenge everyday about Plymouth Harbour. The horse got fit to run for his life, and I rode him in a hurdle race at Plymouth. He was winning easily, but, alas! he broke down at the last hurdle, and was just beaten.
In 1883-4, the Duke of Portland and myself, as partners, bought Rosy Morn, as a yearling. He won several races as a two-year-old, and we fancied him for the Derby. He was a better colt as a two-year-old than Lord Hastings' Melton, which won the Derby. Both horses were trained in the same stable, at Matt Dawson's, Heath House, Newmarket.
Matt Dawson declared that we had got a Derby horse. I was getting the boats through the Bab-el-Kebir in the Egyptian war, when I heard that Rosy Morn had gone a roarer; and I thought it a bad omen for the expedition.
Lord Marcus and I organised a donkey race to enliven a South Coast race-meeting. We hired two donkeys apiece, and each bestrode two steeds, standing on their backs, and rode them over the wooden groynes that descend the beach at regular intervals.
The curse of race-meetings is the crowd of dubious characters which infests them. Lord Marcus, travelling by rail to Newmarket, defeated three of such persons single-handed.
A trio of three-card-trick men tried to bully him into venturing on the game; whereupon he set about them. Two he knocked out, and the third piped down. They left that carriage of carnage at the next station, protesting amid blood and tears that it was occupied by the most furious devil allowed on earth. He was maligned: there never was a kinder-hearted man.
Lord Marcus, who is singularly ready with his tongue, upon being asked whether he thought False Tooth a good name for a horse, said:
"The best, because you can't stop him."
The same relative committed a worse crime at the Club, where a very deaf member appealed to him to be told what another member was saying to him.
"He's wishing you a Happy New 'Ear—and God knows you want one!" shouted Markie.
One of the most unexpected events in which I ever took part occurred at Scarborough, where I was staying for the races with Mr. Robert Vyner. In the same hotel were staying two well-known members of the racing world, Mr. Dudley Milner and Mr. Johnny Shafto. Vyner and I happened to enter the large and long room, used for assemblies; when we perceived Dudley Milner and Johnny Shafto standing at the other end, and observed that they were arguing together, somewhat heatedly, in broad Yorkshire. They were disputing, as racing men do at such times, about weights in an impending handicap.
There was nothing at all in the great room, so far as I remember, except a sideboard and a dish filled with pats of butter which stood on the sideboard. I picked up a pat of butter on the end of the ash-plant I was carrying, and told Vyner that if he would come outside, I would throw the pat of butter to a surprising distance.
"Why go outside?" said he. "Why not take a shot at those two fellows who are arguing so busily over there?"
"And so I will," said I.
The pat of butter described a beautiful yellow parabola at high speed and lighted upon the eye of one of the disputants. The impact doubled him up, and he thought that the other man had hit him. Drawing his right fist back very slowly and carefully, he struck his friend full on the point of the nose. The next moment they were both rolling on the floor, fighting like cats. My companion and I were laughing so much that we couldn't separate them; and they finally had to go to bed for a week to recover themselves of their wounds.
Butter produces various effects, according to its application. I was one of the guests among a large party at a luncheon, given by an old gentleman who had a fancy for breeding pugs, which were then the fashionable breed of dog. On the table opposite to me was a glass bowlcontaining a quantity of pats of butter; and as each of the many pugs in the room came to me, I gave him a pat of butter on the end of a fork. He gently snuggled it down. After about ten minutes first one pug and then another began to be audibly unwell. The old gentleman was so terrified at these alarming symptoms, that he incontinently dispatched a carriage at speed to fetch the nearest vet That expert, after a careful diagnosis, reported that "someone must have been feeding the pugs on butter."
My brother Marcus, travelling by rail with some friends, Mr. Dudley Milner being of the party, Markie very kindly relieved the tedium of the journey. Dudley Milner had fallen asleep. Marcus took the ticket from Milner's pocket. He then woke up Milner, telling him that the tickets were about to be collected. Milner, after feverishly searching for his ticket, was forced to the conclusion that he had lost it, and, finding that he had very little money, begged that someone would lend him the requisite sum. One and all, with profuse apologies, declared themselves to be almost penniless; and Milner was nearing despair, when my brother sympathetically suggested that, as the train approached the station Milner should hide under the seat, and all would be well. Thereupon Milner, assisted by several pairs of feet, struggled under the seat, and his friends screened him with their legs.
The collector appeared, and Marcus gave him all the tickets.
"Here's six tickets for five gentlemen," said the collector.
"Quite correct," said Marcus. "The other gentleman is under the seat. He prefers travelling like that."
