The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford. Beresford Charles William De la Poer Beresford

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      "Tell him I'll see him to-morrow," said Sir Harry.

      But that wouldn't do at all, nor would any other excuse serve.

      "I insist on seeing the admiral," said the captain. "I have just come home and it is my duty to see him at once."

      "Bring him in, then," said Sir Harry impatiently, "Now, sir," said he, "my flag-lieutenant informed you that I was engaged. Why couldn't you see the secretary?"

      "The secretary, sir? The secretary!" says the old captain wrathfully staring at Sir Harry's informal attire. "Indeed I am told, sir, that the secretary is the Commander-in-chief here. That's what they say, sir – that's what they say!"

      "Do they?" returned Sir Harry placidly. "And a d – d good commander-in-chief too!" says he.

      When, in later years, I became commander-in-chief, I made it a rule that all admirals and captains should have direct access to myself, no matter how trifling the occasion.

      In those days, there was a turnpike-gate outside the town. I was driving a brother officer home late one night, after dining at a house some distance away and when we came to the toll-gate, the keeper was in bed, and all my knocking and shouting failed to wake him up. So I proceeded to heave a large stone through his window. That fetched him; and down he came, grumbling and swearing. I thrust a sovereign – the only coin I had – into his hand to pay for his broken window and the toll. It was bad tactics, for he promptly retreated into his house (with my sovereign) leaving us still on the wrong side of the gate. There was nothing for it but to break the rest of his windows, but still he wouldn't come out. Evidently a surly fellow, unfit to take charge of turnpike gates, an office demanding tact and courtesy; and we thought it well to remove his temptation. So my companion and I wrenched the gate from its hinges and lashed it to the cart, vertically, so that it projected over our heads like a kind of ornamental roof, its weight nearly lifting the mare between the shafts off her legs and making her kick like blazes. Then we drove into Plymouth, gate and all. The gate was reduced to firewood before sunrise. Next day, the town was placarded with vain offers of reward for information concerning "some evil-disposed person or persons unknown who," etc.

      At that time, I used to ride steeple-chases whenever I had an opportunity, and kept myself in regular training by hard exercise; a habit which on one occasion involved the commander-in-chief in an alarming rumour. It arose from the trifling circumstance that I had borrowed his overcoat. The Fleet was at Holyhead, to celebrate the opening of the new breakwater by the Prince of Wales; I was just going for a training run up and down that breakwater, when, finding I had no coat, I took Sir Harry Keppel's uniform overcoat. I took it, without thinking, merely because I wanted it. The next thing that happened was that the signalmen in the Fleet reported that the Admiral must have gone mad on the breakwater, seeing that he was racing up and down it clad in a shooting-cap, grey trousers, muffler and uniform overcoat. As my face was almost hidden by cap and muffler, the signalmen were deceived by the gold lace, took me for the admiral, and thought that poor Sir Harry was smitten with insanity.

      We used to hunt a good deal with the Dartmoor hounds; and upon a day when there was no run, and everyone was bored, one of the ladies present begged me to provide some kind of sport, kindly suggesting that I should personate the fox, a part I declined.

      "You must do something to amuse us," she said.

      "Very well, I will," said I.

      Among the officers there were an elderly СКАЧАТЬ