ARRIVE AT THE CAPE--VALUABLE ASSISTANCE FROM LOCAL
AUTHORITIES--A CORPS OF VOLUNTEERS FORMED--GENERAL SIR
HARRY SMITH’S DIFFICULTIES--DAMAGED STATE OF STORES AND
AMMUNITION--OBLIGED TO INVENT A MINIE BALL--HAPPY JACK--THE
COMPOSITION OF THE CORPS--REFLECTIONS--COLONEL NEVILLE
CHAMBERLAIN--HIS PRESENT OF A SWORD AND ITS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY
IN TURKEY.
We now proceeded in the same pleasant manner on our way to the Cape,
and landed there, after what was then thought a rapid passage of
thirty-five days. We found the news from the seat of war was full of
the excitement of actual strife, which was being carried on as fiercely
as ever. Governor Darling, who appeared to me rather diffident as to
his powers of doing good in the colony, with the instructions he had
from the Home Government, was nevertheless very active in his efforts
to help me. Through his assistance I was enabled, within twenty-four
hours of landing, to open an enlisting office. He also stirred up
the local authorities and the police to second my efforts. These, and
many other kind offices of his, for which I never afterwards had the
opportunity of thanking him, I here beg to acknowledge. He is gone now,
and I may seem very tardy in expressing my gratitude, but perhaps some
of the many who loved him may still listen to my thanks.
Sir Harry Smith, for whom I had letters from the Duke of Wellington, in
which, amongst other things, he had kindly said that he _believed me to
be a real soldier_--not only had all the resources of Cape Castle and
of the commissariat department placed at my disposal, but offered an
extra Government bounty of two pounds, besides the two offered by me,
for every man that enlisted. Poor Sir Harry! Although a fine soldier
of the olden class, equal to almost any act of gallantry that required
no further intuition than that inspired by actual contact with the
foe, he failed during this war for the same reasons that rendered Lord
Chelmsford equally unsuccessful during the last. The dual character of
the local Government, it being at the same time civil and military,
places serious, almost insurmountable, obstacles, in the way of a
commander in the field. On emergencies he is required to consult the
wishes and give way to the exigencies of both powers. It would require
the capacity and the energy of a Clive or a Stratford to combine,
direct, and successfully wield such a power.
In the course of a fortnight upwards of fifty men had joined the corps,
and everything promised well for our success; but now difficulties as
to the clothing and arming occurred. As the bales were landed from
the Harbinger, it was found that the leather jackets for the men had
become so shrunk, from the extreme heat in the hold of the ship, that
there was no possible means of restoring them to their original shape.
The cartridges also had been reduced by water to a mealy pulp, stuck
over here and there by pieces of oily white paper like suet in a black
pudding. It appeared that the idea of the cartridges being of a highly
inflammable nature had pursued the Woolwich authorities so far, that,
out of consideration for the safety of the ship and its precious
freight, some considerate souls at the dockyard had filled the tin
cases, in which the cartridges were packed, _with water_, and then
carefully soldered them down.
An enterprising clothier, named Taylour, undertook to make other
jackets of a similar nature to those spoiled; and a most intelligent
mechanic (a Mr Rawbone, gunsmith of Cape Town) engaged to replace the
Minie bullet by another equally effective.
It was an absolute necessity to make another-shaped bullet, as the
original Minie was useless without the socket of condensed paper,
which I could not procure in the colony. Putting our heads together,
we invented a bullet in two unequal sizes, slightly dovetailed
together in the centre, and which, under the concussion of lighted
gunpowder, were driven into one another, and thus expanding, filled up
the grooves of the rifle, took the twist, and went spinning through
the air on its axis, as true in its flight as the Minie. I was also
greatly aided by a Mr Andersen, a Norwegian gentleman, an enthusiastic
sportsman and traveller, at the Cape. He took an almost passionate
interest in me, my task, and the Minie rifle. From him I gained much
useful information concerning bush-life, and the habits, history,
and traditions of the Kaffir tribes. He had very little faith in the
half-worldly, half-sentimental policy of the British Government towards
the Kaffir and the Dutch settler; and my experience afterwards only
confirmed the truth of his observations.
I now began to practise the men with their firelocks. As this was
almost the only drilling they got, there remained plenty of spare
time for drinking-bouts in public-houses, and for them to spend their
bounty-money and report on the glorious advantages of being _soldiers
in prospective_.
I had, amongst the men, enlisted a noted character at Cape Town called
“Happy Jack.” Evans was his real name, a common sailor now, but who had
been boatswain in the navy.
He was rarely in barracks, but always to be hailed, as he
good-naturedly explained to the guard on duty, in such or such a
public-house. It may be readily supposed that men enlisted under the
auspices of Happy Jack were not the best of characters; in fact, many
of them were what they termed at the Cape, _laggers_--that is to say,
men who, having got away from Norfolk Island, or other penfolds for
black sheep, lag behind, under guardianship of Dutch laws at the Cape,
instead of trusting their precious selves to the supervision of their
own natural police at home.
