Adventures and Enthusiasms Part 2

The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb; But for his fame the ocean sea is not sufficient room.

Even in the six-and-thirty years that Drake has stood, in bronze, on the Hoe, he has seen wonderful changes; but had his statue been there ever since his death--as it should have been--what amazing naval developments would have pa.s.sed beneath his eyes: wood to iron, canvas to paddle-wheel, paddle-wheel to screw, coal to oil, and then the submarine!

Turning from the Hoe with the intention of descending to the town by one of the paths through the lawns at the back of the great sailor's statue, what should confront me but the most perfect bowling-green I have ever seen, with little sets of phlegmatic Devonians absorbed in their contests. Here, thought I, is, beyond praise, devotion to tradition. Of national games we have all heard, but there is something, in a way, even finer in a munic.i.p.al game--and such a munic.i.p.al game, the most famous of all. For years I have never heard Plymouth Hoe mentioned without thinking of Drake and the game of bowls in which he was playing, and which he refused to interrupt, when, that July afternoon, in 1588, news came that the Spaniards were off the Lizard. ("Plenty of time," he said, "to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too.") But it had never occurred to me that bowls and the Hoe were still a.s.sociated. England has commonly a shorter memory than that. And, indeed, why should they be a.s.sociated? There is, for example, no archery at Tell's Chapel on the sh.o.r.e of the Lake of Lucerne, no wood-chopping at Mount Vernon. But Devon, with excellent piety, remembers and honours its own prophet; and I now understand how it is that the Plymouth Museum should be dest.i.tute of relics of Drake. Why trouble about his personal trappings when this pleasant sward is in existence, to connect the eye instantly with the mighty admiral at one of the most engaging moments of his life?

I stood by the railings of the green for two hours watching the latter-day Plymouth champions at their play. Only the descent of the sun and the encroaching gloom drove me away, and even then a few enthusiasts remained bowling and bowling; for every one who is devoted to bowls knows that the twilight favours form, although it does not favour the spectators. The players seemed to me to be chiefly of the mercantile cla.s.s, and I wondered if among them were any of the bearers of the odd names which I had noticed above the Plymouth shops as I was drifting about its streets that morning. Were any of the great Devon tribe of Yeo there? Was Mr. Condy U'Ren winning or losing? What kind of a "wood" did Mr. Odam project towards the "jack"? Could the admirable elderly player who always lifted his right foot and held it poised in the air while delivering the bowl be Mr. Jethro Ham? I judged the players to be, in many cases, old antagonists, and these games on this sunny October afternoon merely items in a series of battles spread over years past, and to continue, I hope, for years to come; for the pastime of bowls, unlike cricket and baseball and lawn tennis, has a kindly, welcoming smile for old age. The late Sir William Osler's rule as to forty being the culmination of man's power becomes an absurdity on the green. There, seventy is nothing. At eighty you are not necessarily to be sneezed at.

Even nonagenarians, I believe, have earned the thrill contained in the phrase "Good wood!" So then I confidently expect, if I am alive, and am on Plymouth Hoe in twenty years' time, when prosperity will again be established, with amity among the nations, to find many of the same players at this at once the gentlest, but not the least exciting, of games--to me, at any rate, more exciting than horse-racing with all its speed.

They played exceedingly well, these men of Plymouth, one veteran in particular exacting a deadly amount of work out of the last four feet of the bowls' stealthy journey. And how serious they were--with their india-rubber over-shoes, and a mat to start from! I doubt if Sir Francis had it all so spick-and-span--for in his day we were very nearly as far from lawn mowers as from turbines. And how intent they were on the progress not only of their own bowls but of their opponents' too--but of course with a more personal, more intimate, interest in their own, even to following its curve with their back-bones, and to some extent spinally reproducing it, as conscientious players involuntarily do.

ADMIRALS ALL--TO BE

It is fitting that the naval training college from which the English mids.h.i.+pmen go straight to sea should be situated in Drake's county. This means that they breathe the right air, and, through the gap made by the rocky mouth of the Dart, look out from their commanding eminence upon a triangle of the right blue water. Drake also gives his n.o.ble name to one of the Terms (or companies of cadets).

