SOLDIERING IN IRELAND
On obtaining his commission a young officer was ordered to report himself
at the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich, to undergo six months'
further training in his regimental duties and in practical work at the
Arsenal, with occasional visits to the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness.
It was a happy six months if he managed to keep out of trouble, for there
were many temptations to overcome. Straight away from the strict
discipline of the "Shop," the young officer found himself--or at least
considered himself--quite a gentleman at large. In his own opinion he had
become a person of very considerable importance, and the orders he gave
had to be implicitly obeyed. His uniform was a source of extreme pleasure
to him. He was allotted a whole "Tommy" to himself as a soldier servant.
He rejoiced in the possession of quite a big room for his quarters. And
there was the Mess.
At that time there had been an amalgamation of the English and Indian
Artillery, which were combined into one General List, so that the whole
of the Artillery formed one Regiment comprising Horse, Field and Garrison
Artillery. The headquarters were at Woolwich, and the Royal Artillery
Mess was the Headquarters Mess, and is so still, though lately there have
been further sub-divisions of the Regiment. Still, these have not as yet,
so far as I know, resulted in any change as regards the Headquarters
Mess. It remains to be seen what changes will or will not be made in the
future.
One of the institutions attached to the Royal Artillery Mess was the
Garrison Theatre. At regular intervals the Royal Artillery officers gave
performances at this theatre. Let me tell you that it is seldom that an
Engineer or Artillery officer was not a first-rate dancer; for, at the
"Shop," two or three nights a week dancing took place in the gymnasium to
the delightful music of the Royal Artillery band. On these nights ladies
were not allowed to attend, so the cadets had to supply the ladies
amongst themselves. But the continual practice naturally made them good
dancers. Personally I took great delight in the art of dancing. I was
built just for it, tall, light, thin and long-legged. I was able to
pirouette and high-kick fairly well.
I was very keen on private theatricals, so that, amongst my other
important duties of those days, I was appointed stage manager and
producer for a week's performance which was to take place at the Garrison
Theatre. The play was the old farce, _Box and Cox_, which was converted
into a musical comedy. Some people say to this day that this particular
production was the origin of the musical comedies which have since then
so amused the public. Mrs. Bouncer was most excellently performed by
Lieutenant Bingham, while Lieutenants Jocelyn and Fritz, if I remember
rightly, were Box and Cox. Mrs. Bouncer, assisted in the musical part of
the piece by a chorus of lusty sergeants and gunners, who revelled in
dances and choruses, was a great success, while a specially selected
chorus of ballet-girls highly distinguished themselves. The production
was quite good, and the financial results on behalf of the regimental
charities were most satisfactory. In after years the theatrical
experiences thus gained gave me considerable enjoyment. But of this,
later on.
The end of the six months' training at Woolwich being completed, I was
appointed to a Garrison company, with its headquarters at Limerick--good
old Limerick--which was then known as the paradise of hard-up subalterns.
Limerick is a quaint town. There is Old Limerick and Modern Limerick. The
old town is situated round the castle, which is on the banks of the
Shannon, and where--across the river--stands the old Treaty Stone. It is
difficult to describe Old Limerick. One must really see it and live in it
to appreciate its dirty houses, poor tenements, its smells and other
unhealthy attributes. Yet it is a characteristic little piece of old
Ireland. This part of the old town reached down to the cathedral, past
which the main street--George Street--runs through the modern town,
practically parallel with the River Shannon. With the exception of the
old castle, Limerick does not possess any buildings of very particular
interest. The best residential part was across the river, Circular Row.
Limerick itself has nothing to recommend it as regards picturesqueness,
but there is much beauty in the country surrounding it. From just below
the castle the River Shannon has some beautiful reaches, right away up to
Castle Connell; while Tervoe on the river, Adare Abbey, and many other
places are well known.
When I reported myself to my commanding officer at the castle I found
that our company, which then consisted of about eighty all told, was
doing duty from the very North to the South of Ireland. There was a
detachment of some twenty-five men at a place called Green Castle, which
was an old fort at the entrance of Lough Swilly, not far off the Giant's
Causeway. Another detachment of some thirty-five men was on duty at
Carlisle Fort, one of the forts guarding the entrance into Cork Harbour
at Queenstown. This left us about twenty men at our headquarters at
Limerick Castle. Our captain was not with the company. He was A.D.C. to a
Colonial Governor, and, of course, was seconded. The two senior
subalterns were in command of the detachments at Green Castle and
Carlisle Fort, so that the commanding officer, our good major and myself,
were left at our headquarters with the twenty men. By the time that we
found the guard for the day, the major's two orderlies, my own orderly,
the cook and cook's mate, the district gunner (who was busy keeping our
three very old guns, mounted in the tower, polished up), the office clerk
and the barrack sweeper, the morning parade consisted usually of the
sergeant-major.
