The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Great care was observed that orders relative to speed, and to the distance within which opposing fleets were not to trespass, were rigidly observed. Officers were informed that all peace manoeuvres must be regarded as a game, and that no game should be played unless the rules were implicitly obeyed. The principle was that no manoeuvre should last very long, being much more instructive if it were short, and were frequently practised.

The practice of taking the soldiers for short voyages was instituted. About twenty men of the Royal Garrison Artillery at Malta, with an officer, a sergeant and a corporal, were embarked in each vessel, the non-commissioned officers and men messing and working with the Royal Marines.

The periodical delivery of lectures by officers of all branches upon Service subjects was instituted, the lectures taking place under the presidency of the commander-in-chief at the Royal Naval Canteen, Malta. Discussions were encouraged, and a great deal of interest and enthusiasm was aroused.

My old friend and distinguished countryman, Sir George White, who was then Governor of Gibraltar, asked me to deliver a lecture to the soldiers of the garrison upon the advantages of temperance. In dealing with this subject, I always tell men to box, run, ride, row, and by all means to get physically fit, when they would be in a condition they would not forfeit for the sake of indulgence. On this occasion, I said that, although I was over sixty years of age, I could outlast a youngster in endurance, adding that "I never took any liquor now." The address must have been reported in the English papers; for I received a letter from a dear old lady (quite unknown to me) telling me how thankful she was that I, as a public man, had given up the dreadful vice of intoxication.

After I had consulted the head of every department in every ship collectively, two detailed plans of war organisation were drawn up: one, a plan of preparation for war; two, a plan for immediate action. The first contained the procedure to be followed if war was expected; the second, the procedure to be followed on the eve of an engagement. Both covered every detail of the internal organisation of every ship in the Fleet, and specified the duties of every officer, man and boy. These plans were circulated to the officers of the Fleet.

Another important element of preparation for war is the rapid and efficient repair of defects. Under the old system, a defect which could not be repaired by the ship's artificers – as for instance, a piece of work involving a heavy casting or forging – was left until the ship visited the dockyard, when the dockyard officials came on board, took measurements, executed the work and fitted it to the ship. The result was that there were many complaints of defective fitting.

Under the new system, introduced in the Mediterranean Fleet, all repairs which could not be effected in the ship, were specified by the ship's artificers, who also made measured drawings of the new work required. The specifications and drawings were forwarded by the senior officer to the dockyard, with directions that the work should be executed as soon as possible, so that upon the arrival of the ship at the dockyard, the required fitting would be at once supplied to the ship. It would then be fixed by the ship's artificers who had furnished the working drawings to the dockyard, and who, provided that the work was rightly executed, would thus be responsible both for accuracy of manufacture and of fitting. By this means, delay was avoided and the work was efficiently and promptly executed.

Before I left England to take up my appointment, I resolved to do my best to eradicate that curse of the Service, Malta fever. The authorities were naturally sceptical of my success; for, although many attempts had been made to solve the problem, no one had hitherto succeeded in abating the scourge.

Certain obvious precautions were at once enforced. Junior officers were not allowed to remain on shore after sunset, without overcoats; all milk received on board was boiled; the Fleet was kept away from Malta as much as possible during the dangerous months of June, July, August and September; and the officers and men of those ships which were at Malta during the summer, were sent upon long route marches and were afforded plenty of exercise to keep them fit. These measures reduced the number of cases of Malta fever from 197 of the previous year (1905) to 137.

But the main evil remained. A large number of cases contracted fever in the Royal Naval Hospital, to which they had been sent to be treated for other maladies, often requiring surgical treatment only. Great credit is due to Deputy-Inspector-General Robert Bentham for the improvements effected by his care and foresight. In order to prevent infection, every cot was furnished with mosquito curtains; the traps of all drains were kept clean and disinfected; and all milk supplied to the hospital was boiled. The patients disliked boiled milk; and as infected milk was smuggled in, the use of milk was forbidden altogether. An isolation ward for fever cases was provided. All openings were fitted with wire gauze and double doors.

The result was that in May, June and July, 1906, there were no cases of fever contracted in the hospital.

