Under the able tuition of Sergeant Giblett I became, in a few days,
sufficiently a proficient in the mysteries of marching, &c., to allow of
my falling in with Lieut. Rattleton’s company, the left grenadiers,[29]
and it was consequently arranged, with the concurrence of the adjutant,
that I should make my _début_ on parade when next the battalion was out
for exercise.
On the day previous to that event taking place, after tiffin, a sepoy
orderly brought in the regimental and station orders; and Tom, after
reading them, directed my attention particularly to a paragraph in the
former, which ran thus:
“The regiment will parade for exercise to-morrow morning, at a quarter
after gun-fire, furnished with ten rounds of blank cartridge per man.”
“There! my sub,” said Rattleton; “to-morrow you will see a little
service, and smell gunpowder for the first time in your life.”
“You’re wrong there,” said I; “you seem to have forgotten my recent
engagement with the Dacoits; why sir,” said I, affecting to bristle up,
“though you do command a company I have seen far more active service
than you have. A siege—a pursuit—a rout—and a retreat, are pretty well,
I take it, for an ensign of two months’ standing.”
“Ha! ha! Well, that’s true, to be sure,” rejoined my friend, laughing;
“you have, indeed, seen balls fired with intent to do grievous bodily
harm, and against the peace of our sovereign lord the king—but I would
sink the _bolt_, Frank, when I talked of my Junglesoor exploits. But,
seriously, you must get all your military trappings ready overnight, and
I’ll see that you are called in good time in the morning.”
I retired to bed rather earlier than usual, oppressed with a most
unpleasantly alarmed state of feelings, something akin, probably, to
that which a man experiences the night before he is hanged—or has to
fight a duel—or to encounter any other disagreeable novelty. I wished
the initiatory process fairly over, having somehow or other allowed my
anxiety to work on my imagination till I pictured it as something very
formidable.
I was aroused, next morning, by Rattleton’s singing, with reference to
my dormant state, I suppose, “Arise, arise! Britannia’s sons, arise,”
and by a rough shake of the shoulder.
“Eh! what?—what’s the matter?” said I, starting up, rubbing my eyes, and
yawning.
“Come, my sub, jump up, jump up! parade! parade! the gun has fired.”
“Why, it’s pitch dark, Tom,” said I, still stretching; “you surely don’t
go to parade in the middle of the night?”
Tom assured me it was the proper hour, and that it would soon be light;
his bearer ran in at the same moment, open-mouthed, to say the colonel
was on horseback and had just ridden past.
This announcement quickened my movements; so I reluctantly jumped out of
my warm nest, and, after a miserable cold dabble, dressed myself by the
light of a candle, “in the lantern dimly burning,” buckled on my Andrea
Ferrara, brushed up my hair, took a peep in the glass, to see how I
looked on an average, and then, _grande tenue_, and arm-in-arm, marched
off to parade with my friend.
“The day, you see, is beginning to break,” said he.
“I wish, with all my heart, it would make haste about it,” I returned
(“and I think I do see a few ruddy streaks in the east), for this is a
heathenish hour, a most Cimmerian gloom to manœuvre in. For my part, I
am sure I could not distinguish a rank of soldiers from a brick wall.”
“You will soon become accustomed to it,” answered my commandant, “and
find the reasonableness of this and other Indian customs, which now
appear singular to you; better to be comfortable in darkness than to
grill in broad day.”
“Tom,” said I, “you must tell me where I am to stand, and what I am to
do, for I know no more than the man in the moon.”
“You’ll have merely to march in the rear of the company,” said my
commander; “keep step, and salute in passing in review; all that, I
think you understand.”
As we passed through the sepoy lines, and approached the parade, the men
were just in the act of falling in, and my ears were saluted by a
strange and confused hubbub, loud shouts, and words of command in odd
voices.
There was the “_Hall dreez_” (halt dress), “_Lupt buccas wheel_” (left
backwards wheel), and “_Qeeck marruch_” (quick march), of the native
officers (by whom one-half of the platoons, at least, were commanded),
and the same, though in more intelligible English, in the sharper tones
of the Europeans.