An old friend of mine, Lord Suffield, has recently published his memoirs. He was an indomitable rider, with a beautiful seat, and one of the hardest men to hounds in his day. I well remember riding home with him across country after the hunt with His Majesty's Buckhounds, when, taking a turn to the right, while I took a turn to the left, he suddenly disappeared altogether from view. Assuddenly he appeared again on his horse's neck. He speedily got back into the saddle and went away as if nothing had happened, looking neither to the right nor left. I turned to find out the cause of his disappearance, and found that he had come across a deep V-shaped ditch, at the bottom of which was a very high post and rails. How any man or horse could have got over it, it is impossible to say. When I spoke to him about his exploit in the evening, he treated it as a matter of course, and only said it was "a rather nasty place."
When we were in India together, in the suite of the Prince of Wales, he always preferred riding to going on an elephant. He was a great yachtsman in his day, and knew as much about handling yachts as any seaman I have ever met. He was a very good shot, and one of the greatest friends I have ever had.
II. SHOOTING
There are few kinds of beasts which I have not shot; and among those few are lions and giraffes.
When I was at Vancouver as a midshipman, I went out after deer upon a pouring wet day. I fired at a deer; the gun, a muzzle-loader, missed fire; I set the stock on the ground in order to ram home the charge; and the gun went off. The bullet cut the button off the top of my cap: a narrow escape.
I shall never forget the excitement of three of us midshipmen of theClio, when, being out after tree grouse in the bush, we put up a big spotted deer. It was close to us, and we killed it; we cut it up, and tramped the miles back to the ship, laden with the haunches, shoulders and head. Arriving on board with our clothes soaked with blood, we were hailed as splendid sportsmen, and for days thereafter the gun-room feasted upon venison.
When theCliowas off Juan Fernandez in February, 1865, we sent a party of seamen across to the island to beat up the wild goats towards the shore. The cliffs are steep-to, and along the face of them winds a narrow path worn by the goats themselves. The pathway itself is inclined at a steep angle. I took the cutter and hung off and on, waiting for the goats. Presently they came down, about thirty of them, in single file, slipping a good deal, but recovering their footing with marvellous agility. We firedat the line and knocked over three. They fell on the rocks below. There was so much seaway that we were unable to get the boat in. I therefore took a line and swam to shore, collected the goats, toggled their legs together, secured them with the line, and they were pulled off to the boat. But when I tried to swim off, the sea was so rough that the breakers beat me back. I was hurled against the rocks; all the wind was knocked out of me, and I was much bruised and cut. A bluejacket swam off with a line, and although he did not toggle my legs, he and I were hauled off to the boats, like the goats. We brought all three goats safely on board. One of them was a billy-goat, the other two nanny-goats, in which there was no sign of any bullet, so that they must have been carried down with the billy-goat.
While I was serving in theSutlejas sub-lieutenant, the chief engineer, James Roffey, who was a splendid shot, and myself, went upon hunting expeditions in Vancouver. We took two horses and a couple of dogs. At night we slept on waterproof sheets under a lean-to shelter made of branches. We shot many partridge—as these birds are called. Having treed them, we shot the lower birds first, and so on to the top. The report of the guns did not disturb them, but if a bird fell from the upper branches, the rest would take flight. I have shot these birds in the same way, during recent visits to Canada.
During the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to India in 1870, I accompanied his Royal Highness upon the great elephant hunt in Ceylon. For months beforehand the wild elephants had been gradually driven towards the kraal by an army of native beaters. The kraal is constructed of huge trunks of trees, lashed together and buttressed, making a strong stockade. In plan, covering about eight acres, it is shaped like a square bottle, the neck representing a narrow entrance, from which the stockade on either side runs at a wide angle, like jaws. The elephants are driven down the narrowing jaws and through the entrance, whichis closed behind them with a gate made of logs. Once inside the kraal, the wild animals are tackled by the tame elephants ridden by mahouts, and are secured with hide ropes to the trees of the stockade, which is formed of stout timber for the purpose.
Upon the occasion of the Duke's visit, I was in the arena, mounted upon a tame elephant amid a wild heaving mob of animals. One huge beast defeated the tame elephants, throwing the whole lot into confusion. He suddenly charged, knocking over the tame elephant next to me, the mahout breaking his leg in the fall. Things were looking very ugly, when someone—against orders—fired and killed the rebel elephant, the bullet entering his temple.
