After the Keyes family returned from India, their Donegal connection brought Roger within sight of the Channel Squadron anchored in Lough Swilly. His father took him aboard HMS Agincourt, a five-masted sailing frigate with auxiliary steam power and Crimean War service. Agincourt's captain warned that elderly lieutenants faced years on half pay and little prospect of advancement, presenting the navy as a stagnant career rather than a romantic calling. The warning gives a useful glimpse of promotion conditions before rapid technological change transformed the service. Keyes nevertheless held to his ambition, and his father finally accepted the decision.
Chapter · 9:03-10:34
Lough Swilly, HMS Agincourt, and an unshaken naval ambition
A visit to HMS Agincourt exposed the promotion bottleneck of the late-Victorian Royal Navy without weakening Keyes's resolve to join it.