Looking Back

by Sir Seymour John Fortescue

My Admiral was, consequently, obliged to report confidentially to the Admiralty on the members of his Staff. One of them, his secretary’s clerk, being a friend of mine, thought it would amuse me to see what the old man had said about myself. It did amuse me very much, but I confess that the report in question gave me the impression that it was time for me to seek “green fields and pastures new,” ending, as it did after a slightly uncomplimentary comment on my general view of life, with the sentence: “It is quite time that this young officer went to sea.” I cordially agreed with the last sentence; but I still thought that it might have been spoken to me directly instead of being reported confidentially to the Admiralty. This, of course, was not the fault of my Chief, who was only carrying out, what I still consider was, a very iniquitous order.

Early in the spring of 1881 I was appointed to the Superb on the Mediterranean Station, and before taking leave of my late Commander-in-Chief, I must relate a very curious incident which happened to him when a very young captain in the early ’forties, and I may add that he told me the story himself.

In those days, amongst the great naval families who assisted each other to all the best appointments in the Navy, the Elliots, the Greys, and the Seymours were extremely prominent. My Admiral was the son of the second Lord Minto. This Lord Minto, who at various stages of his career had been First Lord of the Admiralty and later on Treasurer of the Navy, was naturally able to insist that his son should be promoted to Captain at a very early age. I think he must have been promoted at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four. Captain Elliot, as he then was, was appointed in command of a sloop going out to the Pacific Station, and while commissioning her at a home port, he received a letter from an old friend and neighbour in Scotland to the following effect. This friend asked him, as a great personal favour, to make his son a midshipman (in those days a captain had the necessary power to rate any lad as a midshipman quite regardless of any details such as age and acquirements) and to take him with him in his ship. His reason for asking this favour was that his son was such an unreclaimable young blackguard that he could do nothing with him either at home or at any school, and he looked upon the Navy as a sort of forlorn hope in the way of reformation. Naturally, Captain Elliot was averse to having this very doubtful benefit thrust upon him, but thinking that there was no great difficulty in inculcating a sense of discipline in a midshipman, and also thinking that as midshipmen were nearly always troublesome, one more or less did not make much difference, he weakly consented to take him. Unfortunately, life in the Navy did not have the reforming effect that was anticipated, and after every sort of thing had been tried to bring this young wretch to his bearings, the Captain decided that, as nothing else had any effect, he would try what a flogging would do. The midshipman in question being an extremely lusty youth, the punishment would do him no physical injury and great moral effects might possibly result. Accordingly, this young gentleman was duly seized up to the breech of a gun and solemnly given a dozen by the boatswain’s mate; and then the comic side of the case developed. The boy wrote to his father and complained that he had been flogged, upon which this grateful specimen of a parent wrote a furious letter to the Admiralty and demanded that his old friend, neighbour, and benefactor, should be tried by Court-martial, and tried he promptly was. Fortunately, his interest in the Navy was far too powerful for any real mischief to result. The Court-martial found the charge proved; he was duly cautioned, and that was the end of it; but equally naturally he was always known in the Navy as the captain who had flogged a midshipman, and this reputation of a flogging-captain sat very oddly on the shoulders of a man who was the personification of kindness and gentleness.

In the spring of 1881 I joined my new ship, the Superb (Captain Thomas le Hunte Ward), and found the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Beauchamp Seymour, installed at Admiralty House, Valetta, with his Flag-Lieutenant, the Honourable Hedworth Lambton, in close attendance, and flying his flag aboard the Alexandra, and it was there that I first made the acquaintance of the late Admiral Lord Beresford, then Commander Lord Charles Beresford, commanding the gun-vessel Condor. A sailing schooner, the yacht Aline, that had been lent to Lord Charles by the Prince of Wales, was converted into a sort of tender to the Condor. Lady Charles was living on board, and, with their usual hospitality, the Beresfords constantly took their friends for sailing expeditions in the vicinity of the island.

Shortly after my arrival the squadron proceeded for the usual summer cruise. We made up a squadron of from six to eight big ships—a very convenient number for manœuvring, and my Captain being one of the Seniors on the Station, the Superb was very generally leader of the lee line, as the second division was still called, in memory of the old sailing-ship days. This particular summer cruise was a very interesting one, for it included a visit to the Dalmatian coast. I have several times visited the Dalmatian coast since, and I have always wondered how any one, who could afford the luxury of a yacht, did not make a point of making the Adriatic the main objective of his Mediterranean cruise. It really is a most enchanting part of the world, and the pleasantest way of visiting it, is from the sea, beginning at Venice and working steadily down the coast to Corfu. Apart from the absorbing interest there is in seeing one civilisation literally on the top of another, as is exemplified in the Palace of Diocletian, which now is practically turned into the fair-sized town of Spalato, all down the coast it is easy to see that Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Hungarians, Genoese, and, above all, Venetians, have, in their turn, left the impress of their various civilisations. In addition, the beauty of some of the harbours is quite beyond my powers of description. Cattaro, one of the most important, is perhaps also the finest as regards scenery. Approaching it from the sea, the ship has to pass through the narrow winding entrance known as “le Bocche.” On either side, in addition to the modern fortifications constructed by the Austrians, the remains of ancient bastions and most picturesque little villages meet the eye. Finally, the great harbour is reached. Surrounded by precipitous mountains, it is completely landlocked, and there is anchorage there for half the war fleets of Europe. At the head of the bay is the town of Cattaro. Perched, as it is, on the side of a steep hill, surrounded by high walls with occasional towers, so thoroughly mediæval is it still, that it looks like the background of one of Doré’s fantastic illustrations of the Contes Drolatiques. Corfu, too, is lovely. The view over the harbour, with Ulysses Island and the old Venetian fortress as a foreground, the bay, with its islands as a middle distance, and the Albanian Mountains as a background, forms a picture that is quite unforgettable.

