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:

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[Pg 65]
[Pg 66] 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——”

That’s what he said; and he died.

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.