When I’m in want I’ll thankfully receive
Because I’m poor; but not because I’m brave.
TOM PLUNKET TO THE LIFE.
Tom Plunket’s Military Career.
PLUNKET’S first career in arms was in South America with General
Whitelocke, where he acquired the reputation, in his company, of a good
soldier. It was at the retreat of Corunna, some years afterwards, that
an opportunity particularly presented itself of getting distinguished,
and which Tom took in the nick of time. The rear-guard of the British,
partly composed of the Light Brigade, notwithstanding the gallantry of
some of our cavalry, were exceedingly pressed by the French horse, who
were vastly superior to us in that arm. In the neighbourhood of Astorga,
in particular, they made several determined charges. In these onsets, a
French general, named Colbert, was remarkably active, as well as
conspicuous, from riding a grey horse, and, though frequently aimed at
by our men, seemed to bear a charmed life, as he invariably escaped. In
one of the French charges, headed by this officer, our General, Sir
Edward Paget, rode up to the rifles, and offered any man his purse who
would shoot this daring Frenchman, whom he pointed out. Plunket
immediately started from his company, and running about a hundred yards
nearer to the enemy, he threw himself on his back on the road, which was
covered with snow, placing his foot in the sling of his rifle, and
taking a deliberate aim, shot General Colbert. His Trumpet-Major riding
up to him, shared the same fate, from Tom’s unerring rifle. Our men, who
had been anxiously watching Tom, immediately cheered him; and he had
just time, by running in upon the rear-most sections, to escape some
dozen troopers who made chase after him. Our General immediately gave
Tom the purse he had promised, with encomiums upon his gallantry, and
promised to recommend him to his Colonel, which he did in high terms to
Colonel Beckwith. A few days afterwards, when the French attacked Sir
John Moore’s position at Corunna, Plunket again became noted for his
cool bravery and daring, especially in making some admirable shots, by
which they lost many officers.
But the truth must be told. Like all heroes, Tom had his faults. Among
these, in particular, was one which, in its destructive consequences,
was calculated to counterbalance in a soldier a thousand virtues. In
other words, Tom was a thirsty soul, and exceedingly fond of a “drop.”
This was his unfortunate failing through life, and but for which he must
have got on in the service.
One deplorable instance of insubordination, arising from this vice, I
well remember, which took place at Campo Mayor, after the battle of
Talavera. Tom had been promoted to the rank of sergeant, and was in the
Hon. Captain Stewart’s company. One morning, when the company was on
private parade, Tom appeared quite tipsy, and, in giving the words of
command for inspection, previous to the arrival of the officers, he set
the men laughing. The pay-sergeant, his superior in rank, immediately
ordered him to desist. Tom refused, and, while an altercation was going
on, Captain Stewart came up, who, perceiving the state he was in, put
him under arrest, and ordered him to be confined to his quarters.
Here he was no sooner left alone than, conceiving that a great indignity
had been placed upon him, thoughts of vengeance immediately suggested
themselves to his mind. Under the influence of intoxication that man,
who, when sober, was noted for his good humour and humanity, now
conceived the diabolical intention of shooting his Captain. He
immediately barricaded the door of the room, and then set about loading
some ten or twelve rifles, belonging to men, then on fatigue duty.
Taking up one of these, and cocking it, he placed himself at an open
window for the avowed purpose, as he stated to several of the men, of
shooting Captain Stewart as he passed.
Fortunately the Captain got notice of the danger of going near the
house, while several of the men, by coaxing and force, alternately,
endeavoured without effect to get into the room Tom had barred. At
length the unfortunate Plunket was induced to relent on the appearance
of a Lieutenant of the company named Johnson, who was a great favourite
with the men, among whom he was known by a very familiar nick-name. The
door was opened and Tom made prisoner.
Although Tom was a general favourite, and his conduct had resulted from
the madness of intoxication, his insubordination was too glaring to
stand a chance of being passed over. He was brought to a regimental
court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be reduced to the ranks,
and to receive three hundred lashes. Poor Plunket, when he had recovered
his reason, after the commission of his crime, had experienced and
expressed the most unfeigned contrition, so that when his sentence
became known, there was a general sorrow felt for him throughout the
regiment, particularly on account of the corporal punishment. In this
feeling, I believe, the officers participated almost as much as the men.