If the day of the great elephant hunt in India, arranged in honour of the Prince of Wales, was the hardest run of my life, hanging on to the back of a swift pad elephant which went through the jungle for fourteen hours like a runaway locomotive, the hardest day I ever had on foot was in Ceylon, during the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to that superb country, in 1870. I have found Irishmen in most places under the sun; and I found one in Ceylon. His name was Varian, and he was a famous hunter of elephants. Rogue elephants were his favourite game; he stalked them on foot; walked up to his quarry and shot it. He was I think, eventually killed by a rogue elephant. His gun, which had belonged to Sir Samuel Baker, was a curiosity among hand-cannon. This formidable engine was so heavy that it was as much as a powerful man could do to heave it up to his shoulder. The recoil—but I will relate what kind of recoil it exercised. The gun was a single-bore muzzle-loader, having two grooves cut within the barrel, into which was fitted a spherical belted bullet.
We started at three o'clock in the morning, taking with us two native bearers to carry the guns. The bearers were little men, fragile to all appearance as pipe-stems, and save for a loin-cloth, naked as they were born. For seven hours we travelled ere we found fresh spoor, following the elephanttrails, paths which the huge animals had cloven through the dense jungle. The heat was intense, the walking an extraordinary exertion; for at every few yards the soft ground was trodden by the elephants into pools of water three or four feet deep, through which we must plunge.
It was blazing noon when we struck fresh tracks; and Varian halted to load the heavy rifle. I contemplated the operation with amazement. He poured the powder into his hand, and tilted three or four handfuls down the muzzle. Then he wrapped a piece of waste round the projectile, and hammered the ramrod home with a hammer. It occurred to me that if ever a gun ought to burst in this world, that gun ought to burst.
We tracked the elephant out of the jungle; and there he was in the openmaidan, placidly pulling up great tufts of grass with his trunk, and swishing himself with them.
"We must bend down," says Varian in a whisper, "and he may take us for pigs."
He held me by the arm; and bending down, we advanced directly upon the elephant, Varian's bearer loaded to the earth with the great gun.
"If he puts his ears forward and drops his trunk—fire! For he'll either charge or run away," whispered Varian.
And with the graceful courtesy of his race, he handed me the miniature cannon.
We were within twelve yards or so of the huge beast when his ears jutted forward, and with his trunk he flicked the ground, producing a hollow sound. I braced a leg backwards, and with a strong effort, hove the gun to my shoulder, aimed at the wrinkles just above the trunk, and fired. The elephant and I toppled over at the same moment. I thought my shoulder was broken to pieces; but as I staggered to my feet, I saw the elephant lying over on its side, its legs feebly waving. Varian ran up to it and fired several more shots into its head, and it lay motionless.
In 1874, I was appointed to theBellerophon, temporarily.She had sunk a steamer which had crossed her bows, and her senior officers had been ordered home to attend the inquiry into the matter. When I joined her, my old mess-mate in theMarlborough, Swinton C. Holland (now admiral), was in sole command; although he was only second lieutenant of the ship; a curious illustration of the incidents of naval life.
Another example of the anomalies of those days was my own position: I was on full pay and on active service, and I was also a member of Parliament. The dual capacity was not in itself conducive to discipline, because it gave naval officers on full pay the opportunity of criticising, as members of Parliament, their superior officers. I do not think it was abused; in my own case, I think the solitary advantage I took was to obtain a pump, which was a sanitary necessity, for theThunderer, when I was her commander: a threat of publicity moving the Admiralty to action which previous applications had failed to produce. In the old days, the Sea Lords used to serve in the dual capacity of members of the Board of Admiralty and of Parliament.
As no one had any precise idea where theBellerophonwas, I took passage to Halifax and stayed in the receiving hulkPyramus, fifth-rate, stationed at Halifax, in the hope that theBellerophonwould come north. In the meantime, I went for a shooting expedition with a trapper. We went up into the forests of Nova Scotia, camping out, and living upon what we could secure with our guns. We shot bear and deer and prairie chicken. In the depth of the forest I found an Irishman dwelling in a clearing with his wife and family. He was a bitter Orangeman, who (so he told me) had been expatriated for shooting at a priest.
"I had a gun," said he, "but it was a rotten gun. I drew a bead on the priest, and, God forgive me, the gun missed fire!"
I remember saying to him:
"Why the devil can't you leave another man's religious convictions alone? He has as much right to his convictions as you have to yours. If there were no religious wranglesin our country, it would be the happiest country in the world."
