About the period at which I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant the number of ships in commission was so small that there was a great deal of unemployment in all ranks of the officers of the Navy. For instance, a freshly promoted lieutenant, unless he intended to specialise in gunnery (the torpedo lieutenant had not then been invented), had to wait for the greater part of two years before being appointed to a ship. Captains frequently had to wait for as much as four years. Quite apart from the manifest injustice of leaving officers to starve for years on the most miserable scale of half-pay that ever was devised by a Government Department, nothing could have been invented more calculated to injure the Service. For young lieutenants it meant a long period of inactivity at the average age of from twenty-three to twenty-four—just the years in which they should have been acquiring the habit of command, as watch-keepers, and inculcating discipline as divisional officers; whilst for young captains it may even have been worse; four years of unemployment ashore at the average age of forty was as likely a scheme for promoting rust instead of polish, on what is considered the finished article of the British Navy—namely the Captain of a[92] man-of-war—as could be devised by mortal man. A certain amount could be done to mitigate the situation by short courses of gunnery, and officers were even graciously permitted to study at Greenwich on half-pay. A good many took advantage of this permission, principally because, in their necessarily impoverished condition, they found the mess there the cheapest place to live in. But even when every advantage was taken in the way of courses of education, there would be still long intervals of unemployment. Personally, I enjoyed my time on half-pay very much. I was fortunate enough to have a home to go to where there was sport of all kinds to amuse me, and I was not at all averse from being my own master after nearly ten years of a junior officer’s life under the strictest discipline. In the spring of 1880 Sir Geoffrey Hornby’s time was up in the Mediterranean, and he was succeeded as Commander-in-Chief by Sir Beauchamp Seymour, who, when a captain, had given me my nomination for the Navy. At one time he had, I believe, the intention of taking me as his Flag-Lieutenant; but, unfortunately, the bump of veneration for those set in authority over me was represented on my head by a large hollow, and a few expressions of opinion about some of my superiors that I had either uttered, or was supposed to have uttered, got round to his ears, with the result that he wrote to my father and told him that although his original intention had been to take me as his Flag-Lieutenant, he really could not have a young officer on his Staff who expressed such very[93] remarkable opinions about his superior officers. At the time I was not in the least anxious to go as Flag-Lieutenant. Haul-down promotions had been abolished, so there really was nothing particular to gain by it except that, of course, it was what is known in modern days as a “cushy job.” But, later on, I had real cause for regret, as, owing to the Egyptian War, Sir Beauchamp became a peer, and, what would have concerned me much more, his Flag-Lieutenant was promoted over some 300 or 400 lieutenants’ heads, including my own. When that moment arrived I consoled myself by winning a biggish bet from my brother officers, none of whom thought that such a leap in the way of promotion was possible, I having,—rightly, as it turned out,—taken the other view.
Curiously enough, I was destined to go on the Staff of a Commander-in-Chief before Sir Beauchamp Seymour had hoisted his flag; for, in January 1880, Admiral the Honourable Sir Charles Brydone Elliot was appointed Commander-in-Chief at Plymouth and offered me the post of Flag-Lieutenant. Sir Beauchamp, who was still a Lord of the Admiralty, knew nothing of this offer, and had, in the meantime, appointed me to a small craft in the East Indies. I went to see him at the Admiralty, and, before I had time to explain that I wished my appointment cancelled as I had already written to Sir Charles Elliot accepting his offer, the dear old gentleman, with a fine sense of irony, proceeded to congratulate me on my appointment to an old sloop commanded by one of the most unpopular officers in the Service, and serving on one[94] of the most unpleasant stations in the Navy,—namely the East Indies and Persian Gulf. After he had finished his speech, I told him that I regretted very much that I must ask for a cancellation of such a charming appointment; but that, as Admiral Sir Charles Elliot had done me the honour of asking me to serve as his Flag-Lieutenant, and as, moreover, I had accepted his offer, cancelled it would have to be. My venerable relative nearly had a fit on the spot, but it had to be done, and I must say that, though not very long afterwards I was serving in his Fleet, he never bore me the slightest malice, and was always a kind and most hospitable friend to me. Both of us being very fond of Bordeaux, many were the bottles that we drank together after dinners at the Admiralty House, for Sir Beauchamp belonged to the old school of men who settled steadily down to their wine after dinner, and looked upon tobacco as an abomination.
And so, in January 1880, I found myself occupying a shore appointment at Devonport; for the Commander-in-Chief of a home port lives entirely on shore, and practically never goes afloat, except for inspections.
