[CHAPTER V]
FROM GALATZ TO SOUAKIM VIA LONDON
Shortly after the return of the Fleet to Malta, Sir Beauchamp Seymour, who had been created Lord Alcester for his services in Egypt, returned to England, Vice-Admiral Lord John Hay having arrived to take over the Mediterranean Station as Commander-in-Chief, hoisting his flag in the Alexandra, with Captain Harry Rawson for his Flag-Captain and the Honourable Hugh Tyrrwhitt as Flag-Lieutenant. Hugh Tyrrwhitt, who had been in the Britannia during my time there, was one of my greatest friends. Alas! he died in 1907, and his death brought an untimely end to what was already a distinguished career in the Navy. Shortly before his death, when still only of the rank of Captain, he had been offered the Indian Command; ill-health compelled him to decline it, and he died shortly afterwards on board a steamer on his way to Egypt, to which country he had been ordered by his doctors. As a Captain he had held some very important posts, having been in turn Flag-Captain to Sir John Fisher, when Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean; had commanded the Renown when the present King paid a visit to India as Prince of Wales, and was subsequently Naval Private Secretary to Lord Cawdor when First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Cawdor brought his great experience of business (he had been a most successful Chairman of the Board of the Great Western Railway) to the service of his country, and was generally acknowledged, at any rate by the Navy, to have been one of the very best First Lords of his generation. He was far from being an advertising politician; but with his sound judgment and his great administrative capacity, his death was none the less a great loss to England. During his reign at the Admiralty it was several times my good fortune to meet him at little dinners given by Hugh Tyrrwhitt, at which Sir John Fisher and I were the other guests, and the amount of naval “shop” that was discussed in the course of one of these pleasant evenings is more easily imagined than described.
The rest of my time in the Superb was uneventful enough, and we were all beginning to look forward to paying off and a little leave in England, when my personal plans were completely changed by the arrival of a very small craft, the Cockatrice by name, at Malta. This curious little river vessel had left her station up the Danube for a refit at Malta, and her first and only lieutenant having been invalided, the vacancy thus occurring was offered to me. I was rather curious to see something of the Balkan States, and anyhow it meant a very pleasant winter at Malta with only a tiny river craft to look after, instead of being a hard-worked watch-keeper on board an iron-clad. I was quite right about the winter at Malta; it was a very pleasant one. There happened to be some particularly nice visitors at Valetta, any work connected with the repairs that were being executed by the Dockyard was easily got over in the forenoon, after which time I was as free as air, and ready to take part in anything going on that was likely to be amusing, whether ashore or afloat, for, having hired a little cutter yacht, I could take small parties round by sail to picnic at some of the interesting places outside the harbour, and, moreover, during that particular winter, the Opera Company was well above the average.
In the spring the Cockatrice had to get round to her headquarters on the Danube where she represented Great Britain on the Danube Commission. This Commission was a legacy from the Treaty of Paris, all the Signatory Powers having agreed to be represented by a stationnaire of some sort up the river, their main object being to see that the Russians did not divert the course of the stream, so that large steamers would be compelled to use the St. George’s mouths which emptied themselves into the Black Sea in Russian territory, instead of the Kilia mouths which debouched at Sulina.
A voyage from Malta to Constantinople was quite a serious undertaking for the little Cockatrice. So near the water were our scuttles (as the small windows which give light and air are called on board a man-of-war) that even up a river it was generally necessary to keep them closed, as the smallest ripple would splash water into them. This is only mentioned to give an idea of how unseaworthy a craft she was, and no blame to any one, as she was entirely designed for river service. The elements were kind, and we never encountered anything more serious than a fresh breeze, and arrived at our first port of call, Constantinople, without a mishap of any kind. The Cockatrice was well known at Constantinople, as she went there regularly for a refit every year,—it was only on very rare occasions that she went to Malta. Our little ship was anchored at Kadikoi, which is over on the Asiatic side, and I was quickly introduced by my messmates to the pleasant Levantine Society that is the feature of that neighbourhood, and is so well described by Claude Farrère in L’Homme qui Assassina. We were most hospitably entertained by the occupants of the numerous villas, and the time passed very agreeably. Indeed, I found Kadikoi such a pleasant place that I believe I only once troubled to go over to Pera, and that was to attend a ball which was given at our Embassy and to which it was rather a matter of duty to go. I found diplomatic society, however exalted it might be, with “their Excellencies” and their “chers collègues” (for apparently not even the humblest member of a small Legation, is ever alluded to by a member of any other Legation, or Embassy, in any terms other than “Mon cher collègue”), very dull as compared with some of the humbler, but sometimes exceedingly attractive inhabitants of Kadikoi.
