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    BARRACKS
    BIVOUACS AND BATTLES




    BARRACKS
    BIVOUACS AND BATTLES


    BY
    ARCHIBALD FORBES, LL.D.


    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO.
    AND NEW YORK
    1891

    _All rights reserved_




All the pieces in this little volume are reprints. I have to express my
obligations to the proprietors and editors of the periodicals to which
they were originally contributed, for the permission to reproduce them.

            A. F.




CONTENTS


                                                    PAGE
    HOW “THE CRAYTURE” GOT ON THE STRENGTH             1

    THE FATE OF “NANA SAHIB’S ENGLISHMAN”             31

    THE OLD SERGEANT                                  56

    THE GENTLEMAN PRIVATE OF THE “SKILAMALINKS”       72

    JELLYPOD; ALIAS THE MULETEER                      89

    THE DOUBLE COUP DE GRÂCE                         112

    BILL BERESFORD AND HIS VICTORIA CROSS            129

    LA BELLE HÉLÈNE OF ALEXINATZ                     151

    AN OUTPOST ADVENTURE                             175

    THE DIVINE FIGURE FROM THE NORTH                 190

    A YARN OF THE “PRESIDENT” FRIGATE                206

    FIRE-DISCIPLINE                                  218

    A CHRISTMAS DINNER DE PROFUNDIS                  242

    ABSIT OMEN!                                      251

    A FORGOTTEN REBELLION                            291

    MY CAMPAIGN IN PALL MALL                         307




HOW “THE CRAYTURE” GOT ON THE STRENGTH


Mick Sullivan was a private soldier in G troop, 30th Light Dragoons, of
some six years’ service. Since the day old Sergeant Denny Lee ’listed
him in Charles Street, just outside the Cheshire Cheese, close by
where the Council door of the India Office now is, Mick had never been
anything else than a private soldier, and never hoped or needed hope to
be anything else if he served out his full twenty-four years, for he
could neither read nor write, and his regimental defaulter sheet was
much fuller of “marks” than the most lavish barrack-room pudding is
of raisins. Nevertheless the Queen had a very good bargain in honest
Mick, although that was scarcely the opinion of the adjutant, who
was a “jumped-up” youngster, and had not been in the Crimea with the
regiment. The grizzled captain of G troop, who was a non-purchase man,
and had been soldiering for well on to twenty years, understood and
appreciated Mick better. Captain Coleman knew that he had come limping
up out of that crazy gallop along “the valley of death” with a sword
red from hilt to point, a lance-thrust through the calf of his leg, and
a wounded comrade on his back. He had heard Mick’s gay laugh and cheery
jest during that dreary time in the hollow inland from Varna, when
cholera was decimating the troop, and the hearts of brave men were in
their boots. He remembered how Mick was the life and soul of the gaunt
sorry squad inside the flimsy tent on the bleak <DW72> of Kadikoi during
that terrible Crimean winter, when men were turning their toes up to
the daisies by sections, and when the living crawled about half frozen,
half sodden. Mick’s old chestnut mare (G 11) was the only horse of
the troop that survived the winter, kept alive by her owner’s patient
and unremitting care: if it was true, as fellows swore who found her
cruelly rough--she was known by the name of the “Dislocator,” given
to her by a much-chafed recruit, whose anatomy her trot had wholly
disorganised--if it was true that in that hard winter she had frozen
quite hard, and had never since come properly thawed, it was to Mick’s
credit that she was still saving the country the price of a remount.
There was no smarter man or cleaner soldier in all the corps than the
harum-scarum Tipperary man; he had a brogue that you could cut with a
knife; and there was nothing he would not do for whisky but shirk his
turn of duty and hear his regiment belittled without promptly engaging
in single combat with the disparager of the “Ould Strawboots.”

