CHAPTER V

THE MIDSHIPMAN OF 1864

I wish I could convey to my readers something of the pride and delight

which a sailor feels in his ship. But who that has never had the luck

to be a deep-water sailor, can understand his joy in the noble vessel,

or the uplifting sense of his control over her matchless and splendid

power, born of a knowledge of her every rope and sail and timber, and

of an understanding of her behaviour and ability. For every ship has

her own spirit, her own personality. You may build two ships or twenty

upon the same design, line for line the same, and each will develop her

own character. As there are no two people alike, so there are no two

ships the same.

What can be more glorious than a ship getting under way? She quivers

like a sentient thing amid the whole moving tumultuous lusty life. Men

are racing aloft; other men, their feet pounding upon the white decks,

are running away with the ropes; the ringing commands and the shouting

fill the air; the wind strikes with a salt and hearty sting; and the

proud and beautiful creature rises to the lift of the sea. Doctor,

paymaster, idlers and all used to run up on deck to witness that

magnificent spectacle, a full-rigged ship getting under sail. As for

me, I blessed my luck when I returned from the _Defence_ to a sailing

ship.

The _Clio_ was a corvette pierced for 22 guns, of 1472 tons burthen,

and 400 h.p. The screw was hoisted when she was under sail, which was

nearly all the time. She was an excellent sailer, doing fourteen to

sixteen knots.

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The midshipmen's mess was so small, that there was no room for chairs.

We sat on lockers, and in order to reach the farther side, we must walk

across the table. One of our amusements in this tiny cabin was racing

cockroaches, which were numerous. We used to drop a bit of melted

tallow from a purser's dip upon their backs, plant in it a piece of

spun-yarn, light the spun-yarn, and away they would go from one end of

the table to the other. There was once a cockroach--but not in the

_Clio_--which escaped, its light still burning, and set the ship on

fire.

I began in the _Clio_ by immediately assuming that responsibility of

senior midshipman desired by Rear-Admiral Charles Eden. I purchased

the stores for the gunroom mess, expending £67, accounting for every

penny, with the most sedulous precision. We paid a shilling a day for

messing, and the stores were to supplement our miserable rations. They

were so bad that I wonder we kept our health; indeed, only the fittest

survived.

We sailed from Portsmouth in August, 1864. It was my first long

voyage. It is curious that the first week of a long voyage goes very

slowly, and the rest of the time very fast. I used to keep the first

dog watch and to relieve the officer in the morning watch. In the keen

pleasure of handling the ship--loosing sails, sheeting them home,

reefing, furling, and all the rest of the work of a sailor--I regained

all my old delight in the sea which I had lost in the _Defence_.

Keeping watch under sail required unremitting vigilance, perpetual

activity, and constant readiness. The officer of the watch must be

everywhere, with an eye to everything, forward and aft; while the

helmsman handling the wheel under the break of the poop, keeps the

weather leach just lifting.

The memory of the continuous hard work of the daily routine, makes the

sober and pleasant background to the more lively recollection of

events, which were after all but the natural reaction from the long

monotony of sea life.

It was my duty to preserve order in the gun-room; and a lively lot I

had in charge. One of the midshipmen, a {53} big fellow, was something

of a bully. He used to persecute a youngster smaller than himself, and

one day the boy came to me and asked what he could do to end the

tyranny. I thought that this particular bully was also a coward--by no

means an inevitable combination--and I advised his victim, next time he

was bullied, to hit the bully on the point of the nose as hard as he

could, and I promised that I would support him in whatever came

afterwards. He did as he was told; whereupon the bully came to me with

a complaint that a junior midshipman had struck him. I formed a ring

and put the two to settle the matter with their fists. The little boy

was a plucky youngster, and clever with his fists. He knocked out his

enemy, and had peace thereafter.

I crossed the Line for the first time. In going through the usual

ceremonies, being ducked and held under in the big tank, I was as

nearly drowned as ever in my life, being hauled out insensible. We

towed out the _Turtle_, a Government vessel, bound for Ascension with

stores. While towing, it is necessary to wear instead of tacking, for

fear of coming on top of the tow. But the first lieutenant thought he

would tack; so he tried to go about. There was a gale of wind; the

ship missed stays, and came right on top of the unfortunate _Turtle_,

dismasting and nearly sinking her. I was sent on board her to give

assistance; and I made excellent use of the opportunity to collect from

the _Turtle's_ stores many useful little ship's fittings of which the

_Clio_ was in need. We took the _Turtle_ into Ascension, where the

midshipmen landed, collected the eggs of the "wideawake" gulls, and

bottled them for future consumption.