I have seen Dartmouth both at work and at play, and am still not sure which was which. Whether the boys were at football on those high table-lands where, at the first glimpse--so many players are there--all the games seem one; or cleaning boilers; or solving the problems of knots; or winding acc.u.mulators; or learning to steer; or drawing machinery sections; or poring over charts; or a.s.sembling an engine; or sailing their cutters in the Dart; or listening to signal instructors in the gun-rooms; or acquiring the principles of navigation; or collecting the const.i.tuents of a variegated tea in the canteen; or singing "G.o.d Save the King" in chapel (all three verses); or grappling with logarithms; or swimming vociferously in the bath--whatever they are doing, there seems to be at the back of it the same spirit and zeal.

Even the four or five offenders whom I saw expiating in punishment drill their most recent misdeeds appeared to have a zest.

Literature and the Navy have always had their liaison; and after studying two or three typical numbers of _The Britannia Magazine_, the organ of the cadets, I see every chance of a new crop of Captain Marryats and Basil Hoods; while there is promise of an excellent caricaturist or so, too. Compared with the ordinary run of school periodicals, this is rather striking. I fancy that I discern a fresher and more independent outlook and a rather wider range of interest. The natural history articles, for example, are unusually good, and some of the experiences of war, by mids.h.i.+pmen, are vivid and well done; and amid the fun and nonsense, of which there is a plentiful infusion, there is often a sagacious irony. Among this fun I find, in prose, an account of the Battle of St. Vincent, by a young disciple of George Ade, which would not disgrace a seriously comic periodical and must be quoted.

Nelson, I should premise, has just defeated the Spaniards. Then--

"Say, stranger," asked H. N., as the dons mushed around with their surrenders, "is this a business proposition or a sad-faced compet.i.tion at a dime show?"

"Gee-whizz!" said the Spanish Ad., "we reckon we're bored some. My name is Muckheap, and I don't seem to get gay any old way."

"Bully for you, old Corpse-face," Nels replied; "hand out your ham-carvers and then run around and fix yourself an eye-wizzler!"

And so they pa.s.sed in real swift.

And did the British Fleet push in the glad cry right away when Nels put in his entrance? Why, sure!

As for the verse, which is both grave and humorous, nothing gives me more pleasure and satisfaction than the rapid but exhaustive summary of England's blockading efforts at sea in the Great War, which begins thus:

Observe how doth the British Navy Baulk the Bavarian of his gravy; While the fat Boche from Koln to Munich Cannot expand to fill his tunic....

The British Navy, we know, "does not advertise"; but there is no harm in its nestlings saying a good word for it now and then.

Of all the things that I saw at Dartmouth, I shall retain, I think, longest--against that comely smiling background of gay towers and brickwork on the hill--the memory of the gymnasium and the swimming bath. Compared with Dartmouth's physical training, with its originality, ingenuity, thoroughness, and keenness, all other varieties become unintelligent and savourless. This is fitness with fun--and is there a better mixture? As for the swimming bath, it is always the abode of high spirits, but to see it at its best you must go there directly after morning service on Sunday. It is then that the boys really become porpoises--or, rather, it is then that you really understand why porpoises are always referred to as moving in "schools." I know nothing of the doctrine that is preached normally at the College, for I heard only a sermon by a visiting dignitary of notable earnestness and eloquence, but I a.s.sume it to be beyond question. If, however, a heresy should ever be propounded no harm would be done; for the waters of the swimming bath would instantly wash it away. As one of the officers remarked to me (of course in confidence), he always looked upon this after-service riot of splas.h.i.+ng and plunging as an instinctive corrective of theological excess. On these occasions the bath becomes a very cauldron, bubbling with boy.

