A Bold Feat by Lord Beresford.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 133, 4 December 1895, Page 2

A Bold Feat by Lord Beresford.

Lord Charles Beresford, writes Mr Lucy in the Sydney Morning Herald, has just performed one of those risky feats which are irresistibly attractive to him, whether in time of peace or war. It is an axiom to which British naval and military authorities cling that Chatham Dockyard is inapproachable by a foreign ship at night. Even in the daytime' without the assistance of a peccant English pilot, the Medway, broad as it looks, is a remarkably delicate and dangerous maze for a snip to tread That* a torpedo boat, manned by British bluejackets and commanded by an officer familiar ' with the river, could safely thread the passage on a dark night was held to be impossible. That was enough for Lord Charges Beresford. Choosing a moonless night, when posaibiJHy of the light of the stars was averted by a slight mist, Lord Charles steamed out in a torpedo boat from Sbeerness, made some way to sea in the direction of the Nore, and. putting the torpedo's head about boldly made for Chatham Dockyard, some twenty miles up the Medway. The waterway suitable for ships drawing any reasonable depth of water lies midway in the broad sheet and is very narrow. It is buoyed on either side, which with the local knowledge, makes the course moderately easy in the daytime. But the buoys are not lit at night, nor is there any light shown from the shore ; fields for the most part running down to the water's edge, with here and there a factory for the making of cement. Lord Charles went ahead at fall speed all the way, and succeeded in reaching Chatham if not unobserved at least unchallenged. They bad some narrow squeaks at one or two places where they were conscious of being within a few turns of the . screw running ashore. But the feat demonstrated not a reassuring thing for the authorities of Chatham, that the dockyard could be approached on the darkest night.