COLONEL LLOYD.
About three months after our arrival, we were sitting by the
barrack-room fire one night, talking of our campaigns, a subject
which was deeply interesting to us all.
‘Here we are,’ said Dennis, ‘round a good fire in the heart of
Paddy’s land; last year at this time we were lying on the Pyrenees,
starving alive, with the tents blowing down about our ears. But we
had then what would make us forget every thing else—we had Colonel
Lloyd commanding us—God rest his soul! he was too good to live long.
Do you think his friends will not bring home his remains? Upon my
soul, if I had the means, if I would not travel every foot to the
heights of Zara, and bring them to Ireland; I am sure he would rest
easier in his own native place.’
‘Why are you so anxious about his body,’ said I, ‘when your creed
forbids you to believe his soul safe—Colonel Lloyd was a heretic, you
know.’
‘Och, bother!’ said Dennis, ‘all the priests in Christendom would not
make me believe that. Troth, if he isn’t in heaven, deuce a one of
themselves are there; and if I thought he would not get there because
he was a Protestant, I would deny my religion for ever.’
My comrades continued to talk of his goodness, for it was a theme
they never tired of, but I was abstracted. To-morrow, thought I, it
is just a twelvemonth since he closed his gallant career. Never will
I forget that day. We turned out about two o’clock in the morning to
storm the French intrenchments; as was his usual custom, he was on
the ground before the regiment formed, mounted on his gray horse,
which had carried him in many engagements. On reaching the foot of
the hill on which we were encamped, we halted and waited the signal
gun to advance. Daylight had broke, and the eastern clouds were
tinged with that glorious colour which no painter can copy or no
tongue describe. The French were in our view, and, ‘like greyhounds
on the slip,’ we were waiting the signal to begin the fight, with
that fearful anxiety which is more intolerable to bear than the
greatest danger, and to which action is relief. Colonel Lloyd was
at our head, with his face turned towards us, lighted up with its
usual benignity and confidence. He looked on us as if he had said,
I see you are all devoted to me; and the high resolutions he was
forming on this conviction could be seen working in his countenance;
his eye was ‘wildly spiritually bright,’ and the reflection of the
gorgeous sky beaming on his fine features, gave them an expression
almost superhuman. I am sure there was not a man in the regiment
who could not have died for him, or with him, at that moment. A few
minutes after, and the battle raged from right to left of the British
line. His bravery exceeded all encomium, but it was the ‘last of
his fields;’ he met his death-shot in ascending to the attack of
a redoubt in the last line of entrenchments. He lived only a few
minutes, and the only words he uttered were,—‘I am dying, I am dying,
I am dying!’—but his feelings might, with truth, have been portrayed
thus:—‘I perish in the noon of my fame; I have bought honour and
distinction with my blood, but when they are within my grasp, death,
with his cold hand, intercepts them, and cuts me off from the world
for ever. “O Glory! thou art an unreal good.”’ Mingled with these
reflections came, no doubt, thoughts of kindred and friends, whose
face he was doomed never to behold; but the scene soon closed, and
all that remained of the young and gifted Lloyd, was the inanimate
mould which had enshrined a soul as generous and brave ‘as e’er burst
its mortal control.’
My praise of Colonel Lloyd may appear, to some, hyperbolical; but I
have no end to serve—he is himself gone, and his relations, if he
have any living, I know nothing about. In giving vent to my feelings
in portraying his character, I am sensible I only give a faithful
transcript of those of my comrades who then composed the corps, and
whose devotion to his memory proves how susceptible soldiers are of
feelings of love and gratitude to those who treat them as they ought
to be treated—with kindness.
Furloughs were now granting to a certain number of men to go home to
see their friends. Dennis, on the faith of some former promise, got
one, but I was not so fortunate. He was quite delighted at the idea
of going to see his mother and relations, and the evening previous to
his intended departure he was very busy packing up his things.
‘Now,’ said he, when he had finished, ‘I will start very early
to-morrow morning, and I think I will be able to manage the journey
in four days.’
‘Here’s some one asking for Dennis,’ said a comrade.
An old woman, habited in a gray cloak, with a handkerchief on
her head tied under her chin, entered the room, and looked round
inquiringly at each face, until she found the one which was too
deeply imprinted on her memory ever to forget. Then, springing
forward, she caught Dennis in her arms, and almost smothered him with
kisses.
‘Och, my poor child!’ said she, ‘do I live to see you once more?
Jewel and darling! but this is a blessed day for your poor mother.’
Dennis was perfectly bewildered—so much taken by surprise that he
could not utter a word for some minutes; at length he said—
‘In the name of God, mother, what brought you here?’
‘Indeed, I just came to see yourself astore; and wasn’t that reason
good enough? and I would have come for that same, if it had been
twice as far, although I walked every foot of the road.’
‘Well, well,’ said Dennis, ‘that beats Banacher and Balinasloe!
Haven’t I my knapsack packed to set off home to-morrow? and here you
have made all this journey for nothing, dragging the old limbs of ye.’
‘What matter, child? can’t we go home together? we’ll be company on
the road.’
They actually set off in a day or two after, taking the first stage
by the coach. The poor old woman, although between sixty and seventy
years of age, had travelled upwards of a hundred miles on foot to see
her son.
Soon after this, several parties going to Scotland on the recruiting
service, I had an offer, if I chose, to go on that duty; but I
refused it, as did many others to whom the offer was made. Few
soldiers like it, being associated in their minds with something mean
and dishonest; and the fact that those men who possess laxity of
principle, and are but otherwise indifferent soldiers, are generally
the most successful on that duty, strengthens the idea; and it is
well known that men so employed, whatever might have been their
previous character, return to their regiment much worse soldiers
than when they left it. It is too often the practice of those so
employed, to consider all stratagem fair, and so that they enlist men
for the service, they care little whether the means taken are legal
or not. Many, I know, argue, that when men are wanted, we should
not be too fastidious in the means used to procure them; and they
quote the impressment of seamen,—that stain in our constitution,
which our strenuous efforts to emancipate the West Indian negroes
renders deeper and deeper. But one bad action can never be vindicated
by another; and I cannot see how any cause can be really benefited
by duplicity and cunning; on the contrary, it must hurt it, for it
raises suspicion where there is no real grounds for any. I am sure
it would facilitate the recruiting of the army, to give up all undue
means to entrap men by plying them with drink, or telling them lies.
I am persuaded that there are thousands to whom a military life would
be far preferable to what they are employed at—many of whom would
enlist, were it not that a suspicion is excited in their minds, that
all is not right, by the finessing and over-anxiety displayed by
those employed on the recruiting service. The liberal feeling and
good sense which pervades the majority of the officers in the army at
present, have rendered the situation of a soldier now quite another
thing to what it was when I first entered it. This has been brought
about by the increasing intelligence of the nation, but also in a
great degree by the disposition evinced by the commander-in-chief.
‘One tyrant makes many’—of the reverse of this we have a bright
example in His Royal Highness the Duke of York. He is in truth the
SOLDIER’S FRIEND, and the whole army look up to him with confidence.
I can have no aim in flattering him: if he did not deserve this
encomium, he would not get it from me.