His nearest neighbour, dwelling 20 miles away, was a Roman Catholic; and although my friend cursed him for a Papist, their relations with each other were quite friendly. The Irishman told me how he had once fought to save the life of his child from a bear. He was working in the clearing; near by, his little girl was sitting on the trunk of a felled tree; when a bear suddenly emerged from the forest, and made towards her. The man had for his only weapon a huge handspike, as big as a paviour's rammer. He showed me the thing; it was so heavy that I could scarcely realise that he could have used it as he did use it. But with this formidable club he fought the bear for an hour. Several times he beat the animal to the earth; but the beast returned to the attack; and the man thought his strength must surely fail him. At last, both man and beast were so exhausted that they stood and looked at each other with their tongues hanging out. Then, with a growl, the bear turned tail and rolled back into the forest. The Irishman never saw it again; and he cherished the belief that the brute died of its wounds.
Shooting black buck in the plains of Central India, with the Duke of Portland's party, in 1883, I had been out in a bullock-cart for hours. The method is to describe a wide circle round the black buck, and slowly driving round and round, gradually to diminish the circle. The sun was very hot; I was very tired of the business; and I determined to risk a shot. As I emerged from the cart into the open, a herd of black buck galloped past in the distance in single file, passing behind two tufts of high grass. Sighting between the tufts, I fired right and left, and heard the bullets strike. Theshikariwould not believe that I had hit anything at that range. But there were the bodies of two black buck; the distance from where I had fired to one of them was 220 yards, and to the other, 240 yards. The heads are in my collection of sporting trophies.
I had been twice round the world before I ever saw a really wild man. At last I met one when I was shooting grouse on my own property in Cavan. His voice was a squeaky, husky whisper, like the creaking of an old wooden frigate in a gale of wind. If I hit a bird hard and it passed on, the wild man would say:
"Well, that fellow got a terrible rap anyway!"
If I killed the bird, he would say, "Well well, he has the fatal stroke, with the help of God!"
And if I missed a bird, he would say, "Never moind, Lord Char-less! Ye made him quit that, annyhow."
The incident of the Glenquoich stag occurred many years ago, when I was staying at Glenquoich with the Duke of Marlborough. We had had a hard day, without sighting a warrantable stag, when the stalker spied, far on the skyline of the opposite hill, the grandest head he had ever seen. We stalked up to him until we came to the edge of a valley. There was the noble head scarce fifty yards away. We could see the stag's ears moving. But he did not rise. We lay on that hill-top for an hour and a half; the midges were eating me in platoons; and still the stag did not get up. I could stand it no longer; and I said to the stalker:
"Either you must get him up or I must shoot him through the heather."
The stalker begged me not to shoot; he whistled; then turned upon me a face of utter bewilderment, for the stag lay where he was, moving his ears to keep off the midges. The stalker whistled again. Still the stag lay quiet; and the man looked at me with a countenance of such amazement that I can see it before me as I write. It must have struck him that here was the supernatural; for never in his life had he seen a live stag which would stay to hearken to his whistling.
Then the stalker shouted; then he stood upright and shouted again; and still the stag lay where he was; and the man stared at me in silence with consternation in his eyes.I delayed no longer. I shot the stag through the heather, and he leaped up, and fell dead.
We found that the poor beast had a hind fetlock cut nearly through by a bullet. The wound must have been inflicted some considerable time previously, for it had mortified and the haunch had withered. Thus wounded, he must have strayed from another forest, for he was a German stag, marked with slits on both his ears; and there were no such stags in Glenquoich forest.
The late Kiamil Pasha, Governor of Salonika, was an old friend of mine. I first knew him when I was in command of theUndaunted, in which ship he lunched with me several times. He was a grand specimen of a fine old Turkish gentleman, one of the best among Turkish statesmen, intensely interested in the welfare of his country. I often went out snipe-shooting with the Turkish commander-in-chief round about Salonika. On these occasions, the Pasha invariably wore full uniform; and when we arrived at the shooting ground, we were always met by a squadron of cavalry. I imagined that the guard was furnished as a compliment to myself; and eventually I said to the Pasha that while it was very good of him to pay me the courtesy of a guard, I should be quite as happy if we went out shooting without it.
He replied that the guard was not intended as a compliment, but was ordered for my safety.
"What is the danger?"
"Brigands," said the Pasha.
"But there are no brigands here now."
"Are there not?" said the Pasha. "I killed fourteen yesterday."
And afterwards he showed me where he had rounded them up.
