The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Part of the ridge was so sharp that we were forced to sit on it and to proceed astride. Then we came to the pinnacle. The ascent was so sharp and difficult that we were obliged to take off both shoes and socks. At one point, I lost my balance, and was only saved from falling backwards by Hele's ready hand. Climbing the pinnacle was far more difficult than scaling the overhanging boulder at the top. At the top of the pinnacle there was just room to stand beneath the overhanging boulder. The only possible method of climbing the boulder was to get the rope ladder over the top of it. Accordingly, one end of the rope ladder was attached to the lead-line. In order to swing the lead, one of us was roped with a round turn round his body, while the other, lying on his back, held the rope while the leadsman, leaning right backwards and outwards over the sheer precipice of some 3000 feet fall, swung the lead. We took it in turns to swing the lead; as we leaned outwards, the rock spread over our heads like an umbrella; and it was an hour and a half before we succeeded in casting it over the boulder. Then we hauled the rope ladder over and made all fast. It was too short, and the last few yards we hauled ourselves up hand over hand. So we climbed to the top, which is a platform of about 20 feet square. It was then 1.59 p.m. We took off our shirts, and waved them to the warships lying far below in the bay, from which we were plainly to be distinguished with the aid of a telescope. The ships each saluted us with one gun. We planted on the summit a flag upon whose staff were carved our names and the names of our ships. When we returned, my brother officers gave us a dinner to celebrate the event.

Hele was eventually promoted to warrant officer. When Hele died, I was able to help his son to gain his education, and he did very well. It was in Mauritius that we went out shooting with the native population; one of the most dangerous amusements in which I have ever taken part, for the bullets used to whistle in the air all round us.

From Mauritius we proceeded to Cape Town. Here, on the 12th July, 1870, the Duke inaugurated the new harbour, breakwater and docks. I kept a team on shore, and used to drive up from Simon's Bay to Cape Town. Every now and then we stuck in a quicksand. On one such occasion I had a brother officer with me; and as he was afflicted with a cold, I took him on my back to save him from wet feet. But I fell with him, and we were both soaked to the skin. Upon another day, when we stuck, I put two of my messmates on the leaders, and they pulled the coach right through. If you want horses to pull a weight out of a tight place, put weight on their backs.

The Colonial Secretary at Cape Town was Mr. Southey. He was a most delightful and sagacious person, and became a great friend of mine. He prophesied in a most wonderful way what would be the future of South Africa.

"If," said he, "we could only get a big man, a master-mind, to come out here, all that I foresee would come true."

The right man presently arrived in the person of the late Cecil John Rhodes, and my friend's prophecies have been most singularly fulfilled.

While at the Cape, we went up country, shooting. Both Dutch and English families were most kind and hospitable to us. Upon one of these expeditions, a member of the staff went out by himself very early in the morning to shoot. Observing some ostriches in the distance, he stalked them with immense labour and patience, and presently succeeded in shooting a couple of birds. When he returned, he complained that it had been very difficult to get his sights on, owing to some high rails which were between himself and the birds. It had not occurred to him that he had been stalking tame ostriches on a farm.

I once rode from Cape Town to Simon's Town and back, between lunch and dinner, galloping the whole distance, with four changes of horses. The distance between the two places is about 35 miles as the crow flies. My errand was merely to postpone the arrival of a visitor who was to come to the Galatea.

The ride, however, showed that I was in good condition. I have always tried to keep myself fit, holding that condition of body regulates condition of mind. Cheery people deserve small credit, because their frame of mind is due to their being right inside. Quarrelsome people are wrong inside.

On our way to England we touched at the Falkland Islands where I visited a relative of mine who kept a ranch. He used bull-dogs to catch his bulls, when he required them for branding. The dogs seized the bulls by the nose and held them while they were lassoed by the guachos.

When we touched at Montevideo, I remember conversing with various persons, who foretold the immense profit which must eventually accrue if the land there was purchased at that time. Their opinion has since proved true. But I had no money to invest; so that the opportunity was only another instance of what might have been.

The Galatea was badly strained in a gale of wind, her deck seams opening so that the water streamed into the cabins beneath. One lieutenant used to say to another:

"How did you sleep last night? It was pretty rough.

