Information
Throughout his life, Kipling retained a fascination with the sea and ships. This well-known interest led to frequent invitations to participate in new ship trials and manoeuvres with the Channel Fleet. On 18th May 1897, at the instigation of the brother of the naval architect Sir John Thorneycroft, he was invited to Chatham to attend the speed trial of a new destroyer. The three hours he spent dashing up and down off the Medway, no doubt to the perturbation of the local river traffic, made a profound impression on him. He described his experience shortly afterwards in a letter to his friend and family doctor, James Conland.
Quotations
…and about three days later I got a telegram advising me to come down to Chatham dockyard: so down I went…We pulled out of the Medway into the mouth of the Thames at an easy twelve knots to get down to our course – from the Mouse light to the Lower Hope reach – a lumpy sea and a thirty-knot breeze. … Then the captain said ‘Let go!’ or words to that effect until – well do you know the feeling of standing up in a car when the thing starts up quick. I nearly fell down on the deck. The little bitch jumped from 22 to 30 like a whipped horse – and the three hours trial had begun!
It was like a nightmare. The vibration shook not only your body but your intestines and finally seemed to settle on your heart. The breeze along the deck made it difficult to walk. I staggered aft above the twin-screws and there saw a blue-jacket vomiting like a girl; and in the ward-room which is right in the stern of her, I felt my false teeth shaking in my head! The pace was too good for her to roll. All we could do was to get under the lee of the conning tower and hang on while this devil’s darning needle tore up and down coast. We passed 17 knot passenger boats, flew ten miles past ‘em, turned and came back and overtook them. By the way when she turned she slung you to one side like a bicycle. The wake ran out behind us like white hot iron; the engine room was one lather of oil and water: the engines were running 400 to the minute; the gauges: the main-stream pipes and everything that wasn’t actually built into her were quivering and jumping; there was half an inch of oil and water on the floor and – you couldn’t see the cranks in the crank pit. It was more like Hell, on a ten foot scale, than anything you ever dreamed …
Place | Extract |
| Chatham | On 18th May 1897, at the instigation of the brother of the naval architect Sir John Thorneycroft, he was invited to Chatham to attend the speed trial of a new destroyer... |
