The late Admiral Lord Beresford did much good service for his country in many capacities and for many years; but I greatly doubt whether he ever performed a much finer piece of work than when Chief-of-Police at Alexandria.
Soon, troops began to pour into Egypt. On the 17th between 2000 and 3000 were landed under the command of General Sir Archibald Alison, and shortly afterwards all the sailors ashore were relieved by soldiers. By the 15th August, when the General Commander-in-Chief, Sir Garnet Wolseley, arrived, the bulk of his army, some 40,000 men, were either landed in Egypt or else on board transports at Alexandria. Sir Garnet was, without any doubt, one of the ablest soldiers this country has produced since the days of Wellington, and nobody knew better than he how to disseminate false information that was sure to trickle through and deceive the enemy.
On the 18th August the Superb received orders to form part of an escorting squadron of iron-clads, destined to shepherd the transports to some destination, name unknown. Gradually a whisper went round that Aboukir Bay was to be the jumping-off place for the invasion of Egypt. It was rumoured that Sir Garnet had confided the fact to one man,—it was not quite sure whether the man was his Chief of the Staff or an influential Pressman. As to this, opinions differed. Anyhow, the one man in question had been told under the seal of profound secrecy that Aboukir was the destination of the transports. He must have babbled in his sleep, for obviously he would not knowingly have betrayed the confidence of the Commander-in-Chief, but however it might have been, the rumour spread, and many hours before we started there was not a soul on board the combined fleet of iron-clads and transports who was not thoroughly convinced that we were going to Aboukir. The night before we started I succeeded in collecting three of my brothers, who were serving at the time, to dine with me on board my ship. One, subsequently killed at Diamond Hill, outside Pretoria, in the South African Campaign, was on leave from his regiment, the 17th Lancers, from India, and was trying to get the Military Authorities in Cairo to give him a temporary job; the second was in the Coldstream Guards, and was on board one of the transports that was under our charge, and anchored close by, he died in 1895; and the third, then a Midshipman in the Carysfort, was fated to be drowned a few years later, when a Sub-Lieutenant on the gunboat Wasp, that went down in the China Seas with all hands, and was never heard of again. I rather doubt whether we four brothers had ever been all together before, but we certainly never met all together again.
The next morning the transports and their convoy weighed, and proceeded to Aboukir, and a very imposing spectacle they made. Each iron-clad was in charge of three large transports, by which means quite respectable station could be kept, and, unlike most convoys, there were no stragglers.
Just before arriving at Aboukir Bay, as the Fleet was preparing to anchor and excitement was at its highest, a signal was made directing us all to steer on a certain course, and some hours later we found ourselves at the entrance to the Suez Canal, of which entire possession had been already taken by another portion of the Fleet. Suez had, meanwhile, been seized by Admiral Hewett. The transports were passed as rapidly through the canal as possible, with the view of disembarking their troops at Ismailia, and we remained in masterly inactivity off Port Said.
It was at that time that I suffered one of the greatest disappointments in my life, and I can still recall the absolute tears of rage and mortification that I shed. A night or two after our arrival at Port Said, unluckily for me, I had kept the middle watch, from midnight until 4 a.m. Very shortly after 4 a.m. a signal was made to the ships in harbour to land a Naval Brigade for service at the front, the force to be ready to start in two hours’ time. The officer of the morning watch took the signal to the Captain, who at once gave the necessary orders. By right of seniority I should have been selected, but when the Captain was informed that I had just turned in after night duty, he decided not to disturb me and sent a lieutenant who was my junior instead. When I appeared next morning, about eight, I was told the news, and I fairly tore my hair out with vexation. I insisted on seeing the Captain, and he quite agreed that, without meaning any harm, he had treated me badly; but no reparation was possible, for it was too late, the Naval Brigade being already some miles up the Canal in the tug that was conveying them. Philosophy does sometimes fail to bring comfort, and mine for the moment became a negligible quantity. I did succeed in getting up to Cairo a little later for a short time, after its occupation by the British troops, but in the days of one’s youth it seemed a bitter disappointment not to have been at Tel-el-Kebir, and not to have marched into Cairo as part of the victorious army.
The Superb’s portion of this Naval Brigade was landed in such haste that nothing had been provided for the officers and men of the force in the way of camp equipment, not so much as a kettle. When they arrived at the front the Chief Petty Officer reported this fact to the Lieutenant in command, and they put their heads together as to what steps to take. The C.P.O. was an old warrior who had served in the Naval Brigade at Perak, so by his advice the officer made himself scarce for an hour or two, and when he returned he found all things in readiness for supper, a large kettle swinging over the fire, and a general air of comfort. He subsequently asked his C.P.O. how he managed to provide all these necessaries, and this was the answer: “Well, sir, I don’t exactly know, but I do hear that there is a . . . row in the Scots Guards Camp!”