But to return to our cruise. Off Venice the heavy ships of the squadron were anchored at Malamocco, which, just outside the canals, is some considerable distance from the town of Venice, but on a summer’s night it was not an unpleasant thing to return in what was called a “four-horse” gondola in the early hours of the morning. Pola, the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was one of our ports of call, and the visit was quite an enjoyable one; the Austrian Naval Officers were very civil and hospitable, and their Commander-in-Chief at that time was a man who had been Flag-Lieutenant to Admiral Tegethoff at the battle of Lissa. In conversation with Austrian Naval Officers it was possible to appreciate some of the difficulties of that patchwork Empire. For instance, so mixed were the nationalities of their men-of-war crews that it was necessary for an officer to be able to speak to his men in at least four different languages—Czech, Slav, Italian, and German; small wonder that, owing to the stress of the late war and the complete victory of the Allies, what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire is now completely disintegrated.

At Trieste I made the acquaintance of two very interesting people, Sir Richard and Lady Burton. He was then British Consul there. The British Consular Service has always been woefully starved, the result being that, as a general rule, a number of very ill-paid posts are filled up by small local purveyors, who find it worth while to fly the Union Jack over their place of business; but at Trieste, at any rate, two men of great distinction were Consuls during my lifetime, one being Charles Lever the novelist, and the other Sir Richard Burton, the great explorer and Oriental scholar and writer.

The Fleet worked its way steadily down the Dalmatian coast, calling at Zara, Sebenico, Ragusa, Spalato, Cattaro, and, to my taste, not staying nearly long enough at any of these interesting places, the reason being, I suppose, that we were there for Fleet exercises and manœuvres, and not for sight-seeing. Sir Beauchamp, however, did go himself for one inland trip from Cattaro. He drove to Cettigne, on a short visit to call on the Prince of Montenegro. From what he told me some time after I do not think that he was much impressed either with this reigning princelet or with what he described as his “little bicoque” of a royal residence. After a short stay at Cattaro, the Fleet proceeded to Corfu, where it remained for some time. The Aline was still in attendance on the Condor, and many were the pleasant afternoons spent on board of her, sailing about that beautiful bay. After Corfu, the Fleet proceeded to Eastern waters, visiting countless islands of the Greek Archipelago of surpassing beauty. In that part of the world it may truthfully be said, that, “only man is vile!”

The winter was passed mainly at Malta, but the Superb was privileged to go on an independent cruise to the Coast of Syria, and we passed the greater part of the month in that paradise of the sportsman. Ayas Bay was our headquarters. It is conveniently situated in the Gulf of Alexandretta, or Iskanderun as it is called by the Turks. It has a good anchorage for big ships, so the Superb could, and did, lay there very comfortably. We officers divided ourselves into two parties, taking our leave in turn—one party remained on board the ship and did perpetual duty, while the members of the other, camped out about twenty miles inland and shot to their hearts’ content. We organised a small camel transport to carry our tents and general camp equipment, and hired ponies for our own use. The first detachment rode away and established the camp, and at the end of the week left the camp standing, rode back to the ship to relieve those on duty, who, taking the ponies, went back inland for their turn of sport. Game abounded; francolin, woodcock and every sort of wild fowl, formed the greater part of the bag, and although we were a very moderate lot of shots we really amassed altogether quite a respectable total—enough to give both officers and men a welcome change of diet. It was at Ayas, too, that I first made the acquaintance of the late Lord Kitchener. He was then a young Engineer Officer employed by the Foreign Office as one of their Intelligence Officers in the Euphrates Valley district. He came on board the ship on her arrival, and helped us to organise the camel transport that was necessary for our shooting expedition. Many years afterwards, it was my fate to see him organising transport of a very different kind, and on an enormous scale, for the advance of the British Army on Pretoria during the South African War.

Altogether we had a delightful time at Ayas. The climate was divine. Although it was mid-winter there was brilliant sunshine all day, with a wonderfully bracing air. The nights were very chill, but under canvas, with plenty of blankets, the cold was rather pleasant than otherwise. The rest of that really delightful winter was spent at Malta. There was plenty of pony racing, and I was lucky enough to ride a winner belonging to a very old friend and messmate on board the Superb, the present Admiral Sir Charles Graves Sawle, one of his ponies having, in my hands, won the hurdle race at the Spring Meeting.