Records, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher — John Shaqi
Records, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord FisherFisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron
History
Records, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher
Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron
Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron, 1841-1920; Great Britain. Royal Navy
When I was sent to the Hythe School of Musketry as a young Lieutenant,
I found myself in a small Squad of Officers, my right hand man was a
General and my left hand man a full Colonel. The Colonel spent his time
drawing pictures of the General. (The Colonel was really a wonderful
Artist.) The General was splendid. He was a magnificent-looking man
with a voice like a bull and his sole object was Mutiny! He hated
General Hay, who was in Command of the Hythe School of Musketry. He
hated him with a contemptuous disdain. In those days we commenced
firing at the target only a few hundred yards off. The General never
hit the target once! The Colonel made a beautiful picture of him
addressing the Parade and General Hay: “Gentlemen! my unalterable
conviction is that the bayonet is the true weapon of the British
Soldier!” The beauty of the situation was that the General had been
sent to Hythe to qualify as Inspector-General of Musketry. After
some weeks of careful drill (without firing a shot) we had to snap
caps (that was to get our nerves all right, I suppose!); the Sergeant
Instructor walked along the front of the Squad and counted ten copper
caps into each outstretched hand. At that critical moment General Hay
appeared on the Parade. This gave the General his chance! With his
bull-like voice he asked General Hay if it was believable after these
weeks of incessant application that we were going (each of us) to be
entrusted with ten copper caps! When we were examined _vivâ voce_ we
each had to stand up to answer a question (like the little boys at
a Sunday School). The General was asked to explain the lock of the
latest type of British Rifle. He got up and stated that as he was
neither Maskelyne and Cooke nor the Davenport Brothers (who were the
great conjurers of that time) he couldn’t do it. Certainly we had some
appalling questions. One that I had was, “What do you pour the water
into the barrel of the rifle with when you are cleaning it?” Both my
answers were wrong. I said, “With a tin pannikin or the palm of the
hand.” The right answer was “_with care_”! Another question in the
written examination was, “What occurred about _this_ time?” Only one
paragraph in the text-book had those words in it “About _this_ time
there occurred, etc.”! All the same I had a lovely time there; the
British Army was very kind to me and I loved it. The best shot in the
British Army at that date was a confirmed drunkard who trembled like
a leaf, but when he got his eye on the target he was a bit of marble
and “bull’s eyes” every time! So, as the Scripture says, never judge
by appearance. Keble, who wrote the “Christian Year,” was exceedingly
ugly, but when he spoke Heaven shone through; so I was told by one who
knew him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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