Though we march, or though we halt,
Or though the enemy we assault;
Though we're cold, or though we're warm,
Or though the sleeping town we storm,
Still the merry, merry fife and drum
Bid intruding care be dumb;
Sprightly still we sing and play,
And make dull life a holiday.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was once taken prisoner myself on suspicion of being a deserter, being
on a two months' furlough. I was visiting a married sister resident in
a village near Derby, and I frequently wore a suit of her husband's
clothes to save my regimentals. This is very often done by soldiers on
furlough. Walking up the corn-market one day, I was tapped on the
shoulder by a recruiting sergeant from the 33rd Regiment.
"Have you got a pass?" said he.
"Yes; I have a two months' furlough."
"Show it," said he.
"It is at Mugginton," said I.
"Yes, or somewhere else," said he; "therefore you had better come along
with me to the police-station."
It was market-day, and a crowd soon collected. Two policemen came up,
and in spite of my asseverations that I had left my furlough in the
pocket of my regimentals at my sister's house, I was marched off a
prisoner to the lock-up; but I was allowed to send a note to my sister,
and she soon made her appearance in a gig, with all my regimentals and
furlough. This satisfied the superintendent, and he set me at liberty.
Every soldier is, on all occasions (except when a reduction of the army
takes place, which is very seldom), invested with power to enlist
recruits. In time of peace, however, recruiting is not carried on in
the cavalry to the same extent as in the infantry; the latter being so
much more numerous than the former, and available for service in every
part of the British possessions, where fever and change of climate often
leave a larger vacancy than death in battle from the weapons of a living
enemy. Many recruits enlist in foot regiments, because there are
generally recruiting parties in every market-town, which is more
convenient for a poor, destitute lad, who is too often compelled to
enlist because he has neither money nor food. The presence of a dragoon
or a hussar in full regimentals is more of a rarity everywhere than a
foot soldier. I was anything but pleased with the "starchy" old
sergeant who had interfered with my freedom, and, by way of retaliation,
I was determined to enlist some likely-looking young fellows, who stood
idling around the door of the "Cross Keys," in the market-place--the
recruiting rendezvous,--and who, it afterwards appeared, had made up
their minds to enlist in the 33rd Regiment.
Going to the inn where my sister had put up the horse and gig, I rigged
myself out in a manner that would have passed muster for a parade before
royalty. We were not allowed to take the two jackets (pelisse and dress
jacket as well) with us on furlough; but, being the winter season, I
wore only the scarlet pelisse, with its many rows of lace and more than
a hundred buttons in front, fantastically trimmed with yellow braid
behind, with fur collars, cuffs, and waistband, when I left barracks.
But I had managed to get hold of a nice dress jacket, which, though cast
into store, was in very good condition, from the quartermaster-sergeant.
This I put on, and slinging the gorgeously trimmed scarlet pelisse
loose over my left shoulder, as in full dress, I sallied out with my
high-crowned, bell-topped shako, and black horse-hair plume, into the
streets, and strutted proudly up to the "Cross Keys." There I was soon
surrounded by a crowd of growing lads likely to make hussars. The
crusty old sergeant and his minions looked daggers at me; for, after
all, it is the dress of a soldier that allures many of the recruits from
their homes into the service, and it was easy to be seen that they
fancied my dashing uniform much more than the ruddle-coloured,
beer-stained coatees and shovel-shaped shakos of the foot soldiers.
I called for "a gallon of ale," and asked each of the people in the
room, including the infantry soldiers, to drink.
Now I had fully made up my mind long before this occurrence not to
enlist a recruit, if I could possibly avoid it; and, although I had
entered the public-house in defiance of this resolution solely to
retaliate upon the recruiting-sergeant for his giving me into custody, I
reflected upon the misery I might entail upon the mothers, fathers,
brothers, sisters, and friends of these poor deluded lads, several of
whom looked like the younger sons of farmers; and although I was
constantly importuned to enlist them, I refused, and soon after left
them a prey to the infantry-sergeant, who, I have no doubt, got them
into the meshes of his net before the day was over.
It is often a source of comfort to me to reflect that I never enlisted a
recruit in my life; and I thank goodness that I was never sent on the
recruiting service, for, although I pretend to be not a whit better than
the majority of my comrades in point of morality, I had a particular
aversion to inveigle a youth from his home and friends, perhaps for
ever, by means of the gross deception and paltry untruths so often
practised by recruiting parties both in cavalry and infantry regiments.
