THE FIGHTING ADMIRAL

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 9

THE FIGHTING ADMIRAL

SIR DAVID BEATTY. f.

'A CHARACTER STUDY.

The wind begins to hum in the rigging, and the great grey hull beneath your feet to tremble a little as the hidden forces animate her with an increasing energy. It is a summer morning in the North Sea. From your perch above the signal bridge the grey deck below seems like an island in that sea—an island packed with boats and guns and casings and turrets," and, looking aft through the web of wire rigging and signal halyards, you eco three other grey islands looming ap and swinging into position astern of you. For the First Battle Cruiser Squadron of the British Navy, consisting of the greatest and fleetest warships of the world, is putting to sea. There is a light, quick step on the ladder below you, and the figure of the admiral swings into your view. For though each of these mighty ships is an august unit within herself, her personnel divided and subdivided into all the ranks that extend from the captain to the least of the ship's boys, yet on board the flagship there is another court, a greater state.

Each captain of a ship is king of his country; but the admiral of a fleet is emperor, and rules over all the kings and all the countries. To this eminence in the greatest sea war of all time has risen I>avid Beatty, in his forty-fifth year, and stands there at this moment somewhere in the North Sea, with a great part of England's and the world's destinies in Ilia hand.

Look well at this mun as he paces backward and forward across the airy platform out among the smoke and rigging and sea wind. It is a small figure, for he is a little man—little and neat and well proportioned, vet giving you an impression of physical "strength and a contained energy that is positively disturbing. I have never seen anyone who gives mc such a sense of the energy and vitality that can bo contained in one human body as David Beatty gives. You feel that energy has been poured into him at enormous pressure, that it is working and boiling within him, and that someone is sitting on the safe | valve His face is a curious combination of heavy lines and sharp and clear-cut angles—heavy wrinkles and linns, as thoug hwritten by age and care, that diverge upon a youthful outline; quick, flashing grey eyes that can rest upon you for a moment searchingly and glance away again like a bird's.

There is, indeed, something birdlike about the whole man, in his quickness, his neatness, his smooth plumage, his effortless exercise of etrength, and appearance of happiness and light-heartcd-ness. His voice is deep and resonant— e*a.T.ngely deep to issue from so small and slim a body.

HEART.

That great winnower of human wheat from the chaff, Earl Kitchener, found in Beatty's combined coolness and dash, and above all, in his common-sense efficiency, a youngster after his own heart. If there were anyone to tell it adequately, a romantic story might be made j of the buiiding of a British gunboat fur oway on the banks of the Xile during the Soudan campaign of 1898, and of the things which happened on her trial trip. At tl» end of the campaign Beatty was decorated and promoted to commander, a, rank which he attained at the unteually early age of twenty-seven. Luck gave him another chance in the Boxer rising of 1900, when he again distinguished himself in war service, and established n new record by being promoted to captain at the age of twentynine. His last command as a captain was the Queen, and on relinquishing her he received anothed and higher appointment—going to the Admiralty as Naval Adviser to the First Lord. A RECORD IN ADVANCEMENT. There arc many ways of being a First Lord, and there are many wave of giv'.flg naval advice; it is enough to say ■here that the views of Mr. McKcnna and of the naval adviser were so inharmonious that Captain Beatty was put on half pay: But when Mr* Churchill went ■into that office one of the iiret things he did was to eend for Beatty and reinstate him as his naval adviser; an ssoeiation which continued, with the nappies! results, until Beatty returned to the meet formidable squadron unit at present occupying the seas; there in grim earnest not only to teat his hick, hut to give proof of the qualities that have broiight him with so brilliant a rush to the most distinguished position that any man of hie age, not even excepting Nelson, has held in naval history. For by his promotion to the rank of rear-admiral at the age of thirty-nine, for which a special Order-in-Council was necessary, and again on his appointment -as actina vice-admiral at the outbreak of war. he created the highly interesting record of being the youngest officer of either rank in the naval history of all time. WEALTH AND POSITION". When one speaks of Beatty'e luck one must not omit to mention the fact that through his marriage, to the daughter of Marshal Field, he shares the enjoyment of a fortune so considerable that if he ■had been leas keen, less eound, less ambitioue, it would have been the death of him professionally. Money will do a great many things; how many none know better than those vbo have to go without it. It will make life smooth and pleasant; it will give a man a platform for his achievements and a frame for hie qualities that but for it might never have a chance to make themselves felt; it will buy indirectly a certain amount of influence. But more than this, in clean hands at any rate, money will not do. It will not inveefc a man with powers and qualities which he does not possess Least of all will it avail him in the ac tnal professional work of the grim sea service of England. There is just one thing about that work—it has got to bo done. And all the wealth of all the millionaires in the world could not miy a man into the position of an English admiral or keep him there a day after he had proved hie unfitness for it.