It was cheering indeed, as I roamed about this great competent establishment, to be conscious of such an undercurrent of content and _joie de vivre_. At Dartmouth in particular is this a matter for satisfaction, since the College is likely to be, for the boys, a last link with the land--with solid England, the England of fields and trees and games and friends--for many years. Of all boys who deserve a jolly boyhood, these naval cadets, I think, come first; for the sea is a hard mistress and they are plighted to her. Once they embark as mids.h.i.+pmen responsibility is upon them; none of our sons need to grow up more quickly. As to the glamour of the sea, one of the cadet poets becomes lyrical about it--"I hear," he sings:

I hear the sea a-calling, Calling me; Calling of its charms, Of its tempests and its calms; I've lived upon the mainland, But I'll die upon the sea!

May the fulfilment of his wish be long deferred! But, beneath the glamour, the fact remains that, for all her pearls, the sea demands everything that her sailors can give, often in every kind of danger, discomfort, and dismay; and the division between herself and the mainland is immense and profound. Let us rejoice then that the mainland life of these boys dedicated to her service should be so blithe.

A STUDY IN SYMMETRY

Apropos of admirals, let me tell you the following story which, however improbable it may seem to you, is true.

Once upon a time there was an artist with historical leanings not una.s.sociated with the desire for pelf--pelf being, even to idealists, what gasoline is to a car. The blend brought him one day to Portsmouth, where the _Victory_ lies, with the honourable purpose of painting a picture of that famous s.h.i.+p with Nelson on board. The Admiral was of course dying, and the meritorious intention of the artist, whose wife wanted some new curtains, was to make the work as attractive as might be and thus extract a little profit from the wave of naval enthusiasm which was then pa.s.sing over the country; for not only was the picture itself to be saleable, but reproductions were to be made of it.

Permission having been obtained from the authorities, the artist boarded the _Victory_, set up his easel on her deck, and settled down to his task, the monotony of which was pleasantly alleviated by the chatter of the old salts who guard the s.h.i.+p and act as guides to the tourists visiting her. Since all these estimable men not only possessed views on art, but had come by now to the firm belief that they had personally fought with Nelson and witnessed his end, their criticisms were not too easily combated: so that the artist had not a tedious moment. Thus, painting, conversing, and learning (as one can learn only from a trained imparter of information), three or four days pa.s.sed quickly away and the picture was done.

So far there has been nothing to strain credulity. But a time will come--is, in fact, upon us.

On the evening of the last day, as the artist was sitting at early dinner with a friend before catching the London train, his remarks turned (as an artist's sometimes will) upon the work upon which he had just been engaged. He expressed satisfaction with it in the main, but could not, he said, help feeling that its chances of becoming a real success would be sensibly increased if he could find as a model for the central figure some one whose resemblance to Nelson was noticeable.

"It seems to be a law of nature," he went on, "that there cannot exist at the same time--that is to say, among contemporaries--two faces exactly alike. That is an axiom. Strange as it may sound, among all the millions of countenances with two eyes, a nose in the middle and a mouth below it, no two precisely resemble each other. There are differences, however slight." (He was now beginning really to enjoy the sound of his own voice.) "That is, as I say, among contemporaries: in the world at the moment in which I am speaking. But," he continued, "I see no reason why after the lapse of years Nature should not begin precisely to reproduce physiognomies and so save herself the trouble of for ever varying them. That being so, and surely the hypothesis is not too far-fetched"--Here his friend said, "No, not at all--oh no!"--"that being so, why," the artist continued, "should there not be at this moment, more than a century later, some one whose resemblance to Nelson is exact? He would not be necessarily a naval man--probably, indeed, not, for Nelson's face was not characteristic of the sea--but whoever he was, even if he were an archbishop, I," said the painter firmly, "should not hesitate to go up to him and ask him to sit to me."

The friend agreed that this was a very proper att.i.tude and that it betokened true sincerity of purpose.

"Nelson's face," the painter continued, "was an uncommon one. So large and so mobile a mouth is rare. But it is by no means impossible that a duplicate exists, and no matter who was the owner of it, even were he an archbishop, I should not hesitate to go up and ask him to sit to me."

(For the benefit of any feminine reader of this veracious history, I should say that the repet.i.tion which she has just noticed is not a slip on my part but has been carefully set down. It is an attempt to give verisimilitude to the conversation--because men have a habit of saying things like that twice.)

