CHAPTER XXXVIII

H.M.S. UNDAUNTED (_Continued_)

II. THE SALVING OF THE SEIGNELAY

The _Undaunted_, lying at Alexandria in 1891, was being rigged up for a ball; when a telegram arrived ordering her to go to the rescue of the French cruiser _Seignelay_, which had gone ashore near Jaffa, on 26th April. The telegram arrived at one o'clock in the morning of the 28th April. Before daylight, the ball-room was unrigged, the decorations were taken down, 300 guests were put off by telegram, and we were steaming at full speed to the _Seignelay_, distant 270 miles. In a private letter printed in _The Times_ of 20th October, 1894, describing the affair, the anonymous writer says: "It was a good sample of the vicissitudes of naval life, and I think we all rather enjoyed it." (I do not know who wrote the letter, but it must have been one of my officers; who, without my knowledge, published it, or sanctioned its publication, more than a year after the _Undaunted_ had paid off. The proprietors of _The Times_ have kindly given me permission to quote from the document, which was written at the time of the occurrence of the events which it describes, and which contains details I had forgotten.)

At daylight on 29th April, we found the _Seignelay_ driven high up on a sandy beach, embedded in five and a half feet of sand in shallow water. She had parted her cable in a gale of wind, had driven on shore, and had scooped out a dock for herself. Had she been built with a round stern {379} each succeeding wave of the sea would have lifted and then dropped her, bumping her to pieces. But as she had a sharp stern, the breakers lifted her bodily and floated her farther on. The _Seignelay_ was a single-screw wooden cruiser, of 1900 tons displacement and 18 feet 4 inches draught. When his ship struck, the captain telegraphed to his admiral saying that he feared she was hopelessly lost. The French admiral dispatched a squadron of three ships to take off the men and stores; but by the time they arrived the _Seignelay_ was afloat again and lying at her anchor almost undamaged; and the senior French captain amiably remarked: "You English do not know the word impossible."

The British sloop _Melita_, Commander George F. King-Hall (now Admiral Sir G. F. King-Hall, K.C.B, C.V.O.), was already endeavouring to help the _Seignelay_ when the _Undaunted_ arrived; but the water was so shallow that the _Melita_ could not approach nearer than 300 yards, and the _Undaunted_ 850 yards, to the _Seignelay_.

I went on board the _Seignelay_, and found her captain seated in his cabin, profoundly dejected at the disaster. I cheered him as well as I could, telling him that of course I understood that he had only been waiting for more men to lighten his ship, and that I would send him 130 men with an officer who understood French to act as interpreter.

There was a heavy sea running; and the anchor I had brought in the launch was laid out astern of the _Seignelay_ with considerable difficulty, and the end of the cable was brought on board the _Seignelay_.

Besides the _Melita_, the Austrian steamer _Diana_, the French steamer _Poitou_ and the Russian steamer _Odessa_ had all been endeavouring to rescue the _Seignelay_, but they had neither the men nor the gear required for the task. What was done subsequently was narrated in _The Times_, more than three years afterwards, by the anonymous writer aforesaid.

"Our First Lieutenant (Lieutenant Stokes Rees) went as {380} interpreter, and all our Captain wanted done was suggested by him to the French. He gave the orders to junior officers over our men, and I believe worked the French crew also by his suggestions, a fine old sailor who was one of their chief petty officers giving what orders were necessary. He hardly left the deck for three days and nights, and did his work splendidly.

"The ship was embedded 5½ feet in the sand, and so had to be lightened that much before we could hope to move her. This we spent all Wednesday afternoon in doing.

"On Thursday morning the _Melita_ with a light draught Turkish steamer (the _Arcadia_) tried to pull her off but failed, while the _Melita_ was very nearly wrecked herself. Nothing but very smart seamanship in making sail and casting off hawsers with cool judgment on the part of ---- ... saved her from being dashed in a good sea upon a jagged reef of rocks close to leeward. Her screw got fouled, and the willing but awkward Turk towed her head round towards the reef and she only just managed to get sail on her and shave it by 50 yards. She could not anchor or she would have swung on top of it. We were looking on powerless from our deep draught of water, though we hurried out hawsers, but it was one of the nearest shaves I have seen, and with the large number of men they had away in working parties, a thing to be very proud of and thankful for...."

What happened was that the _Melita_ fouled her screw with a hawser. I had warned her commander both orally and by signal to beware above all of fouling his screw. But circumstances defeated his efforts. When a man is doing his best in difficulties, there is no use in adding to his embarrassments by a reprimand. I signalled to Commander King-Hall to cheer up and to clear his screw as soon as he could; and I have reason to know that he deeply appreciated my motive in so doing.

