There was one other event on this voyage. I had been permitted to select my own chief officer, and I induced a man to come with me who had been third in the African—Tom East—the son of Quartermain East of Claimant fame. He was of the bulldog breed, a good sailor, a good officer, and loyal to the heart’s core. We had disagreements at times, but we liked and respected one another, and when the separation came it was with mutual regret. Further, I grieve to say he has now joined the majority. Half the trouble is lifted from the shoulders of the master if he has a chief he can rely upon to carry out his orders. For if the master’s voice is heard at all, it should be a clear intimation that the attention of every one is called for, and that the ordinary routine is departed from.
Two days out from Santa Cruz we lost a propeller blade, and we consequently waggled down to the Cape at reduced speed, thankful that we encountered no really bad weather, for we were only making about eleven knots to the hour. On arriving at Cape Town we went alongside the outer jetty and made arrangements with a diver to take off the broken blade and put on a spare one. I was assured that the operation was practicable, and that it had been successfully done in other similar cases. It did not strike me, however, as looking very promising. In just under a day and a half the job was done for what it was worth. I knew it was a risk, but desired to save the expense of dry docking the ship. On the other hand, I should not have been justified in taking the ship from a place of safety with a damaged propeller, so the course adopted I hoped would prove the happy compromise. In this I was mistaken, for ten days afterwards the new blade dropped off altogether. By that time we were half way to Wellington with a nice fair wind and, by easing the engines considerably, could make very fair running. In point of fact, in spite of our mishaps our average speed for the entire distance was 12·94 knots, and the steaming time was forty-one and a half days. We went south to Lyttleton in due course and were again put into working order, but there was not much time given us in the country, for in less than a fortnight we were on the track again for home, the round trip taking three months and six days. By this time I was getting acclimatised to the surroundings down south, and was making shorter cuts to Cape Horn each passage. On this particular occasion, although it was the depth of the Antarctic winter and a little ice was seen, we had fine fair winds. Every one concerned was delighted with the ship, and the passage home was made in a total time of thirty-seven days nine hours, or steaming time of thirty-six days four hours—an average speed of 13·3 with the freezing engines all working. To deal with this matter once for all it may be said that her best passage out was thirty-nine days eight hours total time.
“KAIKOURA” IN HARBOUR
No pains were spared on my part to make the ship as fine a specimen of a first-class steamer as possible, and it was always a matter of certainty that when we arrived in port we should be the best-looking ship there. By a little contriving I had succeeded in getting dummy yards made for the mizzen mast. They were only used in port, and they came down with the Blue Peter when we started on homeward passages, for although they were used once or twice in London, it was never possible to do the ship’s appearance justice with no proper crew on board her. On the other hand, in colonial ports that matter had my special attention, and I so impressed my views upon the officers that in time they had as keen an eye as myself for a slack rope or a yard not quite square. I have reason to know that this peculiarity of the ship was noticed on all sides, and only quite recently I got a letter on business from a complete stranger who reminded me incidentally that he had seen the ship years ago and recalled her appearance and her smartness.
Things at times go very wrong even with the best intention, as the following case will illustrate. The Governor of New Zealand was then Sir William Jervois, an officer who had served his country in many ways with great distinction. One day in Lyttleton he accepted an invitation to come and see the ship and to lunch on board. I was very keen upon doing the thing in first-rate style, so, having two Naval Reserve officers and a crew of Reserve men, it seemed to me that we might turn out a decent Guard of Honour. My second officer was given charge of that business, for I knew that he was well up in his drill. We borrowed the arms and the men were very decently turned out. When his Excellency came on board there was a decent “present,” the Governor’s flag was broken at the main, and all went very gaily, the lunch was excellent and every one was pleased, but here was disaster. Many ladies and townspeople had come on board as visitors and were chattering gaily with the officer of the guard, who had let his men disperse for dinner or stand easy. The Governor rather suddenly rose from the table to depart, and before my officer again got his men together, the necessity for them had departed. I do not think that I ever felt quite so angry, but a sense of the ridiculous reduced the feeling to some sarcastic remarks that I should not have liked to be the recipient of. His Excellency, however, in no way remarked upon the incident, but I doubt not he enjoyed a quiet laugh at the contretemps. He was uniformly kind to me, and I entertain a grateful remembrance of hospitality and courtesy displayed to me and mine by Lady Jervois and himself.
About this time the late Admiral Sir George Tryon, K.C.B., was Commander-in-Chief on the Australian station, and his was a personality to be remembered. He was good enough to treat me with a great amount of consideration, and indeed went out of his way to encourage a growth of good feeling between the Royal Navy and the Merchant Service. I saw a good deal of him, and so far as I could discern he made no distinction between me and one of his own captains. I think I may truly say that it was mainly the intercourse with him which turned my mind to a study of naval matters, and caused me to write the various papers I have on the possibilities of war service by merchant steamers.
This was just after the Pendjeh war scare, when a Russian cruiser had turned up most unexpectedly at Wellington. My ship had been taken by Government, but for some reason was returned, and the Coptic was taken in her place. There was some little trouble in getting the crew of that ship to take war risks, but having mustered my men and put the question to them, they agreed to a man to do as I did. With that assurance I went to call on the Governor to ask him to requisition my ship, but for some reason unknown to me it was not done, much to my disappointment.
They were a splendid lot of officers on board the flagship H.M.S. Nelson, but a matter of thirty years makes a great clearance. It is not so very long, however, since I met a man who reminded me of an incident concerning a lot of them who, having been to a ball, had come on board my ship to put up for the night, and wanted to know what I could do to amuse them. I had then on board as guests two parsons, one of whom was the Rev. Eliot Chambers, an old navy man himself, so I replied that there were two parsons on board and they were at liberty to draw them if they pleased. Chambers heard this, slipped out of bed and bolted his door, but the other fellow was fetched out in scant attire to join the general revelry, and a very pleasant time it was.
The flag captain was Atwell Lake, now an admiral, and he was a tireless talker. One evening General Sir George Whitmore, who was commanding in New Zealand, invited two members of the Government, Lake and myself, to dine with him, and a very fine dinner he gave us too. But Sir George was also a tireless talker, and I fancy that Lake went there prepared to vanquish him at the game, for he started to talk at the commencement of dinner, kept us all interested, and Sir George never got a word in edgeways the whole of the time.