Finding that fever patients recovered so soon as they were to the westward of Gibraltar, the practice of sending all such cases away in the Maine hospital ship was instituted with excellent results. For example, of sixty-two cases sent away, all but fourteen had recovered by the time the ship reached England.

Deputy-Inspector-General Bentham was recommended by me for his services to the Admiralty; but his services did not meet with the recognition they deserved.

Shortly afterwards, the Malta Fever Commission completed the work, by discovering the bacillus of the disease, and by abolishing the goats, whose milk was the chief source of infection.

In October, 1905, the Prince and Princess of Wales, on their way to India in the Renown, were met at the Straits of Messina by the Mediterranean Fleet.

The centenary of the battle of Trafalgar, 21st October, 1905, was celebrated by the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta. A naval review was held on shore in the forenoon, three thousand officers and men taking part in it. Those captains of guns, including the Royal Marines, who had made five hits or more in the gunlayers' competition, 117 in number, were formed into a company on the right of the line and marched past first. At four o'clock in the afternoon, flags were half-masted. At half-past four o'clock, guards and bands being paraded facing aft, officers and men fallen in on the quarter-deck facing aft and uncovered, the colours of His Majesty's ships were dipped slowly and reverently; the bands played the Dead March, and at its conclusion the colours were slowly rehoisted.

His Majesty King Edward VII honoured the flagship with a visit on 14th April, 1906. About an hour before the King came on board, the awning over the quarter-deck caught fire, owing to a short circuit of the electric light. Lieutenant Gibbs, with great pluck and presence of mind, instantly climbed upon the awning and extinguished the flames with his hands, which were severely burned.

In March, 1906, the historic International Conference summoned to deal with Moroccan affairs, was assembled at Algeçiras. Conversing with some of the delegates, it seemed to me that an informal and a convivial meeting might cheer them up and perhaps help to cement a friendly understanding; and I invited them all to dine on board the flagship. In order to avoid the bristling difficulties connected with arrangements of precedence, the delegates were all embarked at the same time in the s.s. Margherita, lent to me for the occasion; and were all disembarked at the same time upon a platform erected at the level of the upper deck, being received by the full guard and saluted. For the same reason, no national anthems were performed. The President of the Conference the Duke of Almodovar, was given the place of honour at the dinner, the rest of the delegates sitting in the order of their seniority. The single toast of the evening was to "all Sovereignties and Republics," which needed no reply. After dinner, during which the massed bands of the Fleet played on the upper deck, the company adjourned to the quarterdeck. I was informed by one of the distinguished guests that the meeting had done much good, as the delegates had not hitherto had an opportunity of meeting informally together.

Upon the return of the delegates, magnesium lights arranged upon the ends of the breakwater were lighted as the Margherita passed between them, and a searchlight display of 140 lights was given by the Fleet.

Vice-Admiral Sir Harry Grenfell, second in command, was a most distinguished officer, a great sportsman, an accomplished athlete, and a charming friend. His premature death was a sad loss to the Service. Grenfell was so powerful a man that he could take a small pony under one arm and walk about with it. I saw him perform this feat at a luncheon party given by the Governor of Algeria, to whom the pony belonged.

Grenfell told me the story of his extraordinary adventure in Albania. The country is infested with wild and savage dogs, which are apt to attack the traveller. The Albanians do not resent the dogs being killed, if they are slain with a knife in self-defence; but to shoot them the Albanians consider a mortal offence. Being aware of their sentiments, I used to take with me a couple of Marines armed with boarding pikes when I went shooting in Albania.

But when Grenfell went, he was accompanied by another naval officer, named Selby, who, upon being attacked by a native dog, shot it. A party of Albanians thereupon closed in upon Grenfell and Selby and attacked them. There was a fierce struggle, in the course of which one of the guns went off, the charge killing an Albanian. The accident so infuriated the rest that they beat Selby, as they thought, to death. They smashed in his skull, so that the brains protruded, and left him for dead. Then they took Grenfell, lashed his hands behind his back, set him on a three-legged stool, put the bight of a rope round his neck, and secured the other end to the branch of a tree, hauling it taut. There they left him, in the hope that the stool would slip and that he would be strangled. He remained in that position for three hours.