To my great joy, there was no room for me in Admiralty House, so I settled down in lodgings round the corner, and, generally speaking, after luncheon was practically a free man unless there happened to be a dinner at Admiralty House. Altogether, it was a very pleasant life. Being Devonshire born I had plenty of friends and acquaintances, and it was a most hospitable neighbourhood. Mount Edgcumbe, Anthony, the charming home of my old friend, General Sir[95] Reginald Pole Carew, and Port Eliot were all close by just over the Cornish boundary, while on the Devonshire side, and within easy reach by road, was Saltram, Lord Morley’s fine place, then leased to two very kind friends of mine, Mr. and Mrs. Hartmann, who were there for twenty years. A little further on in the same neighbourhood was Flete, which has just been rebuilt by the late Mr. Bingham Mildmay; Membland, then the property of the late Lord Revelstoke; and, camped out between his two brothers-in-law, was the late Mr. John Bulteel at Pamflete, in the most lovely of cottages, full of beautiful china, and with some of the most remarkable claret I ever was lucky enough to come across, in his cellar.
I managed to keep a hunter and a pony and dog-cart, so what with a certain amount of hunting with the Dartmoor Hounds, and a good deal of shooting with all my kind friends in the neighbourhood, life was very agreeable. It was at Saltram that I first really learnt to take an intelligent interest in food. In those days French chefs were very rare in England. I do not believe there were more than half a dozen in the whole country; but at Saltram I made the acquaintance of one of the greatest of these benefactors of the human race, and he has been a friend of mine ever since. I allude to Monsieur Menager, who was for something like a quarter of a century with my friends, the Hartmanns, both in the country and in London, and subsequently for many years with the late King at Marlborough House and Buckingham Palace. I believe that he has now retired into private[96] life, after a long and honourable career, and, taking him all in all, I do not think that I ever came across a greater artist in his profession.
When not on duty or amusing myself in the neighbourhood I spent most of my time at the Royal Western Yacht Club. The Club House was finely situated on the Hoe at Plymouth. It was, unfortunately, rather a long way from where I lived at Devonport, but none the less I generally dined there and found, moreover, an excellent rubber of whist before and after dinner. My whist education, if somewhat expensive, was very thorough, and I found later on in London that I could pretty well hold my own in most companies. Whist has probably vanished for ever, driven off the field by auction bridge, but none the less there never was a game of mingled science and luck that lasted longer, and I always think that the wise old Talleyrand was so right when he administered the gentle rebuke to the young man of the Travellers’ Club, who professed that he did not play it: “Vous ne jouez pas le whist, jeune homme? Quelle triste vieillesse vous vous préparez?”
After some fifteen months, passed very agreeably at Devonport, it became obvious to me that it was about time I began to serve afloat again if I meant to go on in my profession, so, with the permission of the Admiral, I duly applied for a ship. Shortly before the time of which I am writing, the Admiralty had, in their wisdom, established a system of espionage on the officers of the Navy, which consisted of confidential reports from Commanding Officers relating not only[97] to their professional attainments but also as to the characters of the officers serving under their orders. Personally, I am very strongly of opinion that anything in the nature of a confidential report is an abomination. It puts vast powers for mischief into the hands of Commanding Officers, who, being human, are naturally full of imperfections. The spiteful ones, whom I hope and believe are scarce, can vent their spite on any subordinate who is distasteful to them; but a far more dangerous man to deal with is the honest faddist. The man who is prepared to go to the stake for his own opinions is generally ready to light the match that is necessary for the successful execution of those whose way of life differs from his, and God help the unfortunate lieutenant reported on by one of these upright, but narrow-minded gentlemen.
My Admiral was, consequently, obliged to report confidentially to the Admiralty on the members of his Staff. One of them, his secretary’s clerk, being a friend of mine, thought it would amuse me to see what the old man had said about myself. It did amuse me very much, but I confess that the report in question gave me the impression that it was time for me to seek “green fields and pastures new,” ending, as it did after a slightly uncomplimentary comment on my general view of life, with the sentence: “It is quite time that this young officer went to sea.” I cordially agreed with the last sentence; but I still thought that it might have been spoken to me directly instead of being reported confidentially to the Admiralty. This, of course, was not the fault of my Chief, who was only[98] carrying out, what I still consider was, a very iniquitous order.
Early in the spring of 1881 I was appointed to the Superb on the Mediterranean Station, and before taking leave of my late Commander-in-Chief, I must relate a very curious incident which happened to him when a very young captain in the early ’forties, and I may add that he told me the story himself.
