Levittown

There is an interesting article on the history of Levittown in this month's American History magazine.

HMS Victoria

Illustration of H.M.S. Victoria.
Source: Index to late 18th, 19th and early 20th Century Naval and Naval Social History


In last week's mention of Rudyard Kipling's "Soldier an' Sailor too" under the header The Birkenhead Drill, his final stanza mentions the "Victorier."

The HMS Victoria, so named in celebration of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, was a British battleship launched in 1887 and which sank in 1893 in the eastern Mediterranean following a tragic accident arising from miscommunication and obedient adherence to orders even when those orders were suspected to be erroneous.

I read of this incident as a relatively young child, perhaps eight or ten, in one of the first of many anthologies of sea mysteries, tragedies, shipwrecks, etc. which I have read over the years.

Admiral George Tryon commanded a squadron of British ships and was in the process of putting on a display of maneuvers. He had two lines of ships lined up in parallel and instructed that they were to turn in to each other and come around heading in the opposite direction in parallel with one another again, but now much closer together.

His watch officers questioned whether the distances were sufficient for such a maneuver but he dismissed their concerns and they obeyed their orders despite their misgivings.

The HMS Camperdown and the HMS Victoria, leading their respective lines, turned in towards one another. The distances were indeed insufficient and the Camperdown rammed the Victoria with the latter ship sinking within half an hour with the loss of more than half her crew; 358 men including Admiral Tryon who elected to remain at his post saying "It's all my fault."

I had never heard of the Royal Marines playing a particular role in this disaster so am not sure what Kipling is referencing but am guessing that this is the incident (rather than some other HMS Victoria) to which he is referring given that the ballad was written close to the time of the tragedy.

The wreck of the HMS Victoria was discovered by divers three years ago. Uniquely, the ship rests in a perpendicular position above the sea floor as reported at that time in the Cyber Diver News Network.

There is also a memorial to the Victoria in Portsmouth in the UK.

There is also a Wikipedia article on the incident.

A footnote to the sinking is that the one of the survivors was the executive officer, the second-in-command, of the HMS Victoria, John Jellicoe. Jellicoe later became Admiral and commanded the British fleet at the classic clash of battleships, the Battle of Jutland in World War I. Later in the war he became the First Sea Lord of the entire British navy.

The Metaphor by Louis Untermeyer

I have a ten year old in the house learning the elements of language, so this passage seemed especially pertinent when I came across it.

The metaphor is something more than an amusing literary device; it is a continual play of wit, an illuminating double entendre, a nimble magic in which writer and reader conspire to escape reality. Perhaps"escape" is the wrong word - the play of metaphor acts to enrich reality, even to heighten it. The average reader enjoys its intensification so much that he cannot help employing it. "My heart leaps," he says, knowing quite well that it contracts and expands quietly within the pericardium. Or, he declares still more mendaciously but earnestly, "my heart stopod still." Even while he scorns poetry, the ordinary man helps himself to its properties and symbols; his daily life is unthinkable without metaphor. Having "slept like a log," he gets up in the morning "fresh as a daisy" or "fit as a fiddle"; he "wolfs down" breakfast, "hungry as a bear," with his wife, who has a "tongue like vinegar," but "a heart of gold." He gets into his car, which "eats up the miles," steps on the gas, and, as it "purrs" along through the "hum" of the traffic, he reaches his office where he is "as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the hives." Life, for the average man, is not "a bed of roses," his competitor is "sly as a fox" and his own clerks are "slow as molasses in January." But "the day's grind" is finally done and, though it is "raining cats and dogs," he arrives home "happy as a lark."

The Birkenhead Drill

The Birkenhead drill refers to the absolute discipline maintained by the Royal Marines as the HMS Birkenhead, having holed herself on an uncharted rock off the coast of South Africa, began to break up while they were still loading women and children into the few functioning lifeboats. Wikipedia has an entry for the Birkenhead incident and it is a story often recounted among maritime anthologies.

Though I am not particularly fond of his Barrack Room Ballads, one of Rudyard Kipling's poems pays tribute to those brave Royal Marines and the tradition they established of women and children first.

"Soldier an' Sailor Too"
(The Royal Regiment of Marines)
Rudyard Kipling

AS I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the Crocodile,
I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style.
'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, an' I sez to 'im, "'Oo are you?"
Sez 'e, "I'm a Jolly—'Er Majesty's Jolly—soldier an' sailor too!"
Now 'is work begins by Gawd knows when, and 'is work is never through;
'E isn't one o' the reg'lar Line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew.
'E's a kind of a giddy harumfrodite—soldier an' sailor too!