I have seen two whales killed. I saw a whale killed in the Pacific by an old sailing whaler. She sent four boats out and they hunted the whale, after it was harpooned, for eight hours before they killed it. A boat rowed close tothe whale, the harpooner flung his harpoon, the whale sounded, his tail swung up like a flail and struck the water with a report like the report of a gun, and out flew the line from the boat. The man who eventually killed the whale was armed with a long flexible knife, which he plunged into the whale behind the fin. The vast carcase was towed alongside the ship, than which it was longer; men wearing spiked boots and using sharp spades went upon the whale; and as they sliced into the blubber, making cuts across the carcase, the piece called the "blanket piece" was hoisted inboard by means of a tackle, the whale thus turning gradually over until its whole circumference was stripped.
Many years afterwards, I saw a whale killed off Norway by a modern steam whaler. She steamed slowly after a school of whales, and fired a gun whose projectile was a shell attached to a harpoon. The shell burst inside the whale, killing it. The carcase was then towed alongside the steamer by boats, the operation taking about an hour and a half, and was then towed by the steamer to the whaleries. The whaling master told me that 850 whales had been killed off Norway during that year; and that among them was a whale with an American harpoon in it; wherefore he supposed that the whale must have voyaged round the Horn, or else north about beneath the ice.
III. FISHING
When, as a youngster, I was sea-fishing at Ascension, my boat made fast to a buoy, I had used all my bait without getting a fish, when a booby gull kindly came and sat on the buoy. I knocked him over with an oar, used his remains for bait, and caught lots of fish.
In nearly every ship in which I have served, I had a trammel, a trawl and a trot. As a midshipman, I used them myself; when I became a senior officer, I lent them to the midshipmen.
Upon visiting the island of Juan Fernandez, while I was a midshipman in theClio, we found three men living in the home of Robinson Crusoe. They subsisted chiefly upon crayfish. We used to fish for these Crustacea, using for bait a piece of a Marine's scarlet tunic. The fish used to take the crayfish while we were hauling them up. In a few hours we caught enough to feed the whole ship's company.
Off the Horn, and in the South Pacific, I have killed many albatross in calm weather, or when the ship was proceeding very slowly under sail. I made a hook out of several hooks like a paternoster. If the bird touched the bait, he was always caught. The upper mandible of the albatross has a curve like the beak of a parrot, and that curve is all there is to hold the hook. When the bird is being hauled on board, the lower mandible catches the water and drives him underneath. When he comes on board he isfull of water, and is immediately very sick. Both the first and second pinion bones make beautiful pipe stems about fourteen inches long. I brought many home for my friends. The feet, dried, cleaned and manufactured into bags, make excellent tobacco pouches.
Many a shark have I caught in the old days. I have had two sharks on my hook at once. One had taken the hook, which, barb and all, had pierced right through his jaw; and another shark went for it and got the end of the hook into his mouth. They were both on the hook for some little time, and eventually I killed the first one hooked. I made a walking-stick out of his backbone.
The biggest shark I ever killed measured 12 feet 2 inches long.
I bought my shark hook from a man in an American whaling; schooner at the Sandwich Islands. I filed a little notch on the shaft of my hook whenever I killed a shark. To my great annoyance, someone stole my hook in after years.
I was once towing a cod-line astern for dolphin, when a shark took the bait. I took the line round a cleat and played him, or he would have carried it away; got him close enough to get a bowline over his tail, and hauled him on board. This method is generally used for getting a shark on board. Until his tail is cut off with an axe, a shark plays ballyhooly with all around him. A shark's heart is so muscular, and expands and contracts so violently after death that it is impossible to hold it in the hand. Sharks are bad eating, but in those salt-horse days we relished them.
My record in salmon fishing was made in Norway, when together with Lord Wolseley, Mr. Bayard, and Mr. Abram Hewett, I was a guest on board the yacht of my friend, Mr. Fred Wynn. In one night's fly-fishing, I killed forty-one fish. I gave eight of them to the fishermen who worked the canoe for me, and brought thirty-three back to the yacht.
Tarpon fishing is the acme of sea-fishing. Whereas asalmon is killed by a rod and delicate handling, a tarpon is killed by the line and herculean strength. The rod used is short and thick. The line is made of cotton, thinner and lighter than a salmon line, but extraordinarily strong. It is from 300 to 400 yards long, with four brakes, two on the reel, and two of thick leather placed on the thumbs. When the tarpon is struck, he invariably jumps into the air from six to ten feet, and shakes his head to shake the hook out, an effort in which he often succeeds. He has no teeth, but the upper part of his mouth is as hard as a cow's hoof, and it takes a tremendous strike to get a hook into it past the barb. The biggest tarpon I killed was 186 lb. I think Lord Desborough holds the record with a tarpon of 240 lb., 7 feet 6 inches long, 42 inches girth. Lord Desborough killed 100 tarpon in ten days.
