Another splendid piece of work was accomplished when, after the bombardment of Alexandria he was appointed Provost-Marshal and Chief of Police, and had committed to his charge the task of restoring order. His conspicuous success on this occasion bore fruit many years later when he was offered the post of Chief Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis. His story of the Egyptian and Soudan Wars, carried through several chapters, is a valuable contribution to history. It suggests that, all other avenues to fame closed against him, Lord Charles would have made an enduring name as a war correspondent.
It is a circumstance incredible, save in view of the authority upon which it is stated, that, as part of the reward for his splendid service in the Soudan, Lord Charles narrowly escaped compulsory retirement from the Service before he had completed the time required to qualify for Flag Rank. The Queen's Regulations ordained that before a captain could win this prized position he must have completed a period of from five to six years of active service. In 1892, Lord Charles, the flag almost in reach of his hand, applied for permission to count-in the 315 days he was strenuously and brilliantly at work in the Soudan. The Board of Admiralty, invulnerable in their environment of red tape, refused the request, repeating the non possumus when on two subsequent occasions the request was preferred.
It must be admitted that the Board had no reason to regard Lord Charles with favour or even with equanimity. When returned to Parliament, the man who had superintended the mending of the boiler on the penny steamboat on the Nile, devoted himself to the bigger task of mending the Navy, at that time in an equally pitiful condition. During his brief and solitary term of office as Junior Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Charles, who thought he was put there to do some work, drew up a memorandum on the necessity of creating at the Admiralty a Naval Intelligence Department. The memorandum was laid before the Board, and the Junior Lord was told he was meddling with high matters that did not come within the scope of his business. A few weeks later a Naval Intelligence Department (of a sort) was created. Sic vos non vobis.
'Twas ever thus. Lord Charles, whether in office, on active service, or from his familiar place above the Gangway in the House of Commons, bringing to bear upon Naval affairs the gift of keen intuition and the endowment of long practical experience, has, with one exception, done more than any man living to deliver the Navy from mistakes inevitable in the case of the over-lordship of a civilian who is subject to currents of political and party feeling. By way of reward he has received more kicks than ha'pence.
GERMANISED TURKEY.
"Dere you are, mein friendt; der same old flag mit a leedle difference."