The local authorities, however, with the praiseworthy object of
dispersing the scabby flock under their charge, provided the ranks of
my corps with some desperate cases, whom they ordered to enlist as the
alternative of going to prison. I had a shrewd guess as to the meaning
of these energetic efforts to strengthen the force under my command;
but I used to shut my eyes as closely as possible in accepting the
proffered services of some of my recruits, and unless something too
glaring forced itself on my attention--such as a man with one arm, a
wooden leg, or stone blind--I used to accept the services of almost
all, and place them at her Majesty’s disposal,--taking often, when
tempted, a cripple, as the necessary evil attendant upon the services
of a good man, these being the conditions on which the contract was
several times concluded between myself and the police. No doubt I was
often undecided as to whether or not I should attempt to knock down
the authors of some of the practical jokes that were played upon me;
but when I came to reflect that my best friends at the Cape advised me
strongly to go home and leave the Kaffirs alone, I could not feel much
surprised that stupid people, to whom I was unknown, should be much
more practical in their method of enforcing the same opinion upon me.
And truly my position seemed a riddle in more ways than one. I was very
young--scarcely twenty-two, and looked still younger. I was spending
large sums at the Cape to regain a footing in the British army, when
I might have easily purchased, for a tenth of the money, a commission
at home. My ways were foreign. I had been brought up mostly abroad--in
France and Germany. My military notions were based on their schools. My
actual experience of war had been gained in Algeria, Hungary, and in
the streets of Paris and Vienna during the late revolutions, where I
had taken somewhat more than a strict observer’s part on the side of
legal authority.
I could not understand the half-military, half-civilian existence
of a British officer, and, excepting the Artillery and Engineers,
thought them a very unscientific lot. No one could doubt their fighting
capacity; but their capabilities for undertaking a campaign against
European armies was very dubious in my sight.
An enthusiast myself in my belief in Christ, I yet belonged to no
Church in Christendom--in short, I have often wondered since how I
escaped shipwreck amidst the shoals and breakers that surrounded me.
Two bright spots alone shone through this turmoil and anxiety. At the
Cape, Colonel Neville Chamberlain and Major Quinn (two nobler specimens
of the conquerors of India could hardly be found) took me kindly by
the hand; and as they told me, how with quiet demeanour and ironside
determination of will, native levies were led, and victories won in
India, I humbly resolved to follow, if I could, the noble example
they gave me. An anecdote concerning a sword which Colonel Neville
Chamberlain presented me with, may not be out of place in these pages.
It was a weapon that had fallen into his hands after an engagement, and
was considered a splendid specimen of Indian workmanship.
In the year 1853 I was sent on a mission to Constantinople, and took
the sword with me, and used to wear it in my frequent visits to the
Seraskierat. Riza Pasha, who then presided there, asked me one day
to allow him to look at it, and after gravely reading the Arabic
characters embossed upon the blade, passed it on to other members of
the Council Board. One and all seemed much surprised at the writing,
and at my being the possessor of such a weapon. Mr Sarel, the dragoman
of the Embassy, who was with me at the time, explained how it came from
India, and into my possession. Riza asked to be allowed to show it to
the Sultan, to which I consented, but never could get it returned.
As, however, I repeatedly asked for it, and threatened to speak to
the Ambassador on the subject, Riza one day sent me another sword,
with a firman in a white satin bag, containing my nomination to the
colonelcy of the second regiment of the Sultan’s Roumelian Guard. I
was rather induced to look upon the affair as a mystification; but
Sarel explained to me that it was quite serious, and in reality a
compliment paid to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and that I had better
accept the sword and the commission, as I should never see Colonel
Chamberlain’s sword again. In this manner I entered the Turkish army;
and although I never assumed the actual command as colonel, it was
(by a strange coincidence) one of those regiments that formed the
brigade of cavalry which I afterwards commanded on the Danube. It was
a curiously-officered regiment. I, the colonel, had been named through
being the possessor of a certain sword; the lieutenant-colonel, Said
Bey, through being the possessor of a wonderful flute (he had been
chief flute-player to the Sultan); one of the majors, Mourad Bey, for
being a renegade Frenchman; and the other major, an Irishman, for being
the supposed son of an English Prime Minister. The men, however, were
splendid fellows, and some became passionately attached to me. As a
proof of this, one day when, as quartermaster-general of the Turkish
forces, I was sending to Eupatoria, in the Crimea, Osman Pasha’s army
from Cisebole, in the Bay of Bourgas, Halil Pasha, brother-in-law of
the Sultan, and commander of the Turkish cavalry, refused to obey my
repeated orders concerning the embarkation of the women of his harem
(a proceeding to which I was opposed), when, at my command, two of my
orderlies--Mourad and Mahamet-Chousch--took him by the “scruff” of the
neck, before the whole of his staff, and pitched him off the pier into
the sea, after his screaming women.
Not a man stirred an inch to save him until I gave orders to do so; and
the half-drowned Pasha contented himself with writing a long letter of
complaint to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, in reply, said he only
got what he deserved.