Then there was a rattling of muskets, and a ringing of ramrods; the loud
voice of the commandant; the clattering of the adjutant’s steel
scabbard, and the ringing of his horse’s hoofs, as he thundered down the
ranks in a prodigious fuss—why, I could not tell—unless to create a
sensation. Our adjutant, however, of the Zubberdust Bullumteers, was a
prodigiously smart officer, and always galloped three times as fast as
was necessary.
It was all exciting and strange to me, to find myself thus, for the
first time, about to participate in real military proceedings; the
actual game of soldiers, which I had hitherto only viewed, with becoming
awe, _à la distance_, or mimicked, as a younker, with penny drum and
falchion of tin. I was now about to realize one of my dreams of boyhood.
Time’s misty veil has long rested on those days, but still I can recal
the stirring interest I used to experience when the recruiting-sergeant,
on a fair-day, marched through our village. I think I now behold him,
with his drawn sword and flying ribbons, proud as a turkey-cock, with
all the tag-rag and bobtail at his heels.
What a glorious thing I thought it was to be a soldier—a real,
downright, actual soldier—to wear a red coat, and fight the French! How
I longed to be the fifer, or even the little duck-legged drummer, as he
strode valiantly through the mud, with his long gaiters—very little
older than myself, too, and yet privileged to wear a _real_ sword! Even
the gawky smock-frock clowns, won by the sergeant’s eloquence, touching
the joys of a soldier’s life, and forming a part of the tail of this
flaming meteor, came in for a share of my envy.
“Ah!” I used mentally to exclaim, “I’ll certainly be a soldier when I am
a man!” Here, then, was the realization; a downright _bonâ fide_
regiment, real guns, real colonel, and all, and I a constituent portion
of it—in a word, an officer! Thus, my gratification, in a great measure,
overcame my uneasiness.
“The battalion will pass in review—march!” roared the colonel; and away
we went, as solemn as mutes at a funeral, I behind my sepoys,—sword
drawn, stiff as the little man in the Lord Mayor’s carriage, right leg
foremost. It was an agitating moment, and I in a nervous tremour, lest I
should commit some blunder. We turned the angle of the square,—the band
struck up,—and we approached the saluting flag.
“Rear rank, take open order!”
The native officers made a long leg; I did the same, and found myself in
front of the company, exposed to general notice. To use a coarse, but
expressive phrase, I was in a “devil of a stew.”
I kept a close eye on my captain, however, thinking, if I did as he did
I could not be wrong.
We approached the colonel; I saw he had his eye upon me. Ye powers, if
such there be, who preside over steps short and long, and all others the
deep mysteries of drill and parade, how much did I then need your aid!
What mighty effort did I make to keep step.
Within saluting distance, Tom brought up his sword; I did the same; but,
looking forward, omitted to bring it down again, till a cough from Tom,
and an “_Isee, Sahib!_” (thus, sir,) from the half-laughing old subadar,
caused me quickly to rectify the little omission.
Well, we formed close and open column, solid squares, and squares to
receive cavalry, and I know not what on earth besides: there was a
fearful drumming, firing, and charging, and I was half-stupefied with
the noise and rapid ravelling and unravelling, embodyings and
dispersings of this animated Chinese puzzle. However, I stuck close to
the rear of my sepoys, and bore up through it wonderfully well upon the
whole.
How astonished our descendants, some three or four centuries hence, will
be, methinks, when man shall have become one consolidated mass of
intellect and morality, as they ponder over our ingenious modes of
effecting wholesale extermination! “Thus,” they will exclaim, perhaps,
as they sigh over the aberrations and follies of their barbarous
ancestors, “’twas thus they shot, slashed, and impaled one another; in
this way they attacked and defended; and thus they invested the
machinery of destruction with all the pomp of music, the glitter of
ornament, and the splendour of decoration.”