Mick did a good deal of punishment drill at varying intervals, and his
hair was occasionally abnormally short as a result of that species
of infliction known as “seven days’ cells.” He had seldom any other
crime than “absent without leave,” and he had never been tried by
court-martial, although more than once he had had a very narrow squeak,
especially once when he was brought into barracks by a picket after
a three days’ absence, with a newspaper round his shoulders instead
of stable jacket and shirt. No doubt he had drunk those articles
of attire, but the plea that they had been stolen saved him from
the charge of making away with “regimental necessaries,” which is a
court-martial offence. The 30th Light, just home from the Crimea, were
quartered at York; and Mick, after two or three escapades which were
the pardonable result of his popularity as one of the heroes of the
Light Cavalry charge, had settled down into unwonted steadiness. He
went out alone every evening, and at length his chum took him to task
for his unsociality, and threatened to “cut the loaf.”

“Arrah now,” was Mick’s indignant reply, “it’s a silly spalpeen ye are
to go for to think such a thing. Sure if it hadn’t been a great saycret
intirely, ye’d have known all about it long ago. I’ve been coortin’, ye
divil! Sure an’ she’s the purtiest crayture that iver ye clapt yer two
eyes upon, aye, an’ a prudent girl too. So that’s the saycret, chum;
an’ now come on up to the canteen, an’ bedad we’ll drink luck an’ joy
to the wooin’!”

Over their pot of beer Mick told his comrade the simple story of his
love. His sweetheart, it seemed, was the daughter of a small shopkeeper
in the outskirts of the city, and, as Mick was most emphatic in
claiming, a young woman of quite exemplary character. Thus far, then,
everything was satisfactory; but the obvious rock ahead was the all but
certainty that Mick would be refused leave to marry. He had not exactly
the character entitling him to such a privilege, and the troop already
had its full complement of married people. But if the commanding
officer should say him nay, then “Sure,” Mick doughtily protested,
“I’ll marry the darlint widout lave; in spite of the colonel, an’ the
gineral, and the commander-in-chief himself, bedad!”

Next morning Mick formed up to the adjutant and asked permission to
see the colonel. The adjutant, after the manner of his kind, tried to
extract from him for what purpose the request was made, but Mick was
old soldier enough to know how far an adjutant’s ill word carries, and
resolutely declined to divulge his intent. After the commanding officer
had disposed of what are called at the police-courts the “charges
of the night,” Mick was marched into the presence by the regimental
sergeant-major; and as he stood there at rigid attention, the nature
of his business was demanded in the curt hard tone which the colonel
with a proper sense of the fitness of things uses when addressing the
private soldier.

“Plase yer honour, sor, I want to get--to get married,” blurted Mick,
for the moment in some confusion now that the crisis had come.

“And, plase yer honour, Mr. Sullivan,” retorted the chief with sour
pleasantry, “I’ll see you d--d first!”

“Och, sor, an’ how can ye be so cruel at all, at all?” pleaded Mick,
who had recovered from his confusion, and thought a touch of the
blarney might come in useful.

“Why, what the deuce do you want with a wife?” asked the colonel
angrily.

“Sure, sor, an’ pwhat does any man want wid a wife?”

The regimental sergeant-major grinned behind his hand, the adjutant
burst into a splutter of laughter at the back of the colonel’s chair,
and that stern officer himself found his gravity severely strained. But
he was firm in his refusal to grant the indulgence, and Mick went forth
from the presence in a very doleful frame of mind.

