Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 727, December 1, 1877

'I understand your plan entirely, Mr Nickham,' said the old gentleman; 'and the sooner you begin, the better, for I feel we shall be successful. Mr Maffery assures me you can be relieved from your duty here at any time; so I trust there will be no delay. I have said money is not to stop you, and you will take this on account of expenses – when exhausted, let me know.' With that he handed me a bank-note, and I thanked him, and of course promised to do my best.

Then Inspector Maffery said: 'I will see to all the essentials, Nickham, so make your preparations as soon as you can.'

Now I liked Maffery very well, and he was certainly one of our best inspectors; but all this civility, taking trouble off my hands and so forth, merely told me that Mr Byrle was a most liberal party, and that Maffery believed he had got hold of a good thing. Mr Byrle shook hands with me, and they went away together, leaving me to think over the business.

I must confess I was a little disappointed – although I could see I was likely to be well paid for my work – in being set at such a very commonplace job as this. After I had traced Lady Brightley's jewels (the reader does not remember this, I daresay, as it was kept very quiet, but I got praised for my management of the case), I thought I should have been selected for the most important work; and when Inspector Maffery brought Mr Byrle in, I really hoped it was about the great Bank-paper robbery.

The reader is quite aware, I have no doubt, that Bank of England notes are printed on paper specially made for the purpose, and that no other paper has three rough edges, the only clean-cut edge being where the two notes have been separated – and this is one of the great tests of a genuine note. It will be recollected too, how a great quantity of this paper was stolen from the mills at Alverstoke, and the Bank was in a terrible state about it, because as for engraving and all that handicraft sort of work – why, bless me! there's men by the dozen in England and on the continent too —I know some of them – who could print off a note with all the little touches on which the examiners rely, as perfectly imitated as if they had worked for the Bank for years. So when the gang got hold of the genuine paper, it was a serious matter. They took the principal thief, however, and got the paper back. A desperate service it was too, as B – , the chief man in the affair, was one of the most resolute and desperate roughs in London; and the officers that took him ran great risk, and deserved great praise.

Of course the public rejoicing was very great, because nobody had known when the bad notes might come into circulation; but we knew, some of us, that it was all a sham, that a lot of the paper was still missing, and that if the right man got hold of it, there would soon be thousands of forged notes – all fives probably – flying about. It was pretended that all the paper was got back, or that the Bank people thought so, on purpose to make the holders of the remainder think that the hunt was given up; but it was no such thing. Two or three of the best men in the force were to continue the search, and I had hoped I should be selected; but I was told I would not do, because I could not speak any foreign language, and it was thought the men might have to go abroad after the paper. For all that, when I saw Inspector Maffery come in with Mr Byrle, I thought, as I just said, that I was to be chosen. However, I had found out my mistake; and I was thinking over my instructions, when the door opened again. I did not look up at first, supposing it was one of our men; but a cough attracting my attention, I turned round. I saw a slight-built, rather under-sized young fellow, with something of a foreign cut about him, very good-looking though, and a most uncommonly piercing eye; and he at once said: 'I am Mr Byrle's clerk, and have been waiting for him, and he wishes to know where he is to see you?'

'To see me?' I said. 'Why – does he want to see me?'

'I think what Mr Byrle means is, that in case he wants to speak to you, where shall he find you?' replied the young fellow. 'You see I don't know much of the business myself; I only know he has engaged you as a detective.'

'And that's more than you ought to have known,' I said; 'however, Mr Byrle knows his own business best. Tell him that of course he can always hear of me under the name agreed upon, at the Yarmouth Smack, where I shall lodge.'

'Under what name, did you say?' asks the clerk.

'I didn't say any name, and I don't mean to say any name,' was my answer. 'If Mr Byrle wants any more information, he had better write.'

'Oh, very well,' says he, quite short and sharp, for I supposed he did not like my manner, and away he goes.

I sat and thought, or tried to think, but I could not get on so well as before; the visit of that young fellow had unaccountably upset me, and I could not settle down again. Then in came first one, then another, then two or three of our men, and so I got up and went out. I had hardly turned the corner, when I met Inspector Maffery, and it was pretty easy to see by his rosy cheeks and unsteady eye what he had been up to.