Some years ago, I was most kindly invited by my old friend, Colonel Robert M. Thompson, to stay with him in his houseboatEvergladeson the coast of Florida. The houseboat was driven by a motor and drew one foot of water. When it came on to blow, Colonel Thompson used to run her up on the beach.
But upon one occasion, we went upon an adventurous voyage, right out into the Atlantic, making a point from Florida to the north; the wind freshened; and the houseboat had all the weather she cared for. Colonel Thompson tells me that while securing loose gear and generally battening down, I remarked that probably no British admiral had ever before found himself in a houseboat drawing one foot of water 50 miles out on the Atlantic in a seaway.
I never had such wonderful sport as I had with Colonel Thompson in theEverglades. We killed tons of fish all with the rod. One night, with a small tarpon rod I killed seven sergeant fish, average 28 lb. This fish takes two long runs, and then turns up on his back, dead. Upon another night I had on an enormous tarpon; the boatman declared it to be the biggest he had ever seen (it always is when one fails to land it). I had just got into the shore after over anhour's work at the tarpon, when it went off again slowly, with the appearance of a fish, but the methods of a steam roller.
The boatman said:
"Try to check it from going into that current; it is full of sharks."
But the tarpon steadily proceeded. On getting into the current, it suddenly took a run and jumped into the air. When it was half out of the water, a shark's head appeared and bit it in two. I hauled only the head and shoulders home. The shark was so large that we tried to catch him next day, and hooked either him or another. He was so heavy that we could make nothing of him. He took us where he liked, but never left the current. So we bent a line on to the one by which we held him, took it to the capstan of a yacht lying near by, hove him up to the side, and shot him with a rifle. He was then triced up by the tail by a tackle from the mast. He was a hammer-headed shark over 18 feet long.
He disgorged soap, bottles, sardine-tins, Armour meat-tins, a number of large crab shells, some small turtle shells, pieces of fish, and the midship section of a large tarpon, which was supposed to have been the piece bitten out of my failure of the previous night.
Before taking over the command of the Channel Fleet, to which I was appointed on 4th March, 1907, on my return from the Mediterranean, I proceeded on leave, family affairs calling me to Mexico.
My younger brother, Lord Delaval, had been killed in a railway accident in the United States, on 26th December of the preceding year (1906), while I was in the Mediterranean. He left a large property in Mexico, whither I went to settle his affairs as his executor.
Lord Delaval had gone to Mexico as a young man, intending to make his fortune, and so to fulfil the terms imposed by the parents of the lady to whom he was attached, as the condition upon which they would grant their sanction to his marriage with their daughter. At the time of his death, having bought out his partner, he possessed two magnificent ranches in Mexico: Ojitos Ranch, 120,000 acres, and Upper Chug Ranch, 76,000 acres; and a third ranch at Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. I stayed for some time at Ojitos Ranch; where I found that my brother was known as a dare-devil rider and an excellent rancher; managing his ranches himself, and taking his part in rounding up his stock and branding his cattle.
Upon Ojitos there were about 6000 head of cattle and 1500 head of horses, donkeys and mules. Ojitos means "little springs"; the house stood beside the springs; and brother, who was something of an engineer, had constructed three large reservoirs and nine miles of irrigationcanals, intersecting the whole estate. These little canals, fed by the reservoirs, were two feet broad and three inches deep, so that they could be kept clear with the plough. As the water was perpetually running along them, the stock could drink anywhere, an invaluable advantage in the calving season. Upon some ranches, where the water is scarce, cows and calves often perish for lack of ready access to it. The vast grassy plain is surrounded by mountains, and the estate itself is enclosed in a ring fence of barbed wire, 110 miles in circumference. My brother's staff consisted of five Mexican cowboys and three negroes. He left the two Mexican ranches to my brother Marcus and myself.
I got rid of all off-colour stock; put on a lot of new Durham bulls; poisoned the prairie dogs which ate the grass, leaving the ground bare as a high road; effected various other improvements, and organised the whole upon a business plan, down to the last detail. The drought of 1909 killed off many of the stock, for although the water supply was maintained, the grass perished. Nevertheless, the Ojitos Ranch paid its way, and in 1912 it was sold for a good price. The other ranch, Upper Chug, is still unsold at the time of writing (1913), owing to the breaking out of the rebellion, the supersession of President Diaz, and the consequent unsettled state of the country.
It was not remarkable for peace during my sojourn at Ojitos. El Paso, the frontier town, was full of what are called "the Bad Men of the United States," who were wanted by the police; and who, if they were in danger of capture, slipped over the border. The revolver is commonly used in disputes, particularly at Casas Grandes, a Mexican town about 120 miles from El Paso. During my brief visit to that place, three men were shot: one in a gambling hell, one in a Chinese restaurant, and one in a lodging-house; their assailants escaping with impunity.
