FROM ENSIGN TO COLONEL.
In every young man's career comes a time of probation. During this
critical period that youth is wise who enters into a truce with his
feelings. This is the period when influences for good or bad assert
themselves--the parting of the ways. The sign-posts are painted in
capitals.
When Brock buttoned his scarlet tunic and strapped his sword on his hip,
as fine a specimen of a clean-bodied, clean-minded youth as ever trod
the turnpike of life, he knew that he was at the cross-roads. The trail
before him was well blazed, but straight or crooked, rough or smooth,
valley or height, it mattered little so long as he kept nourished the
bright light of purpose that burned steadily within him.
Five years of uneventful service, chiefly in England, passed by, and our
hero was celebrating his coming of age. His only inheritance was health,
hope and courage. While neither monk nor hermit, he had so far been as
steadfast as the Pole Star in respect to his resolutions. He had allowed
nothing to induce him to break the rules engraved on brass that he had
himself imposed. His mind had broadened, his spirits ran high, his
conscience told him that he was graduating in the world's university
with honour. His love for athletics still continued. He had the thews of
a gladiator, and in his Guernsey stockings stood six feet two inches.
Add to this an honest countenance, with much gentleness of manner and
great determination, and you have a faithful picture of Isaac Brock.
Upon obtaining his lieutenancy he returned to Guernsey, raised an
independent company, and exchanged into the 49th, the Royal Berkshires,
then stationed in Barbadoes. He now found himself looking at life under
new conditions. While the beauties of Barbadoes enchanted him, his
duties as a soldier were disappointing. They were limited to drill,
dress parade, guard mounting, the erection of new fortifications, and
patrolling the coast for vessels carrying prohibited cargoes.
Under the terms of a treaty made at Paris in 1773, United States produce
for British West Indian ports could only be carried by British subjects
in British ships. Britain's men-of-war were also authorized to seize any
vessel laden with produce for or from any French colony. Brock was a
soldier, not a policeman, and coast-guard duties palled upon him. His
great diversion was in calculating the probabilities of invasion by the
French. In expectation of this, the refortifying of the island was in
progress. The memory of Admiral d'Estaing's visit with his fleet from
Toulon, and the capture of St. Vincent, sent a chill through the island.
The great victory by the British Admiral Rodney, when he whipped a
superior French fleet to a standstill, was yet to come. Bastions and
earthworks grew during the night like mushrooms. While Brock chafed
under restraint, he knew how to improve the opportunity.
Fishing, shooting sea-fowl, and exploring the interior on horseback,
were Brock's chief pastimes. He became a fearless horseman. Mount
Hillaby rose 1,200 feet above the Caribbean Sea. The very crest of its
almost impossible pinnacle Brock is said to have ascended on horseback.
Between Bridgetown, in Barbadoes, and Kingston, Jamaica, he divided his
time, and though monotonous, his life in the Windward Islands was not
wholly void of adventure.
Shortly after joining his regiment at Bridgetown our hero had his first
affair of honour, an opportunity to display his courage under most
trying conditions. A certain captain in the 49th was a confirmed
duellist, with a reputation of being a dead shot at short range. Resting
upon his evil record, this braggart had succeeded in terrorizing the
garrison, and it was soon Brock's turn to be selected for insult. But
Isaac could not be bullied or intimidated. He promptly challenged and
was as promptly accepted.
The fateful morning arrived. In a lonely spot, palm-sheltered, and
within sight of the sea breaking upon the coral reefs, principals and
seconds met. There was no question in Brock's mind as to his duty--the
duello at that time was the recognized court of appeal. If its purpose
as originally designed had at times been infamously abused, it was still
the one and only arbiter through which insults had to be purged and from
which, for the "officer and gentleman," there was no escape.
Now Isaac, who was several inches taller and much bulkier than the
scoundrel who had insulted him, declined to become a shining mark at the
regulation twelve paces. He demanded from his fire-eating antagonist
that the duel proceed on equal terms. Whipping out his kerchief, cool as
a cucumber, his blue eyes steady and resolute, he insisted that _they
both fire across it_. The fairness of the proposal staggered the bully.
The chances were not sufficiently one-sided. If this plan was acted upon
he might himself be killed. He refused to comply. The code of honour and
garrison approval sustained Brock in his contention, and the refusal of
the professional killer to fight under even chances was registered in
the mess-room as the act of a coward, and he left the regiment by
compulsion.
In Jamaica the continued strain of inactivity under which our hero
fretted told upon him, and he was struck down with fever, his cousin,
Henry Brock, lieutenant in the 13th Foot, dying in Kingston of the same
pestilence. At this time Isaac had as servant a soldier named Dobson,
one of those faithful souls who, true as steel, once installed in their
master's affection, remain loyal to the end. To the untiring attentions
of this man Brock owed his life. Deep and mutual respect followed, and
the two became inseparable. Where Brock went, there was Dobson, sharing
his fortune and all the hard knocks of his military campaigns, a
fellowship ending only with Dobson's death, shortly before his "beloved
master" gave up his life on Queenston Heights.
Tropical malaria is hard to shake off. Release from duty was imperative,
and as England was now calling for recruits, the War Office summoned
Brock, an alluring sample of a soldier, to whom was assigned the task of
licking the fighting country bumpkin--the raw material--into shape. This
he did, first in England, then in Guernsey and Jersey. A vision of our
hero, glorious in his uniform, was in itself sufficient to ensnare the
senses of any country yokel. It was a militant age.
When quartered in Guernsey, and from the same heights of Jerbourg where
but a few years before he was wont to sweep the ocean for belated
fishing smacks, Brock saw his kinsman, Sir James Saumarez, and the white
canvas of a small squadron, heave in sight from Plymouth Roads. The
British sailor had been ordered to ascertain the strength of the French
fleet. Saumarez' ships were far slower than those of the enemy, so,
feigning the greatest desire to fight, he lured his opponent by a clever
ruse. First he closed with him, and then, when his own capture seemed
inevitable, hauled his wind, slipped through a maze of reefs by an
intricate passage--long familiar to our hero--and found safety off La
Vazon, where the Frenchmen dare not follow.
In June, 1795, Brock purchased his majority, but retained his command of
the recruits. From toes to finger-tips Isaac was a soldier, bent on
mastering every detail of the profession of his choice. A year after the
return of the 49th to England, on the completion of his 28th year, he
became by purchase senior lieutenant-colonel of his regiment. High
honour and rapid promotion, considering that for five out of seven
years' service he had remained an ensign. He had learned to recognize
opportunity, the earthly captain of a man's fate.
"For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake and rise to fight and win."
But Brock's position was no sinecure. The regiment was in a badly
demoralized condition. The laxity of the late commanding officer had
created a deplorable state of things. To restore the lost _morale_ of
the corps was his first duty. The thoroughness of his reforms can be
best understood by quoting the words of the Duke of York, who declared
that "out of one of the worst regiments in the service Colonel Brock had
made the 49th one of the best."
From the Commander-in-Chief of a nation's army to a colonel--not yet
thirty--of a marching regiment, this was an exceptional tribute.
Isaac's persistent endeavours were rapidly bringing their own reward.
[Illustration: NAVY HALL, REMNANT OF THE OLD "RED BARRACKS,"
NIAGARA, 1797]