I was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant of the “Warrior” our First Ironclad in 1863, when I was a little over 22 years old. I had just won the Beaufort Testimonial (Senior Wrangler), and that, with a transcendental Certificate from Commodore Oliver Jones, who was at that time the demon of the Navy, gave me a “leg up.”
The “Warrior” was then, like the “Inflexible” in 1882 and the “Dreadnought” in 1905, the cynosure of all eyes. She had a very famous Captain, the son of that great seaman Lord Dundonald, and a still more famous Commander, Sir George Tryon, who afterwards went down in the “Victoria.” She had a picked crew of officers and men, so I was wonderfully fortunate to be the Gunnery Lieutenant, and at so young an age I got on very well, except for sky-larking in the ward-room, for which I got into trouble. There was a dear old grey-headed Paymaster, and a mature Doctor, and a still more mature Chaplain, quite a dear old Saint. These, with other willing spirits, of a younger phase, I organised into a peripatetic band. The Parson used to play the coal scuttle, the Doctor the tongs and shovel, the dear old Paymaster used to do the cymbals with an old tin kettle. The other instruments we made ourselves out of brown paper, and we perambulated, doing our best. The Captain came out of his cabin door and asked the sentry what that noise was? We were all struck dumb by his voice, the skylight being open, and we were silent. The Sentry said: “It’s only Mr. Fisher, Sir!” so he shut the door! The Commander, Sir George Tryon, wasn’t so nice! He sent down a message to say the Gunnery Lieutenant was “to stop that fooling!” (However, this only drove us into another kind of sport!) We were all very happy messmates; they kindly spoilt me as if I was the Baby. I never went ashore by any chance, so all the other Lieutenants liked me because I took their duty for them. One of them was like Nelson’s signal—he expected every man to do his duty! I was his bosom friend, which reminds me of another messmate I had who, the witty First Lieutenant said, always reminded him of Nelson! Not seeing the faintest resemblance, I asked him why. “Well,” he said, “the last thing Nelson did was to die for his country, and that is the last thing this fellow would do!” It may be an old joke, but I’d never heard it before, and it was true.
I got on very well with the sailors, and our gunnery was supposed to be A 1. They certainly did rush the guns about, so I was sent in charge of the bluejackets to a banquet given them ashore. I imagined that on our return they might have had a good lot of beer, so I appealed to their honour and affection, when we marched back to the ship in fours, to take each other’s arms. They nobly did it! And I got highly complimented for the magnificent way they marched back through the streets!! And this is the episode! The galleries at the banquet were a mass of ladies, and very nice-looking ones. When the banquet was over, the Captain of the Maintop of the “Warrior,” John Kiernan by name, unsolicited, stood up in his chair and said: “On behalf of his top-mates he wished to thank the Mayor and Corporation for a jolly good dinner and the best beer he’d ever tasted.” He stopped there and said: “Bill, hand me up that beer again.” Bill said there was no more! A pledge had been given by the Mayor that they should have only two bottles of beer each. But this episode was too much for the Mayor, and instantly in came beer by the dozen, and my beloved friend, the Captain of the Maintop, had another glass. This is how he went on (and it was a very eloquent speech in my opinion. I remember every word of it to this day) He said: “This is joy,” and he looked round the galleries crowded with the lovely ladies, and said: “Here we are, British Sailors entirely surrounded by females!!” They waved their handkerchiefs and kissed their hands, and that urged the Captain of the Maintop into a fresh flight of eloquence. “Now,” he said, “Shipmates, what was it like now coming into this ’ere harbour of Liverpool” (we had come in under sail); “why,” he said, “this is what it was like, sailing into a haven of joy before a gale of pleasure.” I then told him to shut up, because he would spoil it by anything more, and Abraham Johnson, Chief Gunner’s Mate, my First Lieutenant, gave him more beer! and so we returned.
Abraham Johnson was a wonder! When the Admiral inspected the “Warrior,” Abraham Johnson came to me and said he knew his Admiral, and would I let him have a free hand? I said: “All right!” When the ship was prepared for battle, the Admiral suddenly said: “I’ll go down in the Magazine,” and began going down the steps of the Magazine with his sword on! Abraham was just underneath down below, and called up to the Admiral: “Beg pardon, Sir! you can’t come down here!” “D—n the fellow! what does he mean?” Abraham reiterated: “You can’t come down here.” The Admiral said: “Why not?” “Because no iron instrument is allowed in the Magazine,” said Abraham. “Ah!” said the Admiral, unbuckling his sword, “that fellow knows his duty. This is a properly organised ship!”
It is seldom appreciated—it certainly was not then appreciated on board the “Warrior” when I was her Gunnery Lieutenant—that this, our first armour-clad ship-of-war, the “Warrior,” would cause a fundamental change in what had been in vogue for something like a thousand years! For the Navy that had been founded by Alfred the Great had lasted till then without any fundamental change till came this first Ironclad Battleship. There is absolutely nothing in common between the fleets of Nelson and the Jutland Battle! Sails have given way to steam. Oak to steel. Lofty four-decked ships with 144 guns like the “Santissima Trinidad,” to low-lying hulls like that of the first “Dreadnought.” Guns of one hundred tons instead of one ton! And Torpedoes, Mines, Submarines, Aircraft. And then even coal being obsolete! And, unlike Nelson’s day, no human valour can now compensate for mechanical inferiority.
I rescue these few words by a survivor of the German Battle Cruiser “Blücher,” sunk on January 24th, 1915, by the British Battle Cruisers “Lion” and “Tiger.” The German Officer says:
“The British ships started to fire at us at 15 kilometres distant” (as a matter of fact it was about 11 to 12 miles). “The deadly water spouts came nearer and nearer! The men on deck watched them with a strange fascination!
“Soon one pitched close to the ship, and a vast watery billow, a hundred yards high, fell lashing on the deck!
“The range had been found!
“The shells came thick and fast. The electric plant was destroyed, and the ship plunged into a darkness that could be felt! You could not see your hand before your nose! Below decks were horror and confusion, mingled with gasping shouts and moans! At first the shells came dropping from the sky, and they bored their way even to the stokeholds!