Riding on the ranch, I saw a man about two miles away galloping for dear life. The cowboy who was with me explained that the rider "had holed a man somewhere andwas off up country." The fugitive headed away from us, and coming to the wire fence, he nipped the wire, and so rode away to the hills.
The retainers of Ojitos Ranch, with whom I sat down to dinner every day, were each armed with a revolver, sometimes two revolvers, and a knife. I was the only unarmed man present.
I had already made the acquaintance of President Diaz some time previously, when I had been tarpon-fishing at Tampico. On that occasion I was accompanied by my friend, Mr. Benjamin Guinness, who had been sub-lieutenant in theUndauntedwhen I commanded that ship. His brother had been midshipman in theUndauntedat the same time. The two brothers left the Service to engage in business, and both have been highly successful.
Upon my departure from Ojitos, I went to see President Diaz. He was most kind and helpful; both he and other prominent Mexicans informed me that they desired to increase the number of British properties in Mexico; and the President expressed the hope that I would retain possession of the ranches. At the same time, he gave me all the assistance in his power with regard to the settlement of the affairs of the estates; nor could they have been settled satisfactorily without his help.
President Diaz impressed me as a quiet, strong and determined ruler, who knew exactly how to govern Mexico, and did it. Under his rule, revolutions were summarily checked, and Mexico flourished as never before.
Upon my return to England, I took over the command of the Channel Fleet, hoisting my flag in theKing Edward VII, at Portland, on 16th April, 1907. The second in command was Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Custance (now Admiral Sir R. N. Custance, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O.), a most distinguished strategist and tactician, one of the most learned officers in his profession. I have never been able to understand why Sir Reginald Custance, instead of being placedupon half-pay until his retirement, was not appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty.
H.M.S. "KING EDWARD VII" ENGAGED IN BATTLE PRACTICE, 1907H.M.S. "KING EDWARD VII" ENGAGED IN BATTLE PRACTICE, 1907
The members of the Staff were: chief of staff, Captain Frederick C. D. Sturdee, succeeded by Captain Montague E. Browning; flag-commander, Fawcet Wray; intelligence officer at the Admiralty, Commander Godfrey Tuke, succeeded by Captain Arthur R. Hulbert; signal officer, Lieutenant Charles D. Roper; flag-lieutenant, Herbert T. G. Gibbs; engineer-captain, Edwin Little: secretary, Fleet Paymaster John A. Keys; flag-captain, Henry B. Pelly, M.V.O.; commander, G. H. Baird. The navigating officer, Commander E. L. Booty, who had been with me in theMajestic, was the best navigator I have known.
Of the two successive chiefs of staff, Captain (now Vice-Admiral) Sturdee, and Captain (now Rear-Admiral) Browning, to whom I owe so much, I desire to express my appreciation. Their powers of organisation and their knowledge of what is required for organisation for war are of a very high degree. Among other officers, all of whom did service so excellent, I may mention Lieutenant (now Commander) Roper, who was one of the best signal officers in the service; Lieutenant Gibbs, a most charming and loyal companion, who met his death by falling overboard in the Portland race, and the loss of whose affectionate friendship I still mourn; and Fleet-Paymaster Keys, who was with me for more than six years, and to whose brilliant services I owe so much.
The composition of the Channel Fleet, in April, 1907, was 14 battleships (eightKing Edward VII, twoSwiftsure, twoOcean, twoMajestic), four armoured cruisers, two second-class cruisers, and one third-class cruiser attached.
During this period, an extraordinary confusion prevailed at the Admiralty. Its character may be briefly indicated by a summary of the various changes in the organisation and distribution of the Fleet, beginning in the previous year (1906).
In October, the sea-going Fleets were reduced in strengthby about one-quarter, and a new Home Fleet was formed of nucleus crew ships. The Channel Fleet was reduced from sixty-two fighting vessels to twenty-one fighting vessels, the balance being transferred to the Home Fleet. An order was issued under which ships taken from the Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets for purposes of refitting, were to be replaced during their absence by ships from the Home Fleet.
In December, the Nore Division of the Home Fleet was given full crews instead of nucleus crews.
In April, 1907, an order was issued that no more than two battleships in each Fleet were to be refitted at one time.
In September, the Channel Fleet was increased from twenty-one vessels to sixty vessels.