Our next move was through the Bosphorus, perhaps the most beautiful strait in the world, and up the Black Sea to Sulina, and thence up the river to Galatz, where we duly tied ourselves up, and re-assumed our business as one of the line of stationnaires of the Signatory Powers.
The Danube, even as high up as Galatz, is certainly an imposing stream and is still some three or four miles in breadth. It was there that a large portion of the Russian Army crossed in the 1877-8 campaign, and a difficult operation it must have been. For the rest, it is only necessary to say that the town is, or was, thoroughly Oriental. One of the main roads ran parallel to the river bank, close to where we were secured, and to give an instance of the extreme Orientalism existing there, the following is a typical example. It used to interest us much to watch the numerous carts that passed along that thoroughfare, one and all in turn subsiding into an enormous hole in the road, day after day and month after month, for the simple reason that it never occurred to the Eastern mind to fill the hole up. The mosquitoes up the Danube have to be experienced to be realised, but their attentions were discounted by our mode of life, which consisted mainly in sleeping a considerable portion of the day and sitting up the greater part of the night. There was a small, but very hospitable, colony of English merchants there, and it became the invariable custom for a number of them to lunch on board every day. This was convenient, as the Cockatrice lay close to their places of business. After this early luncheon we used to drive up to their villas, which were situated on the further outskirts of the town, and there we settled down for the rest of the day. A prolonged siesta was the first operation; a large, cool, dark room being infinitely preferable for that purpose than the stuffy little cabins on board the ship. After the siesta there would be a couple of hours strenuous lawn-tennis, then a very late dinner, and finally a prolonged visit to one of the music-halls of the town, which began their evening’s business about 11 p.m. and did not bring it to an end until any hour in the morning, and finally back to the ship for two or three hours’ sleep before the “labours” of the next day began.
While stationed at Galatz I took the opportunity of visiting Bucharest. I have never been there since; but in those days it was a most attractive little capital, somewhat like Brussels in appearance, with charming shady boulevards. There was an excellent hotel, and I was fortunate in being able to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. White, he being then our Consul-General there. I was fated to meet him later when Sir William White, British Ambassador at Constantinople. During his long tenure of office in the Turkish capital he succeeded in raising British prestige, which had woefully declined for some years, to a higher level than it probably had attained since the days of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the great Eltchi.
To spend a few months up the Danube was interesting enough, but life there soon began to get wearisome and unprofitable from a professional point of view, so I proceeded to cast about for a change. The only way that suggested itself was to apply to the Admiralty for permission to return to England, with the object of going through the long course at Greenwich and Portsmouth, necessary for qualifying as a Gunnery Lieutenant. My Captain was good enough to support my application, so in the autumn of 1883 I found myself back at Greenwich again as one of a class of about a dozen lieutenants who were aspiring to become gunnery experts. I soon found out that I had mistaken my new profession. Most of my comrades were comparatively fresh from school, having only been at sea for one year, whereas I had five years’ service to my credit. I found that, after my long absence from anything in the way of school-work, high mathematics were no joke, and it seemed probable that when the examination time came, after labouring very hard at very uncongenial work, I should inevitably find myself at the bottom of my class. Consequently, I candidly admit that I was looking about for some fresh job all the time I was at Greenwich. Meanwhile, London was close by, and, feeling pretty sure that I should never get to the examination stage, I spent most of my time there, and only turned up at Greenwich for the lectures I was bound to attend.