General Seely's Adventurous Life.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17994, 12 April 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

General Seely's Adventurous Life.

By Frank Whitaker.

C C 0 c^e ’" sai d Peter Pan, “would be an awfully ® ® S big adventure,” to which General J. E. Bi Seely no doubt replied, if he ever met Peter Pan, “Probably; but why die?” A man who has survived apparently certain death by each of the four elements; who has been drowned and revived; fallen a distance commonly thought to be fatal, and lived; faced an enemy rifle at almost point-blank range and been spared; flown in an aeroplane with a burst petrol tank and escaped unscathed; and “over and over again on the western front found myself alone unharmed when every one of those around me had been killed or wounded”—a man who has flouted dangers like these can afford to talk like that. A charmed life? Why, the normal expectations of a cat are, as they say in llie North, a “fooil to’tl”

General Seely has now told the story of Ills extraordinary career in “Adventure” and told it well. The book moves in a crescendo of excitement from ihe first page to the last; it is curious to note how the scale of the adventuring grows as the years go by. It begins with a solitary fall down a cliff and widens and deepens, involving more and more people in a kind of ariihmetical progression, until it merges in the supreme adventure of the War itself. As a boy" General Seely often listened to the tales of his uncle, Colonel Browne, who had won the V.C- for spiking a gun at Lucknow, and who managed the family estates at Brooke, in the Isle of Wight. “It was he who first set me thinking over the problem of fear.. I well remember walking along the beach and reflecting that being frightened was a foolisli thing, like biting one’s nails; obviously it did no good. I set to work then to try to overcome this failing; and though I have never succeeded, the constant conscious attempt has been very helpful.” It was apparently helpful not long afterward;, when a cliff at Brooke gave way under his feet and he dropped seventy feet on to the beach, for he says his dread vanished like a flash, and he “seemed to be just happily dreaming suspended in space,” Fortunately, a lot of the cliff fell too, forming a perfect cushion for his landing. He lay there for two hours and took a whole term to recover from his injuries, but the experience “proved to me that fear' was foolish, and that no case, however desperate, is ever hopeless.” The Seven Eggs. His next experience was being drowned while diving for eggs. He had brought up seven, and someone else eight. That meant, of course, that he must go one better. Down he went again . . . six . . . seven . . • and then he found that the others \were several yards away. He had a moment of agony when he felt he must breathe or burst, but he overcame it and took one more stroke . • . “Then ail at once the pain and agony ceased, it was as though when some great orchestra lias been playing crashing discordant sounds, suddenly ihe music is resolved into a beautiful major chord with every instrument in perfect tune. Then 1 found myself walking over a green field in glorious sunshine, with bright yellow buttercups studding the grass; in the distance church bells were ringing, and I had a sensation of complete joy and happiness. 1 was fished out, black in the face and unconscious, and was finally brought to by artificial respiration.” The Flag on the Steeple. At Harrow this lively youngster, with the aid of a companion and a child’s bow and arrow, shot a rope over the beams in the church steeple, hauled himself up from stage to stage, and tied a Union Jack to the top. His career at Cambridge was ended abrutly by a hair-raising experience with a runaway horse in Switzerland. With bridle broken it galloped for miles down a mountain track and deposited him, unconscious, with his legs dangling over a chasm two hundred feet deep. He was laid up for months with congestion of the brain.

