Chapter 40

SIR SAMUEL HOOD.

As soon as the Volage was refitted, and her crew refreshed, after our voyage from England of four months and a half, we sailed from Bombay to the southward along the western coast of India; and having rounded Ceylon, at Point de Galle, on the extreme south-western corner, where we merely touched to land the governor's dispatches, before we hauled up to the northward, and, after twelve days' passage, sailed into the beautiful harbour of Trincomalee. There, to my great joy, we found the commander-in-chief, Sir Samuel Hood; who, to my still greater joy, informed me that a vacancy had been kept open for me in his flag ship, the Illustrious. In a few minutes my traps were packed up, my commission made out, and I had the honour of hailing myself a professional follower of one of the first officers in his Majesty's service. It is true, I was only fifth lieutenant, and not even fifth on the Admiral's list for promotion; for I came after a number of old officers who had served under Sir Samuel for many long years of patient, or rather impatient, expectation: but my first and grand purpose was attained, although my chance of advancement was very small, and very remote.

In capstans, and other machines, there is a mechanical device, with which every person is acquainted, termed a pall or catch, by which the work gained in the effort last made shall be secured, and the machine prevented from turning back again. Something of this kind takes place in life, particularly in naval life; and happy is the officer who hears the pall of his fortunes play "click! click!" as he spins upwards in his profession. Proportionately deep is the despair of the poor wretch who, after struggling and tugging with all his might at the weary windlass of his hopes, can never bring it quite far enough round to hear the joyous sound of the pall dropping into its berth! I well remember most of these important moments of my own life; and I could readily describe the different sensations to which their successive occurrence gave rise, from the startling hour when my father first told me that my own request was now to be granted, for on the very next day I was to go to sea--up to that instant when the still more important announcement met my ear, "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder!"

"It is easy to be cheerful when one is successful," says a high authority; and there are "few people who are not good-natured when they have nothing to cross them," says another equally profound recorder of common-places; but the secret of good fortune seems to lie far less in making the most of favourable incidents, or in submitting manfully to disastrous ones, than in studying how to fill up to advantage the long intervals between these great epochs in our lives. So that there is, perhaps, no point of duty which affords more scope for the talents of a superior than the useful and cheerful employment of the heads and hands of his officers and people during those trying periods of inaction which occur in every service. Sir Samuel Hood possessed this faculty in a wonderful degree, as he not only kept us all busy when there was nothing to be done, but contrived to make us happy and contented, though some of our prospects were poor enough in all conscience. My own, for example, since I was placed at the tip of the tail of his long string of private followers; and when the Admiralty List came out, on which I had built so many beautiful castles in the air, my poor name was not upon it at all. I had not expected to be first or second, or even third; fourth I had reckoned upon as possible; fifth as probable; sixth as certain; so that my horror and disappointment were excessive when this kindest of commanders-in-chief broke to me the fatal news, in the following characteristic manner.

A telegraphic signal had been made from the flagstaff at the Admiral's house to the ship, in these words:--

"Send Mr. Hall on shore, with a crow-bar, two pick-axes, and two spades."

All the way to the landing-place I puzzled myself with thinking what on earth could be the object of these tools; little dreaming, good easy lieutenant! that I was so soon to dig the grave of my own hopes. The Admiral received me at the door with his coat off; and holding out his remaining hand (his right arm was shot away in action), he squeezed mine with even more than his wonted kindness.

"I have been waiting for you with some impatience;" he said, "to be present at the hunt after a white ant's nest, a sort of thing I know you like. These rogues, the _Termites bellicosi_, as I find the naturalists call them, have made their way into the house! and having carried their galleries up the walls and along the roof, have come down in great force upon a trunk of clothes, which they would have destroyed entirely before night, had I not caught sight of them. Now let us to work; for I propose to rip up the floor of the verandah, in order to follow their passages and galleries till I reach their nest, if it be a mile off; won't this he a glorious piece of service?" exclaimed the Admiral, as he warmed himself by anticipating the chase. He could hardly have been more delighted, I am persuaded, had he been giving orders for a fleet under his command to bear down upon the enemy's line. I could not venture to do more than bow, and say I was much obliged to him for having so considerately thought of me at such a moment.