'Off for a meditative stroll, I suppose, Mr Nickham?' he says. 'You are the boy for my money.'

'I'm glad to hear it, Inspector,' I said. 'But I don't think much of Mr Byrle's clerk, nor of Mr Byrle himself for his judgment in sending him to me.'

'Mr Byrle's clerk!' he says; and then repeats it: 'Mr Byrle's clerk!'

'Ah!' I said, 'Mr Byrle's clerk. He came with a message from Mr Byrle to know where he should meet me if he wanted to see me. I had already settled with him how I would call at his manager's private house with my report, whenever I had anything to say; and he ought to have been satisfied with that.'

'You are making some mistake here, Sergeant Nickham,' says Inspector Maffery. 'Mr Byrle had no clerk with him; and moreover than that, I've been with him myself till the last five minutes; till he got into the train in fact, and can swear he never spoke to anybody but myself from the time I left you.'

'Then there's a screw loose!' I said; 'there's a something wrong here, Inspector, and we have got to deal with some uncommonly deep files. They have scored the first notch in the game, that's clear; but perhaps we can turn the tables on them all the better for it.'

'If there's a man in the force as can do it, Sergeant Nickham, you are that man,' says Inspector Maffery; 'I'll trust it to you; for my head just now isn't up to the polishing off of such a business. But do what you like.'

'Can I have Peter Tilley for a week, Inspector?' I said.

'Have half a dozen for a month, if you like,' he answered: 'Mr Byrle is that much in earnest, Sergeant Nickham, and he is that rich and liberal, that he would buy up half a division rather than be beaten. So pick who you like, and keep them as long as you like. I will see you all right.'

'Very good, Inspector,' I said. 'Then I will have Peter to-morrow; and don't make any report of this little adventure, not even to Mr Byrle. I think I see the little game, and I will try to spoil it.'

If I had had any doubt as to the Inspector having had quite enough brandy-and-water with Mr Byrle (it was sure to be brandy-and-water, for Inspector Maffery never touched anything else; he said it was ordered for his liver) – I say if I had felt any doubt before, I should have had none after the way he wrung my hand and said: 'If there's a man in the force as can do credit to the force and bring 'em through in triumph, that man is Sergeant Nickham.' And so, with another squeeze of my hand, he walked away with a step so excessively solemn and stately, that it was only a little better – a very little – than staggering across the pavement, in the way of telling what was the matter with him; but Inspector Maffery was not a bad fellow, and never curried favour with those above him by worrying and spying on those below him, and so we liked the old boy.

Now this was a very awkward incident – I mean of course about the clerk – and shewed me that my work had already begun, and was likely to be a little more intricate than I had expected. How the stranger came to know so much as he evidently did, I did not trouble myself just then to consider: he did know it; that was the fact I was concerned with. Why it was worth his while to take so much trouble about a small affair, I did not much care either, though this was more important, as it was evident some one had employed him, for I would swear he was no smith or fitter; and so it was clear there was a good many in the swim. I don't mean to use any slang if I can help it, but 'swim' is a regular word, you know, and we can't do without it.

My mind was at once made up; I was always very quick in making up my mind, and prided myself upon it. I am bound to admit I often got wrong through it, but perhaps no oftener than people who were slower; and I took care to make a good deal of the times when I was right, and so that covered everything. Now, Peter Tilley, the officer I had asked for, was a man as much about my size and build and colour of hair and eyes, as if he had been my twin-brother; and indeed he was not much unlike me in his features. Any one who knew us would not mistake us for each other, but a casual acquaintance might do so. I was wearing then rather extensive moustaches and whiskers; they gave me quite a military cut; and they were not common in the force then, though any man wears them now that chooses. I at once determined to shave them off – for I never allowed personal considerations to interfere with business – and make Tilley wear a set of false articles as much like my own as possible; and this I knew would immensely increase his resemblance to me as I appeared that day, while I should of course look very unlike myself. Then I would send Tilley to the Yarmouth Smack– which was a public-house at which, under some disguise, I had agreed to lodge while on my search – and he could keep his eyes open for anything going on; but he was not to trouble himself much. It was uncommonly likely, I thought, that the spies – for I didn't doubt there was more than one – would make sure that Smith or Brown or Jones, or whatever Tilley called himself, the lodger at the Yarmouth Smack, was Sergeant Nickham, and so, as long as they kept him in sight, they had the trump-card, if I may be bold enough to say so, in their hands. And if I had not met Inspector Maffery when I did, when the clerk's visit was fresh upon me, and I was rather out of temper about it, I should probably never have thought of mentioning the matter, and the detective work would have begun on the wrong side.