At length the time arrived when the bravest soldier of our battalion was
to suffer the penalty of his crime in the presence of those very men
before whom he had been held up as a pattern but some few short months
before. The square was formed for punishment: there was a tree in the
centre to which the culprit was to be tied, and close to which he stood
with folded arms and downcast eyes, in front of his guard. The surgeon
stood by, while the buglers were busily engaged untangling the strings
of the cats.
There was a solemn stillness on that parade that was remarkable; a
pensiveness on the features of both officers and men, deeper than usual,
as though the honour of the profession was to suffer in the person of
the prisoner. Flogging is at all times a disgusting subject of
contemplation: in the present instance, it seemed doubly so, now that a
gallant, and until within a few days, an honoured and respected man was
to suffer.
The sentence of the court-martial was read by the adjutant in a loud
voice. Poor Tom, who had the commiseration of the whole regiment, looked
deadly pale. That countenance which the brunt of the fiercest battle had
been unable to turn from its ruddy hue—that countenance which the fear
of death could not change—was now blanched in dread of a worse fate.
“Buglers, do your duty,” exclaimed Colonel Beckwith, in a voice husky
with emotion, I thought, as the men seemed to hesitate in their business
of stripping and binding the prisoner to the tree. This, however, was
soon accomplished, Tom only once attempting to catch the eye of his
colonel with an imploring glance, while he exclaimed in broken accents—
“Colonel, you won’t, will you? You won’t—you cannot mean to flog _me_!”
The appeal, although it went to the heart of every one present, was
vain. Colonel Beckwith betrayed much uneasiness; I beheld him give a
slight start at the commencement of the punishment; but his sense of
duty became paramount the moment he beheld the punishing bugler laying
on rather lighter than was common.
“Do your duty, Sir, fairly!” he uttered in a loud voice.
The first man had bestowed his quantum of punishment, twenty-five
lashes, when he was succeeded by another. This man, as if determined
that his reputation as a flogger should not suffer, however his victim
might, laid on like a hardened hand. Plunket’s sufferings were becoming
intense: he bit his lip to stifle the utterance of his pangs; but
nature, too strong for suppression, gave place more than once to a half
agonized cry, that seemed to thrill through the very blood in my veins.
Happily this wretched scene was destined to a brief termination: at the
thirty-fifth lash, the Colonel ordered the punishment to cease, and the
prisoner to be taken down. When this was done, he addressed Plunket:
“You see, Sir, now, how very easy it is to commit a blackguard’s crime,
but how difficult it is to take his punishment.”
So ended the most memorable punishment-scene I have ever witnessed. It
has usually been contended, by those averse to the system of flogging,
common in our army, that it destroys the pride and spirit of the man.
That it has had that effect, in many instances, I have myself witnessed,
where the character of the soldier was not previously depraved. But with
reference to Plunket, he appeared soon to get over the recollection of
his former disgrace. He got into favour with his officers again, and,
notwithstanding little fits of inebriety, was made corporal, and went
through the sanguinary scenes of the Peninsula, unscathed from shot or
steel. His usual luck, however, forsook him at Waterloo, where a ball
struck the peak of his cap and tore his forehead across, leaving a very
ugly scar. I recollect having gone wounded at the time to the rear,
where I saw him under the hands of the surgeon.
After Waterloo, he was invalided to England, where he passed the board
at Chelsea; but only being awarded the pittance of sixpence a-day for
his wound and long services, he felt disgusted, and expressed himself to
the Lords Commissioners in a way that induced them to strike him off the
list altogether. The following day he started off for Ireland, where he
duly arrived in rags and wretchedness. To relieve himself, he again
enlisted in either the thirty-first or thirty-second regiment of the
line, then quartered somewhere in the north.
While wearing a red coat, he had a singular meeting with his former
Colonel, then General Sir Sydney Beckwith, which I have often heard him
relate. It is customary, as the reader may probably be aware, to have
half-yearly inspections of our regiments at home. Shortly after Tom’s
having enlisted, it so happened, on one of the above occasions, when his
regiment was formed for inspection, that the duty devolved upon his old
commander, Sir Sydney, who was in command of the district.
In walking down the front rank, scrutinising the appearance of the men,
the General suddenly came to Tom, distinguished as he was by two medals
on his breast.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” said Sir Sydney. “Surely you are Tom Plunket,
formerly of my own regiment.”
“What’s left of me, Sir,” replied Tom, who was seldom deficient in a
prompt reply.
“And what has again brought you into the service?” inquired Sir Sydney.
“I thought you had passed the board at Chelsea?”