In those days, amongst the great naval families who assisted each other to all the best appointments in the Navy, the Elliots, the Greys, and the Seymours were extremely prominent. My Admiral was the son of the second Lord Minto. This Lord Minto, who at various stages of his career had been First Lord of the Admiralty and later on Treasurer of the Navy, was naturally able to insist that his son should be promoted to Captain at a very early age. I think he must have been promoted at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four. Captain Elliot, as he then was, was appointed in command of a sloop going out to the Pacific Station, and while commissioning her at a home port, he received a letter from an old friend and neighbour in Scotland to the following effect. This friend asked him, as a great personal favour, to make his son a midshipman (in those days a captain had the necessary power to rate any lad as a midshipman quite regardless of any details such as age and acquirements) and to take him with him in his ship. His reason for asking this favour was that his son was such an unreclaimable young blackguard that he could do nothing with him either at home or at any school, and he looked upon[99] the Navy as a sort of forlorn hope in the way of reformation. Naturally, Captain Elliot was averse to having this very doubtful benefit thrust upon him, but thinking that there was no great difficulty in inculcating a sense of discipline in a midshipman, and also thinking that as midshipmen were nearly always troublesome, one more or less did not make much difference, he weakly consented to take him. Unfortunately, life in the Navy did not have the reforming effect that was anticipated, and after every sort of thing had been tried to bring this young wretch to his bearings, the Captain decided that, as nothing else had any effect, he would try what a flogging would do. The midshipman in question being an extremely lusty youth, the punishment would do him no physical injury and great moral effects might possibly result. Accordingly, this young gentleman was duly seized up to the breech of a gun and solemnly given a dozen by the boatswain’s mate; and then the comic side of the case developed. The boy wrote to his father and complained that he had been flogged, upon which this grateful specimen of a parent wrote a furious letter to the Admiralty and demanded that his old friend, neighbour, and benefactor, should be tried by Court-martial, and tried he promptly was. Fortunately, his interest in the Navy was far too powerful for any real mischief to result. The Court-martial found the charge proved; he was duly cautioned, and that was the end of it; but equally naturally he was always known in the Navy as the captain who had flogged a midshipman, and this reputation of a flogging-captain sat very oddly on[100] the shoulders of a man who was the personification of kindness and gentleness.
In the spring of 1881 I joined my new ship, the Superb (Captain Thomas le Hunte Ward), and found the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Beauchamp Seymour, installed at Admiralty House, Valetta, with his Flag-Lieutenant, the Honourable Hedworth Lambton, in close attendance, and flying his flag aboard the Alexandra, and it was there that I first made the acquaintance of the late Admiral Lord Beresford, then Commander Lord Charles Beresford, commanding the gun-vessel Condor. A sailing schooner, the yacht Aline, that had been lent to Lord Charles by the Prince of Wales, was converted into a sort of tender to the Condor. Lady Charles was living on board, and, with their usual hospitality, the Beresfords constantly took their friends for sailing expeditions in the vicinity of the island.
Shortly after my arrival the squadron proceeded for the usual summer cruise. We made up a squadron of from six to eight big ships—a very convenient number for man?uvring, and my Captain being one of the Seniors on the Station, the Superb was very generally leader of the lee line, as the second division was still called, in memory of the old sailing-ship days. This particular summer cruise was a very interesting one, for it included a visit to the Dalmatian coast. I have several times visited the Dalmatian coast since, and I have always wondered how any one, who could afford the luxury of a yacht, did not make a point of making the Adriatic the main objective of his Mediter[101]ranean cruise. It really is a most enchanting part of the world, and the pleasantest way of visiting it, is from the sea, beginning at Venice and working steadily down the coast to Corfu. Apart from the absorbing interest there is in seeing one civilisation literally on the top of another, as is exemplified in the Palace of Diocletian, which now is practically turned into the fair-sized town of Spalato, all down the coast it is easy to see that Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Hungarians, Genoese, and, above all, Venetians, have, in their turn, left the impress of their various civilisations. In addition, the beauty of some of the harbours is quite beyond my powers of description. Cattaro, one of the most important, is perhaps also the finest as regards scenery. Approaching it from the sea, the ship has to pass through the narrow winding entrance known as “le Bocche.” On either side, in addition to the modern fortifications constructed by the Austrians, the remains of ancient bastions and most picturesque little villages meet the eye. Finally, the great harbour is reached. Surrounded by precipitous mountains, it is completely landlocked, and there is anchorage there for half the war fleets of Europe. At the head of the bay is the town of Cattaro. Perched, as it is, on the side of a steep hill, surrounded by high walls with occasional towers, so thoroughly medi?val is it still, that it looks like the background of one of Doré’s fantastic illustrations of the Contes Drolatiques. Corfu, too, is lovely. The view over the harbour, with Ulysses Island and the old Venetian fortress as a foreground, the bay, with its islands as a middle distance,[102] and the Albanian Mountains as a background, forms a picture that is quite unforgettable.