Byrle & Co.'s factory was close to the Thames, and had a wharf in connection with it, and one waterside public-house would do as well for me as another. In fact, as the receiver was as likely to live on the opposite bank as on their own, I might actually gain by living at some place with the river between me and the factory, for a boat could easier cross the river in the dark than a cart could drive through the narrow streets and lanes without being noticed.

I told Tilley as much of my plan as was necessary; he was delighted to help me, for he fancied I was a rising man, and it was something of an honour to work with me. He was willing enough to wear the moustache too; indeed this was such a common and natural sort of disguise, that it was adopted quite as a matter of course. I did not tell him that I wished him to be mistaken for me; I took care to choose the moustache and whisker; but it never occurred to him why that particular style was chosen; nor did I tell him, or Inspector Maffery or Mr Byrle, that I was going to shave. There's nothing like keeping your own counsel in these cases; and I resolved that if I had occasion to report anything to the inspector (for he was supposed to have the case in hand), I would actually wear a false moustache myself; but it was specially arranged that I should not go near any of the authorities until I thought it desirable, for Mr Byrle was of opinion that if the least suspicion got afloat with regard to myself, the men who were robbing him were quite fly to watching where I went. (I am afraid I have dropped into slang again; to be 'fly' to a thing, means that you are up to it, or down to it, as some prefer to say.) Well, this was Mr Byrle's opinion, and I am bound to say, after the visit of the sham clerk, it was mine too.

OUR IRON-CLADS

In our ballad literature not a little is heard of 'the wooden walls of Old England.' History is so full of exploits by three-deckers and frigates, that one feels as if the general disuse of these engines of naval warfare would lead to national disaster. England, however, does not stand alone in exchanging wooden walls for iron-clads of an entirely new type. All the navies of the world have been thus transformed in the twenty years which have elapsed since our last great war. There are ships of war now afloat which could single-handed meet and defeat the whole fleet that followed Nelson and Collingwood at Trafalgar. These great changes have been brought about by the use of armour-plating, the growth of the guns, the improvement of marine engines, and the adoption of machinery to aid in the working and the fighting of the ship. We remember a few months ago hearing one of our admirals, a man of the old school, talking of naval war. 'In past times,' he said, 'war was all courage and chivalry. What is it now? Cunning and machinery!' And to some extent he was right. Cunning and machinery will play a great part in the naval battles of the future; but of course there must be courage, and iron courage too, behind them, or iron plates and monster guns will avail but little. In the new class of war-vessels, the massive plates are bolted on to iron frames; the only wood is the 'backing' of Indian teak behind and sometimes between them. Oak, so far as beams and planks are concerned, has disappeared from the navy. The 'hearts of oak' are left, however, it is to be hoped, in the brave fellows who happily still man our new navy.