"Oh!" cried he, apparently recollecting himself, "but I have something else to show you; or rather to tell you, for I must not show it; though I fear it will not please you quite so much as the prospect of a white ant-hunt. Here, Gigna," called the Admiral to his steward, who stood by with a tea-kettle of hot water, ready to pour over the ants, "put away that affair, which we shall not require this half-hour yet; and hold this crow-bar while I step into the office with Mr. Hall."

"It is of no use to mince the matter," said the veteran, shutting the door, and turning to me with somewhat of the air which he might be supposed to have put on, had he been instructed from home to tell me that one or both my parents were dead; "it is no use to conceal the fact from you; but here is the Admiralty List, just come to my hands, and your name, in spite of all you tell me of promises, verbal and written, is NOT ON IT!"

Had the Admiral fired one of the flag-ship's thirty-two pounders, double-shotted, down my throat, he could not have demolished more completely my bodily framework than this fatal announcement shattered to pieces the gilded crockeryware of my fondest hopes. All the gay visions of command, and power, and independence, in which I had indulged my fancy during the voyage, vanished like the shadows of a dream I fain would recall, but could not. I was at first quite stupified, and can remember nothing that passed for some minutes. As I recovered my scattered senses, however, I recollect gazing at the anchorage from the open window of the Admiralty House, near which we stood. The flag-ship then lay just off Osnaburg Point, with her ensign, or, as it used to be called in old books, her Ancient, the "meteor flag of England," dropped, in the calm, so perpendicularly from the gaff-end, that it looked like a rope more than a flag; while its reflection, as well as that of the ship herself, with every mast, yard, and line of the rigging, seemed, as it were, engraved on the surface of the tranquil pool, as distinctly as if another vessel had actually been inverted and placed beneath. I have seldom witnessed so complete a calm. The sea-breeze, with which the shore had been refreshed for twenty minutes, had not as yet found its way into the recesses of the inner harbour, which, take it all in all, is one of the snuggest and most beautiful coves in the world. And such is the commodious nature of this admirable port, that even the Illustrious, though a large 74-gun ship, rode at anchor in perfect security, within a very few yards of the beach, which at that spot is quite steep to, and is wooded down to, the very edge of the water. I gazed for some moments, almost unconsciously, at this quiet scene, so different from that which was boiling and bubbling in my own distracted breast, and swelling up with indignation against some of my friends at home, who I had such good reason to believe had either betrayed or neglected me, maugre all sorts of promises.

In the midst of my reverie, which the kind-hearted Admiral did not interrupt, I observed the wind just touch the drooping flag; but the air was so light and transient, that it merely produced on it a gentle motion from side to side, like that of a pendulum, imitated in the mirror beneath, which lay as yet totally unbroken by the sea-breeze. Presently the whole mighty flag, after a faint struggle or two, gradually unfolded itself, and, buoyed up by the new born gale, spread far beyond the gallant line-of-battle ship's stern, and waved gracefully over the harbour. It is well known to nice observers of the human mind, that the strangest fancies often come into the thoughts at a moment when we might least expect them; and though, assuredly, I was not then in a very poetical or imaginative humour, I contrived to shape out of the inspiring scene I was looking upon a figure to soothe my disappointed spirit. As I saw the ensign uncurl itself to the wind I said internally, "If I have but life, and health, and opportunity, I trust, notwithstanding the bitterness of this disappointment, I shall yet contrive to unfold, in like manner, the flag of my own fortunes to the world."

Just as this magnanimous thought crossed my mind's eye, the Admiral placed his hand so gently on my shoulder that the pressure would not have hurt a fly, and said, in a cheerful tone, "Never mind this mishap, master Hall; everything will come right in time; and if you only resolve to take it in the proper and manly temper, it may even prove all the better that this has happened. Nothing is without a remedy in this world; and I'll do what I can to make good this maxim in your case. In the mean time, however, come along, and help me to rout out these rascally white ants. Off coat, however, if you please; for we shall have a tough job of it."

