[CHAPTER II]
GUNROOM LIFE IN THE ’SEVENTIES
During my school days, owing, I suppose, to my thorough dislike of the whole process of education, I made up my mind to go into the Navy if I could get the necessary permission from my father, so as to escape from school once and for all. I am afraid that I had not reckoned on the amount of elementary mathematics, which I detested even more than Latin grammar, that was to be forced into me during the fifteen months’ training in the Britannia. Anyhow it was decreed that the Navy should be my profession, and I was taken down to Portsmouth in the summer of 1869 to try to pass the examination for candidates for Naval Cadetships, the necessary nomination having been procured through the kindness of a cousin of my mother, then Captain Beauchamp Seymour, Naval Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty of that day, who subsequently became Admiral Lord Alcester, of whom more anon.
Naturally, every candidate was submitted to a medical examination which took place at Haslar Hospital. In those days Army and Navy Surgeons had not developed into lace-clad Generals and Inspector-Generals. (Incidentally I can never understand why a man who is by profession a doctor or surgeon should want to call himself a colonel. To my mind a captain in the Navy might just as logically call himself a dean, or a commander-in-chief an archbishop!) The Superintendent of Haslar was a Post-Captain, Wodehouse by name. He had lately returned from commanding a line-of-battleship in the Mediterranean, Admiral Sir Robert Smart being his Commander-in-Chief at that time. It was always spread abroad that Captain Wodehouse was on extremely bad terms with Bobby Smart, which was the pet name of his Commander-in-Chief, but, on the other hand, his great friend on the Station was the French Commander-in-Chief, who in those days was very apt to be at Malta with his squadron, as the entente which existed during the Crimean Campaign was still kept going during the late ’sixties. As may be imagined, he did not have many opportunities of getting even with his Chief, but on one occasion he may be said to have had the best of it. His vessel was leaving Malta for England and was moving majestically out of the Grand Harbour, Valetta, with the band on the poop and all the usual pomp and circumstance. Wodehouse knew that the French Admiral was on board the English flagship, so as a parting shot, as he passed under the flagship’s stern, the band was ordered to play, “Robert, toi que j’aime.” This affecting farewell was a delight to the Frenchman, who could not resist telling Smart how fond he was of “ce cher Wodehouse qui avait tant d’esprit.”
I succeeded in passing my examinations, both medical and scholastic, all right, and after a few weeks’ suspense I was informed by the Admiralty that I was to join the Britannia at Dartmouth in September. That training-ship has so often been described that I do not think it necessary to say much about it; but a few words may be written about the impressions that my first introduction to the Navy conveyed to my youthful mind. The Captain of the Britannia was at that time Captain Corbett, a very distinguished officer, and, to the cadets, an awe-inspiring figure when he inspected our ranks on Sundays with his ribbon of the C.B. (a really prized distinction in days when orders and ribbons were very sparsely bestowed), and the sash over his shoulder that was then worn by the Naval Aide-de-Camp to the Sovereign. The fashion in hair at that time was very different from the present Navy fashion, when everyone is either bearded or clean-shaven. In 1869, just before Mr. Childers allowed beards to be grown, every officer and man had to shave his upper lip and chin, the result being that the young bloods of the quarter and lower decks delighted in appearing in long Dundreary whiskers.
The Britannia was a good school in its way, for the amount of hard knowledge in the shape of the elements of navigation and mathematics that we were made to absorb in twelve months was rather remarkable; but the old hulk was not particularly sanitary, and we were shamefully underfed, considering the amount of school work and drill that we had to do. During my year there I personally lost a good deal of time owing to a simultaneous outbreak of smallpox and scarlatina that occurred in 1870. I was unfortunate enough to develop the scarlatina and was at once put behind a canvas screen, which was supposed to separate me from my fellow-cadets, whilst waiting for the boat to take me ashore to the sick quarters. Unfortunately for me, another cadet was attacked with smallpox that same morning; so, to save trouble, we two wretched boys were coupled together behind the same screen, for, as the doctor sagely remarked, it was very uncommon for anybody to have smallpox and scarlatina at the same time. I, unfortunately, thanks to his speculative philosophy, succeeded in getting both, with the result that I was extremely ill, and was put considerably back with my studies.
There is no period of my life that I look back upon with less pleasure than I do to the time I spent in the Britannia. Whilst admitting that the instruction was good—indeed very good—it was rather overdone considering the average age of the boys—between thirteen and fifteen—and, as I have already said, the food was disgracefully bad and scanty. To show how hungry we were, it became a regular practice of the cadets when passing a bluejacket to drop a handkerchief with sixpence knotted into the corner, the handkerchief being surreptitiously returned in the course of a few minutes with bits of ship’s biscuit wrapped up in it instead of the sixpence. I think that all of us—and by all of us I mean the fifty cadets who had joined together in the autumn of 1869—were rejoiced when our release came in December 1870. I was fortunate enough to take a first-class, which meant that I was raised to the dignity of a midshipman at once instead of having to wait for three, six or nine months, according to the class taken on passing out. I may as well confess that, as a matter of fact, I was first of the whole term, and was probably conceited and odious on the strength of it. The conceit only lasted till I joined a sea-going ship, where, naturally, no one cared a straw whether a midshipman was first or last when he left the Britannia; and as I had acquired a certain amount of philosophy, even at that early age, it was brought home to me that the only individual who benefited in the least by my exploits was my father, for the grateful country bestowed a regulation dirk and a spy-glass upon me as prizes, both of which necessaries would otherwise have been supplied by an outfitter and paid for by my parent.
And now to mention some of my contemporaries who have arrived at distinction. A good many of the survivors I still meet from time to time, and they include Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, and that really authentic specimen of the “bravest of the brave,” Admiral Sir James Startin. Jimmy Startin, from his youth up, was one of those very rare and fortunate individuals who have absolutely no sense or knowledge of fear. He has distinguished himself by his splendid personal bravery a hundred times, but perhaps never more so than when, as a man of over sixty years of age and Commodore of a squadron of patrol vessels, he boarded a burning patrol vessel that was in momentary danger of blowing up and attempted to rescue the engineer of that vessel. For this gallant exploit he was decorated by the King with the Albert Medal, and I cannot do better than quote the official account which appeared in the London Gazette:—
“Gazette, 20th August, 1918:—
“Admiral Sir James Startin, K.C.B.
“An explosion occurred on board H.M. Motor-launch 64 on the 10th June, 1918. Immediately after the explosion Commodore Startin proceeded alongside Motor-launch 64, the engine-room of which was still burning fiercely. On learning that the engineer was below he sprang down the hatch without the slightest hesitation and succeeded in recovering the body practically unaided. In view of the fact that the bulkhead between the engine-room and the forward tanks had been blown down by the force of the explosion, and that the fire was blazing upon the side and on the top of the forward tanks, which are composed of extremely thin metal, and consequently were liable to burst at any moment, the action of Commodore Startin in entering the engine-room before the fire was subdued showed the utmost possible gallantry and disregard of personal safety. Had the engineer not been past human aid he would undoubtedly have owed his life to the courage and promptitude of Commodore Startin.”