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."