While on this furlough I of course visited my home; but although my
mother, sisters, and brothers received me joyfully, and treated me with
great kindness, my father positively refused to see or speak to me, and
even said that he would "horsewhip me whenever he could get a sight of
me;" so, after remaining cooped up in a bedroom for a couple of days, I
returned to my kind sister at Mugginton, and shortly after left for my
regiment, where, in the spirit-stirring incidents constantly occurring,
I soon got over the unpleasant feeling always engendered in the mind of
a soldier by the visit to, and leave-taking of, his relatives and
friends in his native village. That little word "good-bye" leaves a
very unpleasant sensation after shaking hands and kissing a kind and
indulgent mother, whose heart is well-nigh broken through her son
leaving her, perhaps for ever, to follow the fortunes of war. My mother
said she never went to bed but she prayed for me, and she never awoke in
the night but her "soldier-son" was uppermost in her mind. She is dead
now, and I often think that my leaving home to become a soldier might
have hastened her end, for she died at the age of sixty-five. But after
all comes the balm to my qualms of conscience for any breach of duty I
may have been guilty of to my parents,--I have still done my duty to my
country.
Besides these furloughs granted to well-conducted soldiers, they are
frequently indulged with a few hours or days' "passes" to spend with any
friends they may have in the vicinity of the barracks. A soldier may be
invited to an evening party, or he may wish to spend a few extra hours
with a sweet heart, go to church or chapel with her, or, more
frequently, take her to a theatre, the admittance to which she generally
pays out of her own pocket-money. These "passes" may be obtained by a
good soldier about once a week, so that in place of having to be in
barracks by nine o'clock, he may, when furnished with a "pass," signed
by the captain of his troop, prolong his stay until any hour that may be
convenient to him to return; but the time is generally limited to
twelve, one, two, or three o'clock, so as to allow him to have a little
sleep before the reveille sounds, at five o'clock in summer and six in
winter. Some of these "late" soldiers are fond of playing practical
jokes upon their comrades, who are generally sound asleep when they
return from these passes, and enter the barrack-rooms in the dark, for
lights are not allowed to be struck on any pretence whatever.
We had a very good-tempered, rollicking young Irishman in our room named
Larry Byrne, who often went on pass to meet his sweetheart Nannie
McCarthy, who was cook at a gentleman's house about two miles from
barracks. Larry generally came to barracks in high spirits; and he
would either disturb every man in the room and keep them awake by a
recital of his "divarshuns" with Nannie and the rest of his friends, or
quietly play off some practical joke invented before he entered the
room.
He had returned from his "coorting" one morning about two o'clock--it
was a beautiful bright moonlight morning, and I happened to be awake and
could see Larry's every movement--when he softly entered the room. He
was evidently bent on having a lark. Pulling out of his pocket a ball
of twine, and after undressing himself, he walked stealthily up to the
foot of old Sam Whelan's bed (a man with none the best of tempers, even
when he ought to have been pleased); turning up the clothes, so as to
bare old Sam's feet, he tied one end of the twine round the joint of his
big toe, and then, replacing the bed-clothes, got into his own bed at
the farther end of the room with one end of the string in his hand.
There were eight of us in the room, and it afterwards appeared that,
although not a word had been spoken, there were more watching the
movements of Larry than myself. All was still for a few moments. I
could distinctly see, in the moonlight that bore full upon Larry's bed
near the window, his white teeth grinning underneath his jet-black
moustache as he bobbed up his curly head and jerked the string; but
there was no response. A suppressed titter from some one reached
Larry's ears. "Whist! whist! ye omedhaun!" said he, in a low whisper;
and then, with twofold vigour, he jerked at the line again. "Whah!"
sang out old Sam, in a strange, unearthly yell, as he sat bolt upright
in bed and peered anxiously around the room. All was, however, as still
as the grave; and, thinking it must have been a dream, he lay down
again. By his snoring, Larry could tell he was asleep, and that he had
not detected the string round his toe. Seizing the end of the string
again, which he had dropped at his bedside to slacken the tension on the
toe, Larry gave it another regular "twinger."
"Whah! whah! whah! Murther! Boys, did ye's see anything in the room?"
