CHAPTER XLVIII

HER MAJESTY'S MIDSHIPMEN

Having adopted the practice of asking the officers in the Fleet under my command to write essays upon subjects connected with the Service, I once received a disquisition in which the author (a midshipman) dwelt sorrowfully upon the unaccountable indifference manifested by senior officers towards the opinions of midshipmen, who, said the writer, having young and vigorous minds, were naturally better fitted to grapple with problems which baffled the older and slower intellect.

This particular young gentleman must I think have applied his vigorous mind to the problem of how to obtain a generous allowance of leave. I trust I did him no injustice; but whenever the Fleet lay off the coasts of Scotland, he was afflicted with a grievous toothache, requiring an immediate visit to the dentist. When he had gone ashore to have a tooth out in every port in Scotland, I sent for him.

"Tell me," I said, "how many teeth you have left? For I make out that you have had forty-six teeth extracted in Scotland alone."

Many a delightful day have I had with the midshipmen of the ships and fleets in which I have served. We fished together, rode, shot, hunted and raced together. Memory does not always supply episodes in their chronological order; and I set these down as they occur to me.

When I was lieutenant in the _Bellerophon_, stationed at Bermuda, I used to take the midshipmen out fishing. In {471} those seas, the water is so clear that one can watch the fish taking the bait. Once, deep down, I saw the head of a conger eel protruding from the cleft of the rocks in which he lay. I dropped the bait in front of his nose, and watched his head move back and forth, until he took the bait. Then I shifted the midshipmen to the farther side of the boat to counterweigh the strain and to get a purchase on the line, and hauled out the great eel, piece by piece, and we dragged him into the boat.

About that time, the midshipmen saved me from a highly disagreeable death. We were out fishing in my boat, and one of the midshipmen threw my housewife for snooded hooks at another, and missing him, it went overboard. Now my fishing housewife was a most valuable possession; I had made it myself; and when I saw it sinking slowly down through the clear water, I dived for it and caught it. By the time I rose to the surface, the boat had drifted away from me. Hailing the crew, I swam after the boat; and as I reached her, I was suddenly hoisted bodily inboard by the slack of my breeches. Almost at the same moment, the fin of a shark shot up beside the gunwale. The midshipmen, my saviours, observed that "it was a sell for the shark."

We sailed one day to North Rock, which lies about twenty-two miles from Bermuda, and there we fished. Towards evening, it came on to blow. The ship was invisible from North Rock, and it was impossible to return. We tried to secure the boat to the rocks, but failed. There was nothing to be done but to lay to and bale. As the dark fell, I found we had no light. By this time the midshipmen were utterly exhausted, and were lying helpless. I made a lantern out of the mustard-pot, using oil from a sardine tin, and fabricating a wick from a cotton fishing line, and slung it on the beam. It burned all night. And all night, one of the worst nights in my recollection, we tacked to and fro close-reefed. At dawn, we started on the return trip; and, so whimsical a thing is destiny, no sooner had we {472} sighted the Fleet, than a puff of wind carried away the mast which had stood so stoutly all the night of storm.

My boat was what was called a "Mugian" boat, built in Bermuda. Her crew consisted of one man. His name was Esau, and he was a liberated slave of an incomparable obstinacy, a fault of which I cured him in one moment. When we took the boat for her first trip, I was persuaded that I could steer her among the reefs as well as Esau. But Esau was of another opinion. When argument failed, he tried to wrest the tiller from me, whereupon, unshipping it, I brought it down on Esau's head. I was a powerful youth, and I struck hard; yet it was not the head of Esau which was broken, but the tiller, though it was of oak. In trying to steer with a short piece of the tiller, we were nearly wrecked; but Esau ventured no further remonstrance, neither then nor afterwards.

There is a right way and there is a wrong way of dealing with midshipmen; and a little imagination may reveal the right way. When I was in command of the _Undaunted_, stationed at Malta, I noticed that the midshipmen, returning on board after taking violent exercise on shore, were often overheated, with the result that they caught a chill, and the chill brought on Malta fever, the curse of that island in those days. I issued an order that overcoats were to be taken ashore and worn while coming off to the ship; and I caused a room in the Custom House to be fitted with pegs, upon which the coats might be left until they were required.

The next thing was that a boy who came on board without his overcoat, had his leave stopped by the commander. There was a boxing match on shore, which I wished all the midshipmen to see. I intended that he should see the match; and it was also necessary that, without severity on the one hand or indulgence on the other, the occasion should be stamped upon his memory. So when the rest of the midshipmen had gone, I sent for the solitary youth, and bade him explain his case. When he had finished, I told {473} him that I intended to inflict upon him an additional punishment. He regarded me with a face of alarm.

"You will go ashore," I said, "and you will write for me a full and an exact account of the boxing match."

He saw the match; and after the pains of literary composition, he would not so easily forget his overcoat.

In the _Undaunted_, the midshipmen were taught to make their own canvas jumpers and trousers.

I used to keep two or three extra guns for the use of the midshipmen, whom I took out shooting whenever an opportunity occurred. Some of the boys had never handled a gun before. A midshipman once shot a hare when the animal was right at my feet.

"Wasn't that a good shot, sir!" said he joyously.

It did not occur to his innocence that he might have brought me down instead of the hare.

