Turning-out at sunrise and turning-in soon after sunset; parade, swim, drill, preparation; classes, ranging from Latin to Algebra, from gunnery to rope-splicing—this is a rough idea of a day on the training ship in the early ’eighties.
An old musty boat may not have been the healthiest place for a growing boy from a fond mother’s and a modern physician’s point of view, but the breeze which swept up the silvery Dart from the English Channel and whistled through her rigging and portholes was stimulating and life-giving.
The Britannia still lies at her old moorings, between the little village of Dittisham and Dartmouth town, with Kingswear, the terminus of the Great Western Railway, on the left. The Dart is one of the most beautiful and romantic of English rivers. It rises only about a score of miles away from Dartmouth, right on the moorland, in a wilderness of gorse and heather.
It rushes through the granite-strewn valleys, past the glorious wooded banks of Holne Chase, roaring and tumbling until it reaches Totnes. Here its wild course is stopped with startling abruptness; from a foaming shallow trout stream it is turned into a stately river—broad, deep and calm. But the waters still carry the colour of the peat and the scent of the heather; the hills still rise from the mossy banks carpeted with daffodils and primroses in spring. And right down to the sea itself, thatch-roofed cottages, stately houses and ruined castles peer through the foliage.
Dartmouth is noted for three things—its cockles and plums from Dittisham, its orchards and its annual Regatta, which in Jellicoe’s day was famous throughout the world.
The author has it from the best authority that young Jellicoe joined in some of the successful raids on the aforesaid orchards, that he tasted and approved of Dittisham plums and cockles, and it is more than likely that he attended the Regatta, which, from a boy’s point of view, as well as that of many grown-ups, was most attractive as a Fair.
At the end of Jack Jellicoe’s first year on the Britannia he showed his instructor and his fellow-cadets the kind of stuff of which he was made. He was quiet, unassuming, yet always ready for work, and equally ready to take his place in the cricket eleven, or to put in a little practice in the field between the goal-posts. When he came out at the head of his rivals in the examinations, and got first for every examination that it was possible for him to pass, he must have occasioned no inconsiderable surprise.
Next year much the same thing happened, though, at the same time, Jellicoe began to develop a penchant for left-hand bowling. He was useful with an oar, too. On the Britannia every kind of game was encouraged among the cadets. Of course swimming, shooting, rowing, sculling and the “gym” came under part of the curriculum. A cadet need not play cricket or football, but he would probably have a bad time if he did not. If he wished, he got his chance at tennis and racquets and bowls; athletic sports were, of course, held regularly.
Besides the time-honoured paper chase, the Britannia had a pack of beagles, of which the lieutenant was generally master; the pack is still in existence to-day. The hounds met, during the season, once or twice a week, hunting the hillsides, and along the open country from the cliffs beyond Kingswear, inland, for several miles. Only the master is mounted, and sometimes he dispenses with his horse; everyone else is on foot, and, as a cadet remarked, “You have to be pretty nippy if you want to be in at the death.”
Amidst such surroundings, on one of the oldest ships belonging to His Majesty on the bosom of England’s most beautiful river, John Rushton Jellicoe’s character was developed. At the age of thirteen he found himself afloat—and he has kept afloat ever since. His ship has in very truth been his home, for he has always been actively engaged, and never known—perhaps never wanted—a real rest or a proper holiday.