Next he swam out with a line to a wrecked French ship, received a gold medal, a broken rib and a punctured lung. He set off on a long sea voyage to recover his health, served as an A. 8., was swept out of his. cabin by a huge wave, and saved himself only by clinging to the after-rigging as it swept past. During the same storm his companion, Tom Connolly, fell from a yard a hundred .and twenty feet above the sea, clutched a swinging rope—and held on. As the ship heeled over he caught the ratlines and descended safely lo the deck I Truly miracles seemed to follow Seely wherever he went. The Rilaorl Princess. In New Zealand he was nearly drowned again, and then came an adventure of a more romantic kind. While swimming one day in a pool in the heart of Ihc Maori country he encountered a lovely girl, “the most beautiful thing— animate or inanimate —that I had ever seen, like the most perfect Greek statue, with the poise of Raphael’s young St. John the Baptist at Florence” and a “delicious enigmatic smile.” She was the sister of the local chief: “The rest of the story is soon told. As we wandered about the great forest finding strange birds, hot spring and occasionally the track of a wild boar, I was often with the princess—as she was called. She started to teach me Maori, including many kind and friendly words in that singularly melodious language. I can still say in Maori that “my soul is filled «vith respectful adoration.” It was all very delicious and innocent, but difficult to see how it could end. “She gave up the Kiwi mats, and was dressed in ever-changing ecstumes of garlands of flowers and leaves. After a few days the chief came to me and quite politely, but bluntly, asked me my intentions. To use the novelist’s phrase, I was ‘tom with conflicting emotions.’ This girl of seventeen, though some would have described her as an untutored savage, w*s without doubt the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Moveover, though she could run and jump ike a gazelle, and swim like a salmon, she had the manner and bearing of a queen; thoughts and ideas of unbelievable charm and beauty. I had often heard people make speeches about cementing the 'Empire with frindship and the union of hearts; here was a union of hearts if ever there was one. But for Tom we should have married and I suppose I should have become what was termed a ‘Pakeha Maori.’ Tom had only one argument and refused to give another single word of advice. 'He said I should break my mother's heart.” So they parted the next day- —how, General Seely tells in a charming little passage: “I put my arm round her, and kissed her, no rubbing of noses in native fashion, but a kiss from one to the other. She burst into tears and so, 1 confess, did I as I jumped into the canoe and in a moment shot into the stream, under the deft bows of the twelve well-wielded paddles. Just before we rounded a bend I looked back and saw her standing hand-in-hand with her brother. She waved farewell Lo me and 1 never saw her agaim” The Rian Who Would Not Shoot. When the Boer War broke out General Seely, who had meanwhile joined the Yeomanry, went out in charge of a squadron, and had two of the most amazing adventures of his life. While reconnoitring a ruined Kaffir kraal he was surprised by a shout of “Hands up!" from a small party of Boers: “I stood quite still, watching a man aiming his rifle at me. It was a clear, sunny morning, and he was within twelve yards of me. I could recognise him to-day from among a hundred others. It

CHEATING DEATH ON LAND, SEA AND IN THE AIR.

was no good for me to run away, because I realised that I could not be missed; so 1 stood still waiting for the end; 'Phen an extraordinary tiling happened. The man lowered his rifle, looked me straight in the eyes, turned round and walked away, it was said to me in explanation of this curious episode that my three troops, who had already got round the flank of this small party of the enemy, had made the man realise that he must get quickly on his horse in order to escape. But I know perfectly well from the look he gave me, and from the deliberation of ids movements, that what really happened was this. He was sorry for a young Englishman thus surprised, and, out of sheer good nature, decided not to kill me.” The Horseman In the r/11 sx. In another adventure iie himself wqc the man with the gun. It came to him at an advance post on the top of a high ridge, on a misty night when a parly of Boers had been reported near. Suddenly a figure on horseback appeared through the mist riding towards the outpost: “The corporal was about to fire, but I snatched his rifle from him, whispering ‘Let him come on-’ The mist was drifting in swathes over the hill and for a moment he was invisible; when I heard the horse advancing on the stony ground; then for a second I saw a commanding figure silhouetted against the grey mist. The corporal was so excited that he shouted to me quite loud: ‘Shoot, sir.’ The figure turned and galloped away, 1 fired, reloaded and fired again; I ran forward with ihe corporal, but although the range was no more than fifteen yards, I had made a clean miss both times. I make this oue confident claim to distinction, that I made the luckiest bad shot for the British Empire that any man has made! - For the commanding figure was Botha himself! He was reconnoitring his enemy’s front before making his desperate and successful attempt to break through.” Preparing for War. General Seely returned home to find himself a member of Parliament, and he devotes a large part of his book to the stormy politics of the ten years prior to the War. In a deeply interesting chapter he described the growth of his conviction that war was inevitable and how as soon as he became Secretary for War in 1912 he set to work with redoubled energy and secrecy to prepare for it. In his view', the historian of the future “will fasten ’war guilt’ not on any single person, however highly placed, but on the political aspirations and policies of the contending nations: and his definition of these rival policies will be, a desire by Germany to expand, a resolve by England to maintain its status quo,” In 1912 General Seely had an interview with General French with far-reaching consequences: “He came to me and said ‘Would it not be a good plan for us to invite to our manoeuvres an eminent French soldier who is likely to take a leading part in Ihe defence of France if the war which you anticipate happens?’ As always, the difficulty in preparing without inciting undue suspicion and distrust was sufficiently obvious in tiiis case. But I decided lo lake the risk, and said: ‘Yes. Whom shall we invite?’ He replied: ‘I think the most remarkable man in the French Army, although lie is far away from being senior, is a man called Foch.’ ’’ Foch’s Prophecy. And so Foch was invited. When the manoeuvres were over, he made this striking prophecy: “The armies have outgrown the brains of the people who direct them. I do not believe that there is any man living big enough to control these millions. They will stumble about, and then sit down helplessly in front of each other, think’ing only of their means of communication to supply these vast hordes, who must eat. Your little Army, directed by my friend French, with your sea power enabLing you to'send them where you will, may well prove decisive if ever a conflict comes.”