The friend again remarked that the painter's resolve did him infinite credit, and the two started for the station, still conversing on this theme.

On entering their carriage the first thing to take their attention was a quiet little man in black, who was the absolute double of the hero of Trafalgar.

"Good gracious!" whispered the painter excitedly, "do you see that?

There's the very man. The likeness to Nelson is astonis.h.i.+ng. I never saw anything like it. I don't care who he is, I must tackle him. It's the most extraordinary chance that ever occurred."

a.s.suming his most silky and deferential manner--for, though clearly not an archbishop, unless in mufti, this might yet be a person of importance--the painter approached the stranger and tendered a card.

"I trust, sir, that you will excuse me," he began, "for the liberty I am taking, but I am an artist and I happen to be engaged on a picture of Nelson on the _Victory_. I have all the accessories and so forth, but what I very seriously need is a brief sitting from some gentleman with a likeness to the great Admiral. Such, sir, as yourself. It may be news to you--it probably is--but you, sir, if I may say so, are so like the famous and immortal warrior as almost to take one's breath away. It is astonis.h.i.+ng, wonderful! Might I--would it be--could you--would you, sir, be so very kind as to allow me to paint you? I would, of course, make every effort not to inconvenience you--I would arrange so that your time should be mine."

"Of course I will, guvnor," said the man. "Being a professional model, I've been sitting for Nelson for years. Why, I've been doing it for an artist this very afternoon."

DAVY JONES

A naval gentleman of importance having asked me who the original Davy Jones was, I was rendered mute and ashamed. The shame ought properly to have been his, since he is in the Admiralty, where the secrets of the sea should be known, and is covered with b.u.t.tons and gold braid; but there is caprice in these matters, and it is I (as a defaulting literary person) who felt it.

I left with bent head, determined, directly I reached London and books were again accessible, to find the answer. But have I found it? You shall decide.

I began with a "Glossary of Sea Terms," which is glib enough about the meaning of Davy Jones's locker but silent as to derivation. I pa.s.sed on to "The Oxford Dictionary," there to find the meaning more precisely stated, after directions how to p.r.o.nounce Davy's name. You or I would a.s.sume that he should be p.r.o.nounced as he is spelt: just Davy; but the late Dr. Murray knew better. You don't say Davy; you say _Dee.vi_.

Having invented and solved these difficulties, the Dictionary proceeds: "Nautical slang. The spirit of the sea, the sailor's devil. Davy Jones's locker: the ocean, the deep, especially as the grave of those who perish at sea." Among the authors cited is Smollett in "Peregrine Pickle," and also one J. Willock, to whom I shall return later.

Still on the search for an origin of Davy Jones I went next to "The Dictionary of National Biography" (which, if only you could get it ash.o.r.e, is, no matter what the pundits say as to the Bible and Boswell and Plato and "The Golden Treasury," and so forth, the best book for a desert island), and there I found no fewer than eight David Joneses, all of course Welsh, not one of whom, however, could possibly claim any connexion with our hero; three being hymn-writers and antiquaries, one a revivalist, one a soldier and translator, one a barrister, one a missionary to Madagascar (the only one who knew anything of the sea), and one a mad preacher whose troubles caused his "coal-black hair to turn milk-white in a night"--as mine seemed likely soon to do. However, I then bethought me of what I should have done first, and seeking the shelves where "Notes and Queries" reside was at once rewarded. For "Notes and Queries" had tackled the problem and done with it as long ago as 1851. On June 14 of that year Mr. Henry Campkin requested the little paper (which, since Captain Cuttle provided it with its excellent motto, should have a certain friendliness towards nautical questions) to help him. Mr. Campkin, however, did not, as my Admiralty friend did, say, "By the way, who the devil _was_ Davy Jones?" He asked, as a gentleman should, in gentlemanly, if precise, terms: "Who was the important individual whose name has become so powerful a myth? And what occasioned the identification of the ocean itself with the locker of this mysterious person?"