THE next winter we lay for a couple of months off Chinhai,which we had stormed, blockading the mouth of the Ningporiver. Here, I regret to think, I committed an act which hasoften haunted my conscience as a crime; although I hadfrequently promised the captain of a gun a glass of grog tolet me have a shot, and was mightily pleased if death anddestruction rewarded my aim.
Off Chinhai, lorchers and fast sailing junks laden withmerchandise would try to run the blockade before daylight.
And it sometimes happened that we youngsters had a long chasein a cutter to overhaul them. This meant getting back to anine or ten o'clock breakfast at the end of the morning'swatch; equivalent to five or six hours' duty on an emptystomach.
One cold morning I had a hard job to stop a small junk. Themen were sweating at their oars like galley slaves, andmuttering curses at the apparent futility of their labour. Ihad fired a couple of shots from a 'brown Bess' - the musketof the day - through the fugitive's sails; and fearingpunishment if I let her escape, I next aimed at the boatherself. Down came the mainsail in a crack. When I boardedour capture, I found I had put a bullet through the thigh ofthe man at the tiller. Boys are not much troubled withscruples about bloodguiltiness, and not unfrequently are verycruel, for cruelty as a rule (with exceptions) mostlyproceeds from thoughtlessness. But when I realised what Ihad done, and heard the wretched man groan, I was seized withremorse for what, at a more hardened stage, I should haveexcused on the score of duty.
It was during this blockade that the accident, which I havealready alluded to, befell my dear protector, Jack Johnson.
One night, during his and my middle watch, the forecastlesentries hailed a large sampan, like a Thames barge, driftingdown stream and threatening to foul us. Sir FrederickNicholson, the officer of the watch, ordered Johnson to takethe cutter and tow her clear.
I begged leave to go with him. Sir Frederick refused, for heat once suspected mischief. The sampan was reached anddiverted just before she swung athwart our bows. Butscarcely was this achieved, when an explosion took place. Myfriend was knocked over, and one or two of the men fell backinto the cutter. This is what had happened: Johnson findingno one in the sampan, cautiously raised one of the deckhatches with a boat-hook before he left the cutter. The mine(for such it proved) was so arranged that examination of thiskind drew a lighted match on to the magazine, which instantlyexploded.
Poor Jack! what was my horror when we got him on board!
Every trace of his handsome features was gone. He was alive,and that seemed to be all. In a few minutes his head andface swelled so that all was a round black charred ball. Onecould hardly see where the eyes were, buried beneath thepowder-ingrained and incrusted flesh.
For weeks, at night, I used to sit on a chest near hishammock, listening for his slightest movement, too happy ifhe called me for something I could get him. In time herecovered, and was invalided home, and I lost my dearcompanion and protector. A couple of years afterwards I hadthe happiness to dine with him on board another ship inPortsmouth, no longer in the midshipman's berth, but in thewardroom.
Twice during this war, the 'Blonde' was caught in a typhoon.
The first time was in waters now famous, but then unknown,the Gulf of Liau-tung, in full sight of China's great wall.
We were twenty-four hours battened down, and under stormstaysails. The 'Blenheim,' with Captain Elliott ourplenipotentiary on board, was with us, and the onecircumstance left in my memory is the sight of a line-of-battle ship rolling and pitching so that one caught sight ofthe whole of her keel from stem to stern as if she had been afishing smack. We had been wintering in the Yellow Sea, andat the time I speak of were on a foraging expedition roundthe Liau-tung peninsula. Those who have followed the eventsof the Japanese war will have noticed on the map, not farnorth of Ta-lien-wan in the Korean Bay, three groups ofislands. So little was the geography of these parts thenknown, that they had no place on our charts. On this veryoccasion, one group was named after Captain Elliott, one wascalled the Bouchier Islands, and the other the BlondeIslands. The first surveying of the two latter groups, andthe placing of them upon the map, was done by our navalinstructor, and he always took me with him as his assistant.
Our second typhoon was while we were at anchor in Hong Kongharbour. Those who have knowledge only of the gales, howeverviolent, of our latitudes, have no conception of what wind-force can mount to. To be the toy of it is enough to fillthe stoutest heart with awe. The harbour was full oftransports, merchant ships, opium clippers, besides four orfive men-of-war, and a steamer belonging to the East IndiaCompany - the first steamship I had ever seen.