But to return to our cruise. Off Venice the heavy ships of the squadron were anchored at Malamocco, which, just outside the canals, is some considerable distance from the town of Venice, but on a summer’s night it was not an unpleasant thing to return in what was called a “four-horse” gondola in the early hours of the morning. Pola, the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was one of our ports of call, and the visit was quite an enjoyable one; the Austrian Naval Officers were very civil and hospitable, and their Commander-in-Chief at that time was a man who had been Flag-Lieutenant to Admiral Tegethoff at the battle of Lissa. In conversation with Austrian Naval Officers it was possible to appreciate some of the difficulties of that patchwork Empire. For instance, so mixed were the nationalities of their men-of-war crews that it was necessary for an officer to be able to speak to his men in at least four different languages—Czech, Slav, Italian, and German; small wonder that, owing to the stress of the late war and the complete victory of the Allies, what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire is now completely disintegrated.
At Trieste I made the acquaintance of two very interesting people, Sir Richard and Lady Burton. He was then British Consul there. The British Consular Service has always been woefully starved, the result being that, as a general rule, a number of very ill-paid posts are filled up by small local purveyors, who find it worth while to fly the union Jack over their place[103] of business; but at Trieste, at any rate, two men of great distinction were Consuls during my lifetime, one being Charles Lever the novelist, and the other Sir Richard Burton, the great explorer and Oriental scholar and writer.
The Fleet worked its way steadily down the Dalmatian coast, calling at Zara, Sebenico, Ragusa, Spalato, Cattaro, and, to my taste, not staying nearly long enough at any of these interesting places, the reason being, I suppose, that we were there for Fleet exercises and man?uvres, and not for sight-seeing. Sir Beauchamp, however, did go himself for one inland trip from Cattaro. He drove to Cettigne, on a short visit to call on the Prince of Montenegro. From what he told me some time after I do not think that he was much impressed either with this reigning princelet or with what he described as his “little bicoque” of a royal residence. After a short stay at Cattaro, the Fleet proceeded to Corfu, where it remained for some time. The Aline was still in attendance on the Condor, and many were the pleasant afternoons spent on board of her, sailing about that beautiful bay. After Corfu, the Fleet proceeded to Eastern waters, visiting countless islands of the Greek Archipelago of surpassing beauty. In that part of the world it may truthfully be said, that, “only man is vile!”
The winter was passed mainly at Malta, but the Superb was privileged to go on an independent cruise to the Coast of Syria, and we passed the greater part of the month in that paradise of the sportsman. Ayas Bay was our headquarters. It is conveniently situated in[104] the Gulf of Alexandretta, or Iskanderun as it is called by the Turks. It has a good anchorage for big ships, so the Superb could, and did, lay there very comfortably. We officers divided ourselves into two parties, taking our leave in turn—one party remained on board the ship and did perpetual duty, while the members of the other, camped out about twenty miles inland and shot to their hearts’ content. We organised a small camel transport to carry our tents and general camp equipment, and hired ponies for our own use. The first detachment rode away and established the camp, and at the end of the week left the camp standing, rode back to the ship to relieve those on duty, who, taking the ponies, went back inland for their turn of sport. Game abounded; francolin, woodcock and every sort of wild fowl, formed the greater part of the bag, and although we were a very moderate lot of shots we really amassed altogether quite a respectable total—enough to give both officers and men a welcome change of diet. It was at Ayas, too, that I first made the acquaintance of the late Lord Kitchener. He was then a young Engineer Officer employed by the Foreign Office as one of their Intelligence Officers in the Euphrates Valley district. He came on board the ship on her arrival, and helped us to organise the camel transport that was necessary for our shooting expedition. Many years afterwards, it was my fate to see him organising transport of a very different kind, and on an enormous scale, for the advance of the British Army on Pretoria during the South African War.
