THE SPIRIT OF DRAKE
In a recent issue of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ Mr. Whittall paints a
very good pen portrait of Captain Jellicoe at this time.
"It was to him that I was referred for permission to accompany the
relieving force, and I can see him now as he put a few terse, direct
questions to me before granting the required permit. A man below
middle height, alert, with that in the calm, grey eyes which spoke of
decision and a serene confidence in himself, not the confidence of the
over-sure, but that of the real leader of men. A man whose features
would have been unpleasantly hard but for the lurking humour of the
eyes and for certain humorous lines about a mouth that on occasion
could take the likeness of a steel trap. A man to trust instinctively
and one to like from the beginning. Those were my first impressions of
him as he stood that June morning watching the troop trains discharge
their freights on to a dusty North China platform. Later when I came
to know him he inspired me with the same feeling of affection with
which he was regarded by every one with whom he had occasion to come
into close contact. There was, and is, the magnetism about the man
which stamps the personality of him who is indeed a commander rather
than one who commands."
Mr. Whittall was with him after he was wounded and while the allied
forces were retiring on Tientsin. What Jellicoe must have suffered
then no one will ever know. He was first of all placed for safety in a
native house and later on moved into a small native boat. His wound
must have pained him terribly. His case was considered hopeless, as
the bullet had reached one of his lungs and recovery seemed
impossible. Moreover, he knew that now Pekin would not be relieved;
the mission had failed.
But his superb vitality pulled him through. He would not go under.
Mr. Whittall describes how he sent for him and asked to be told how
things were progressing. "Foolishly perhaps," says Mr. Whittall, "I
tried to make the best of affairs and said that I thought we should
cut our way back to Tientsin or even to the coast if the foreign
settlements had fallen.
"I don't think I shall ever forget the contemptuous flash of the eyes
he turned on me, or the impatient remark:
"'Tell me the truth. Don't lie.'
"I had thought to lessen the anxiety I knew he must have been feeling,
but if I had known him as I learnt to do later on, I should have told
him the plain truth straight out. He thanked me and, indicating his
wounded shoulder with his eyes, remarked:
"'Hard luck just now!'"
Captain Jellicoe, as all the world knows, completely recovered and
has, we believe, lived to fight the battle of his life, the battle of
the world. Nevertheless the doctors told him at the time that he would
never regain the use of his left arm.
It would have been rather remarkable if this false prophecy had come
true; it could scarcely have made any difference to his career--for
Jellicoe was _the_ man and he was bound to reach his present position
no matter the obstacles in his way--but the loss of his arm would have
added yet another remarkable point of resemblance to the hero of
Trafalgar.
And it may not be out of place here to give a story, which is almost a
creed with many sailors and their folk in the South of England: the
story so beautifully told by Alfred Noyes in his poem "The Admiral's
Ghost."
This is what the simple Devonshire sea folk will tell you when
Jellicoe's name is mentioned--if you have gained their confidence.
They do not talk about it to strangers; it has become a faith with
them and is sacred.
When Drake was dying on board his ship in Nombre Dios Bay his thoughts
turned of course to England, the country he loved, had fought and died
for. He yearned to be back on the red cliffs of Devon; he wanted to
sail once again through Plymouth Sound and to be laid at rest in the
dear home waters that washed his native shores.
He was dying far from the beloved land. There were battles yet to be
fought, victories to be won for England. She might want him again and
he would not be there to answer her call.
So he told his men to take back his drum and to hang it upon the sea
wall, and if ever England was in danger and called, the sailors were
to strike upon his drum and he would rise from the far seas and come
back and fight for her.
When England was threatened two hundred years after Drake's death his
drum was heard one stormy night by the fisher folk. And there are
those who will swear that a strange shadow shape was seen hovering
about the old sea wall for many a night.
Then Nelson came to England's rescue and saved her in her hour of
need. But let Alfred Noyes tell the tale in his inspiring verse:
"D'you guess who Nelson was?
You may laugh, but it's true as true!
There was more in that pore little chawed-up chap
Than ever his best friend knew.