Larry and I burst out laughing, the rest of the men were awoke by the
row; old Sam found the string tied to his toe, and, accusing Larry of
the trick, jumped out of bed, seized his sword, and I believe would have
killed Larry had not the latter, knowing the customer he had to deal
with, jumped out of bed, drawn his own sword from the scabbard, and
taken up his position on the defensive, until old Sam could be pacified.
We had a great number of Irishmen in our regiment--brave as lions in
action, at all times clever and smart in the performance of their duty,
and as merry as crickets in the barrack-room or on the line of march;
but some of them, enlisted from the remote country districts, very
superstitious and firm believers in ghosts.
A tale is handed down from regiment to regiment to the effect that the
ghost of a soldier once flogged to death in Hounslow Riding-school
haunts the place every night. I have been on sentry on what is called
the "Hospital Post," near to the riding-school, very many times, but I
never saw or heard anything of the ghost.
One man I knew, who had been tolerably well educated, and who, I
consider, was by no means short of common intelligence, frequently
declared to me that he has, while on guard on this particular post,
heard noises in the riding-school just after the clock over the front of
the officers' quarters had struck twelve, as though a ride of twenty or
more soldiers were in the school. He asserted that he heard the regular
beat of the horses' hoofs on the floor, the tinkling of the scabbards on
the stirrup-irons, and the shouts of the rough-riders. This was
supposed to arise from the ghost of a man who had been killed some years
previously by a horse rearing and falling backwards upon him. At other
times, both he and many others would say, when they were relieved from
the post and afterwards sat round the guard-room fire, that they had
plainly heard the shrieks of the man's ghost who was flogged to death.
One of our men, who had been little more than a year in the regiment,
having been sent by our Irish recruiting party from the county Mayo, and
rejoicing in the rather funny name of Barney Mulgruddery, created quite
a sensation in the regiment by the apparent sincerity with which he
related an interview with one of these ghosts or some other spectra.
"Shure," said he, "I seen a mighty quare thing coming towards me between
the sintry-box and the hospital; it was all surrounded wid blue lights,
and was like a big dog with a man's head. Nearer and nearer it came.
`Faix,' thought I to myself, `Barney, me hold fellow, I wish you were
again cutting turf in the bog.' Well, me jewels, it seemed to grow
bigger and bigger until it was as big as me mother's peat-stack, and
more betoken it had horns too. I tried to spake for to challenge, as
was me duty, boys; but oh, Meila Murther! I'd lost the power of spache.
Well, me jewels, it came nearer and nearer, until at last it stood
quite convanient to the sintry-box. `Bad scan to your impudence!' sis I
(my spache returning all at oncst), `is it clane off me post you want
for to dhrive me, and desthroy me karacther for ever?' `Hould yer
whist; go along out of that, and show me the back ov yer stockings,
Barney Mulgruddery,' sis the ghost, in a tunderhin' passion. `Not a
step I'll take for any ov the likes ov ye. Shure I was placed here by
me supariors, and I've as good a right to be here as you.' `Be gorra!
if yer not off out of this like a shot, you great nagur, I'll desthroy
your body and soul for ever,' sis the ghost. `Why you murtherin'
villain! shure you wouldn't be afther killing me?' sis I, keeping me
finger on the trigger of me carbine; for you see, boys, I was not going
to be dhruv off me post widout a struggle. Oh, blue nagurs! he kem wid
a rush right forenenst me. I backed a few paces. `Barney Mulgruddery,
attention!' sis I to meself, aloud; `make ready! prisint!' and I brought
me carbine up to me shoulder. `Hould yer hand, Barney Mulgruddery,' sis
the ghost, beginning to get smaller and smaller every moment, and
lookin' me sthraight in the face all the while, as impidint as a
tinker's dog. But, me jewels, it wasn't long before the ghost was
thransmuggrified into as nice a young lady as ever the moon shone on.
`Barney, me bold sodger,' sis she, `you're the bravest man I ever seen
on sintry here. Shure,' sis she, `Barney Mulgruddery, you're a credit
to ould Ireland, and you're sure to be a giniral;' and wid that she
vanished. Och! it's _she_ was the Colleen Dhas. It was right good for
sore eyes to look on her, the darlint. It may be a quare notion, but
I'm thinking she took it into her head to fall in love wid me. At any
rate, shure, she gev me the encouragement and the swate look, as if she
was sthruck wid me appearance."
This extraordinary story proved too clearly that Barney had either
invented it from beginning to end; or, what was perhaps as bad, he had
been sleeping and dreaming at his post.