The Honour of the Flag

The Honour of the Flag, by W.
Clark Russell

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Title: The Honour of the Flag
Author: W. Clark Russell
Release Date: November 23, 2006 [EBook #19899]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SHORT STORY
THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG

BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF "THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "LIFE OF
LORD NELSON," ETC., ETC.

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON 27 West Twenty-third Street. 24 Bedford
Street, Strand.
1895
The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N.Y.

SHORT STORY

Contents.
PAGE
=The Honour of the Flag= 3
=Cornered=! 28
=A Midnight Visitor= 41
=Plums from a Sailor's Duff= 57
=The Strange Adventures of a South Seaman= 82
=The Adventures of Three Sailors= 110
=The Strange Tragedy of the "White Star=" 137

=The Ship Seen on the Ice= 163

THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG

=The Honour of the Flag=.
A THAMES TRAGEDY.
Manifold are the historic interests of the river Thames. There is
scarcely a foot of its mud from London Bridge to Gravesend Reach that
is not as "consecrated" as that famous bit of soil which Dr. Samuel
Johnson and Mr. Richard Savage knelt and kissed on stepping ashore at
Greenwich. One of the historic interests, however, threatens to perish
out of the annals. It does not indeed rise to such heroic proportions as
you find in the story of the Dutch invasion of the river, or in old
Hackluyt's solemn narrative of the sailing of the expedition organised
by Bristol's noble worthy, Sebastian Cabot; but it is altogether too good
and stirring to merit erasure from the Thames's history books by the
neglect or ignorance of the historian.
It is absolutely true: I pledge my word for that on the authority of the
records of the Whitechapel County Court.
In the year 1851 there dwelt on the banks of the river Thames a retired
tailor, whom I will call John Sloper, out of regard to the feelings of his
posterity, if such there be. This man had for many years carried on a
flourishing trade in the east end of London. Having got together as
much money as he might suppose would supply his daily needs, he
built himself a villa near the pleasant little town of Erith. His house
overlooked the water; in front of it sloped a considerable piece of
garden ground.
Mr. Sloper showed good sense and good taste in building himself a
little home on the banks of the Thames. All day long he was able, if he
pleased, to entertain himself with the sight of as stirring and striking a

marine picture as is anywhere to be witnessed. He could have built
himself a house above bridges, where there is no lack of elegance and
river beauty of many sorts; but he chose to command a view of the
Thames on its commercial side.
In his day there was more life in the river than there is now. In our age
the great steamer thrusts past and is quickly gone; the tug runs the
sailing-ship to the docks or to her mooring buoys, and there is no life in
the fabric she drags. In Sloper's time steamers were few; the water of
the river teemed with sailing craft of every description; they tacked
across from bank to bank as they staggered to their destination against
the wind.
Sloper, sitting at his open window on a fine day, would be able to count
twenty different types of rigs in almost as many minutes. That he took a
keen interest in ships, however, I do not assert; that he could have told
you the difference between a brig and a schooner is barely imaginable.
The board on which Sloper had flourished was not shipboard, it had
nothing to do with starboard or larboard; he was a tailor, not a sailor,
and the friends who ran down to see him were of his own sort and
condition.
Sloper was a widower; how many years he had lived with his wife I
can't say. She died one Easter Monday, and when Sloper took
possession of his new house near Erith he mounted some small cannon
on his lawn, and these pieces of artillery he regularly fired every Easter
Monday in celebration of what he called the joyfullest anniversary