"The foe was creepin' close,
In the dark, to our white-cliffed isle;
They were ready to leap at England's throat,
When--O, you may smile, you may smile;
"But--ask of the Devonshire men;
For they heard in the dead of night
The roll of a drum, and they saw him pass
On a ship all shining white.
"He stretched out his dead cold face
And he sailed in the grand old way!
The fishes had taken an eye and an arm,
But he swept Trafalgar's Bay.
"Nelson--was Francis Drake!
O, what matters the uniform,
Or the patch on your eye or your pinned-up sleeve,
If your soul's like a North Sea storm?"
[Illustration: EARLY PORTRAITS OF SIR JOHN JELLICOE AS MIDSHIPMAN AS
LIEUTENANT]
When the author was in Devonshire a little while after the outbreak of
the world-war he was talking to an old sailor who had seen service,
now retired at the age of nearly eighty years. He stood on the red
cliffs beyond Brixham close to the doors of his cottage straining his
eyes, still clear and bright, seaward, watching for the ships he
loved.
The author referred to this story and the sailor's face grew grave and
he was silent for a long time.
"The drum was beat," he whispered at last. "Drake's drum was heered to
beat a while back; our lads heered 'er, one night when they was
puttin' out from Plymouth Sound."
He nodded his head to and fro as he took off his cap: "But I knawed
long back when I stood afore Jacky Jellicoe, close as I be standin' to
yew; I caught his eye--and I knawed it was Drake come back.... Yes,
sir; the old drum beat and he come back as he said he would----"
"If England needs me, dead
Or living, I'll rise that day!
I'll rise from the darkness under the sea
Ten thousand miles away."
That's what he said; and he died.
"They lowered him down in the deep,
And there in the sunset light
They boomed a broadside over his grave,
As meanin' to say 'Good Night'
"They sailed away in the dark
To the dear little isle they knew;
And they hung his drum by the old sea-wall
The same as he told them to."
And now once again the drum has beaten and the spirit of Drake has
returned to England. The materialists may laugh; the superstitious may
speculate. But the sea folk on the red cliffs of Devonshire, _they
know_.
* * * * *
It was some months after Pekin had been relieved by the Allied forces
of twenty thousand men--the British, under Lieutenant-General Sir A.
Gaselee, being the first to enter the Legations--that Mr. Whittall met
Jellicoe on board the _Centurion_. The latter told him that he had
played cricket for the flagship on the way down and had made 124--not
out!
His lung had healed and his left arm was as strong as his right.
A cheeky midshipman on hearing of Captain Jellicoe's third and most
marvellous escape from death said that obviously he was born to be
hanged--or to be Commander-in-Chief of the whole British Navy.
On his return to England Jellicoe received the C.B. for his services,
and the German Emperor decorated him with the Order of the Red Eagle
of the Second Class with crossed swords.
Jellicoe learnt something about the fighting qualities of the German
sailor during the attempt to relieve Pekin: later on he became a
personal friend of the Emperor's, and his portrait appears in the
great picture which the Kaiser ordered to be painted of the Allied
Naval Brigades in action in China and which now hangs on the walls of
the Imperial Palace at Potsdam.
A few months after his return from China, Captain Jellicoe married
Gwendoline Cayzer, the daughter of Sir Charles Cayzer, Bart., of
Gartmore, N.B., the chief of the Clan Steamship line. Curiously enough
one of his best friends, Rear-Admiral Madden, married Sir Charles'
other daughter. Admiral Madden is now Jellicoe's Chief-of-Staff.
Captain Jellicoe's next appointment was to superintend the building of
war-ships. At this task his success was phenomenal. A little later he
was serving as assistant to the Controller of the Navy, and in 1903 he
was given command of the _Drake_, then one of the latest additions to
our fleet.
She was completed in 1902; her tonnage is 14,100; she has a Krupp
armoured belt of six inches; she carries two 9·2 guns, sixteen 6-inch,
twelve 12-pounders, and three 2-pounders, besides six machine guns and
two torpedo tubes. The _Drake_ is still in commission and heads the
Drake Class of armoured cruisers. She is at present attached to the
Sixth Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet.
Under Jellicoe's command the _Drake_ became famous for her gunnery,
and when he left her she had obtained the highest efficiency in
shooting and was "top-dog" in the Navy.