Nor will any one who was present in the summer of ’98 forget how Sir
Edward Chichester stood loyally by Admiral George Dewey, when the
German squadron was empire-fishing in the waters of Manila Bay, until
our Atlantic Fleet had won the battle of Santiago and Admiral Dewey
had received reinforcements and, east and west, we were able to look
after the Germans. The British bluejackets said that the rations of
frozen mutton from Australia which we sent alongside were excellent;
but the Germans were in no position to judge, as none was sent to them,
doubtless through an oversight in the detail of hospitality by one of
Admiral Dewey’s staff. No. Let us be officially correct. We happened to
run out of spare mutton after serving the British.
In the gallant effort of the Allied force of sailors to relieve the
legations against some hundreds of thousands of Boxers, Captain Bowman
McCalla and his Americans worked with Admiral Seymour and his Britons
in the most trying and picturesque thing of its kind in modern history.
McCalla, too, was always talking of Jellicoe, who was wounded on the
expedition; and Sir John’s face lighted at mention of McCalla’s name.
He recalled how McCalla had painted on the superstructure of the little
_Newark_ that saying of Farragut’s, “The best protection against an
enemy’s fire is a well-directed fire of your own”; which has been said
in other ways and cannot be said too often.
“We called McCalla Mr. Lead,” said Sir John; “he had been wounded so
many times and yet was able to hobble along and keep on fighting. I
corresponded regularly with him until his death.”
Beatty, too, was on that expedition; and he, too, was another
personality one kept hearing about. It seemed odd that two men, who
had played a part in work which was a soldier’s far from home, should
have become so conspicuous in the Great War. If on that day when,
with ammunition exhausted, all members of the expedition had given up
hope of ever returning alive, they had not accidentally come upon the
Shi-kou arsenal, one would not be commanding the Great Fleet and the
other its battle-cruiser squadron.
Before the war, I am told, when Admiralty lords and others who had the
decision to make were discussing who should command in case of war,
opinion ran something like this:
“Jellicoe! He has the brains!”
“Jellicoe! He has the health to endure the strain, with years enough
and not too many!”
“Jellicoe! He has the confidence of the service!”
The choice literally made itself. When any one is undertaking the
gravest responsibility which has been an Englishman’s for a hundred
years, that kind of a recommendation helps. He had the guns; he had
supreme command; he must deliver victory--such was England’s message
to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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