It must not be supposed that during the Russian war scare New Zealand was altogether unprepared. There were both forts and mine fields, and the latter were very well equipped. As for the forts, they had been constructed, I believe, under the directions of Sir W. Jervois himself, who was a skilled engineer, though, as I happened to know, he and the naval commander-in-chief held different estimates as to their specific value. At various times I think I went over nearly all of those forts with Sir George Whitmore, and formed the impression that the material was excellent, for they seemed to have ordered the best of everything. On one occasion, some years afterwards, I was visiting the forts at Otago Heads in company with the then Minister of Defence, afterwards the Right Hon. Richard Seddon, and this seems a fit place to give an anecdote quite characteristic of the man. The officer commanding expressed a wish to have another gun mounted in a particular place that he pointed out. After some demur Seddon agreed to give this, but said the Government could not afford luxuries. Some one chipped in with “That’s what the Daily —— says about you having a special train to go from —— to ——.” “Oh,” replied Seddon; “they say that, do they? Well, in future I will have a special train a great deal oftener than I have done.” He quite understood the way to deal with his fellow-countrymen, and most of them admired him immensely for his sheer dominating personality.
The social clubs in the principal towns were great institutions and of most hospitable tendencies the whole time that I was in the mail service. I was free of them all as an honorary member, and it seems to me rather a pity that we do not reciprocate this hospitality to any great extent when colonial visitors come to London. There is, of course, reciprocity between certain clubs all the world over, but generally speaking it is a difficult matter to obtain for a colonial friend in this country. The Fernhill, Northern, Wellington, Canterbury and Christchurch clubs were most kind, and I have pleasant memories of them all. Perhaps the last named appealed to me more than any, but then Christchurch itself was the most English place I ever set foot in. It had evolved its own atmosphere, habits and customs. There was also another famous institution known as “Coker’s Hotel.” Here the personality of the proprietor was decidedly an asset, and Jack Coker was liked and respected by every one with whom he came in contact. He had been a sailor, I think an old man-of-war’s man, but had the instinct of good breeding which made him welcome in any company. I remember on one occasion there had been a great ball in Christchurch given to the officers of the Australian squadron. Many of them were staying at Coker’s, and when we returned in the early hours he was chaired in recognition of something he had done by two post captains, a first lieutenant and myself, and as he expressed it afterwards, “It was the proudest moment of my life, but a little bit risky,” and it was. But there was a homelike atmosphere in that hotel which I have never found elsewhere, and which disappeared with the man who had created it.
There was an incident connected with a dinner to celebrate the inception of the Midland Railway which is noteworthy in the light of recent events and would no longer be possible. The function was held on October 21, and I was called upon to respond to the toast of the Navy, having had due notice of what was expected of me. I did so in some sort of fashion, but when I went to lunch on board my ship the next day, my chief observed in his plain-spoken way that I had made a nice mess of it the preceding evening. “How?” I asked. “It was the anniversary of Trafalgar,” he said, “and you didn’t mention it.” It is well to remember that a similar lapse would no longer be possible, for through the genius of Arnold White in suggesting that a wreath should be laid on the Nelson Columns on Trafalgar day, and the efforts of the Navy League in giving effect to the idea, the event is now celebrated from one end of the empire to the other. Certainly there is no child in New Zealand to-day ignorant of the fact that October 21 is Trafalgar day, and attaches due importance to it accordingly.