Our Navy List tells us that we have something like eight hundred ships of war, including in round numbers sixty iron-clads. These figures given in this way of course require some explanation. In the list are included gun-boats, tenders, store-ships, tug-boats, old wooden ships which are really waiting to be broken up, training-ships, and wooden guard-ships stationed at various ports. Our fighting navy really consists of the iron-clads and the unarmoured cruisers built for high speed; to these we may add gun-boats of a recent type built to carry one very heavy gun. And with regard to the iron-clads it must be noted that even they are not all fitted to take a place in line of battle. Many of them are ships built from 1861 to 1864, having very thin armour, comparatively light guns, and we fear in many cases worn-out boilers. The Warrior, our first real iron-clad man-of-war (for we can hardly count as such the floating batteries), was launched in 1861. She was built on the lines of a fast sailing-ship, and has none of the heaviness of form which was unavoidably given to most of her successors. When she was launched, armour was still in the region of doubtful projects, and it was considered a remarkable success to give her four-and-a-half-inch plates on her central portion only, for the ends were wholly unprotected. The Warrior too was an enormously long ship – no less than three hundred and eighty feet from stem to stern; but even this length was exceeded in the sister ships Northumberland and Minotaur. These ships are neither strong in armour nor handy in manœuvring; they have of course their uses, but they cannot be compared with the later ships constructed when we had acquired some practical knowledge of what an iron-clad should be.

As soon as it was recognised that rapidity in manœuvring – in other words, power of turning easily and certainly – was a necessary quality of a good iron-clad, ships were built much broader in proportion to their length; and this facility of manœuvring was further increased by the general introduction of the twin-screw; that is, the placing of two screw propellers one on each side of the stern-post, each being independent of the other; so that one or both can be used to drive the ship; or one can be reversed while the other continues driving ahead; thus enabling the ship to turn as easily as a boat when the oarsman backs water with one hand and continues pulling with the other.

While the increase of armour kept pace with the growth of the guns, and rose gradually from four inches on the Warrior to two feet on the Inflexible, a species of internal defence was gradually developed by the division of the ship into numerous compartments; so that if she were pierced below the water-line by the explosion of a torpedo or the blow of an enemy's ram, the water would only partially fill her, and she would still be able to keep afloat. All the later iron-clads have a double bottom, the space between the inner and outer bottom being divided into numerous cells. The body of the ship is divided by the water-tight bulkheads extending from side to side, and from the bottom to the upper deck. To these transverse bulkheads Mr Barnaby, the present chief constructor, has added in all the iron-clads which he has designed a longitudinal bulkhead extending from stem to stern, and dividing the ship into two halves in the direction of her length. Further, there are minor compartments formed by strong bulkheads, designed for the protection of the engines and boilers. In a large ship these compartments of various kinds are very numerous; the Inflexible contains upwards of one hundred and twenty; great care, therefore, has to be taken in planning them, in order to insure that this isolation of the various parts of the ship may not interfere with the working of her guns, engines, and steering apparatus while she is in action.

Side by side with this development of defensive power, there went on an equally rapid development of machinery and mechanical appliances for the working of the ship. The first necessity of an iron-clad is powerful engines, to drive her at a speed of thirteen or fourteen knots an hour on an emergency, though of course in ordinary times a much lower rate of speed is considered sufficient, and the engines work at half their power, or are stopped entirely, while the ship proceeds on her way under sail. But the propulsion of the ship is only one of the numerous duties to be discharged by this new adoption of steam, a power which was only just really establishing itself in our navy when we went to war with Russia in 1854. An iron-clad does not carry anything like the crew that used to be put on board of an old three-decker. Eleven hundred men used to be the complement of a ship of one hundred and thirty-one guns; one-third of the number is more than the crew of some of our most formidable vessels of to-day. In former days guns could be handled and worked by men and even by boys, provided the number of hands were sufficient; and nowadays it is very different work running in and out guns weighing thirty-five, thirty-eight, and eighty-one tons, and dragging along and ramming down shot and shell weighing from six hundred pounds up to three-quarters of a ton, and cartridges each of which contains perhaps more than two barrels of gunpowder. This kind of fighting is work for giants, and so the giant Steam lends his strong hand to do it. Steam turns the turrets of the monitor, steam exerts its force through the medium of hydraulic machinery, checks the recoil of the heavy gun as it runs in, forces the mechanical sponge into its bore, works the shot-lift that brings up the ammunition, works the rammer that drives it home into the gun; finally runs the gun out and points it, the huge gun raising or lowering its muzzle, or turning to right or left, as the captain of its crew touches a valve-handle or presses down a little lever.