“So I did,” said Tom; “but they only allowed me sixpence a-day, Sir; so
I told them to keep it for the young soldiers, as it wasn’t enough for
the old, who had seen all the tough work out.”
“Ha! the old thing, Tom, I perceive,” observed Sir Sydney, shaking his
head; then immediately remarked to the Colonel of the regiment, as he
proceeded down the ranks—“One of my bravest soldiers.”
The same day the General dined at the officers’ mess, when Tom was sent
for after dinner.
“Here, Plunket, I have sent for you to give us a toast,” observed Sir
Sydney, as he handed him a glass of wine.
“Then, Sir, here’s to the immortal memory of the poor fellows who fell
in the Peninsula, Sir,” said Tom.
The toast was drunk by all with much solemnity, when Tom was dismissed
with a present from Sir Sydney. The following day Tom was made a
corporal, and shortly afterwards, through the medium, I believe, of Sir
Sydney, went up and passed the pension board at Kilmainham, which
granted him a shilling a-day.
But I had forgotten to mention, in its place, an event common in man’s
life—I mean his marriage. Shortly after the battle of Waterloo, Tom had
wedded a lady remarkable for being deficient in one essential to
beauty—she actually had no _face_, or, at all events, was so _defaced_,
it amounted to the same thing. This slight flaw in the beauty of Tom’s
wife, who
Had gallantly follow’d the camp through the war,
arose from the bursting of an ammunition-waggon at Quatre Bras, near to
which the lady stood, and by which her countenance was rendered a blue,
shapeless, noseless mass. This event was duly commemorated by the
government, who allowed the heroine a shilling a-day pension, in
allusion to which Tom used facetiously to say—“It was an ill blowing up
of powder that blew nobody good.”
The story of Tom Plunket, already narrated at greater length than I had
intended, draws fast to a close. Imbued with roving inclinations, partly
owing to his nature, and more perhaps to his profession, for nothing
more unsettles a man than the ever-changing chequered course of a
soldier’s life, he at one time determined to become a settler in Canada,
and, accordingly, accepted the offer held out by government to all
pensioners, of allowing them so much land, and giving them four years’
pay for their pensions. Plunket, ever eager for the handling of cash,
got two years’ pay down here, and started off with some two or three
hundred others to try their fortune. This proved to be a very miserable
one: Tom was not a man to rusticate on the other side of the Atlantic
amid privations, and with the recollection of old England fresh in his
mind.
Before a year had elapsed, he returned to England with his wife, and, by
way of apology to his friends, stated his grant of land was so wild and
swampy that it made him quite melancholy, looking at it in a morning out
of the chinks of a wretched log hut he had managed to erect upon his
estate. He returned home swearing loudly against forest-land, a swampy
soil, and a bad climate, having, of course, duly forfeited his own
pension for ever.
The last time I saw Tom Plunket was in Burton Crescent, most
picturesquely habited, and selling matches. I did not disdain to speak
to an old comrade who had been less fortunate in “life’s march” than
myself. I asked him how he got on, when with one of his usual cheerful
smiles he informed me, that the match-selling business kept him on his
legs.
“I should have thought, Tom, you had seen enough of _firing_,” I
remarked, “without endeavouring to live by it now.”
“A man must do something these hard times for bread,” replied Tom, as he
passed his hand thoughtfully across the furrow made by the bullet at
Waterloo.
Poor Tom! I felt for him. I was sorry to see him neglected; others,
whose service were many days march behind his, were taken better care
of. But Tom’s incorrigible failing was his own stumbling-block.
I did not, however, leave him my mere reflection, but giving him a
portion of that coin, he so well knew how to get rid of, I wished him
success in his new business, and went my way, musing on the strange
vicissitudes of a soldier’s life.[1]
Alas! the brave too oft are doom’d to bear,
The gripes of poverty, the stings of care.
But after this digressive sketch, it is high time to return to my own
career in the field that was just now commencing. Returning to
ship-board, from whence I conducted the peruser of this veritable
narrative, allow me to say, that after a tolerably pleasant voyage we
anchored off Lisbon. From thence, in a few days, we proceeded in open
boats up the river Tagus, and landed about four miles from Santarem,
where we encamped for the night.
On the following morning, we marched into the city of Santarem amid the
cheers of its inhabitants, who welcomed us with loud cries of “_Viva os
Ingleses valerosos!_” Long live the brave English!
Here we immediately became brigaded with the 43rd and 52nd regiments of
Light Infantry, under the command of Major-General Crauford.