At “watch-setting” the same night Mr. Sullivan was reported absent, nor
did he come into barracks in the course of the night. The regimental
sergeant-major was a very old bird, and straightway communicated to
the adjutant his ideas as to the nature of Mick’s little game. Then
the pair concerted a scheme whereby they might baulk him at the very
moment when his cup of bliss should be at his lips. At nine in the
morning about a dozen corporals and as many files of men paraded
outside the orderly-room door. To each of the likeliest religious
edifices licensed for the celebration of marriages a corporal and a
file were told off, with instructions to watch outside, and intercept
Sullivan if he should appear in the capacity of a bridegroom. Clever as
was the device, it came very near failing. The picket charged with the
duty of watching an obscure suburban chapel, regarding it as extremely
improbable that such a place would be selected, betook themselves to
the taproom of an adjacent public-house, where they chanced on some
good company, and had soon all but forgotten the duty to which they had
been detailed. It was, however, suddenly recalled to them. A native who
dropped in for a pint of half-and-half, casually observed that “a sojer
were bein’ spliced across the road.” The moment was a critical one,
but the corporal rose to the occasion. Hastily leading out his men,
he stationed them at the door, while he himself entered, and stealing
up to the marriage party unobserved, clapped his hand on Sullivan’s
shoulder just as the latter was fumbling for the ring. The bride
shrieked, the priest talked about sacrilege, and the bride’s mother
made a gallant assault on the corporal with her umbrella; but the
non-commissioned officer was firm, and Mick, whose sense of discipline
was very strong, merely remarked, “Be jabers, corporal, an’ in another
minute ye would have been too late!”

He was summarily marched off into barracks, looking rather rueful at
being thus torn from the very horns of the altar. Next morning he paid
another visit to the orderly-room, this time as a prisoner, when the
commanding officer, radiant at the seeming success of the plot to baulk
Mr. Sullivan’s matrimonial intentions, let him off with fourteen days’
pack drill. Having done that punishment, he was again free to go out
of barracks, but only in the evening, so that he could not get married
unless by special license, a luxury to which a private dragoon’s pay
does not run. Nevertheless he cherished his design, and presently
the old adage, “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” had yet another
confirmation.

One fine morning the regiment rode out in “watering order.” About
a mile outside the town, poor Mick was suddenly taken very ill. So
serious appeared his condition that the troop sergeant-major directed
him to ride straight back into barracks, giving him strict orders to
go to hospital the moment he arrived. Presently, Mick’s horse, indeed,
cantered through the barrack gate, but there was no rider on its back.
The sentry gave the alarm, and the guard, imagining Mick to have been
thrown, made a search for him along the road outside; but they did not
find him, for the reason that at the time he was being thus searched
for he was being married. The ceremony was this time accomplished
without interruption; but the hymeneal festivities were rudely broken
in upon by a picket from the barracks, who tore the bridegroom
ruthlessly from the arms of the bride, and escorted him to durance in
the guard-room.

Mick had seven days’ cells for this escapade, and when he next saw his
bride, he had not a hair on his head a quarter of an inch long, the
provost-sergeant’s shears having gone very close to the scalp. He had
a wife, it was true; but matrimonial felicity seemed a far-off dream.
Mick had married without leave, and there was no place in barracks
for his little wife. Indeed, in further punishment of Mick, her name
was “put upon the gate,” which means that the sentry was charged to
prohibit her entrance. Mick could get no leave; so he could enjoy the
society of his spouse only between evening stables and watch-setting;
and on the whole he might just as well have been single--indeed better,
if the wife’s welfare be taken into consideration. Only neither husband
nor wife was of this opinion, and hoped cheerily for better things.

But worse, not better, was to befall the pair. That cruellest of all
blows which can befall the couple married without leave, suddenly
struck them; the regiment was ordered on foreign service. It was to
march to the south of England, give over its horses at Canterbury,
Christchurch, and elsewhere, and then embark at Southampton for India.