"Woke at one o'clock and saw them reefing tops'ls" – meaning that, lying in bed, he could see clear through the seams.

I used my sail-making ability to make a canvas awning for my bed; fitted it with a ridge rope, laced it down and hauled it taut, led a trough from it to take the water into the slop-pail; and slept dry under it.

It was during the visit of the Galatea to Australia that I was made a Freemason; and I have always regretted that I have never been able to devote as much time to Masonry as I should have liked to give to the Craft. The Australian Lodge into which I was admitted was under the impression that I was the most timid neophyte who had ever joined it.

When the ceremony was ended, one of the members of the Lodge said to me:

"You are safely through it. But do you know that of all the men we have had through this lodge, we never had one so paralysed with fear as yourself. You were shivering like an aspen!"

The fact was that during the initiatory ceremonies something unaccountably struck me as extraordinarily funny. The effort to subdue my emotions caused me to tremble all over.

One of our diversions in the Galatea when she was at sea, was to listen to the conversations which used repeatedly to occur between a certain worthy member of the Duke's suite and the old quartermaster. The member of the staff in question had endeared himself to us by his high seriousness. He dealt with the most trifling incidents of life in a spirit of preternatural and wholly sincere solemnity. Supposing that you told him that a common friend had fallen off his horse and bruised his leg, our member of staff would instantly ship a countenance of intense concern.

"Bruised his leg? You don't say so! Good God! Has he indeed?"

"Yes – he's bruised his leg!"

"Has he now? Well, well. Bruised his leg! I hope it's not serious. I do hope it's not serious. Tut-tut! Bruised his leg, you say?"

"It's not serious. But he's bruised his leg."

"I'm delighted to hear it's not serious. But – bruised his leg. I am really distressed."

And so on.

Among other matters, our friend took his family very seriously. One of his ancestors had been an admiral; and it was this distinguished officer who made the link between the member of staff and the quartermaster. The member of staff used to stroll on the quarterdeck in the evening, and fall into talk with the seamen.

"Well, Jones. Good evening, Jones. I suppose, now, you've heard of my uncle, the admiral?"

"Heard of 'im, sir? I should think I 'ad heard of 'im. Ah, he was a man, he was. He could handle a ship, he could – ah, and handle the men, too!"

"Why, where did you serve with him, Jones?"

"Where, sir? Where not? All over the world, sir. Ah, he was a man!"

"I'm delighted to meet anyone who knew a member of my family so well, Jones – delighted, I assure you."

"Knew 'im? Why, sir, to know 'im was to admire 'im, as the saying is. Many a time I've seen the men turn out for to admire 'im, sir.

"Have you indeed, Jones – have you indeed! Dear me. Most interesting, I am sure. I daresay a glass of grog would not come amiss to you, Jones?"

"Wery kind of you, I'm sure, sir. It 'ud be a pleasure to drink your health, and the admiral's too, sir. Ah, he was a man!"

Mr Jones, afterwards, forward on the lower deck, to envious friends:

"Pretty sweet conversation that, mates. I wonder 'oo the b – y h – l 'is uncle might 'a been!"

There was another member of the suite who surely deserves record – the elephant. He was really a member of the ship's company, for he could do, and did, the work of twenty men. He joined the ship in India, when he was quite small, and he grew enormously on board. He lived in a house built aft, and fed upon branches of trees and bran and biscuits and anything he could get. I trained him myself. I taught him to obey the words of command, and he would do anything for me. He would hoist me upon his shoulders with a fore foot, or upon his back with a hind foot. In the dinner hour, when most of the men were below, he used to take his share in working the ship. We slung the rope in a bowline round his neck, and he would clew up the mainsail by walking on till he was told to stop. He was never seasick. He used to balance himself, swaying to and fro as the ship rolled. One night when the midshipmen and I, having supper on deck aft, were called forward to trim sails, the elephant finished the meal for us. He ate everything on the table, put his foot on the plates and smashed them, and squashed the big coffee-tin quite flat. Then he looked at us like a naughty child.

