CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF SERVICE
I was sent to sea for the somewhat vague reasons which so often determine a boy's future. There was a belief that I was of a delicate constitution, and an impression – perhaps justified – that I needed discipline. I was sent to Bayford School in England when I was very young, together with two of my three brothers. We were known as the three "wild Irish." Among my schoolfellows were the present Lord Rosebery, James Lowther, Lord Newport, Lord Claud Hamilton and Lord George Hamilton, Lord Worcester, and Lord Methuen. From Bayford I went to the educational establishment of the Rev. David Bruce Payne (afterwards Canon) at Deal, where I first saw the ships of the Royal Navy, as already related. Canon Payne was a splendid type of the best British clergyman, and I had a great respect and affection for him. I was afterwards a pupil of the Rev. Mr. Foster, of Stubbington, Fareham.
I received my nomination from Captain Charles Eden, C.B., and qualified as a naval cadet on 12th December, 1859. The qualifying certificate must be signed by the candidate; a regulation which, simple as it seems, was nearly my undoing.
"Do you always sign your Christian name William with one 'l'?" asked the examiner.
It was a critical moment. Irish resource supplied the answer.
I said, "Only sometimes, sir."
The examiner smiled grimly. But he passed me. It was my first narrow escape in the Navy.
I have the faded blue paper before me as I write. The signature, laboriously written in a round hand, is "Charles Wiliam Delapoer Beresford."
The qualifying examination was not very formidable in those easy days. The knowledge required consisted of a little "English," less French or Latin (with the "aid of a dictionary"), a "satisfactory knowledge of the leading facts of Scripture and English History," a certain amount of geography, and an elementary knowledge of arithmetic, algebra and Euclid. The preliminary course of education afforded to "Volunteers," as the naval cadets used to be called, at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, had been abolished in 1837, and for the next twenty years cadets were sent straight to sea. In 1857, cadets were entered for training in the Illustrious, Captain Robert Harris. The number of cadets exceeding the accommodation in the ship, the Britannia was commissioned on 1st January, 1859, by Captain Harris. But not for many years did the entrance examination become the competitive ordeal for which cramming is the only preparation, known to the present generation. But I remember Admiral William Bowles, commander-in-chief of Portsmouth, taking me kindly by the shoulder and saying, "Well, my little man, you are very small for your age. Why are you being sent to sea?"
I said that I wanted to go to sea.
"Are you good at your books?" asked the admiral. "Bless me, I know many an admiral who could not pass the examination you have passed. Good Heavens, what they expect boys to do nowadays!"
The Britannia was then moored at the entrance to Haslar Creek in Portsmouth Harbour, where the depot ships of the submarines are moored to-day. Alongside her, in the following year, lay the training frigate Eurydice, which was afterwards capsized off the Isle of Wight on 24th March, 1878, when 318 lives were lost out of a complement of 320. I learned to heave the lead from the chains of the Eurydice.
In addition to the ordinary school curriculum on board the Britannia, the cadets were taught seamanship, gunnery and navigation. Book-work did not interest me, but I took great pains to become proficient in seamanship, in which I always secured a high place.
A cadet entering the Britannia under 14 years of age, would be rejected from the Service if he failed to pass the fourth quarterly examination after his entrance. Having entered the Britannia in December, 1859, I was sent to sea in March, 1861. I was very happy during my time in the Britannia. Out of school time, we did a great deal of boat-pulling. My boat was called the Gazelle. I remember that one day, when I borrowed a private boat to put off to the Gazelle, my comrades pushed me out into the stream, and I drifted out to Spithead, without oars. There was nothing in the boat but a painter, which I considered it to be my duty neatly to coil down. Then I sat still and waited until a boat came to fetch me.
Seamanship was taught by the use of models, and sail-drill was taught upon the mizen-mast. I remember being haunted by a doubt lest the handling of small models, and going aloft in a stationary ship, might not enable me to practise the knowledge thus acquired when I came to deal with the real full-size objects and to go aloft in a ship at sea. My prevision was largely justified; and when I came to command a ship, I made the youngsters learn their business by handling real things and not the models of them. For if anything goes wrong while teaching a youngster, for instance, to lay out a 6-ton anchor upon a model, he puts it right with his finger and thumb and thinks he can do the same with the real anchor.
The captain of the Britannia was Robert Harris, to whom the Service owes the inestimable benefit of cadet training ships. The first lieutenant was George S. Nares (now Vice-Admiral Sir George S. Nares, K.C.B.). He commanded the Challenger in her voyage of scientific discovery of 1872, during which he was recalled to proceed upon his celebrated voyage of Arctic exploration. Another lieutenant was William H. Heaton, whose long whiskers afforded the cadets much innocent amusement. On a windy day his whiskers used to stream backwards over his shoulders. Lieutenant Heaton chose to wear his stripes running longitudinally up his arm, a peculiarity which exemplifies the prevailing latitude with regard to uniform. There was no rule prescribing the pattern of cap or great-coat worn in the Service. Officers might wear the mohair band and badge on any kind of cap that took their fancy. Some of them used to transfer plain clothes buttons to a uniform coat or greatcoat, if they were going ashore, for the sake of economy; for we were nearly all poor in those days. The chaplain and naval instructor was the Rev. Robert M. Inskip.
My chest on board the Britannia stood between the chests of poor "Andy" Wauchope and Henry John Thoroton Hildyard. Both subsequently left the Navy for the Army. The late Major-General Andrew Gilbert Wauchope, D.S.O., was fatally wounded at Magersfontein during the South African war. General Sir Henry J. T. Hildyard, G.C.B., K.C.B., retired in 1911, after long and distinguished service. I was strongly inclined to follow the example of my comrades and to join the Army; and I have since occasionally regretted that I remained in the Navy, in which Service there is less opportunity for attaining the highest rank.
I was raised to the rank of "captain" in the Britannia; but I regret to say that my enjoyment of that dignity was singularly brief, for I was disrated upon the same day, even before I had time to put on the stripe. For my delight at my promotion so exhilarated me, that I forgot to resist the temptation to empty a bread-barge upon the head of the old master-at-arms as he was coming up the hatchway, and the spectacle was so amusing that I stayed to laugh at it.
When I entered the Service, the system of training young seamen, as well as cadets, was in operation. To Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, is due the credit of introducing the training of seamen. In 1854, he caused the Illustrious, two-decker, to be commissioned for that purpose, under the command of Captain Robert Harris. The fact was that as sails gave place to steam and as the science of gunnery progressed, it became necessary to enter seamen as boys and to train them for continuous service. For some time the short service and long service systems were concurrent. When I went to sea, captains still entered men direct from the merchant service, and very good seamen they were. They were engaged for a commission, at the end of which they could re-engage or not as they pleased. But in the meantime, under the admirable administration of Captain Harris, "Jimmy Graham's novices," as they were called, earned an excellent reputation in the Fleet; and continuous service gradually replaced intermittent service. In the continuous service system resided our chief