It cost us an hour's hard work; for we had to rip up the planks along the whole of the verandah, then to shape a course across two cellars, or _godongs_, as they are called in the East, and finally the traverses of these singular insects obliged us to cut a trench to the huge hillock or nest, which rose to the height of five or six feet from the ground, in numberless shoots, like pinnacles round the roof of a Gothic church. We might have attacked them at headquarters in the first instance, had we wished it; but the Admiral chose to go more technically to work, and to sap up to his enemy by regular approaches. In this way we had the means of seeing the principles upon which these ants proceed in securing themselves, at every step of their progress, by galleries or covered ways, which, though extremely feeble, are sufficiently strong to keep off the attacks of every other kind of ant. It is curious enough, that, although the white ant be the most destructive of its species, it is said to be, individually, by far the weakest, and cannot move a step without the artificial protection of the galleries it constructs as it goes along; just as the besiegers of a fortification secure themselves in their trenches and zigzags.

We now brought our spades into play; and having cut the hill across, laid open the secrets of these most curious of all the ant tribe. At last we reached the great queen ant, the mother of millions of her race, a most enormous personage to be sure, nearly four inches long, and as thick as a man's finger, with a head not larger than that of a bee, but a body such as I have described, filled with eggs, which continually rolled out like a fluid from a reservoir. Never shall I forget the shout of rapture which the gallant Admiral sent over half the harbour, as he succeeded in gaining the object of his labour.

There are some men who go about everything they undertake with all their hearts and souls, and this great officer was one of those. He did nothing by halves and quarters, like so many other people. The greatest deeds of arms, or the most trivial objects of passing amusement, engrossed his whole concentrated attention for the time. He was equally in earnest when holding out examples of private generosity, or lending the heartiest and kindest encouragement even to the least distinguished of his followers, as when performing acts of the highest public spirit, or making the greatest sacrifices to what he considered his duty. Everything, in short, that he did, or thought, or uttered, bore the stamp of the same peculiar impress of genuine zeal. So eminently exciting, and even fascinating, was this truly officer-like conduct, that even those who had served under him the longest often wondered at the extent of their own exertions when roused by his example, and were led almost to believe that his very look had something stimulating in it which actually gave fresh vigour to their arms as well as to their thoughts. With all this, he was the gentlest of the gentle, and accomplished whatever he undertook without apparent effort, or the least consciousness that what he was doing was remarkable.

I remember an instance of his skill in the small way. One morning, near the spot where he had headed the storming party against the white ants, a working party of the crew of the Illustrious had commenced constructing a wharf before the dockyard. The stones of which this platform or landing-place was to be built were, by Sir Samuel Hood's orders, selected of very large dimensions, so much so, that the sailors came at last to deal with a mass of rock so heavy, that their combined strength proved unequal to moving it beyond a few inches towards its final position at the top of one corner. The Admiral sat on his horse looking at the workmen for some time, occasionally laughing, and occasionally calling out directions, which the baffled engineers could by no means apply. At length, his Excellency the Commander-in-chief became fidgety, and having dismounted, he tried to direct them in detail; but never a bit would the stone budge. Finally, losing all patience, he leaped from the top of the bank, and roared out, in a voice of reproach and provocation, "Give me the crow-bar!" Thus armed, he pushed the officers and men to the right and left, while he insisted upon having the whole job to himself, literally, single-handed. He first drove the claws of the instrument well under the edge of the stone, then placed with his toe a small iron pin on the ground under the bar, and across its length, to act as a fulcrum, or shoulder. When all things were carefully adjusted to his mind, he slipped his hand to the upper end of the lever, and weighing it down, gave what he called "life" to the huge stone, which, just before, half-a-dozen strong men had not been able to disturb. Sure enough, however, it now moved, though only about half-an-inch, towards its intended resting-place. At each prize or hitch of the bar, the rock appeared to advance farther, till, after five or six similar shifts, it was finally lodged in the station prepared for it, where, I doubt not, it rests to this day, and may occupy for centuries to come.