Some, however (distinguished historians and pious Christians too),
strangely enough, take a very different view of the matter—maintaining
that war is an inherent adjunct of the social state—that without it we
should become utterly enervated—sink into stagnation, and that, in
short, there can be no healthy action without mutual destruction! that
it exists at all is puzzling—but that, it must ever be is both
mortifying and astounding. Between, however, man viewed as a mere
animal, and man considered as an intellectual and moral being, those who
hope for perfection and those who despair of it,—Quaker endurance, that
bears to be spat upon, and morbid honour, that fires at a look;—between,
I say, all these conflicting views and practices—these cross lights and
opposite principles—many honest thinkers are sorely puzzled to make up
their minds on the subject—as to whether combativeness is, or is not, an
inherent element of our nature, which must as necessarily break out into
a conflict occasionally, as the atmosphere brews the tempest—or whether
war be not destined to swell the category of past follies, witchcraft,
persecutions, astrology, and the like; and to this view I for one
honestly incline.
The press and steam, right mental culture—proper social organization and
international co-operation, may do wonders; so long, however, as war
continues to be the “_ultima ratio regum_,” the arbiter, for want of a
better, of national differences, let all honour be shown to those who,
in wielding its powers, display, as British soldiers do, some of the
noblest qualities of our nature, and who, though yielding to the
necessity of shedding blood, still love to temper courage with humanity,
and to mitigate its inherent evils.
At length, as all things must, our exercise came to an end. The parade
was dismissed. The officers, European and native, fell out on dismissing
their companies and advanced towards the commandant, who, as is
customary, waited in front to receive them.
Having saluted, and returned their swords to their scabbards, there was
a general unbending, and the laugh and the joke and the news went round.
“Well, Rantipole, how does the grey carry you? What did you give for
him?”
“Two hundred and fifty dibs” (_i.e._, rupees); “wouldn’t take four
hundred for him at this moment.”
“Isn’t he a little puffed in that off fore-leg?” said Captain Syphax,
drily.
“No, not that I know of.”
“Who was at Mrs. Roundabout’s hop last night? they say that old
Crosslight, the brigade major, was more than ordinarily attentive to the
widow.”
“Oh! I didn’t hear that—by the way, Tom, when does your affair come on?”
“Nonsense! how do I know?”
“Hear him; hear him! hear the Benedict!”
“Rantipole, I’ll bet you five gold mohurs,” said one of the subs, “that
my old Toorkie beats your new purchase once round the course, P. P.”
“Done! but I don’t sport gold mohurs; say five chicks,[30] and it’s a
bet; or I don’t mind if I make it ten.”
“Chicks, Tom,” said I, aside; “isn’t it rather an odd thing to bet fowls
on a horse race? this is another of your Indian customs, I suppose, the
reasonableness of which is not apparent at a glance.”
Tom stamped and laughed at my query, like a madman, to the astonishment
of all present.
“Here,” said he, in a whisper, and pulling me aside “you great griff
you! chicks are sequins, or chequins abbreviated to chicks;—not fowls,
as you imagine: have you never heard that before?”
“Never,” said I.
“What’s the joke, Rattleton, what’s the joke?” said the colonel,
good-humouredly; “come, let’s have it, and don’t keep it all to
yourself.”
“Oh, nothing, sir, nothing particular, sir,” said Tom; “nothing, but
rather a griffinish query of my friend Gernon’s, which tickled me a
little.”
“I am afraid you are rather too hard upon him,” said, the colonel;
“remember, Rattleton, I could tell a few stories of griffins if I
chose.”
Tom felt the rebuke, and had the laugh turned against him.
The colonel now addressed me, and, in a very kind and encouraging
manner, eulogized the way in which I had acquitted myself on my first
appearance in public, adding, “I hope we shall send you to your regiment
up the country quite a proficient, and calculated to reflect credit on
your instructors in the Zubberdust Bullumteers.”