THE MASTER OF THE “KAIKOURA”
It was rather the fashion both in Australia and New Zealand about this period to take great interest in anything that resembled a race between two well-known steamers. In fact it reminded me of Mark Twain’s stories of racing on the Mississippi. There were two vessels on the coast about the speeds of which all sorts of tales were told. One was the Takapuna, an express vessel carrying the mail from Wellington to Auckland via the west coast; the other was the Rotomahana, a beautiful vessel built by Denny’s and credited with a speed of seventeen knots. At all events she was supposed to be the fastest thing on the coast and I dare say was. But we in the Kaikoura had rather an idea that we could do a bit of steaming on a pinch, and so it came to pass that these two ships were lying in Wellington harbour one fine afternoon both bound to Lyttelton and to sail about the same time. The idea of racing had not entered my head at the time of my leaving the wharf, and as lookers-on said afterwards, “I went down the middle of the harbour as usual with a leadsman in both chains.” That was chaff, of course, but I never cut corners unduly fine. On this particular occasion the Rotomahana left a short time after me, and to my astonishment came and squeezed in between me and the first turning point. She was crowded with passengers going down to Christchurch races, and they howled at us in derision, holding up rope ends and offering us a tow if we wanted one. We had started under easy steam, as was usual in coasting, and we had in fact been overhauled very quickly, but the indignity of the proceeding rather vexed me, so I sent for my chief engineer, and pointed out that it was not desirable we should be made a laughing-stock of. He replied that he “supposed it was to be Elder (meaning Fairfield) against Denny,” to which I assented, and he went below, but I shall always hold the opinion that there had been some talk on shore between the rival engineers. Be that as it may, the lead the Rotomahana had got by this time did not increase, but she still ostentatiously trailed her coat. There was no doubt under ordinary steaming conditions our then rival was the faster ship, for she had far greater horse-power proportionately than we, but on this occasion she had a full load of cargo and we were flying light. Our displacement, in fact, was inconsiderable, and as the water was smooth as a mill pond, it was equal to having our horse-power in a vessel half our size. To make a long story short, we let my ship go and we simply raced past our friend Rotomahana, got to Lyttelton an hour and a half to the good, and were safely moored and piped down before she got into dock. The race caused a good deal of comment, for the result was surprising. Every one did not see that we owed the win to being light, and having the luck of smooth water, but the fact remained that we had the fastest run between those ports to our credit for many years, until H.M.S. Orlando took it away from us. The captain of the Rotomahana was a very splendid skipper named Cary. He had done numbers of fine things on the coast, and was commonly spoken of by a somewhat fiery sobriquet. I was informed that he did not like his beating, but he was not the first challenger to fail.
I had two outbreaks of fire which deserve to be chronicled. One happened at sea and the other in harbour. On the first occasion it was midway between New Zealand and Cape Horn when it was reported to me that one of the coal bunkers was on fire. It gave me a nasty sensation for a moment, but it was night time, no fuss was made, and a few hours put an end to the trouble. It tires me to hear men talk about the bad behaviour of British merchant seamen in emergencies of this sort. It is my experience that, except during periods of strike or general labour unrest, you can do anything with them.
The next fire was a more serious matter, for there were complications which made the matter more difficult. It is a most excellent maxim to keep on good terms with the port authorities wherever you may be, but occasionally you come across personalities with whom smooth working is impossible. The port captain at Lyttelton had on one occasion fallen foul of my second officer, who was carrying out some order I had given him, and my man had retorted in language perhaps more forcible than polite. That was, strictly speaking, quite wrong, although natural, for all my people knew quite well that though I exercised the right of free speech to them, I did not permit any one else to do so, and was always ready to take their part if it were necessary. In this case the port captain complained to the head office in Christchurch, and I received a letter written by the order of the directors instructing me to severely reprimand the officer in question for his unguarded language to the port official. I regret that I have destroyed that correspondence, for I remember replying to the directors that I had carried out their instructions, but that the “cavalry forms of speech” indulged in on both sides had not originated with my ship, and so the incident closed with a rankling remembrance on the part of the port captain, and a sort of civis Romanus sum feeling on the part of my ship’s company.
Well, one Sunday evening in Lyttelton harbour we had just finished dinner when East came to me and reported that there was a big fire in the forward coal bunker, and that the refrigerating-room bulkhead was very hot. We were to sail for home in three days, we were coaled up, and had on board a large quantity of frozen meat stowed in the immediate vicinity of the seat of the fire. I shall never be sufficiently thankful that it was my habit to spend Sundays on board, for had I not been there it would have been very awkward. Without any fuss we got the pumps to work. The men, being fortunately most on board, fell quickly into their places, and having put an officer in the gangway to prevent any one coming on board, I thought things were in a fairly satisfactory condition. But about this time two things happened. One was the advent on the scene of the port captain, who demanded admittance, which upon consideration I could not well refuse, for, as he argued, you don’t start pumps on a Sunday evening unless there is something the matter. The other occurrence was the intimation that the deck of the second saloon was getting hot and smoking. The port captain wished to summon the local fire brigade and take charge; to this proposal I would not listen, but said I would accept the services of his tug-boat’s pump if she could come alongside, which in course of time she did. By this time it was known in Christchurch that something was wrong, but as there were no trains running so late on Sunday, the Company’s manager, Mr. Bennett, made, I believe, record time over the hills down to Lyttelton, arriving in time to see the end of it all.
Underneath the wooden deck of the second saloon was a steel one which was now red hot, and flames were showing. My endeavour was to pierce the steel deck so as to get water directly upon the fire, but this was rather difficult, and for one awful moment the idea flashed across me, “You have refused help. Is the job going to beat you?”