There was excitement to spare in those flays, but it was not of the hind that appealed most to Seely’s active temperament, lie confesses that he grew sick of polities, and one can imagine the tightening of the lip and the squaring of shoulders with which he heard the fateful declaration of August 4, 1914. Within a few days he was at the British Headquarters, “never expecting to see England again." Everv day his duties took him into the British and FrenQh frontlines and back to Headquarters to report personally to Sir John French what he had seen. No man saw more. in those weary, confused days when whole armies stumbled blindly over the fields of France and Death lurked round every corner. But Fate was kind to Seely. Shells and bullets encompassed him, but, in the language of time, his name was written on none of them. Eventually he went, to Antwerp, where he found “the whole business in Winston's hands.” “He dominated the whole place; the King, Ministers, soldiers, sailors. So great was his influence that I am convinced that with 20,000 British troops he could have held Antwerp agains.t, almost any onslaught. . . From all I learned and saw, I think it very possible that had Winston not brought his naval men to Antwerp, the Belgian Field Army would not have escaped. Had Winston been vigorously supported, even thus late in the dav, the Germans would have been forced to detach such large forces that their advance on Ypres would have been stayed, and might have been prevented altogether." The Arrest of IVIr IVlacDonald. On General Seely’s return to Headquarters one night, General French told him that “some idiot at Dunkirk" had arrested Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who had come over to visit a hospital, and asked him if he would put the matter right. He did so; “MacDonald took it very well, and after a word or two of serious protest, laughed the matter off.” Later he took Mr. MacDonald up to the front line, and it was only by great good fortune that they escaped’ with their lives. They stumbled into the middle of a French counter-attack; shells fell all round them, their car was repeatedly hit by bullets, and finally they took refuge in a support trench, where they were nearly shot as spies! From first to last, when he reached safety covered with mud, the future Prime Minister, says General Seely, “behaved with the utmost coolness.” General Seely was one of the few non-professional soldiers who reached high rank as a combatant, and he scathingly criticises the follies of some of his superior officers. Many avoidable disasters, he says, were caused by the failure of commanders to make personal survevs from the front line before ordering an attack, and many hardships were traceable lo their attempts to applv obsoletc theories to nc w conditions. He clcarlv ranked French above Haig, and sympathised with French \vhen h-> was recalled. An Inspiring {Example. The book is refreshingly free from unpleasant personalities. It is the record of a gallant gentleman who was never afraid to practise what, he preached, and whose example was an inspiration Lo all who served with him. “They say that war is sordid and brutalising fo the men who tight- It is no such thing. The greatest heights of unselfishness and devotion arc brought out in war . . let no roan who values his soul depreciate them. War is as ennobling to the combatants as it is demoralising to the., onlookers.” Not everyone will agree with him, but, those who know him would expect no other testimony fn)n his pen. The man who can write that, having lost' a dear son on the battlefield, is entitled to be beard.