As our worthy commandant was anxious that I should have an insight into
the various branches of military duty, the adjutant was desired to make
me attend regimental courts-martial, invaliding committees, guard
mountings, &c., that I might see how these duties were carried on.
The first court-martial I attended was a regimental one for the trial of
a black drummer for theft.
Tom took me to the bungalow of the superintending officer, who is always
an European, and whose duty it is to conduct the proceedings which he
records, assisted by the regimental interpreter, who is also the
quarter-master of the regiment.
Shortly after our arrival, the native officers composing the court made
their appearance; they were all large, portly men, singular compounds of
those moral antipodes, the European and the Asiatic.
Instead of the black military stock of the English officer, they wore,
over white cotton collars, necklaces of gold, formed of massive embossed
beads, each almost as large as a small bean or nutmeg; the overalls of
the majority had been pulled up over the _Dotee_, or waistcloth, a
Hindoo article of dress, containing almost cloth enough to serve for the
envelopment of a mummy.
[Illustration: The Native Court-martial.]
This swathing of the loins, gathered into a bunch behind and before,
renders a considerable amplitude of waistband indispensably necessary,
and causes, moreover, very often an unseemly protuberance under the
jacket flaps on the hinder regions, ornamental, no doubt, in a dromedary
or Hottentot Venus, though any thing but improving to the appearance of
a military man.
In spite, however, of these little drawbacks, or, perhaps, I should say
humpbacks, there was much in the general appearance of these Indian
veterans which to me, as a novice, and not altogether an unobservant
one, was exceedingly striking and interesting, not having yet had an
opportunity of observing them so leisurely; to those, however,
accustomed to see them daily, these feelings doubtless had long since
died away.
Two or three were aged men, whose snowy whiskers and mustachios
contrasted strikingly with the swarthy hue of their well-chiselled and
manly countenances; gold and silver medals hung on their breasts,
mementoes of past services under a Wellesley, a Coote, a Baird, a
Harris, a Lake, or some other of the many commanders who have led the
brave and faithful sepoy, where’er in this hemisphere Britain has had a
cause to maintain, and whose deeds are chronicled in some of the
brightest pages of Indian military history.
“How is it, Tom,” said I, “that the European officers, who have shared
in the same dangers, and who have fought in the same fields, exiles from
home and kindred, and grilling under your fiery sun here, are not also
honoured with medals for remarkable services?”[31]
“Upon my life, Frank, I can’t tell you; it is one of those profound
mysteries which it does not become unassisted reason to probe too
closely: there must be some latent policy in it, though it is far beyond
the ken of ordinary mortals. My old native officer, Subadar Davy
Persaud, one day, in my presence, asked your friend Captain Marpeet,
when lounging at my bungalow, what was the reason of it? ‘We are
puzzled, Sahib,’ said he, ‘to make it out; they are either of no value,
and given to us, as baubles are to the _Baba Logue_ (children), or else
you gentlemen, who led us on, and shared in our dangers and hardships,
are very ill-treated by the Kumpany Ungruis Bahadour, in not being
allowed to share in the distinction, which we should prize much more if
our officers did share it.’”
“That seems like a poser,” said I.
“It does,” replied Tom; “’tis plausible; but it just shows into what
errors mere unassisted reason may lead us.”
“But what said Marpeet to it? he is a right loyal man, and always sticks
up for the ‘Honourable John.’”
“Why,” said Tom, “Captain Marpeet, being a bit of a logician, proved
syllogistically to old Davy Persaud that all was as it should be, thus:
‘It was well known,’ said he, ‘and an established fact, that the
Honourable Company are liberal, generous and considerate masters; that
they don’t do illiberal, impolitic, and inconsiderate things—_ergo_,’
and there Marpeet brought his conclusions to bear in high style, and
regularly demolished David Persaud’s position; ‘_ergo_, this must be all
right, though appearances are the other way.’ Your friend, however,
confessed to me afterwards, that when at home he should have been glad
could he have sported a bit of ribbon at his button hole, or something
of the sort, just to show that he had frozen patriotically on the
mountains of Nepaul, and struck a blow for old England at Laswarrie and
Putpergunge.”