Altogether we had a delightful time at Ayas. The[105] climate was divine. Although it was mid-winter there was brilliant sunshine all day, with a wonderfully bracing air. The nights were very chill, but under canvas, with plenty of blankets, the cold was rather pleasant than otherwise. The rest of that really delightful winter was spent at Malta. There was plenty of pony racing, and I was lucky enough to ride a winner belonging to a very old friend and messmate on board the Superb, the present Admiral Sir Charles Graves Sawle, one of his ponies having, in my hands, won the hurdle race at the Spring Meeting.
But this peaceful time was rapidly coming to an end. In the spring of 1882 things in Egypt were evidently going from bad to worse, so in May the Fleet was ordered to cruise in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and off that port the bulk of the Fleet patrolled backwards and forwards for weeks whilst the members of the Government were trying (very slowly, it seemed to us!) to make up their minds as to what steps should be taken. Early in June the Fleet was ordered to enter the port of Alexandria, the heavier ships—Alexandra, Superb, Sultan, Temeraire, Inflexible—anchoring outside, while the inside squadron consisted of ships of lighter draught—the Penelope and Monarch joined up with the Invincible, the temporary flagship of Sir Beauchamp Seymour, who had been there since the middle of May. The smaller craft attached to the Fleet consisted of the Hecla, a torpedo depot vessel, the gun-vessels and gunboats, Condor, Bittern, Beacon, Cygnet, Decoy, and the dispatch vessel Helicon.
It is none of my business to comment on the situation[106] at that time in Egypt, but probably every reasonable man would now agree with Lord Salisbury, who, when exposing the vacillating policy which the Government exhibited for weeks and months, instanced as a direct result that the massacre of Alexandria which took place on June 11th,—(of which I was a spectator and will chronicle more anon),—amounted, amongst other details, to British subjects being “butchered under the very guns of the Fleet, which had never budged an inch to save them.” But, after all, nothing more can be expected of the “great Parliamentarian,”—and I imagine that not even the most bigoted of Tories would grudge the late Mr. Gladstone that measure of compliment. I also suppose that no man but a politician of Mr. Gladstone’s commanding intellect and reputation could inform Parliament, a fortnight after Alexandria had been bombarded and when some 40,000 troops were on their way to Egypt, that the country “was not at war.” But, as I remarked in my Introduction, “I love an Artist,” and surely no greater political artist ever flourished than the man we still hear spoken of with such love and veneration as “Mr. G.”
On Sunday, the 11th of June, the situation apparently remaining fairly quiet, leave was given to officers and chief petty officers, and, cooped up as we had all been when cruising off Alexandria, nearly every one not required for duty took the opportunity of going ashore. I was one of those who landed, and I cannot better describe what I saw of the events of that day than by inserting a copy of a letter which I wrote at the time to my brother, then Viscount Ebrington, M.P. This[107] letter was probably the earliest account received by post, and when shown to Sir Charles Dilke, the then Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was, by his wish, forwarded to The Times, which duly published it:—
“The Massacre at Alexandria.
“The following private letter has been received from an officer in the Fleet:—
“Off Alexandria, June 16th, 1882.
“My dear ——, . . . We are dwelling in the midst of alarms, with our loins girded, etc., all ready to knock down forts and otherwise protect British interests. That was a deuce of a row last Sunday, and we were all precious lucky to get back to the ship alive. I fancy the row was arranged by Arabi, so that he could have the pleasure of putting it down; but, like every other row, it had to have some raison d’être, and this was easily found in a squabble between some Arabs and Greeks. The Arabs began to break windows, and the Greeks produced firearms, and let fly amongst them. I was in the same street about a couple of hundred yards off, and saw the stones flying and the shooting; but though there were Arabs all about us, they never made an attempt to annoy us in any way. Presently up came some troops, all anyhow, without a single officer, and began to blaze away with great impartiality; but it struck us all that for choice they went for the Europeans. We, being between the bulk of the mob and the troops, and seeing people beginning to drop, thought, on the whole, we were not very happily placed, and having by the blessing of Providence found ourselves near a door, executed a strategic movement to the left, got inside the door, and locked it. The house we got into turned out to be a sort of monastery school, and there we remained for over an hour. Meanwhile, outside the fun was becoming decidedly fast and furious. The soldiers pegged away merrily, and the Arabs looted. We could see them through the shutters carrying off all sorts of trash—toys, chairs, baths (and what could an Arab do with a bath?)—in fact, anything they could lay hands on. Presently, the soldiers having[108] evidently got our part of the town into something like order, we strolled out trying to look as if we were not in a funk, and in fact rather liked it. My friend and I were just getting into a trap to drive down to the landing-place, when an Egyptian policeman, who could speak English, came up and told us it was certain death to drive down where we were going, as the mob were at their worst there, and were hauling the people out of the cabs and cutting their throats. We at once came to the conclusion that we would give up our drive, and went to the nearest consulate, where we waited till the disturbance was over.