In August, 1908, the orders substituting Home Fleet ships for ships from sea-going fleets under repair, and ordaining that no more than two battleships should be absent at one time, were cancelled; with the result that the Channel Fleet went to sea in the following December short of eight battleships, two armoured cruisers, one unarmoured cruiser, one scout, and 20 destroyers, 32 vessels in all.
When the Home Fleet was finally constituted, in March, 1907, there were no less than three commanders-in-chief in Home Waters; one commanding the Home Fleet, one the Nore Division, and one (myself) the Channel Fleet. In time of war the supreme command was to be exercised by me, over the whole number of fighting vessels, 244 in all. But in time of peace they could not be trained or exercised together, nor had any one of the commanders-in-chief accurate information at any given moment of the state or disposition of the forces of any other commander-in-chief.
Such, briefly presented, was the situation with which I was confronted in this my last command. It was fraught with difficulties so complex, and potential dangers to the security of the country so palpable, that many of my friends urged me to resign my command in the public interest. I decided, however, that I should best serve His Majesty the King, the Navy and the country by remaining at my post.
In the summer of 1907, the Channel Fleet proceeded upon a United Kingdom cruise, touching at various places round the coasts of these islands. When the Fleet was at sea, individual ships were sent away upon short cruises, in order to give the captains opportunities of exercising independent command. When the Fleet was at anchor, the ships were open to the public from half-past one to half-past six daily, in order to increase their knowledge and encourage their interest in the Royal Navy.
It was during one of these cruises that the Irishmen in the Fleet displayed one of their national characteristics.
The anniversary of Saint Patrick's Day was drawing near when the Fleet lay in Bantry Bay. On Saint Patrick's Day itself the Fleet was to proceed to sea. Hitherto, as a rule, if the Irishmen in the Fleet happened to be on leave on Saint Patrick's Day, many of them broke their leave. When I made a signal, giving the Irishmen four days' leave, and ordering them to return on board on Saint Patrick's Day, I added that the commander-in-chief, himself an Irishman, expected every Irishman to be back to his leave. There were 766 Irish liberty-men went on shore for four days; and 766 were on board again ere the Fleet sailed on the night of Saint Patrick's Day. It might be that the Saint could mention the thing in conversation with Saint Peter at the Gate, for future reference. For there were some 2000 Irishmen in the Fleet, who, when the Fleet lay at Portland, could not, like the Englishmen, visit their homes once a month. And when it is considered how hospitable and convivial they become on the anniversary of their patron Saint, I shall be understood when I say that the behaviour on this occasion of the Irishmen in the Fleet affords a remarkable instance of the Irish sense of honour. There are no other people so easily handled, if the right way be taken with them.
The Fleet assembled at Spithead in November, 1907, to receive his Majesty the Emperor of Germany; and in the following May, the Fleet assembled at Dover to receive President Fallières.
In the summer of 1908, the Fleet proceeded upon a cruise in Norwegian waters. Their Majesties the King and Queen of Norway, with the little Crown Prince Olaf, honoured the flagship with a visit when the Fleet lay at Esbjerg. At Skagen, on the evening of 7th July, when the Fleet was lying at anchor, theHohenzollern, flying the flag of his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, was suddenly sighted, together with the escorting cruiserStettinand the destroyerSleipner. By the time his Imperial Majesty had reached the lines, the ships were manned and dressed over all. A salute of twenty-one guns was fired; and theHohenzollernwas cheered as she steamed down the lines.
During my absence in Norwegian waters, I was the subject of a violent attack in the Press and elsewhere, due to a misapprehension. I recall the circumstance, because I am proud to remember that it was an Irishman, and he a political opponent, who, alone among all the members of the House of Commons, stood up and protested against an attack being made upon a brother Irishman when he was absent and unable to reply.
Their Majesties King Edward and Queen Alexandra visited the Channel Fleet on 7th August, 1908, in theVictoria and Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales in theAlexandra. His Majesty honoured theKing Edward VIIand theHibernia, second flag, with a visit. The flag-officers of the Fleet had the honour of lunching with their Majesties on board theVictoria and Albert.
Upon one of the Fleet cruises in the north, the flagship was passing under the Forth Bridge, when a spar caught on a girder of the bridge and carried away. Ere it could fall, Flag-Lieutenant Gibbs, with his customary presence of mind and pluck, threw me upon the deck, and himself on the top of me, to save me from the falling spar. Luckily, it touched neither of us.
There being no provision against mines dropped in time of war, it was suggested by me that the North Sea trawlers should be enlisted to sweep for mines; because they wereaccustomed to the difficult work of towing and handling a trawl. The proposal was afterwards adopted.