I was much surprised, and not a little amused, to observe that each
native officer was accompanied by an attendant, generally some simple
looking Coolie youth, carrying his chair, and odd three-cornered pieces
of furniture some of them were.
“Tom,” said I, _sotto voce_, “there seems to be no want of chairmen at
your meeting; but, seriously, tell me, is it usual for the native
officers to carry about their chairs in this sort of way?”
My friend answered that it generally was, and that not only native, but
European officers did the like, subalterns’ bungalows not being usually
overstocked with furniture.
“The possession of a chair, by the way, and the right to sit in it in
the presence of his European officer,” added he, “are prerogatives on
which the subadur or jemadar sets a high value.”
“Enlighten my griffinism a little, Tom,” said I, “and expound the cause
thereof.”
“Why, the reason,” rejoined my friend, “is, I believe, this. No inferior
in India ever sits in the presence of a superior, unless squatting on
his heels on the ground may be so considered; and you must have
perceived that a chair is never offered to a sepoy or non-commissioned
native officer, under any circumstance of long detention or the like,
which it would perhaps be to Europeans of the same rank in those cases;
in fact, if it were, it would be stoutly refused, and the man would
think you were bantering him. But when promoted, when he gets his
commission, he acquires a _status_ in society, is an ‘_uppiser_’ (an
officer), one of the _sirdar logue_, and in some respects on a par with
his European superior. He now sports a gold necklace or _kanta_; and
sets up a chair and a tatoo (pony), as indispensable concomitants of his
newly-acquired rank—riding on the one, and in all probability sitting on
the other, for the first time in his life. I have been a good deal
amused,” continued Tom, “to see them sometimes, when seated opposite
their houses, or rather huts, in the lines, enjoying their _otium cum
dignitate_ in these same chairs, illustrating amusingly enough the
invincible force of habit—legs partly doubled up under them, feet
slantingly projecting under the arms thereof, instead of depending
before, according to the usages of Christendom. Blacky does not readily
adopt new habits and European improvements; or if he does, he often mars
their object by engrafting on them something of his own.”
“I dare say,” said I, “from what I have seen, that this is true enough.”
“A gentleman up the country, for example,” continued Tom, “some time
ago, wished to introduce the use of the wheelbarrow into his garden,
with other English improvements; when next he went there, he found the
coolie, or gardener’s assistant, to his astonishment, carrying the
wheelbarrow on his head, with a load of gravel. Why, a week ago, I gave
my vagabond _bawurchee_ (cook), whom, you know, I sent to the right
about yesterday, a tin flour dredger, that I might be spared the
mortification of having my food unnecessarily manipulated. The very next
time I went to the _bawurchee khana_ (cook house), I caught the villain
taking the flour in pinches out of the perforated head of my dredger (as
one would take a pinch out of a snuff-box) and sprinkling it over the
cutlet. Ah! I fear that nature designed natives and jackasses to be
managed by the cudgel!”
“Why, that is Captain Marpeet’s principle to a T,” said I. “Sound
thrashings, according to him, with some races, are meant to answer the
purpose of sound reasonings with others; it requires caution, however,
in applying that principle. For example, it would be far from safe to
try it on some of those big-calved fellows one sees behind the coaches
at home,—eh, Tom?”
“You’re right, Frank—you’re right; I see the drift of your remark. It
does seem unmanly to thrash those who cannot and will not retaliate. But
they’re confoundly stupid and provoking; and your crouching spaniel
always invites a kick.”
By the time we had terminated our “aside,” the native officers had
saluted, and after some little fuss and rattling of their huge sabres,
had settled down into a quiescent state, each man in his own proper
chair, and wearing his hat _cum privilegio_ as bravely as my Lord
Kinsale himself.