“All this was child’s play compared to what happened to another lot. About half an hour before we got to the consulate four of our fellows—a great friend of mine (S.), a little Swede we are educating on board here, one of our doctors and an engineer got into a cab, and proceeded to drive down. All of a sudden they were surrounded by a mob of Arabs, who stopped the horses and went for them with their sticks. Being, of course, completely unarmed, they ran—S. and the Swede on one side, and the doctor and engineer the other. Dear old S., having been rather a professor at football in the days of his youth, being very strong and quick on his pins, and the little Swede also being as hard as nails, they managed to get through the brutes, with no injury except a good hammering all over. Of the others, one was stabbed and beaten to death, and the other, who is still in bed, after being beaten most frightfully, managed to crawl up to a soldier, who, for a wonder, behaved like a trump, stood over him with a fixed bayonet, and finally shoved him into a house, where he stopped all night, and was fetched on board next day, poor chap, in a most pitiable condition.
“And now comes the most extraordinary thing of all. One of our chief petty officers was ashore on leave. Our poor engineer was picked up by another trap going the other way, and was taken to the police-station. As he was being helped out of the trap, another Arab came up, banged him over the head and knocked him down. The petty officer went for the beast with a common thorn walking-stick he had in his hand, jammed it into his mouth with such force that it came out behind the ear, and killed him dead. There certainly is a Providence watching over sailors, because this fellow was hardly[109] touched. When he came on board and said that he had killed his Arab, as before described, nobody believed him. However, it turned out to be absolutely true.
“The telegrams will have told you more than we know about the numbers killed, but there is no doubt that they finished off at least sixty Europeans, and Heaven only knows how many Arabs.”
Nowadays there are few Englishmen who have not served in the Army or Navy in some capacity, so they will be able to appreciate how the month dragged its weary way along from the 11th of June to the 11th of July, when at last we were permitted to “get a little of our own back” by bombarding the forts. Meanwhile we had fretted and raged at the idea, of Englishmen, many of whom were officers in the Navy, being treated like dogs by a lot of half-naked Arabs, and that we, though on the spot and serving in a powerful Fleet, were not allowed to retaliate. I have never witnessed such discontent as existed, and certainly on board my own ship the cases of men refusing to obey orders became commoner every day; but while the officers and men of the Service suffered, they could expect no sympathy from the gentlemen of the House of Commons for anything so ordinary as the ill-treatment of British subjects. Among the members of that House of Parliament there are always men who have no enemies in the world except their own countrymen, and the rest of them are engaged in that most amusing and engrossing sport known as “Politics.” Anything outside the region of political exigencies matters nothing to them. I have the opinion of one of the ablest of them that ever lived in support of this theory. Years ago I was[110] travelling back from a race meeting with Lord Randolph Churchill, and I well remember his conversation. He told me he had tried most things in the shape of excitement. He admitted that big game shooting was excellent fun, that engineering a successful coup on the Turf (and he and his racing partner, Lord Dunraven, had lately pulled off a remarkably successful coup when that good mare l’Abbesse de Jouarre won a great handicap) was enthralling; but he went on to say that nothing in the world was half so engrossing, as were the almost daily intrigues and man?uvres that formed the meat and drink of the politician. But this is a digression, and I must return to Alexandria.
During the ensuing month Alexandria was being rapidly deserted, and an enormous number of refugees of all nations were being deported as rapidly as possible to their homes. Commander Lord Charles Beresford was placed in charge, and the work of chartering ships for the embarkation of passengers was no light one. So far as the Superb was concerned, our first duty, after the massacre, was to embark a number of corpses, one being that of our own engineer officer. Many others were those of men in the Fleet. We had to take them out to sea, and, in the words of our Burial Service, commit them to the deep. Bluejackets have not the smallest objection to seeing their comrades buried at sea when there are obvious reasons for so doing, but they bitterly resented being sent to sea to bury their dead when there was a Christian churchyard ashore, and this was another cause of much of the discontent of which I have spoken. Mercifully, things[111] in England were improving. Public indignation forced the Government reluctantly to take action, and the Admiral was allowed to send an ultimatum, which I believe was principally to the effect that if the work of strengthening the coast fortifications still proceeded the Fleet would bombard and destroy the forts. Arabi replied by bringing more troops to Alexandria and continued to labour on the coast defences, so at last, on July 10th, all merchant ships and foreign men-of-war were ordered out of the harbour, and at 6 a.m., July 11th, the bombardment began.
