CHAPTER XXXVIII

H.M.S. UNDAUNTED (_Continued_)

II. THE SALVING OF THE SEIGNELAY

The _Undaunted_, lying at Alexandria in 1891, was being rigged up for a

ball; when a telegram arrived ordering her to go to the rescue of the

French cruiser _Seignelay_, which had gone ashore near Jaffa, on 26th

April. The telegram arrived at one o'clock in the morning of the 28th

April. Before daylight, the ball-room was unrigged, the decorations

were taken down, 300 guests were put off by telegram, and we were

steaming at full speed to the _Seignelay_, distant 270 miles. In a

private letter printed in _The Times_ of 20th October, 1894, describing

the affair, the anonymous writer says: "It was a good sample of the

vicissitudes of naval life, and I think we all rather enjoyed it." (I

do not know who wrote the letter, but it must have been one of my

officers; who, without my knowledge, published it, or sanctioned its

publication, more than a year after the _Undaunted_ had paid off. The

proprietors of _The Times_ have kindly given me permission to quote

from the document, which was written at the time of the occurrence of

the events which it describes, and which contains details I had

forgotten.)

At daylight on 29th April, we found the _Seignelay_ driven high up on a

sandy beach, embedded in five and a half feet of sand in shallow water.

She had parted her cable in a gale of wind, had driven on shore, and

had scooped out a dock for herself. Had she been built with a round

stern {379} each succeeding wave of the sea would have lifted and then

dropped her, bumping her to pieces. But as she had a sharp stern, the

breakers lifted her bodily and floated her farther on. The _Seignelay_

was a single-screw wooden cruiser, of 1900 tons displacement and 18

feet 4 inches draught. When his ship struck, the captain telegraphed

to his admiral saying that he feared she was hopelessly lost. The

French admiral dispatched a squadron of three ships to take off the men

and stores; but by the time they arrived the _Seignelay_ was afloat

again and lying at her anchor almost undamaged; and the senior French

captain amiably remarked: "You English do not know the word impossible."

The British sloop _Melita_, Commander George F. King-Hall (now Admiral

Sir G. F. King-Hall, K.C.B, C.V.O.), was already endeavouring to help

the _Seignelay_ when the _Undaunted_ arrived; but the water was so

shallow that the _Melita_ could not approach nearer than 300 yards, and

the _Undaunted_ 850 yards, to the _Seignelay_.

I went on board the _Seignelay_, and found her captain seated in his

cabin, profoundly dejected at the disaster. I cheered him as well as I

could, telling him that of course I understood that he had only been

waiting for more men to lighten his ship, and that I would send him 130

men with an officer who understood French to act as interpreter.

There was a heavy sea running; and the anchor I had brought in the

launch was laid out astern of the _Seignelay_ with considerable

difficulty, and the end of the cable was brought on board the

_Seignelay_.

Besides the _Melita_, the Austrian steamer _Diana_, the French steamer

_Poitou_ and the Russian steamer _Odessa_ had all been endeavouring to

rescue the _Seignelay_, but they had neither the men nor the gear

required for the task. What was done subsequently was narrated in _The

Times_, more than three years afterwards, by the anonymous writer

aforesaid.

"Our First Lieutenant (Lieutenant Stokes Rees) went as {380}

interpreter, and all our Captain wanted done was suggested by him to

the French. He gave the orders to junior officers over our men, and I

believe worked the French crew also by his suggestions, a fine old

sailor who was one of their chief petty officers giving what orders

were necessary. He hardly left the deck for three days and nights, and

did his work splendidly.

"The ship was embedded 5½ feet in the sand, and so had to be lightened

that much before we could hope to move her. This we spent all

Wednesday afternoon in doing.

"On Thursday morning the _Melita_ with a light draught Turkish steamer

(the _Arcadia_) tried to pull her off but failed, while the _Melita_

was very nearly wrecked herself. Nothing but very smart seamanship in

making sail and casting off hawsers with cool judgment on the part of

---- ... saved her from being dashed in a good sea upon a jagged reef

of rocks close to leeward. Her screw got fouled, and the willing but

awkward Turk towed her head round towards the reef and she only just

managed to get sail on her and shave it by 50 yards. She could not

anchor or she would have swung on top of it. We were looking on

powerless from our deep draught of water, though we hurried out

hawsers, but it was one of the nearest shaves I have seen, and with the

large number of men they had away in working parties, a thing to be

very proud of and thankful for...."

What happened was that the _Melita_ fouled her screw with a hawser. I

had warned her commander both orally and by signal to beware above all

of fouling his screw. But circumstances defeated his efforts. When a

man is doing his best in difficulties, there is no use in adding to his

embarrassments by a reprimand. I signalled to Commander King-Hall to

cheer up and to clear his screw as soon as he could; and I have reason

to know that he deeply appreciated my motive in so doing.