We put in at the Falkland Islands in November. The population

consisted of ex-Royal Marines and their families. It was considered

necessary to populate the Islands; and we always send for the Royal

Marines in any difficulty. There were also South American guachos and

ranchers. The governor came on board to ask for the captain's help.

The governor wanted a man to be hanged, and his {54} trouble was that

he was afraid to hang him. The prisoner was a guacho, who had murdered

a rancher, whom he had cast into the river and then shot to death. The

governor was afraid that if he executed the murderer, the other guachos

would rise in rebellion. So he wanted the captain to bring the

murderer on board and hang him to the yard-arm. The captain refused

this request; but he offered to hang him on shore, a proposal to which

the governor agreed. The boatswain's mate piped: "Volunteers for a

hangman--fall in." To my surprise, half the ship's company fell in.

The sergeant of Marines was chosen to be executioner. He took a party

on shore, and they constructed a curious kind of box, like a wardrobe,

having a trap-door in the top, above which projected the beam. The man

dropped through the trap door into the box and was no more seen, until

the body was taken out under cover of night and buried.

The shooting on that island was naturally an intense delight to a boy

of my age. We midshipmen used to go away shooting the upland geese. I

managed to bring aboard more than the others, because I cut off the

wings, heads and necks, cleaned the birds, and secured them by toggling

the legs together, so that I was able to sling four birds over each

shoulder. The whole island being clothed in high pampas grass, it was

impossible to see one's way. Officers used to be lost in the

Falklands. The body of a paymaster who was thus lost was not

discovered for eight years. The cold induced sleep, and a sleeping man

might freeze to death.

Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, in his _Memories of the Sea_, relating his

experience as a midshipman in the Falkland Islands, says, "Everybody

has heard of the Falkland Island geese, and they may be seen to-day in

St. James's Park. The upland geese--as they are generally called--are

excellent eating; but there are also immense numbers and different

varieties of other geese and these are known as 'kelp geese.' Alas!

our ornithological education had been so {55} sadly neglected that we

did not know the difference with the feathers on, though we soon found

it out, when we came to cook and eat them. All the birds we shot were

kelp geese, about as fishy as cormorants; but they were not wasted, for

we gave them to our Marine servants, who ate them all and declared them

to be excellent. 'Some flavour about them,' as they said."

While we lay at the Falkland Islands a merchant ship came in whose

whole company was down with scurvy. When I joined the Navy,

lime-juice, the prophylactic, was served out under the regulation; but

in the mercantile marine scurvy was still prevalent. It is a most

repulsive disease. The sufferer rots into putrid decay while he is yet

alive. If you pressed a finger upon his flesh the dent would remain.

He is so sunk in lethargy that if he were told the ship was sinking he

would decline to move. His teeth drop out and his hair falls off. It

is worthy of remembrance that the use of lime-juice as a prophylactic

was discovered, or at least largely introduced, by Captain James Cook

the navigator; whose statue, erected at Whitby, I had the privilege of

unveiling in 1912. Historically, I believe that Captain Lancaster,

commanding the _Dragon_, in the service of the Honourable East India

Company in the time of James I, was the first to cure scurvy by

administering three spoonfuls of lemon to each patient, with his

breakfast.

From the Falkland Islands we proceeded to the Straits of Magellan,

where the natives of Terra del Fuego came off to us in boats. They

were totally naked, and were smeared all over with grease. It was

snowing, and they had made a fire in the boats; and when the sea

splashed upon the fire and put it out, they beat the sea in anger with

their paddles.

At the convict settlement there used to be a box to hold mails fixed on

the top of a pole. The letters were taken on board the next ship

passing homeward bound. I posted a letter addressed to my mother, who

received it in due time.

