"THE GOOD OLD DAYS"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 102, 4 May 1925, Page 7

"THE GOOD OLD DAYS"

LIFE IN THE ROYAL NAVY

THE LOST SAILING SHIP.

Though Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon's volume of reminiscences, "A- Naval Scrap Boole," is mainly co?»ceined with the Kavy in the peaceful days of old, he has some lively memories of the service when masts and sails had not been altogether displaced by steam, and when the torpedo was a fairly ne\v aiitl rather uncertain weapon, says the ■'•livening Standard." Indeed, in some ways Ins memories read as if they were of a hundred years ago. One of them is of a sojourn in a naval hospital in .1882, when, he declares, "the mam standard by which the efficiency ot a naval hospital was judged was that ot economy in its administration. A naval hospital in 1882 was a weird place," he declares. '-There were no lady nurses, we had three old pensioners to look after our ward. The senior was an old gentleman with a Ion" white beard who had been a Royal Marine in some bygone age: his one interest in life was to read Darwin's books which ho did hour by hour. The nest was an ex-petty officer who was lame and deaf and blind. He was absolutely useless from every point of view • his speech also was difficult to understand. Ihe last was an ex-captain of the held iresh from rolling casks about the- hold of ships, and much more suited to this class of work than handling patients 1 rcsumably it was cheap to employ pensioners."

Even after he had risen to the rank of lieutenant, Admiral Bacon served in a sailing sloop, the Cruiser. She was the last ship iiv the Navy without engines, and was employed mainly in the' Mediterranean as a training, ship for midshipmen* and young seamen. One of these midshipmen once contrived, while acting as officer of the watch, 10 bring the Cruiser into collision with an Italian barque: so effectively that the two ships were locked together for an hour, and the barque was a mastless wreck. The midshipman was tried by Court of Inquiry. "The Court found him peculiarly dense, and at last the President asked him if he was not well. He replied: 'Xo, sir, I think I have got the measles,' mid so lie had! The Court was adjourned hurriedly sine die."

Apropos this and other forms of naval discipline. Admiral Baccn recalls the ingenious though unofficial method by which one commander punished a man who added impudence to ■• drunkenness. "Tho man . . . put forward the excuse that someone in the ship had a 'down' on'him and had put gin into the water tank on the lower deck, which he had innocently drunk and so become intoxicated. The commander instantly saw that the double offence TO best met by turning the laugh against the man. He therefore took up a condoling attitude and said : 'Now, I do call that bad luck for your messmates to play you such a low-down trick. But we'll catch them, my lad. Master-nt-Arms, put him sentry on (ho tank for a fortnight. He must wear a, cutlass belt to show his authority, and of course lie will not have his hammock, but must sleep on the deck so as to ho on the alert, and ho must have his' meals near the tank, otherwise someone might tamper with it in his absence.' So the young man, for an unpleasant fortnight, had to endure physical discomfort as well as the gibes of the ship's company." And at the end of the fortnight he got another fortnight of guard duty just to make sure, that no more gin should be put in the water.

But for sheer impudence and daring the exploit of a lieutenant in command of a gunboat, the Lark, who was sent on a roving commission against slavers on the west coast of Africa, takes n. lot of. beating. The lieutenant, having, taken the Lark up one of the rivers, discovered a British Vice-Consul with y. very pretty daughter, with whom he fell in love. They became engaged. Then the order came to take his ship to the South American station. Hather than leave the girl, he said nothing about tho orders, was married by tho 'Vice-Consul, moored the gunboat 'up to the bank, and lived ashore at the Consul's house.

'"Everything went on happily until the Admiralty woke up to tho fact that the., gunboat had' not arrived on the South American coast and ■ was considerably overdue.'. The admiral had reported thatshe had received her orders; presumably, therefore, she bad fiailed; and so, as time went on, she was officially notified as lost, at sea with all hands. All this time our friend the lieutenant and bis jovial crew wore enjoying a dolcu far nicnlo up a tropical river on the West Coast of Africa. How long tlii:-. state o[ things might have continued :!. is impossible to say, bad nut ;uiolli>-r gunbuat poked her buws up the riv«:r ami discovered the ufficiaHy" lost Lark. Then Ihn I rouble began, and retribution whs swift and adequate/

Wir .K.-inuld Baron nlsn has sonic amusing memories i,f nianneuvrcs in the Yighties. "The captain of one tm-pudn boat hemmed in at Uulyhcad landed, pan of hw engines and hid them in v. haylnfl. and so prevented her bpin" used by the oilier, side."' lint this "officer was outdone l-y an cnicrnrisim; captain who, knowing that tho. enemy's ships wer <; anchored in » certain ' luirbour with the em,rnin:u thoroughly "uaiduil Inmlcd .-, 1,,,-pedo. and wit I, "one other mnn lonk it iiverhind In Hie bcai-li opposite I Ik- enemy. "Uc then lured a, rowing boat, towed the torpedo close to the enemy's ship, and started the engine and torpedoed the ship." It's a way they hr.ye in tho Navy.