At nine o'clock every morning, after first joining, I appeared on parade,
when the sergeant-major reported "All present, sir," and I said, "Carry
on, sergeant-major," and went inside to breakfast. After a time I'm
afraid I got into the bad habit of letting the sergeant-major come to
make his report at the window of my quarters, which faced the
barrack-square. At ten o'clock the major, whose quarters were above mine,
and who was the happy possessor of some eight children, appeared at the
company office, and I duly reported to him, "All correct, sir, this
morning." For it was only very occasionally that we had a prisoner. The
major would answer, "Very good." I would then ask him, "Do you want me
any more to-day, sir?" He would then answer, without a smile, for he was
a serious-minded major, "No, thanks." And then the joys of my day would
begin for me.
The way in which my major came to be quartered in Limerick was this. He
was the eldest brother of a very well-known family in Tipperary. He had
many brothers, all of whom were also well known and much liked throughout
the surrounding districts. They were all first-class horsemen, and,
needless to say, good sportsmen all round. One of these brothers was at
the time Sub-Sheriff of Limerick. It was indeed a difficult post to fill
in those days. The country was exceedingly disturbed. Evictions were all
too frequent, with the accompanying result of riots and murders, and it
required much pluck and tact to carry out the Sub-Sheriff's duties. My
major had been, some time previous to my joining, ordered to Singapore,
while another major, a bachelor, was in command of the company at
Limerick. In those days officers were allowed to exchange on the payment
of fees agreed upon. My major did not relish the idea of proceeding to
Singapore with his young family of eight, so he approached the bachelor
major at Limerick with a view to an exchange, and offered a very handsome
sum. The bachelor major very promptly accepted, and the exchange took
place. Just before leaving Limerick the members of the club gave the
bachelor major a farewell dinner, and, in proposing his health, the
chairman remarked that he didn't understand why anybody should wish to
leave Limerick for such an awful place as Singapore. When answering the
toast the bachelor major said he would tell them in confidence the real
reason. He went on to say that a short time before he accepted the
exchange he had been to dinner with friends, some nine miles away, across
the Shannon, in County Clare. He was returning home with the old jarvey
on an outside car, and as it was a fairly fine night, moonlight, and he
had had a very good dinner, he was enjoying his pipe and now and again
having a little doze. They were passing a piece of road which was bounded
on one side by a somewhat thick hedge. Suddenly there was a flash and the
loud report of a gun, which very promptly woke him and made the old
jarvey sit up too, and pull his horse up. Immediately two heads popped up
over the hedge, had a good look at the major, and then one of the men
said, "Begorra, Pat, we've shot at the wrong man again," and promptly
disappeared. "Now, don't you think, my friends, that it's time I went to
Singapore?"
But he never told them of the cheque he got to go to Singapore.
At that time the garrison of Limerick was fairly strong. There was a
Field Artillery battery at the William Street Barracks, and there were a
regiment of infantry and a squadron of cavalry at the New Barracks, so
that our turn for any garrison duty didn't come very often, and we had
plenty of time to enjoy ourselves. Anyone who wished and who had
sufficient horses could put in four or five days' hunting a week during
the season. The Master of the Limerick Hounds at the time lived at
Croome. He was a typical Irish gentleman, noted for his genial character
and the forcefulness of his language in the hunting field. Limerick is a
fine hunting country, and gives excellent sport. There were many good
riders in those days. Our friend the Sub-Sheriff was one, but perhaps the
best man there was the owner of Ballynegarde, at whose hospitable house
we spent many happy days. He must have ridden quite over sixteen stone,
and I well remember seeing him, on a chestnut horse, clear the wall which
surrounded the park, the chestnut changing his feet on the top, just like
a cat. Good horses were just as expensive in those days as they were
before the war, but we subalterns did not buy expensive horses; we picked
up good jumpers that had gone cronk, and trusted to the vet., occasional
firing, plenty of bandages, and not too hard work to keep them going.