The superintending officer, a smart young Light Bob, was in readiness
with his recording apparatus—his foolscap, and his pen and ink. The
interpreter opened his book, containing the forms of oath to be
administered to the assembled Christians, Mahomedans, and Hindoos, all
cordially united to administer the common right of every creed and
colour—justice.
The black-bearded Moolah stood by with the _Koran_, wrapped in many a
fold of linen, to guard it from the polluting touch or look of the
infidel, whilst the regimental brahmin, his forehead marked with bars of
ochre and pigment, indicative of his sanctity, was also in attendance,
holding in his hands a brazen vessel, filled with the _Gunja jhull_, or
Ganges water, in which was immersed a sprig of (as I was told) the
sacred _toolsie_. On these two symbols, or foundations of their
respective faiths, the Mussulmans and Hindoos are sworn.
The superintending officer now directed the prisoner to be brought in,
and an orderly sepoy immediately called out “_Aundo Bridgemaum!_”
“What does he mean by that?” I inquired.
“He means,” said Tom, “‘bring in the prisoner,’ _bridgemaum_ being the
native way invariably of pronouncing the English word ‘prisoner.’”
The first native sworn was Rustum Khan, an old Mahomedan subadar.
After saluting with deep respect the volume of his faith, he received it
from the Moolah on the palms of his hands, holding it thus, with a look
of profound veneration, whilst the regimental interpreter recited the
form of the oath, which he repeated after him.
The Hindoos, received the vessel containing the Ganges water in their
hands, and were sworn to judge impartially in like manner.
The trial now began.
The prisoner, a poor little black devil of a drummer, was asked by the
interpreter if he was guilty, or not guilty; to which he replied “_Jo up
ka kooshee_” as interpreted by Tom, “whichever my lord pleases.”
This _naïve_ reply made the superintending officer relax his judicial
gravity. The interpreter also smiled.
The stolid old subadars, however, could perceive nought but stupidity in
it, evidently, and one of them angrily said to the prisoner, “_Guddah_
(ass), say one or the other.”
Being, with the exception of a few words, wholly ignorant of the
language, I could not, of course, follow the examination. The reader
may, however, rest assured that he has not, in consequence, lost any
information which it would be of much consequence for him to obtain.
The superintending officer and interpreter seemed to have it all their
own way, rebuking crude judgments and irrelevent questions, &c. (just as
a judge bothers a stupid jury); laying down the law to the subadars and
jemadars, who nodded like Chinese mandarins, in deep acquiescence to
their superior wisdom, saying “_such bhat_ and _bhote khoob_.”[32]
The native officer, before coming into the Court, has generally (_i.e._,
in five cases out of six) made up his mind after a long _bhat cheet_
(chat, or discussion, as to the guilt or innocence of the party),
touching both the act and its criminality; but is guided in his verdict
or decision, nevertheless, pretty much by what the European officers may
say to him: his own peculiar notions of justice and good evidence are,
perhaps, clear enough; but, confused by European refinements, the
sublimity of which his untutored mind cannot reach, he yields himself
passively to be guided by the _dicta_ of the _Sahib Logue_.
Upon the whole, when the Court was cleared, and Tom and I repaired to
his bungalow, I felt that I had added something to my little stock of
experience, in having witnessed this mode of administering _justice_ in
a sepoy corps.
The next thing of the kind I attended was an invaliding committee, a
body assembled periodically for the purpose of examining those soldiers
whose age or infirmities rendered them unfit for further active service,
which I need not describe.
The system of granting pensions to old and worn-out veterans is an
admirable one; it binds the native soldier to us more strongly than
anything else, and is one of the firmest foundations of our power in
India. Frequently, at a more advanced period of my Indian career, have I
had occasion to observe its admirable workings. I have listened to the
old veteran, in his native village, with pleasure, surrounded by his
children, and children’s children, as he has recounted his deeds, showed
his medals and his scars, and spoken with, I believe, sincerely grateful
feelings of the generosity of the “Kumpany Angraiz Bahadour.”