Next to a campaign, the brightest joy in the life of the cavalry
soldier is going on “the line of march,” from one home station to
another. For him it is a glorious interlude to the dull restrained
monotony of his barrack-room life, and the weary routine of mounted
and dismounted drill. “Boots and saddles” sounds early on the line of
march. The troopers from their scattered billets concentrate in front
of the principal hotel of the town where the detachment quarters for
the night, and form up in the street or the market-place, while as
yet the shutters are fast on the front of the earliest-opening shop.
The officers emerge from the hotel, mount, and inspect the parade;
the order “Threes right!” is given, and the day’s march has begun.
The morning sun flashes on the sword-scabbards and accoutrements,
as the quiet street echoes to the clink of the horse-hoofs on the
cobblestones. Presently the town is left behind, and the detachment
is out into the country. There had been a shower as the sun rose--the
“pride of the morning” the soldiers call the sprinkle--just sufficient
to lay the dust, and evoke from every growing thing its sweetest
scent. The fresh crisp morning air is laden with perfume; the wild
rose, the jessamine, the eglantine, and the “morning glory” entwine
themselves about the gnarled thorn of the hedgerows, and send their
tangled feelers straggling up the ivy-clad trunks of the great elms and
oaks, through whose foliage the sunbeams are shooting. From the valley
rises a feathery haze broken into gossamer-like patches of diverse
hues; and here and there the blue smoke of some early-lit cottage
fire ascends in a languid straightness through the still atmosphere.
The hind yoking his plough in the adjacent field chants a rude ditty,
while his driver is blowing his first cloud, the scent of which comes
sluggishly drifting across the road with that peculiarly fresh odour
only belonging to tobacco-smoke in the early morning. As the rise is
crowned, a fair and fertile expanse of country lies stretched out
below--shaggy woods and cornfields, and red-roofed homesteads, and long
reaches of still water, and the square tower of the venerable church
showing over the foliage that overhangs the hamlet and the graveyard.
Then the command “Trot!” is passed along from the front, and away
go the troopers bumping merrily, their accoutrements jingling and
clanking, their horses feeling the bit lightly, tossing their heads,
arching their necks, and stepping out gallantly, in token that they too
take delight in being on the road. Three miles of a steady trot; then
a five minutes’ halt to tighten girths and “look round” equipments;
then up into the saddle again. The word comes back along the files,
“Singers to the front!” whereupon every fellow who has, or thinks he
has, a voice, presses forward till the two front ranks are some six
abreast across the road. Now the premier vocalist--self-constituted or
acclaimed--strikes up a solo whose principal attribute is unlimited
chorus; and so to the lusty strain the detachment marches through the
next village, bringing all the natives to their doors, and attracting
much attention and commendation, especially from the fair sex. The
day’s march half over, there is a longer halt; and the kindly officers
send on a corporal to the little wayside beerhouse just ahead, whence
he speedily returns, accompanied by the landlord, stepping carefully
between a couple of pailsful of foaming beer. Each man receives his
pint, the officers’ “treat”; and then, all hands in the highest
spirits, the journey is resumed; trot and walk alternate, the men
riding “at ease,” until the verge is reached of the town in which
the detachment is to be billeted for the night. Then “Attention!” is
called, swords are drawn, the files close up, and the little array
marches right gallantly through the streets to the principal hotel.
Here the “billeting sergeant,” who is always a day’s march ahead,
distributes the billets, each for a couple of troopers, and chums are
allowed to share the same billet. A willing urchin shows the way to
the Wheatsheaf, whose hearty landlord forthwith comes out with a frank
welcome, and a brown jug in hand. Horses cleaned and bedded down,
accoutrements freed from the soil of the road, dinner--and a right good
dinner--is served, the troopers sitting down to table with their host
and hostess. The worthy Boniface and his genial spouse have none of
your cockney contempt for the soldier, but consider him not only their
equal, but a welcome guest; and the soldier, if he is worth his salt,
does his best to conduct himself so as not to tarnish the credit of his
cloth.

Than Mick Sullivan no soldier of the gay 30th Light Dragoons was wont
to enjoy himself more on the line of march. But now the honest Irishman
was silent and depressed. He was a married man. That of itself did
not sadden him; he did not repent his act, rash as it had been. But
he had married without leave, and his little wife was entitled to no
privileges--she was not “on the strength.” Mick had prayed her to
remain at home with her father, for he could not afford her travelling
expenses, and even if he could, he knew, and he had to tell her,
that they must part at the port of embarkation. But “the Crayture,”
as Mick called her, was resolute to go thus far. Poll Tudor and Bess
Bowles, accredited spouses, “married women on the strength,” took train
at Government expense, and knew their berths on the troopship were
assured. But for “the Crayture” there was no railway warrant, far less
any berth aboard. March for march, with weary feet and swelling heart,
the poor little woman made with the detachment, tramping the long miles
between York and Southampton. Mostly the kind souls where Mick was
billeted gave her bite and sup and her bed; now and then the hayloft
was her portion. Ah me! in the old days such woful journeys were often
made; I believe that nowadays the canteen fund helps on their way
soldiers’ wives married without leave.

