George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life

by George Manville Fenn

At the time of which one is writing, that is, the year following the freeing of Italy, he spent much of his time making tentative unofficial efforts with his pen; but this was prior to the commencement of the long series of novels and stories written especially for the youth of England. For the next year he began to devote considerable attention to his little yacht, finding exercise and refreshing peaceful life afloat. Yachting was the one hobby of his manhood, and a recreation in which he indulged himself at every opportunity, even to the very last. In this way he recouped himself, and made up for the worry and excitement such as falls to the lot of a war correspondent, who is never free from the strain of thinking out what will be the most interesting thing to record among the many incidents occurring around him. There is invariably anxiety about how to write and where to write, and when the account is written the additional worry of how to get in touch with the post and make sure that you have done everything possible to ensure the matter reaching its destination safely and expeditiously.

The year’s comparative rest that followed the adventures in Italy was needed, for Henty was awaking fully to the fact that a war correspondent’s life makes a heavy drain upon the stored-up forces of the Bank of Life; and it must not be forgotten that his health exchequer in youth was at a very low ebb.

It may have been instinct—the natural desire of the weak to gain strength—that induced Henty to direct his attention so much to the sea; and without doubt this favourite pursuit of yachting, which took him away from town life, from the strain of mind and the weary hours at the desk, to where he could breathe the free air of heaven and cast off care, strengthened him and prepared him for the next bout of duty that he would be called upon to undertake.

It was just a year after the conclusion of the Italian war when he was called upon to gird himself for another period of active service, and leave civilised Europe for the heats and colds of semi-barbarous mountainous Africa. The cry of the sufferers had awakened patient Britain to the fact that she could no longer stop her ears to the piteous plaint of the captives, no longer suffer the mocking insolence of the defiant ignorant ruler, King Theodore of Abyssinia; and Sir Robert Napier was preparing his forces for the invasion of that comparatively unknown and warlike land.

All this is well-recorded history. Henty’s adventures begin with his start for the front, after reaching Bombay, where his first troubles commenced with the choice of attendants. Servants swarmed, but experience seemed to show that it was considered the correct thing to hire oneself out to a master bound for Abyssinia, and, just before he left, to disappear with his purse and any handy portable property.

Henty’s first experience was with a mild Hindoo, who directly after fell sick, while this man’s brother, engaged by a colleague, was at the last moment melted by the tears of an aged and despairing mother, and the two rogues decamped laden with plunder.

This difficulty got over, necessaries were packed, and a vessel was chosen in which Henty and a friend were to sail in company with some of the troops. They were a little disturbed, though, when they discovered that the only available bath below had to be removed to make room for three and a half tons of gunpowder. It was a change which by no means added to their comfort or to their feelings of security.

However, in spite of hindrances and delays, he, a brother special, and three officers made their start, choosing by preference to sleep on deck, partly because the nights al fresco were delightful, though rather cold, but more on account of the imaginary dangers that might arise from the monsters which haunted the berths below. It may have been the effect of imagination and extreme terror, but these creatures appeared to be as large as cats, and much quicker footed, probably from having more legs. Their horns resembled those of bullocks, and in their utter fearlessness of man they attacked him ferociously. Henty christens them vampires, though he does not record that they practised the bloodthirsty habits of those creatures, and then he comes down to plain fact and explains that his bêtes noires answered to the common name of cockroach.

One of his first experiences of sleeping on deck with his comrades was to be awakened by a splash of water in his face, and as the vessel was given to rolling he attributed this to spray; but only for an instant, for down came a rush of water as if emptied from a bucket. In a moment he was upon his feet to begin dragging his bed over to leeward. Then came a rude awakening to the fact that the splash and the bucketing were caused by rain, which raged down as if pumped by a hundred steam fire-engines. There was nothing for it but to laugh, as the party gained the cabin floor drenched, and with their silken pyjamas clinging to their skins.

The customary troubles on board the small vessel, laden to a great extent with heterogeneous stores, came to an end, but not without incident, for navigation in the Red Sea is a most intricate and dangerous business, as its western shore is studded with islands and coral reefs.