"Are you free, able, and willing to enlist in her Majesty's --th
regiment of Hussars?"
"I am," said I.
He then gave me a shilling, and informed me that I was a soldier, and
that in addition to the shilling, he would advance me three or four
days' pay to stand treat to _my comrades_, several of whom--recruiting
parties from infantry regiments--had by this time joined our company.
The sergeant handed me four shillings; this, with the _seventeen pence_,
amounted to six shillings and fivepence, and was soon spent in drink and
tobacco. It was the beginning of a new era with me, and (shame though
it be) I must tell the truth, and say that I rather liked it. I,
however, managed to keep the enlistment shilling; and although now more
than twenty years ago, during which I have passed through some strange
scenes, I have still retained that identical coin, through which I had a
hole drilled, and for the most part wore it suspended round my neck
under my shirt by a lock of my youngest sister's hair, sent to me about
six months after in a letter, with a post-office order for five
shillings to pay for its being plaited by the hairdresser.
On the day following my enlistment I was introduced to the doctor
appointed for the purpose, who requested me to strip perfectly naked,
after which I was subjected to a close examination, and declared sound.
Two days after this I was forwarded, with five more recruits, to
Norwich, the head-quarters of my regiment, and on our arrival we were
again examined by the _regimental surgeon_, and we all "passed." My
companions were mostly labourers, except one, who said he was a cutler
out of work: he afterwards turned out to be a married man with one
child, when he was punished and afterwards discharged.
Being supplied with my regimentals, I was ordered to "make away" with my
old clothing, dealers in which attended the barrack-rooms every morning
in search of plunder. My suit was rather primitive, and not likely to
fetch much; still it was worth more than that of a fellow recruit who
happened to be domiciled in the same room with me, for he had been a
sort of labouring boy in a tallow-chandlering concern, and the sergeant
had ordered him to take his greasy clothes away out of the room and bury
them in the dung-heap. He had, however, a good silver watch, and
therefore his _personal_ effects were worth more than mine.
Like mine, his best clothes were at home; he had left home in a "hurry."
Every atom of clothing had to be sold. I tried hard to keep the blue
worsted stockings which my poor old mother had knitted with her own
blessed hands, and the calico shirt my sisters had made at the village
school, but the hard-visaged, firm-toned sergeant of my squad was
inexorable.
"Bundle 'em up, bundle 'em up, and be handy about it; you will have more
to think about besides yer mother _now_," said he.
I never liked the "old ruffian," as the men frequently designated him,
after that; and it was a relief to the whole troop when he fell one of
the first victims to a fever that broke out in the camp at Chobham a few
years afterwards.
I looked affectionately at my old clothes: the blue smock-frock,
artistically worked with white thread all over the part that covered the
back, breast, and shoulders--the white "Jerry" hat, in the brim of which
stuck a feather from the wing of a rook hatched in the old rookery that
had for many years before I was born stood at the corner of the
bridlepath leading from my father's farm-yard to the hills we called the
"sheep pastures;" but the sergeant was inexorable. "Bundle 'em up,
bundle 'em up." I snatched the feather from under the greasy band, and
for years it was deposited in the bottom of my sabretache. That simple
crow's feather I thought had flown over the old house at home, and I
looked upon it as a sort of connecting link between myself and my
family, and often have I gazed upon it until sick at heart. It may seem
strange; and those people who have an idea that a soldier has no
feeling--I have often heard people say that soldiers have _no souls_--
may feel disinclined to believe my statement when I say that nothing in
the shape of money, unless it would have insured my discharge, would
have induced me to have parted with that simple _feather_.
But to return to my story. The hob-nailed boots stockings, shirt,
fustian trousers, and waistcoat--I had no coat--were all sold to an
Irishwoman for four shillings and sixpence: I spent the money among my
comrades. My fellow recruit kept his watch, but freely assisted to
drink the proceeds of my wardrobe.
I duly received my "kit," which I may here remark absorbed the whole of
the "bounty" (at that period amounting to four pounds, eleven shillings,
and sixpence), and left me upwards of two pounds in debt; this was
deducted from my daily pay of sixteen pence. The rations consisted of
three-quarters of a pound daily of boiled meat--soup, potatoes, coffee,
and bread--all of good quality; and these only cost eightpence, which,
together with the stoppages, left me in the receipt of a daily income of
threepence. The obliging corporal of my squad handed me over that sum
every morning at breakfast-time. One penny of this I generally invested
in a herring, rasher of bacon, or a lump of rancid butter, at the little
chandler's shop adjacent to the canteen in the barrack-yard; the other
twopence was generally expended in beer, for I had not then learned the
expensive habit of smoking. The cleaning materials--such as Bath-brick,
soap, pipeclay, chrome-yellow, oil, blacking, etc--we could any time
procure on credit from the sergeant-major of the troop, who booked our
account and rendered it monthly. For these we paid most extravagant
prices; and it was more than _eight months_ before the two pounds, in
which I was indebted at commencement, was paid off. I had, however, a
new pair of overalls at a guinea, and a pair of Wellington boots at
sixteen shillings and eightpence, during the interval. It is not, I
believe, generally understood that, in addition to his rations, the
soldier has to pay for a good portion of his clothing.
The regiment was composed of about equal numbers of Irish and English;
and, to give the sons of Erin their due, I found them quite as agreeable
and more obliging in their manner to recruits than their Saxon comrades.
Strange to say, there was only one Scotchman in the corps, and he
volunteered to the 9th, or Queen's Lancers, and embarked with the
regiment for India, in the winter of 184--.
I soon became reconciled to my new life, and entered on my duty with a
determination to excel, if possible, in that most difficult and arduous
duty for a cavalry recruit--riding drills, in which I most erroneously
imagined I should be all but perfect. I had ridden the cart-horses to
water and pasture; had often trotted, and even galloped, my father's old
cob "Billy" to the shoeing smith's, and had never yet been thrown. The
first introduction, however, to those tormentors of the poor recruit--
the "rough-riders"--soon convinced me that I was most woefully mistaken,
as I found that all I had practised at home must be abandoned, indeed
forgotten, before I could be properly said to have advanced one step in
the military style of equitation.
The staff of the riding-school consisted of the riding-master, who was
also a lieutenant, a sergeant, one corporal, and a private. The
riding-master, although an exceedingly clever man, was one of the most
ugly and hard-hearted wretches that ever was born. He was only excelled
in brutality, to the recruits committed to his charge, by the corporal,
who was more like the being always represented as the "Devil," than any
human creature. The sergeant was a mild-spoken, kind-hearted man, who
patiently instructed his pupils, whether horses in course of training,
or recruits; and I need not add, that he was idolised by the whole
regiment, especially the "gulpin" class, or raw recruits. The private
was agreeable enough in the barrack-room, or any where out of the
riding-school, particularly while being treated to drink by a recruit in
the canteen, but being in a subordinate position to the corporal, he was
scarcely less brutal than that fiend in human shape. Many a poor lad
has been injured for life by this monster, who was one of the most
drunken fellows in the regiment. He had been three times tried by
court-martial, and reduced to the ranks, for habitual drunkenness. At
last, five years after I enlisted, he was again confined on the charge
of drunkenness, and assaulting a private soldier in the barrack-room
with a sabre, the private keeping him at bay with some beautiful, but
terrible practice, for ten minutes, during which neither was injured.
Being at length overpowered by numbers, he was carried like a raving
maniac to the guard-room, and there locked up; but on being visited in
half an hour afterwards, was found dead with his throat cut.