But steam is not applied to the guns only; it works the windlasses, winches, and capstans that raise the anchors, braces up the yards, and lifts stores and heavy weights in and out of the ship, or moves them from place to place. It furnishes power to the steering apparatus, works the pumps, keeps the ventilating fans going; and in ships that shew the electric light at night it drives the electrical apparatus. Engines are made to start engines in some of the newer iron-clads. Instead of moving heavy levers when he wishes to set the engines going, the engineer just touches a miniature engine, which moves the levers of the larger engines for him. And all these more important engines are multiplied and made to act either together or separately, so that in the event of one being disabled, others are left to do its work. We hear of ships of war being fitted with twenty or thirty engines, without counting sundry smaller ones. Those of the turret-ship Temeraire are thus divided – two main engines for propelling the ship, with two starting engines; four feed engines, two circulating engines, two bilge engines, four fan engines, one capstan engine, one steering engine, two pumping engines connected with the hydraulic loading-gear, two turning engines for rotating the turn-tables or turrets, two engines to pump water in case of fire, four engines for hoisting out ashes, one engine for condensing air in working the Whitehead torpedo, and an engine for the electric light apparatus. Admiral Fellowes had such ships as these in his mind when, speaking before a committee of the Admiralty, he said: 'Men-of-war now are nothing more nor less than floating machines; there are the steam capstans, the steam steering-gear; every portion of your guns, slides, and carriages worked by steam; there are the double bottom and the inner bottom, and everything connected with the machinery; in fact the whole ship is now a floating machine, and is more or less under the control of the chief engineer.'

In all our great naval wars, our ships had only a single weapon, the gun, and this not a very heavy one, for the highest limit of naval ordnance was the sixty-eight pounder, which indeed was looked upon as a very terrible weapon. To the guns of nowadays, the old thirty-two and sixty-eight pounders are mere pop-guns. There is the huge eighty-one-ton gun, twenty-four feet long, and six feet thick at the breech, its huge shot of fifteen hundred pounds being capable of penetrating thirty inches of armour. There is the thirty-eight-ton gun, whose shot of six or seven hundred pounds weight has smashed a thirteen-inch plate at a thousand yards. Then there are guns of six-and-a-half, nine, twelve, eighteen, and twenty-five tons, with projectiles weighing from one to six hundred pounds, all of them capable of piercing armour, against which the old naval guns would be as useless as a schoolboy's squirt. But the gun does not stand alone. There are two other weapons, either of which is more terrible, and in certain cases more effective than the heaviest gun afloat. These are the ram and the torpedo, the latter of which has recently been described in these columns. Let us, however, have a look at the ram. In the old days, the ship herself had no attacking power. She fought with her guns; or else she was laid alongside of her enemy, and the crew with axe, pike, and cutlass clambered over the bulwarks and on to the hostile decks, which they cleared by hand-to-hand fighting. Probably no iron-clad will ever be laid alongside of another to board her. Were an iron-clad to go into action, all the openings in the deck would be closed, and every one, even the steersman, under cover. Many modern ships could continue a fight successfully with a hundred or a hundred and fifty boarders in possession of the upper deck; and their own turret guns, or the fire of friendly ships, would clear away the intruders if necessary. Thus, in the recent war between Paraguay and Brazil, during one of the river engagements, a Paraguayan ship ran alongside of a Brazilian turret-ship and sent a crowd of boarders on to her iron decks. They met with no opposition; the round turret in front of them continued its fire against a Paraguayan monitor; while another Brazilian monitor sent volley after volley of grape-shot sweeping across the decks of her consort. In a few minutes they were clear. The Paraguayan boarders had been killed, had jumped into the water, or had escaped to one of their own ships. This, we believe, is the only attempt on record at boarding an iron-clad; its failure shews how hopeless such an enterprise is against a ship the possession of whose deck does not give any control over her movements or those of her crew. It is therefore probable that it will be only in the most exceptional cases that iron-clads will approach each other with the object of boarding. If they do come to close quarters, it will be only to use the ram.