On Saturdays, I took out shooting the torpedo classes of midshipmen, which were conducted by my old friend, Captain Durnford (now Admiral Sir John Durnford, K.C.B., D.S.O.). We advanced in very open order, placing the midshipmen some 200 yards apart from one another, for fear of accidents, and we fired at everything that came along, in every direction. Upon one such occasion, I took out the warrant officers, among whom was the carpenter, who had never shot anything in his life. We were after snipe--I think at Platea--a bird whose flight, as all sportsmen know, is peculiar. A snipe in mid-flight will dive suddenly, dropping to earth out of sight. The old carpenter raised his gun very slowly, and aimed with immense deliberation, the muzzle of his gun cautiously tracing the flight of the bird, thus expending cartridge after cartridge. Suddenly his bird dropped. He shouted with delight and, holding his gun high over his head, ran as hard as he could pelt towards the spot upon which, as he believed, the bird had fallen dead. We saw it rise behind him; but nothing would persuade him that he had not slain his quarry. He searched and searched, in vain. Going back in the boat, I noticed that {474} he was sunk in a profound melancholy, and bade him cheer up.

"It do seem 'ard, sir," he said sadly, "that the only bird I ever shot in my life, I shouldn't be able to find it." And sad he remained.

After one of these excursions, a midshipman brought to me the gun I had lent to him, with the barrels bent.

"I am very sorry, sir," he said. "The fact is, I slipped on the rocks, and fell with the barrels under me. But," he added eagerly, "it shoots just as well as it did before, sir."

I turned to another midshipman who had been of the party.

"Did you see him shoot before the accident?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No, sir."

"Did you see him shoot _after_ the accident?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No, sir."

"Then," I said to the first midshipman, "your statement is correct. Will you please take the gun to the armourer to be repaired?"

I landed at Gibraltar very early in the morning, about four o'clock, with the intention of cub-hunting. At the stables I found a midshipman, dressed in plain clothes, whom I did not know. I asked him what he was doing. He said that he wanted to go cub-hunting, but that he hadn't a horse. I gave him a mount and told him to stick to me. He did as he was told, literally. He was in my pocket all day; he jumped upon the top of me; I couldn't get rid of him. When I remonstrated, he said:

"You told me to stick to you, sir. And I say, sir, _isn't it fun_!"

He reminds me of the first time Fred Archer, the famous jockey, went out hunting. He stuck as close {475} behind his host as my midshipman did to me; but his reply to all remonstrance was:

"What are you grumbling at? I'm giving you half a length!"

Part of my scheme of training midshipmen in the Mediterranean was to send them away, under the charge of a lieutenant, for two days at a time, to fend for themselves upon one of the islands. I sent them away in the pinnace, and they took guns and provided their own food, and enjoyed themselves to the full.

At Alexandria, the midshipmen of a United States warship challenged the midshipmen in the Fleet to a pulling race. At that time I had a private galley, the _Hippocampe_, which had never been beaten; while the Americans had a boat of special construction, much lighter than our Service boats. As the _Hippocampe_ was not a regulation Service boat, I asked the American captain whether he had any objection to her. He said he had none. I trained a crew selected from the midshipmen of the Fleet. The American midshipmen were of course older and heavier than our boys, as they enter the Navy at a later age. At one point in the race they were ten lengths ahead; but at the end they were astern.

While I was in command of the _Undaunted_, two of the midshipmen of the Fleet performed the feat of climbing the Great Pyramid on the wrong side, where the stone is rotten. It was a most perilous proceeding; and as I was responsible for the party, when the boys, having nearly reached the top, crawled round to the safe side, I was greatly relieved, and so was the Sheikh, who was imploring me on his knees to stop them. The fact was that the midshipmen had refused to take the Arab guides, and had started before I knew what was happening.

I used to take the midshipmen out for paperchases at Malta. The flag-lieutenant and myself, being mounted, were the hares. Crowds used to watch us, and we finished up with a big tea. Races on horseback for the midshipmen {476} were held at St. Paul's Bay, myself being the winning-post, at which they arrived hot and panting. There were only two accidents on record, a broken arm and a broken leg.

We ascended Vesuvius together, taking a heliograph, with which we signalled to the flagship, lying below in the Bay of Naples. Upon the very day the last great eruption began, we looked down the crater and saw the lava heaving and bubbling like boiling coffee in a glass receiver, and smoke bursting from it. The guides hurried us away and down; and no sooner had we arrived at the station, than there sounded the first explosion, which blew up the spot upon which we had been standing.

Seldom have I been more anxious than upon the day I stood on the roof of the Palace at Malta, and watched a crew of midshipmen struggling to make the harbour in a whole gale of wind. I had sent them in the launch to Gozo, and they had taken my bull-dog with them to give him some exercise. While they were on shore, the gale blew up; and rather than break their leave, the boys set sail. To my intense relief, I saw them make the harbour; and then as they hauled the sheet aft to round-to, over went the boat, and they were all swimming about in the harbour; but happily they all came safely to land, including my bull-dog.

There was once a midshipman (an Irishman) who, perceiving treacle exposed for sale upon the cart of an itinerant vender of miscellaneous commodities, was suddenly inspired (I do not know why) with a desire to buy that condiment.

"What should the like of you be wanting with treacle?" said the man, who was a surly fellow.

"Why shouldn't I buy treacle?" said the boy.

"How much do you want?"

"As much as you've got."

"I've got nothing to put it in," grumbled the man.

"Put it in my hat," insisted the midshipman, proffering that receptacle. It was a tall hat, for he was in mufti.

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The vender of treacle reluctantly filled the hat with treacle.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked again.

"I'll show you," returned the midshipman; and he swiftly clapped the hat over the other's head, and jammed it down.

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