The troopship, with her steam up, was lying alongside the jetty in
Southampton Dock, and troop by troop as they quitted the train, the
men of the 30th Light were being marched aboard. Mick had bidden
“the Crayture” farewell, and had drowned his grief in drink; as they
marched toward the jetty, his chum reproached him on account of his
unsoldierly condition.

“Arrah now,” wailed Mick piteously, “sure, an’ if it wor yersilf lavin’
the darlint av a young wife behind ye, glad an’ fain ye would be to
take a dhrap to deaden yer sorrow. Whin I sed good-bye to the Crayture
this mornin’ I thought she’d have died outright wid the sobs from the
heart av her. Och, chum, the purty, beautiful crayture that I love so,
an’ that loves me, an’ me lavin’ her to the hard wurrld! Be gorra, an’
there she stands!”

Sure enough, standing there in the crowd, weeping as if she would break
her heart, was Mick’s poor little wife.

“Hould me carabine, chum, just for a moment, till I be givin’ her just
wan last kiss!” pleaded the poor fellow, and with a sudden spring he
was out of the ranks unobserved, and hidden in the crowd that opened
to receive him. His chum tramped on, but he reached the main-deck of
the troopship still carrying two carbines, for as yet Mick had not
re-appeared.

The comrade’s anxious eyes searched the crowded jetty in vain. But they
scanned a scene of singular pathos. The grizzled old quarter-master
was wiping his shaggy eyelashes furtively as he turned away from the
children he was leaving behind. There were poor wretches of wives
who had been married without leave, as “the Crayture” had been--some
with babes in their arms, weeping hopelessly as they thought of
the thousands of miles that were to part them from the men of their
hearts. And there were weeping women there also who had not even the
sorrowful consolation of being entitled to call themselves wives; and
boys were cheering, and the band was playing “The Girl I left behind
me,” and non-commissioned officers were swearing, and some half-drunk
recruit-soldiers were singing a dirty ditty, and heart-strings were
being torn, and the work of embarkation was steadily and relentlessly
progressing.

The embarkation completed, the shore-goers having been cleared out of
the ship and the gangway drawn, there was a muster on deck, and the
roll of each troop was called. In G troop one man was missing, and
that man was Mick Sullivan. The muster had barely broken off, when
a wild shout from the jetty was heard. There stood Mick very limp
and staggery, “the Crayture” clinging convulsively round his neck,
and he hailing the ship over her shoulder. Behind the forlorn couple
was a sympathising crowd of females sobbing in unmelodious concert,
with here and there a wilder screech of woe from the throat of some
tender-hearted country-woman of Mr. Sullivan. After some delay, Mick
was brought on to the upper deck of the trooper, where he stood
before the lieutenant of his troop in an attitude meant to represent
the rigidity of military attention, contrasting vividly with his
tear-stained face, his inability to refrain from a frequent hiccough,
and an obvious difficulty in overcoming the propensity of his
knee-joints to serve their owner treacherously.

“Well, Sullivan,” said the young officer, with an affectation of
sternness which under the circumstances was most praiseworthy, “what do
you mean by this conduct?”

“Plase, sor, an’ beg yer parrdon, sor, but I didn’t mane only to fall
out just for wan last worrd. It wasn’t the dhrink at all, at all,
sor; it’s the grief that kilt me intirely. Ah, sure, sor,” added Mick
insinuatingly, “it’s y