The coming of a typhoon is well known to the natives at leasttwenty-four hours beforehand, and every preparation is madefor it. Boats are dragged far up the beach; buildings evenare fortified for resistance. Every ship had laid out itsanchors, lowered its yards, and housed its topmasts. We hadboth bowers down, with cables paid out to extreme length.
The danger was either in drifting on shore or, what was moreimminent, collision. When once the tornado struck us therewas nothing more to be done; no men could have worked ondeck. The seas broke by tons over all; boats beached asdescribed were lifted from the ground, and hurled, in someinstances, over the houses. The air was darkened by thespray.
But terrible as was the raging of wind and water, far moreawful was the vain struggle for life of the human beings whosuccumbed to it. In a short time almost all the ships exceptthe men-of-war, which were better provided with anchors,began to drift from their moorings. Then wreck followedwreck. I do not think the 'Blonde' moved; but from first tolast we were threatened with the additional weight and strainof a drifting vessel. Had we been so hampered our anchoragemust have given way. As a single example of the force of atyphoon, the 'Phlegethon' with three anchors down, andengines working at full speed, was blown past us out of theharbour.
One tragic incident I witnessed, which happened within a fewfathoms of the 'Blonde.' An opium clipper had driftedathwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn wasalmost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clippersank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was soclose, that from where I was holding on and crouching underthe lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of hisface. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength andactivity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable ofthe merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As thevessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before hewas again submerged. At last he reached the hawse-hole. Hadhe hoped, in spite of his knowledge, to find it large enoughto admit his body? He must have known the truth; and yet hestruggled on. Did he hope that, when thus within arms'
length of men in safety, some pitying hand would be stretchedout to rescue him, - a rope's end perhaps flung out to haulhim inboard? Vain desperate hope! He looked upwards: animploring look. Would Heaven be more compassionate than man?
A mountain of sea towered above his head; and when again thebow was visible, the man was gone for ever.
Before taking leave of my seafaring days, I must say one wordabout corporal punishment. Sir Thomas Bouchier was a goodsailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he wasone of the old school. Discipline was his watchword, and heendeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, onan average, there was a man flogged as often as once a monthduring the first two years the 'Blonde' was in commission. Aflogging on board a man-of-war with a 'cat,' the nine tailsof which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowlydelivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of thearm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severepunishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of theblow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary'Ugh!' however stoically he bore the pain.
I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct,and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firmconviction is that the bad man was very little the better;the good man very much the worse. The good man felt thedisgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem waspermanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did hisbest again. Besides which, - and this is true of allpunishment - any sense of injustice destroys respect for thepunisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contemptfor, and even a dread of, sentimentalism. For boyhousebreakers, and for ruffians who commit criminal assaults,the rod or the lash is the only treatment.
A comic piece of insubordination on my part recurs to me inconnection with flogging. About the year 1840 or 1841, amidshipman on the Pacific station was flogged. I think theship was the 'Peak.' The event created some sensation, andwas brought before Parliament. Two frigates were sent out tofurnish a quorum of post-captains to try the responsiblecommander. The verdict of the court-martial was a severereprimand. This was, of course, nuts to every midshipman inthe service.
Shortly after it became known I got into a scrape forlaughing at, and disobeying the orders of, our first-lieutenant, - the head of the executive on board a frigate.
As a matter of fact, the orders were ridiculous, for the saidofficer was tipsy. Nevertheless, I was reported, and had upbefore the captain. 'Old Tommy' was, or affected to be, veryangry. I am afraid I was very 'cheeky.' Whereupon SirThomas did lose his temper, and threatened to send for theboatswain to tie me up and give me a dozen, - not on theback, but where the back leaves off. Undismayed by thethreat, and mindful of the episode of the 'Peak' (?) I lookedthe old gentleman in the face, and shrilly piped out, 'It'sas much as your commission is worth, sir.' In spite of hisprevious wrath, he was so taken aback by my impudence that heburst out laughing, and, to hide it, kicked me out of thecabin.
After another severe attack of fever, and during a longconvalescence, I was laid up at Macao, where I enjoyed thehospitality of Messrs. Dent and of Messrs. Jardine andMatheson. Thence I was invalided home, and took my passageto Bombay in one of the big East India tea-ships. As I wasbeing carried up the side in the arms of one of the boatmen,I overheard another exclaim: 'Poor little beggar. He'llnever see land again!'
The only other passenger was Colonel Frederick Cotton, of theMadras Engineers, one of a distinguished family. He, too,had been through the China campaign, and had also brokendown. We touched at Manila, Batavia, Singapore, and severalother ports in the Malay Archipelago, to take in cargo.