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We dropped anchor off Port Mercy. It came on to blow a hurricane. We

had two anchors down ahead, struck lower yards and topmast, and kept

the screw moving to ease the cables. Without the aid of steam, we

should have been blown away. Even so, the captain became anxious and

decided to put out to sea. We battened down and went out under

trysails and forestaysail. Instantly we were plunged into a

mountainous sea, and the wind whipped the canvas out of us. We set

close-reefed foretopsail. A tremendous squall struck us, we shipped

water and were blown upon our beam ends. So strong was the wind that

each successive blast listed the ship right over. The captain then

determined to run back to Port Mercy. The master set the course, as he

thought, to clear the headland; and we steamed at full speed. I was

standing half-way up the bridge ladder holding on to the man-rope in a

violent squall of hail and snow, the hail cutting my cheeks open, when

I saw land right ahead. The fact was that the master had mistaken his

course, and the ship was driving straight on shore, where every man

would have perished. I reported my observation to the first

lieutenant, who merely remarked that it was probable that the master

knew better than I did. But presently he too saw the high rocks

looming ahead through the smother of snow and spray, and the course was

altered just in time. The wind was on the port beam; we edged into it

out to sea; and so were able to clear the headland and get under the

lee of the land. The first lieutenant afterwards handsomely admitted

that it was a good job I was standing where I was "with my eyes open"

at the critical moment. It was in the height of this emergency, that I

first heard the pipe go "Save ship."

We proceeded to Valparaiso, where the ship put in to refit. At

Valparaiso, we were able to get horses, and we organised paper-chases.

It was about this time that the incident of the Impresario occurred.

He was conducting the orchestra from the stage itself, being seated in

a hole cut in the stage, so that his legs {57} rested upon a little

platform below. The refreshment room was underneath the stage, and the

Impresario's legs projected downwards from the ceiling into the room,

where were two or three midshipmen and myself. The temptation was

irresistible. We grasped the legs; hauled on them; and down came the

Impresario. Overhead, the music faltered and died away.

From Valparaiso we proceeded to the Sandwich Islands, whence we were

ordered to take Queen Emma to Panama, on her way to England to see

Queen Victoria. Queen Emma was born Miss Emma Booker. She married

Kamehameha IV in 1856. We took the Queen on board with one native lady

as her attendant. The natives were devoted to their queen, and they

insisted on loading the ship with presents for her. They brought pigs,

masses of yams, sweet potatoes, water-melons and other fruit. The pigs

were housed forward on the main deck, and the other offerings were

piled on the rigging and hammock nettings and about the davit guys, so

that the ship looked like an agricultural show when we sailed for

Panama.

We sighted a schooner flying signals of distress. The life-boat was

called away to go to her assistance. I was in charge of the life-boat.

When a boat is called away at sea, the crew of course take their places

in her before she is lowered. The whole operation, from the sound of

the pipe to the moment the boat touches the water, occupies no more

than a few seconds in a smart ship. There was a little sea-way on, and

the movement of the boat caused a jerk to the falls, unhooking the

safety catch, and dislodging an enormous water-melon, which fell

through about eighteen feet upon the top of my head. I was knocked

nearly senseless. It was the melon that split upon the impact,

deluging me with red pulp; but I thought that it was my skull which had

cracked, and that they were my brains which were spoiling my uniform,

and I remember wondering that my brains should be so queerly and

vividly coloured.

But I recovered from the shock in a few minutes. {58} Boarding the

schooner, I found she was short of water. But the remarkable thing

about that schooner was that although she carried a cargo of six

thousand pounds in Mexican dollars, they had only four men on board,

all told--an easy prize for a pirate.

After touching at Acapulco, which was all heat and flies, we landed the

Queen of the Sandwich Islands at Panama.

Some years afterwards, I went to call upon her Majesty. In all my

voyages, I carried with me a set of tandem harness; and on this

occasion, I hired a light cart and a couple of ponies, and drove them

tandem. Approaching the royal residence, I took a corner too sharply,

the cart capsized, I was flung out, and found myself sitting on the

ground in the Queen's presence.