Riding out one morning towards Mount Shannon, the then lovely home of the
Fitzgibbons, on the banks of the river, and just on leaving the old town
of Limerick, I arrived at a rather long and steep hill, at the foot of
which a jarvey was trying to induce his horse, a long, rakish,
Irish-built bay, to go up. The horse absolutely refused to do so, and
each time the old jarvey flogged him he exhibited very considerable
agility in every direction except up the hill. I rode up to the jarvey
and asked him what was the matter. "Shure, sir," he said, "I bought this
horse to go up this hill, for I am the mail contractor on this road. I've
got him here these last three mornings, and I've never got farther than
this. Now I'll have to go back again and get another horse, and all the
people will get their mails late and they'll report me, and they'll fine
me, and the divil do I know what my ould missus'll have to say about it.
And, shure, yer honour, 'tis all the fault of this donkey-headed old
quadruped."
I asked him whether the old quadruped could jump.
"Shure, yer honour," he said, "he'd jump out of his harness, traces an'
all, if I hadn't got him by the bit."
"Will you sell him?" says I.
"Will I sell him?" says he. "Will I find the fool that'll buy him, yer
honour?"
"Bring him up to the old castle in the morning," says I, "and I may find
the fool that'll buy him."
"Begorra, sir," says he, "yer a gintleman. I'll be there with him at nine
o'clock, with a halter round his old ewe neck."
Next morning, at nine o'clock, just as the sergeant-major was reporting
as usual, "All correct," I saw my old friend leading his quadruped into
the barrack square. He was a quaint looking horse. He was particularly
full of corners, for he wasn't furnished up above at all. But he had
good-boned legs. His coat was by way of being a miracle to look at. He
had no particular colour to speak of. In some places he was a bit of a
roan--Taffy-like; round some other corners he was a dirty bay. In some
places, especially where for the last three days he had attempted to get
out of his harness at the bottom of the hill, there was no hair at all.
But he had a good-looking eye; he had good sound feet; good bone, though
his tail was hardly up to Cocker. Most of it, no doubt, was now part and
parcel of the car.
I can well remember the look of the correct and austere
sergeant-major--who himself was a bit of a sport, but who still
considered himself "on parade"--as he cast his eye over that noble
quadruped, and wondered what his lieutenant was about. I could see that
he was asking himself, "Is he going to run a circus, and is this going
to be the freak horse?"
"Mick," says I, "if I get a saddle on the horse, will you ride him; come
out with me and put him over a couple of jumps?"
"Shure, yer honour," says he, "an' so I will."
"Sergeant-major," says I, "tell my groom to put a saddle and bridle on
this Rosinante" (at the mention of which name the sergeant-major looked
perplexed) "and get one of the other horses ready for me."
In a few minutes Mick and I were riding down the old street, making for a
bit of open country. We soon came to a high road, bounded on each side by
fairly stiff, stone walls. Having come to a gate on one side I pulled
up.
"Now," says I, "Mick, are you game to go into that field and take the
double across the road?"
"Shure, I am," says he; "but 'tis a long day, yer honour, since I had a
jump. Would you lend me your whip? The old horse'll want it, it may be."
I gave him the whip, jumped off my nag, opened the gate, and away went
Mick into the field. It was a sight to do one good. There was Mick, what
he called his hat stuck on the back of his head, and what was left of his
coat-tails flying in the air behind him, heading for the first stone
wall, and, before you could say "knife," he was over it like a bird,
across the road, over the wall the other side, with a "whoop-la" that you
could have heard in the cathedral in Limerick.
Just as well to mention that Rosinante's age was what is known amongst
horse-copers as "uncertain," that is, anywhere between nine years old and
twenty-four.
After that (it was not long before we were again at the Castle) I asked
Mick Molloy how much he wanted for the horse. He said, "Shure, I'll just
take what I gave for it. He's no good to me."
I asked him how much that was, and he said, "Five pounds."
I was so surprised, that he became quite apologetic, thinking he was
asking too much, and quickly began to sing the praises of his mount. I at
once disabused him of the idea by telling him that I couldn't give him
less than L7 10s., which might help him a little towards his getting an
animal that would pull his car up the hill. The horse became mine, and
the late owner left the barracks wishing me all the blessings that our
good God and Ould Oireland could bestow on my humble head. The end of
Mick Molloy came later on.