I was the only person who could persuade him to leave the ship or to come on board again when he had been ashore. When we reached home, he was put in a railway truck and directed to the Zoological Gardens. His keeper, a marine artilleryman, went with him in the truck. Elephants have a habit of rolling on their feet and squirming their vast bulk. When the marine was trying to pass the elephant, the great beast unconsciously pinned his keeper against the side of the truck, and against a projecting bolt, which broke the man's rib, forcing it into his heart. He was taken out dead.

CHAPTER XIII

FLAG-LIEUTENANT AT PLYMOUTH

In 1871, I was appointed flag-lieutenant to Admiral (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet) the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, commander-in-chief at Plymouth. His flag was flown in the Royal Adelaide. Sir Harry, as already recorded, had been commander-in-chief upon the China station when the Duke of Edinburgh visited Japan, and had accompanied his Royal Highness upon his visit to the Mikado. It was at Plymouth that I first had the honour of serving under Sir Harry Keppel: a splendid seaman, a most distinguished officer, a fine sportsman, one of the best and kindest of men.

Admiral the Hon. Victor Montagu, who served as a midshipman under Sir Harry, relates in his Reminiscences some interesting actions of his old captain, which I may be permitted to quote. Commodore Keppel distinguished himself by his personal gallantry and skilful leadership in the battle of Fatshan Creek, 1st June, 1857; of which a full account is given in Laird Clowes' The Royal Navy; and Admiral Montagu records his own recollections of the affair:

"During the many years in which I knew him I never once Sir Harry lose his temper, except when the Chinese war-junks beat us back on the first attack we had made on them… John Chinaman, seeing us retire, took the hint, and began making off himself, which so infuriated Harry Keppel that he jumped up on our paddle-box, shook his fist at the war-junks, some 500 or 600 yards away, and shouted out: 'You d – d rascals! I'll pay you out for this! Man the boats, boys – man the boats at once! The beggars are trying to escape!' I never saw such a rush. At no regatta could men have rowed faster."

Commodore Keppel commissioned the Raleigh frigate, 50 guns, for the China station. Admiral Montagu states that she was "the last man-of-war that ever sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour." Keppel would have none of your steam-tugs. "We ran out with a fair wind with studding-sails set on both sides." Alas! the Raleigh never came back any more. On 14th April, 1857, she struck a sunken rock in the China Seas, near Macao. Keppel's indomitable conduct turned a disaster into an achievement.

"Shortly afterwards," writes Admiral Montagu, who was a midshipman on board at the time, "we descried a French squadron lying at anchor in Macao Roads, with an admiral's flag flying, and, though we were firing minute guns of distress as the water gained on our pumps, Keppel, nothing daunted, called out: 'Up with the French flag. Give him his salute. Sinking or not, let the Frenchmen hear us.'"

A French frigate coming to the assistance of the Raleigh, her captain asked permission "to go below to see how high the water had risen in the ship. 'Oh,' said Keppel, 'don't go below; look down the hatchway.' 'Ah! mon Dieu!' exclaimed the captain." …

Keppel kept the pumps going, crowded sail on the ship, and finally beached her off Macao, just in time. He landed the ship's company, but himself stayed aboard the vessel, sleeping on the bridge. The stores and guns were saved. Keppel was deeply distressed at the loss of his fine ship, "which," he wrote, "brings my career as a captain to an end." Fortunately he was mistaken. In after years, when I told him that the Admiralty were about to build a second Raleigh, Keppel replied, "Very glad to hear it, my dear boy. I had the honour of losing the first one."

Admiral Montagu records that Keppel, while in command of the Raleigh, challenged an American clipper ship to race from Penang to Singapore. "We were constantly going at a speed of thirteen knots, during heavy squalls, close-hauled, and trailing the muzzles of our main-deck guns through the water on the lee side, and I sometimes used to turn into my hammock in abject terror, fearing that at any moment we might capsize."

Sir Harry Keppel was famous throughout the Service when I was appointed his flag-lieutenant. One of my first recollections of that office concerned an old-fashioned "Eighteen-hundred-and-war-time," peppery, strict-service captain, who, having just come home from the West Coast of Africa, asked to see the commander-in-chief. It happened that Sir Harry and myself were on the point of going out hunting when the old captain called, and the admiral was attired in hunting kit.