To continue the narrative, which I have interrupted to quote an

instance of disciplinary action in an emergency:

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"All Thursday we worked on at lightening her, getting out 300 tons of

coal, all her shot, shell, small guns, provisions and cables on board

our ship, until every part of the ship was piled up with them, and all

our nicely painted boats reduced to ragged cargo boats, besides being a

good deal damaged owing to the exposed anchorage and seaway. We got

out one strong, and two light, wire hawsers and with them the two ships

tried to tow, but we parted the light hawsers at once.

"Then the Captain let me try a plan I had all along been urging but

which he ... and the French called a physical impossibility."

(The fact was, that the lighters and native boats were so unseaworthy

that, until the weather moderated, the scheme, with all deference to

the writer, was impracticable.)

"We hired native boats and large lighters, got out strong chain cables

into them, and laid out 450 yards of chain cable between the _Melita_

and ourselves, floated on these lighters. Thanks to the skill of our

boatswain and a big quantity of men in the lighters this was done most

successfully, though three lighters were sunk or destroyed in doing it.

"That afternoon, Friday the 1st, having got 450 tons out of the ship in

forty-four hours, we got a fair pull at her with all three ships, the

little Turk tugging manfully at his rotten hawser at one quarter and

giving her a side pull occasionally. We gradually worked our mighty

engines up to full speed, the chain cable tautened out as I have never

seen chain do before and off she came.

"We manned the rigging and gave her cheer on cheer, the band playing

the _Marseillaise_ as the _Melita_ towed her past our stern, while the

Frenchmen hugged and kissed our men on their checks. It was a scene to

be long remembered. The crowds of spectators lining the beach and

walls, and our own men, 'spent but victorious' after their long

forty-four hours of almost unceasing work, hardly anyone lying down for

more than three or four hours either night....

"By noon on Saturday we had replaced all their {382} gear on board,

picked up their anchors and cables, etc., so that when their squadron

came in that evening they found nothing left to do. They were really

grateful and showed much good feeling, coming to call on us and being

most friendly.

"On Monday night, when we left, the whole squadron cheered us

manfully...."

The British admiral was afterwards asked by the French Government to

allow the _Undaunted_ to proceed to the Gulf of Lions where the French

Fleet was lying, in order that the officers and men of the _Undaunted_

might attend a reception in her honour. The _Undaunted_ steamed down

between the French lines, playing the _Marseillaise_, the French

manning ship and cheering. Officers and men were most hospitably

entertained with every mark of friendship and goodwill. The French

Government most courteously presented me with a beautiful Sèvres vase,

which is one of my most valued possessions.

When the time came for the _Undaunted_ to go home, the

commander-in-chief paid her a high compliment. The whole Fleet steamed

out of Malta Harbour in line ahead, the _Undaunted_ being the rear ship

of the line. When we were to part company, every vessel, except the

_Undaunted_, turned 16 points to port in succession (the line thus

curving back upon itself) and steamed past the stern of the

_Undaunted_. The commander-in-chief gave orders to cheer ship as each

vessel passed the _Undaunted_: a stately farewell to the homeward bound.

On the passage home, in order to test the actual working of

communication by signal between the Navy and the mercantile marine, a

system whose reform had constantly urged, I signalled, between Malta

and Plymouth, to 33 merchantmen. Of the whole number, only three

answered my signal, and of the three, only one answered it correctly,

although several vessels passed within 600 yards of the _Undaunted_.

The signals I made were short, such as "Where are you bound?" "Where

are you from?" {383} "Have you seen any men-of-war?" "What weather have

you had?" and some of them required only one hoist in reply.

The Royal Navy, a great part of whose duty in time of war would be the

protection of commerce, was in fact at that time practically unable to

communicate with the Merchant navy, either for the purpose of giving or

receiving information, except by means of sending a boat to the vessel

in question, a proceeding which must often be impossible, and which

would always involve a delay which might bring serious consequences.

No condition of affairs could more powerfully exemplify the national

neglect of preparation for war. For in war, the maintenance of the

lines of communication from ship to ship and ship to shore, is of the

first importance.

The difficulty discovered by merchant vessels in signalling or replying

to a signal consisted in their ignorance of signalling. They were

seldom required to signal; the use of the commercial code involved a

tedious process, impossible to accomplish quickly without constant

practice; they were equipped with neither Morse nor semaphore

apparatus, nor had officers or men learned how to use it. When a

man-of-war signalled to a merchantman, the merchant skipper or mate

must first try to decipher the flags of the hoist, an exercise to which

he was totally unaccustomed. When he had decided that the flags were,

say, blue with a white stripe, and red with a yellow stripe, he had to

turn them up in the signal-book to discover what they meant. All this

time the distance between the two ships was rapidly increasing. Having

made out the signal, the merchant sailor must refer to his signal-book

to find what flags made his reply; and having found them, he had to

pick out the flag itself from a bundle. By the time he had finished

these operations, if he ever finished them, the ships were nearly out

of sight of each other.

The reform was eventually achieved largely by the personal enterprise

and energy of the mercantile marine officers {384} themselves, who

learned signalling, and who often paid for the necessary apparatus out

of their own pockets.

The _Undaunted_ paid off early in 1893. Upon the evening of the day

upon which I arrived in London, I went to the House of Commons to

listen to the debate upon the Navy Estimates.

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