To continue the narrative, which I have interrupted to quote an instance of disciplinary action in an emergency:

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"All Thursday we worked on at lightening her, getting out 300 tons of coal, all her shot, shell, small guns, provisions and cables on board our ship, until every part of the ship was piled up with them, and all our nicely painted boats reduced to ragged cargo boats, besides being a good deal damaged owing to the exposed anchorage and seaway. We got out one strong, and two light, wire hawsers and with them the two ships tried to tow, but we parted the light hawsers at once.

"Then the Captain let me try a plan I had all along been urging but which he ... and the French called a physical impossibility."

(The fact was, that the lighters and native boats were so unseaworthy that, until the weather moderated, the scheme, with all deference to the writer, was impracticable.)

"We hired native boats and large lighters, got out strong chain cables into them, and laid out 450 yards of chain cable between the _Melita_ and ourselves, floated on these lighters. Thanks to the skill of our boatswain and a big quantity of men in the lighters this was done most successfully, though three lighters were sunk or destroyed in doing it.

"That afternoon, Friday the 1st, having got 450 tons out of the ship in forty-four hours, we got a fair pull at her with all three ships, the little Turk tugging manfully at his rotten hawser at one quarter and giving her a side pull occasionally. We gradually worked our mighty engines up to full speed, the chain cable tautened out as I have never seen chain do before and off she came.

"We manned the rigging and gave her cheer on cheer, the band playing the _Marseillaise_ as the _Melita_ towed her past our stern, while the Frenchmen hugged and kissed our men on their checks. It was a scene to be long remembered. The crowds of spectators lining the beach and walls, and our own men, 'spent but victorious' after their long forty-four hours of almost unceasing work, hardly anyone lying down for more than three or four hours either night....

"By noon on Saturday we had replaced all their {382} gear on board, picked up their anchors and cables, etc., so that when their squadron came in that evening they found nothing left to do. They were really grateful and showed much good feeling, coming to call on us and being most friendly.

"On Monday night, when we left, the whole squadron cheered us manfully...."

The British admiral was afterwards asked by the French Government to allow the _Undaunted_ to proceed to the Gulf of Lions where the French Fleet was lying, in order that the officers and men of the _Undaunted_ might attend a reception in her honour. The _Undaunted_ steamed down between the French lines, playing the _Marseillaise_, the French manning ship and cheering. Officers and men were most hospitably entertained with every mark of friendship and goodwill. The French Government most courteously presented me with a beautiful Sèvres vase, which is one of my most valued possessions.

When the time came for the _Undaunted_ to go home, the commander-in-chief paid her a high compliment. The whole Fleet steamed out of Malta Harbour in line ahead, the _Undaunted_ being the rear ship of the line. When we were to part company, every vessel, except the _Undaunted_, turned 16 points to port in succession (the line thus curving back upon itself) and steamed past the stern of the _Undaunted_. The commander-in-chief gave orders to cheer ship as each vessel passed the _Undaunted_: a stately farewell to the homeward bound.

On the passage home, in order to test the actual working of communication by signal between the Navy and the mercantile marine, a system whose reform had constantly urged, I signalled, between Malta and Plymouth, to 33 merchantmen. Of the whole number, only three answered my signal, and of the three, only one answered it correctly, although several vessels passed within 600 yards of the _Undaunted_. The signals I made were short, such as "Where are you bound?" "Where are you from?" {383} "Have you seen any men-of-war?" "What weather have you had?" and some of them required only one hoist in reply.

The Royal Navy, a great part of whose duty in time of war would be the protection of commerce, was in fact at that time practically unable to communicate with the Merchant navy, either for the purpose of giving or receiving information, except by means of sending a boat to the vessel in question, a proceeding which must often be impossible, and which would always involve a delay which might bring serious consequences. No condition of affairs could more powerfully exemplify the national neglect of preparation for war. For in war, the maintenance of the lines of communication from ship to ship and ship to shore, is of the first importance.

The difficulty discovered by merchant vessels in signalling or replying to a signal consisted in their ignorance of signalling. They were seldom required to signal; the use of the commercial code involved a tedious process, impossible to accomplish quickly without constant practice; they were equipped with neither Morse nor semaphore apparatus, nor had officers or men learned how to use it. When a man-of-war signalled to a merchantman, the merchant skipper or mate must first try to decipher the flags of the hoist, an exercise to which he was totally unaccustomed. When he had decided that the flags were, say, blue with a white stripe, and red with a yellow stripe, he had to turn them up in the signal-book to discover what they meant. All this time the distance between the two ships was rapidly increasing. Having made out the signal, the merchant sailor must refer to his signal-book to find what flags made his reply; and having found them, he had to pick out the flag itself from a bundle. By the time he had finished these operations, if he ever finished them, the ships were nearly out of sight of each other.

The reform was eventually achieved largely by the personal enterprise and energy of the mercantile marine officers {384} themselves, who learned signalling, and who often paid for the necessary apparatus out of their own pockets.

The _Undaunted_ paid off early in 1893. Upon the evening of the day upon which I arrived in London, I went to the House of Commons to listen to the debate upon the Navy Estimates.

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