In the meantime the interpreter who had come with Grenfell had run to fetch an official of the country. The official arriving, released Grenfell. Selby, dreadfully wounded as he was, actually walked back to the ship, and lived until the next day.

But strong as Grenfell was, his terrible experience left him with an extraordinary optical affliction. He was constantly haunted by the illusion of an enormous ape, which he plainly saw both by day and by night. He used to behold the phantom enter the room and sit on a chair; and if a visitor came to see him, he would ask the visitor to take the chair upon which the ape was sitting; whereupon the spectre would move to another place. I am glad to say that he was eventually cured of this distressing affection.

An Irish lieutenant of a regiment at Malta told me the following pathetic story in a broad Irish brogue, his natural way of speaking:

"Me little brother and meself were very fond of rhabitting. The loikely place was the family cemetery. There were lashings of holes within it. One day by-and-by the ferret himself laid up, and with that we dug him (bad cess to the work). We out wid a shkull. Me little brother he says, 'That's profanation; it will be the shkull of an ancestor,' says he. 'Niver moind that,' says I, 'we'll have a joke wid it.' I ensconced it in me pockut. On getting within, I passed through the kitcher and dhropped me ancestor's shkull (God forgive me!) into the stock-pot. All went very well till dinner and we through wid it, when the cook burst in in great qualms, and sheloodering at haste to me poor mother, says she,

"'Glory be to God and save us, Milady, we are all desthroyed intirely, for there's a man in the soup,' she says."

The same lieutenant went out shooting quail at Malta with a revolver, and hit a Maltese in the wrong place, for which error he was heavily fined.

When children's picnic parties were given on board the Bulwark, a quantity of sand was heaped in a well upon the quarter-deck; spades and buckets were provided; and the children dug in the sand to find presents. When that entertainment failed, the bluejackets, ensconced in barrels, performed Aunt Sally, bobbing up their heads, at which the children threw light sticks, and which they invariably missed. I noticed a small boy of about seven years old, a Spaniard, who stood a little way off, contemplating this performance with his large dark eyes, his hands behind his back. Presently, with air of abstraction, he strolled quietly to the back of a barrel, where the deck was littered with thrown sticks. Suddenly he picked up a stick, dodged swiftly to the front of the barrel, and as the seaman's head shot up, hit the poor fellow right on the nose, making it bleed. Then the little wretch roared with laughter and capered in his joy.

On the 19th January, 1907, I took leave of the Fleet with very great regret, and left Malta in the Bulwark, homeward bound.

CHAPTER LIII

SPORTING MEMORIES

I. RIDING AND DRIVING

I rode my first race in Corfu, as a midshipman. An old colonel of artillery, who knew my father, said to me:

"You are a Beresford, an Irishman, and a sailor, and if you can't ride, who can? You shall ride my horse in the next race. He is a hard puller, and if only you stick on he will win."

He was a hard puller, and he did win. I rode in my midshipman's uniform, and lost my cap, and won the race. But the horse ran three times round the course before I could pull him up.

I have always said that you can do anything with horses if you understand them. It was at a dinner party in my house in Eaton Square that I offered to put that statement to the proof. The table at which my guests were sitting was designed with a large tank in the centre, which was filled with running water, in which grew ferns and aquatic plants. Gold fish swam in the water, and little new-born ducklings oared upon the surface. This miniature lake was diversified with spirals and fountains fashioned of brass which I had turned myself.

Among the company was an old friend, Harry Chaplin, than whom there is no finer sportsman in England and who was perhaps the best heavy-weight rider to hounds in England.

I told my guests that I would bring in one of my horses (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 knew no 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 with aquadente, and placed me on his horse. The scent and sting of the aquadente revived the moribund, and by the evening I was all right again.

In the Research, 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. The Research was 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 the Research to 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 in The Waterford News at the time. (The Waterford News, 4th January, 1901. Account by Mr. Harry Sargant, from his Thoughts upon Sport, and description in The 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.