I am not proposing to write any sort of description of the bombardment as a whole, but am simply relating what came under my personal observation as a lieutenant commanding a battery on board the Superb. The Superb mounted twelve 18-ton muzzle-loading 10-inch guns in her main battery. My old comrade, the above-mentioned Lieutenant Charles Graves Sawle, commanded the six guns that were mounted on one side, and I commanded the other six. There were then no hydraulic lifts or mechanical appliances of any sort, so what really happened in action was that the side that was unengaged hoisted the shell up by hand from the bowels of the ship, and the engaged battery fired them off. My own battery was terribly under-officered when my side was in action. To assist me to control the firing of six 400-pounders (to revert to the old-fashioned measurement) I had only one subaltern of marines and one midshipman. It may be imagined how difficult it was to give orders and exercise control with something like a hundred men rushing projectiles[112] up from the shell-room on one side, while the guns on my engaged side were in action with all the accompanying noise of firing and the clanking of chains and winches for the process of training and loading the guns. After some rather wild shooting at the commencement, when the men, owing to their keenness, were difficult to restrain, we settled down steadily to work, and at last we were able to appreciate by actual practice how scandalous was the sighting of our guns; how poor their shooting capacity, and how faulty their projectiles. Ten years before Alexandria, the French Navy possessed a breech-loading heavy gun, working on the same principle as does our gun of to-day; but owing, I believe, to the wiseacres at Woolwich at the time of which I write, our guns were provided for us by soldiers, and the Navy was condemned to go on with these ridiculous muzzle-loaders.
The first part of the bombardment was carried out by the outside squadron under weigh, but we soon found that, when moving, it was impossible to make, with our weapons, any sort of accurate shooting, so the squadron was anchored. Luckily for us, the Egyptian guns were practically just as faulty as our own, their ammunition was a great deal worse, and their shooting beneath contempt, so the damage done to the fleet was very slight, and the casualties were trifling. After a long day’s firing the Egyptians were driven away from their guns, and a considerable amount of damage was done to the forts. One lucky shot from the Superb’s battery set fire to the magazine of Fort Adah, which we were then engaging, and blew it up, and that[113] brought the day to a conclusion as far as my ship was concerned.
Although the Egyptians had been driven from their guns, their powers for mischief had by no means come to an end, and the very next day the town of Alexandria was set on fire and looted. The Khedive being in considerable danger in his palace at Ramleh, he was safely moved to another palace at Ras el Tin, situated on the peninsula of that name, which had been occupied by a landing-party of bluejackets and marines, and a few days afterwards I was landed in command of a company of bluejackets to form part of the garrison of Ras el Tin, our duty being to ensure the safety of the Khedive. Like all sailors, we were delighted to get out of the ship, but I do not know that we were much better off than our brother officers who were left on board. It sounded very Oriental and romantic to be quartered in a harem, but as the harem was very stuffy and dirty, and only inhabited by swarms of flies, it did not quite come up to my ideas of Eastern luxury.
But events were beginning to move—the fires in Alexandria were gradually got under, and order had been restored to the town by the unceasing exertions of Lord Charles Beresford. He began his work ashore with only 140 men under him, bluejackets and marines, who, to use his own words, “had to patrol the town, stop the looting, stop the fresh burning of houses, bury the corpses, and protect the lives of those who had come on shore.” His force was subsequently increased by 600 marines, and they were assisted by a[114] mixed force of Americans, Germans, Greeks, and Italians. Moreover, for cleaning-up purposes, he succeeded in hiring Arab labour. By the 21st all the fires were out and the city was beginning to reassume its normal shape, and on the 1st August he was able to turn over his post as Provost-Marshal and Chief-of-Police at Alexandria to the Military Authorities and return to his ship.
The late Admiral Lord Beresford did much good service for his country in many capacities and for many years; but I greatly doubt whether he ever performed a much finer piece of work than when Chief-of-Police at Alexandria.