But before we quitted the Sandwich Islands, an event occurred (of which

I was the humble and unwitting instrument) which nearly brought about

what are called international complications. I should explain that

feeling ran pretty high between the English and the Americans in the

Sandwich Islands with regard to the American Civil War, which was then

waging. It was none of our business, but we of the _Clio_ chose to

sympathise with the South. Now that these unhappy differences have

been so long composed, there can be no harm in referring to them. But

it was not resentment against the North which inspired my indiscretion.

It was the natural desire to win a bet. A certain lady--her name does

not matter--bet me that I would not ride down a steep pass in the

hills, down which no horse had yet been ridden. I took the bet and I

won it. Then the same fair lady bet me--it was at a ball--that I would

not pull down the American flag. That emblem was painted on wood upon

an escutcheon fixed over the entrance to the garden of the Consulate.

I took that bet, too, and won it.

Having induced two other midshipmen to come with me, we went under

cover of night to the Consulate. I climbed upon the backs of my

accomplices, leaped up, caught hold of the escutcheon, and brought the

whole thing down upon {59} us. Then we carried the trophy on board in

a shore-boat. Unfortunately the boatman recognised what it was, and

basely told the American consul, who was naturally indignant, and who

insisted that the flag should be nailed up again in its place. I had

no intention of inflicting annoyance, and had never considered how

serious might be the consequences of a boyish impulse. My captain very

justly said that as I had pulled down the flag I must put it up again,

and sent me with a couple of carpenters on shore. We replaced the

insulted emblem of national honour, to the deep delight of an admiring

crowd. The _Clio_ put to sea. We heard afterwards that the American

Government dispatched a couple of ships of war to capture me, but I do

not think the report was true.

Having landed the Queen of the Sandwich Islands at Panama, as I have

said, about the middle of June, 1865, we left the Bay early in July,

and proceeded to Vancouver, arriving there in the middle of August.

There we remained until early in December.

I was placed in charge of a working party from the _Clio_, to cut a

trail through the virgin forest of magnificent timber with which the

island was then covered. I was pleased enough to receive an extra

shilling a day check-money. Where the flourishing town of Victoria now

stands, there were a few log huts, closed in by gigantic woods. When I

revisited the country recently, I found a tramway running along what

was once my trail, and I met several persons who remembered my having

helped to cut it, nearly fifty years before.

I believe that Canada will eventually become the centre of the British

Empire; for the Canadians are a splendid nation, gifted with pluck,

enterprise and energy.

The free forest life was bliss to a boy of my age. To tell the truth,

we were allowed to do pretty well what we liked in the _Clio_, which

was so easy-going a ship that she was nicknamed "the Privateer." We

used to go out fishing for salmon with the Indians, in their canoes,

using the {60} Indian hook made of shell. To this day the Indians fish

for salmon in canoes, using shell hooks. I made a trot, a night-line

with a hundred hooks, and hauled up a goodly quantity of fish every

morning. I remember that a party of midshipmen (of whom I was not one)

from another ship were playing cricket on the island, when a bear

suddenly walked out of the forest. The boys instantly ran for a gun

and found one in an adjacent cabin, but there were no bullets or caps.

So they filled up the weapon with stones from the beach. In the

meantime the bear had climbed a tree. The midshipmen levelled the gun

at him and fired it with a lucifer match.

We used to go away into the forest deer-shooting, and on one occasion

we were lost for a day and a night. It was at this time that I made

the acquaintance of the celebrated Mr. Dunsmuir, who became a mayor and

a millionaire, simply because he slept one night in the forest--for the

sake of coolness. When he awoke in the morning, he found that he had

pillowed his head upon a lump of coal. He subsequently obtained an

enormous concession of land from the Government and amassed a huge

fortune in coal. Two of our lieutenants put money in the scheme. I

wrote at the time to my father, asking him to let me have a thousand

pounds to invest in the coal business. But he replied affectionately

but firmly that, until I ceased to exceed my allowance, he did not

think it right that I should embark in a gambling project. The two

lucky lieutenants were eventually bought out by Mr. Dunsmuir for a very

large sum of money.

I was very happy in the _Clio_; but, for reasons, it was considered

expedient that I should be transferred to the _Tribune_. Accordingly,

I turned over to the _Tribune_ early in December, by the orders of my

constant friend, Admiral Charles Eden. He said it would do me good to

serve under Captain Lord Gillford. He was right. It did.

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