An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds of things,
Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to them 'eathen kings;
'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an' 'e drills with the deck on a slew,
An' 'e sweats like a Jolly—'Er Majesty's Jolly—soldier an' sailor too!
For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't know, nor do—
You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, to paddle 'is own canoe—
'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.

We've fought 'em in trooper, we've fought 'em in dock, and drunk with 'em in betweens,
When they called us the seasick scull'ry-maids, an' we called 'em the Ass Marines;
But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo,
We sent for the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too!
They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, and they never ask what's to do,
But they're camped an' fed an' they're up an' fed before our bugle's blew.
Ho! they ain't no limpin' procrastitutes—soldier an' sailor too.

You may say we are fond of an 'arness-cut, or 'ootin' in barrick-yards,
Or startin' a Board School mutiny along o' the Onion Guards;
But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to view,
The same as the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too!
They come of our lot, they was brothers to us; they was beggars we'd met an' knew;
Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arm, they was doubles o' me an' you;
For they weren't no special chrysanthemums—soldier an' sailor too!

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;
But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An' they done it, the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too!
Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps an' bein' mopped by the screw,
So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too!

We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me).
But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends, an' the work you may 'ave to do,
When you think o' the sinkin' Victorier's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too!
Now there isn't no room for to say ye don't know—they 'ave proved it plain and true—
That whether it's Widow, or whether it's ship, Victorier's work is to do,
An' they done it, the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too!

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

From Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey (?1539-1583) English soldier and navigator, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh

Despite the advice of his lieutenants, Gilbert refused to abandon his little ten-ton frigate, the Squirrel, which was overloaded and unseaworthy. Having paid a visit to his men onboard the other remaining ship in his fleet, the Golden Hind, he insisted on returning to the Squirrel. On the afternoon of September 9, 1583, the frigate was almost overwhelmed by the waves, but finally was recovered. Gilbert, sitting near the stern with a book in his hand, shouted out to the Golden Hind as it came within earshot, 'We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.' That night the watch on the Golden Hind saw the lights of the Squirrel suddenly vanish, and he cried out, 'The general is cast away.' This was indeed true, and of the five ships that set out on the expedition, only the Golden Hind returned to England to tell the tale, together with Gilbert's noble last words."

On this day in 1865

Eclipse of the Moon by Lars Ploughman License (cc-by-sa-2.0)

On the Eclipse of the Moon of October 1865
Charles Turner

One little noise of life remained--I heard
The train pause in the distance, then rush by,
Brawling and hushing, like some busy fly
That murmurs and then settles; nothing stirred
Beside. The shadow of our traveling earth
Hung on the silver moon, which mutely went
Through that grand process, without token sent,
Or any sign to call a gazer forth,
Had I not chanced to see; dumb was the vault
Of heaven, and dumb the fields--no zephyr swept
The forest walks, or through the coppice crept;
Nor other sound the stillness did assault,
Save that faint-brawling railway's move and halt;
So perfect was the silence Nature kept.

He Fell Among Thieves

I am a fan of Henry Newbolt's poetry and this poem is among my favorites. I had not ever known the background to the tale though I suspected it might be based on a true event. In this quarter's Slightly Foxed, Peter Gill, in his article Heading for the Hills, confirms that Newbolt wrote this poem in response to the murder in 1869 in Dardistan of one of those intrepid British explorers of Central Asia, George Hayward.




He Fell Among Thieves
Henry Newbolt

'YE have robb'd,' said he, 'ye have slaughter'd and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?'
'Blood for our blood,' they said.

He laugh'd: 'If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive.'
'You shall die at dawn,' said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
The ravine where the Yassîn river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
Or the far Afghan snows.

He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;
He heard his father's voice from the terrace below
Calling him down to ride.

He saw the gray little church across the park,
The mounds that hid the loved and honour'd dead;
The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,
The brasses black and red.

He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,
His own name over all.

He saw the dark wainscot and timber'd roof,
The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
The Dons on the daïs serene.

He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam,
He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
He heard the passengers' voices talking of home,
He saw the flag she flew.

And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood;
He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet:
His murderers round him stood.

Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,
The blood-red snow-peaks chill'd to a dazzling white;
He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last,
Cut by the Eastern height.

'O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
I have lived, I praise and adore Thee.'
A sword swept.
Over the pass the voices one by one
Faded, and the hill slept.