Soon, troops began to pour into Egypt. On the 17th between 2000 and 3000 were landed under the command of General Sir Archibald Alison, and shortly afterwards all the sailors ashore were relieved by soldiers. By the 15th August, when the General Commander-in-Chief, Sir Garnet Wolseley, arrived, the bulk of his army, some 40,000 men, were either landed in Egypt or else on board transports at Alexandria. Sir Garnet was, without any doubt, one of the ablest soldiers this country has produced since the days of Wellington, and nobody knew better than he how to disseminate false information that was sure to trickle through and deceive the enemy.
On the 18th August the Superb received orders to form part of an escorting squadron of iron-clads, destined to shepherd the transports to some destination, name unknown. Gradually a whisper went round that Aboukir Bay was to be the jumping-off[115] place for the invasion of Egypt. It was rumoured that Sir Garnet had confided the fact to one man,—it was not quite sure whether the man was his Chief of the Staff or an influential Pressman. As to this, opinions differed. Anyhow, the one man in question had been told under the seal of profound secrecy that Aboukir was the destination of the transports. He must have babbled in his sleep, for obviously he would not knowingly have betrayed the confidence of the Commander-in-Chief, but however it might have been, the rumour spread, and many hours before we started there was not a soul on board the combined fleet of iron-clads and transports who was not thoroughly convinced that we were going to Aboukir. The night before we started I succeeded in collecting three of my brothers, who were serving at the time, to dine with me on board my ship. One, subsequently killed at Diamond Hill, outside Pretoria, in the South African Campaign, was on leave from his regiment, the 17th Lancers, from India, and was trying to get the Military Authorities in Cairo to give him a temporary job; the second was in the Coldstream Guards, and was on board one of the transports that was under our charge, and anchored close by, he died in 1895; and the third, then a Midshipman in the Carysfort, was fated to be drowned a few years later, when a Sub-Lieutenant on the gunboat Wasp, that went down in the China Seas with all hands, and was never heard of again. I rather doubt whether we four brothers had ever been all together before, but we certainly never met all together again.
[116]
The next morning the transports and their convoy weighed, and proceeded to Aboukir, and a very imposing spectacle they made. Each iron-clad was in charge of three large transports, by which means quite respectable station could be kept, and, unlike most convoys, there were no stragglers.
Just before arriving at Aboukir Bay, as the Fleet was preparing to anchor and excitement was at its highest, a signal was made directing us all to steer on a certain course, and some hours later we found ourselves at the entrance to the Suez Canal, of which entire possession had been already taken by another portion of the Fleet. Suez had, meanwhile, been seized by Admiral Hewett. The transports were passed as rapidly through the canal as possible, with the view of disembarking their troops at Ismailia, and we remained in masterly inactivity off Port Said.
It was at that time that I suffered one of the greatest disappointments in my life, and I can still recall the absolute tears of rage and mortification that I shed. A night or two after our arrival at Port Said, unluckily for me, I had kept the middle watch, from midnight until 4 a.m. Very shortly after 4 a.m. a signal was made to the ships in harbour to land a Naval Brigade for service at the front, the force to be ready to start in two hours’ time. The officer of the morning watch took the signal to the Captain, who at once gave the necessary orders. By right of seniority I should have been selected, but when the Captain was informed that I had just turned in after night duty, he decided not to disturb me and sent a lieutenant who was my[117] junior instead. When I appeared next morning, about eight, I was told the news, and I fairly tore my hair out with vexation. I insisted on seeing the Captain, and he quite agreed that, without meaning any harm, he had treated me badly; but no reparation was possible, for it was too late, the Naval Brigade being already some miles up the Canal in the tug that was conveying them. Philosophy does sometimes fail to bring comfort, and mine for the moment became a negligible quantity. I did succeed in getting up to Cairo a little later for a short time, after its occupation by the British troops, but in the days of one’s youth it seemed a bitter disappointment not to have been at Tel-el-Kebir, and not to have marched into Cairo as part of the victorious army.
The Superb’s portion of this Naval Brigade was landed in such haste that nothing had been provided for the officers and men of the force in the way of camp equipment, not so much as a kettle. When they arrived at the front the Chief Petty Officer reported this fact to the Lieutenant in command, and they put their heads together as to what steps to take. The C.P.O. was an old warrior who had served in the Naval Brigade at Perak, so by his advice the officer made himself scarce for an hour or two, and when he returned he found all things in readiness for supper, a large kettle swinging over the fire, and a general air of comfort. He subsequently asked his C.P.O. how he managed to provide all these necessaries, and this was the answer: “Well, sir, I don’t exactly know, but I do hear that there is a . . . row in the Scots Guards Camp!”