While that was going on, Cotton, the captain, and I madeexcursions inland. Altogether I had a most pleasant time ofit till we reached Bombay.
My health was now re-established; and after a couple of weeksat Bombay, where I lived in a merchant's house, Cotton tookme to Poonah and Ahmadnagar; in both of which places I stayedwith his friends, and messed with the regiments. Here a copyof the 'Times' was put into my hands; and I saw a notice ofthe death of my father.
After a fortnight's quarantine at La Valetta, where two youngEnglishmen - one an Oxford man - shared the same rooms in thefort with me, we three returned to England; and (I supposefew living people can say the same) travelled from Naples toCalais before there was a single railway on the Continent.
At the end of two months' leave in England I was appointed tothe 'Caledonia,' flagship at Plymouth. Sir Thomas Bouchierhad written to the Admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, ofNavarino fame (whose daughter Sir Thomas afterwards married),giving me 'a character.' Sir Edward sent for me, and wasmost kind. He told me I was to go to the Pacific in thefirst ship that left for South America, which would probablybe in a week or two; and he gave me a letter to his friend,Admiral Thomas, who commanded on that station.
About this time, and for a year or two later, the relationsbetween England and America were severely strained by whatwas called 'the Oregon question.' The dispute was concerningthe right of ownership of the mouth of the Columbia river,and of Vancouver's Island. The President as well as theAmerican people took the matter up very warmly; and muchdiscretion was needed to avert the outbreak of hostilities.
In Sir Edward's letter, which he read out and gave to meopen, he requested Admiral Thomas to put me into any ship'that was likely to see service'; and quoted a word or twofrom my dear old captain Sir Thomas, which would probablyhave given me a lift.
The prospect before me was brilliant. What could be moredelectable than the chance of a war? My fancy pictured allsorts of opportunities, turned to the best account, - myseniors disposed of, and myself, with a pair of epaulets,commanding the smartest brig in the service.
Alack-a-day! what a climb down from such high flights my lifehas been. The ship in which I was to have sailed to the westwas suddenly countermanded to the east. She was to leave forChina the following week, and I was already appointed to her,not even as a 'super.'
My courage and my ambition were wrecked at a blow. Thenotion of returning for another three years to China, whereall was now peaceful and stale to me, the excitement of thewar at an end, every port reminding me of my old comrades,visions of renewed fevers and horrible food, - were more thanI could stand.
I instantly made up my mind to leave the Navy. It was awilful, and perhaps a too hasty, impulse. But I am impulsiveby nature; and now that my father was dead, I fancied myselfto a certain extent my own master. I knew moreover, by myfather's will, that I should not be dependent upon aprofession. Knowledge of such a fact has been the ruin ofmany a better man than I. I have no virtuous superstitionsin favour of poverty - quite the reverse - but I am convincedthat the rich man, who has never had to earn his position orhis living, is more to be pitied and less respected than thepoor man whose comforts certainly, if not his bread, havedepended on his own exertions.
My mother had a strong will of her own, and I could not guesswhat line she might take. I also apprehended the oppositionof my guardians. On the whole, I opined a woman's heartwould be the most suitable for an appeal AD MISERICORDIAM.
So I pulled out the agony stop, and worked the pedals ofdespair with all the anguish at my command.
'It was easy enough for her to REVEL IN LUXURY and consign meto a life worse than a CONVICT'S. But how would SHE like tolive on SALT JUNK, to keep NIGHT WATCHES, to have to cut upher blankets for PONCHOS (I knew she had never heard theword, and that it would tell accordingly), to save her frombeing FROZEN TO DEATH? How would SHE like to be mast-headedwhen a ship was rolling gunwale under? As to the wishes ofmy guardians, were THEIR FEELINGS to be considered beforemine? I should like to see Lord Rosebery or Lord Spencer inmy place! They'd very soon wish they had a mother who &c.
&c.'
When my letter was finished I got leave to go ashore to postit. Feeling utterly miserable, I had my hair cut; and,rendered perfectly reckless by my appearance, I consented tohave what was left of it tightly curled with a pair of tongs.
I cannot say that I shared in any sensible degree thepleasure which this operation seemed to give to the artist.
But when I got back to the ship the sight of my adornmentkept my messmates in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon.
Whether the touching appeal to my mother produced tears, orof what kind, matters little; it effectually determined mycareer. Before my new ship sailed for China, I was homeagain, and in full possession of my coveted freedom as acivilian.