Читать книгу Barracks, Bivouacs and Battles - Forbes Archibald - Страница 4

It was in the autumn of the year 1856 that a squadron of that gallant Light Cavalry Regiment familiarly known as the “Skilamalinks” crossed Sheffield Moor, rode down Snighill, and proceeded along the valley of the dirty Don to the old cavalry barracks in the angle made by the divagation of the upper and lower Western roads. The “Skilamalinks” had followed Cardigan in that glorious, crazy gallop up the long valley of Balaclava, and when the eventful twenty-five minutes were over, their gallant array had dwindled to a weak troop, in which there was scarcely a scatheless man and horse. The bitter winter on the Chersonese had yet further thinned the handful that had escaped the Russian cross-fire, and there was a time when the “Skilamalinks” could barely furnish for duty a weak picket. But when the cruel winter ended, reinforcements came pouring in so freely that before the battle of the Tchernaya the regiment was near its full strength. It had returned to England, dismounted, early in 1856, had spent the summer in south of Ireland quarters, engaged in reorganisation and breaking in the remounts which had been sent to it, and in the autumn it had got the route for Yorkshire, headquarters at York, with out-quarters at Sheffield, and, if I remember rightly, at Leeds. Captain Jolliffe, the senior captain of the regiment, was in command of the Sheffield squadron, and it was as a lance-corporal in that fine soldier’s troop that I, No. 420, Arthur Fraser, rode into the cramped little barrack-yard at the fork of the roads. My moustache is snow-white now, and, as I walk, I limp a bit from the Cossack lance-thrust through the calf of the leg which is my souvenir of the memorable Light Cavalry charge; but when I dismounted in the Sheffield barrack-yard thirty-five years ago, there was not in Queen Victoria’s army, although I say it, a more strapping young fellow than Lance-Corporal Arthur Fraser, of A troop in the “Skilamalink” Hussars.

It is many a long year since I last saw the dense smoke under whose pall Sheffield breathes hard over its grindstones, and no doubt there are many changes in the dingy, rough, cordial town. When I last soldiered there our quarters were in the fine new barracks, a mile beyond the ramshackle old structure at the fork of the roads. The young soldiers took delight in the airy spaciousness of the former, whose front looks across to the public-house famous in my day for the tenpenny ale one glass of which made a fellow garrulous, and whose flank overhangs the beautiful valley which has long since recovered from the devastation wrought by the bursting of the great dam high up in its throat; but the old soldiers still nourished pleasant memories of the cramped old quarters nearer to the heart of the town. For aught I know, those may have been demolished long ago, and the Sheffielder of to-day may know them no more; but when our out-marching squadron on its way to Norwich last rode along the lower road toward Snighill, we oldsters looked rightward at the dingy tiled roofs, and at the little windows of what had been our troop-rooms, but which were now let out to civilian inhabitants who cultivated scrawny geraniums and reluctant fuchsias in stumpy little window-boxes. And as I gazed my heart swelled and the water came into my eyes, for the scene recalled the memory of a tragic occurrence which had for years cast a gloom on my life.

Most people are aware that nowadays no inconsiderable number of young gentlemen are serving in the ranks of the army. These are mostly men with a specific aim. They are fellows who have failed to get into the service as officers either through the front door of Sandhurst, or through the easier side door of the Militia. So they enlist, work hard, and keep steady, while their connections meanwhile are exciting all the influence in their power to further their promotion to commissioned rank. But it is not so generally known that in the old purchase days there was quite a considerable leaven of gentle-manhood in the ranks, without any such specific anxiety for promotion as actuates the gentleman-ranker of to-day. The gentleman-ranker of the old days – so far back as the Peninsular War he was common enough in the army – for the most part enlisted because he had come to grief in some fashion or other. Nowadays, a fellow who has done this has many resources other than the ranks. You find him in the Australian bush, in a mining camp of the Western States, in a Florida orange garden, on a ranche in Texas, or in the “fertile belt” out beyond Winnipeg. He may be prospecting in the Transvaal or galloping after steers in the Argentine. I have shaken the hand – and a deuced greasy hand it was – of a broken baronet doing duty as cook in a New Zealand timber-cutting camp, and have had a hackman at Portage la Prairie who was the son of a noble marquis, and had himself a courtesy title. For the broken gentleman of the Crimean war time there were no such opportunities of obscurity and possible redemption. The alternatives for him were utter blackguardism or the ranks of the army. When he chose the latter he invariably went for cavalry, ignorant or regardless of the harder work devolving on that arm; and almost invariably it was a light cavalry regiment in which he enrolled himself – always under a false name. The “Skilamalinks” were a favourite corps with gentlemen recruits under a cloud. Its chief was proud of this preference, and showed kindness to the waifs of good family. In my day they were invariably posted to A troop, which Captain Jolliffe ruled so kindly and yet so firmly, and which went in the regiment by the name of “the Gentlemen’s Troop.” When possible the gentlemen were always quartered together in the same troop-room, and were on their honour to behave creditably and show a good example in every respect. There were twelve of us, I remember, in one of those low-roofed attics above the stables in the old cavalry barracks of Sheffield. The corporal in charge of the room was the son of a great squire and M.P.; his mother the daughter of a Scotch marquis.

My chum was a stalwart and handsome young fellow, who had joined on the same day I became a “Skilamalink.” He was reticent as to his antecedents; but he had confided to me that he had held a commission in an Indian native cavalry regiment, had come a mucker over high play at Simla, could not bring himself to face his mother (who was the widow of a clergyman of small means), had thrown up his commission, come home, and had ’listed for “the Skilamalinks” at the old “Hampshire Hog” in Charles Street, Westminster, on the very day he landed. As we rode back together from out the hell of slaughter on the morning of Balaclava, Charlie Johnstone (of course a “purser’s” name) had killed the Cossack who had speared me, and cut down another who was in the act of skewering me from behind. Farther up the valley I believe I saved his life when the cannon-shot that bowled over his horse broke his leg, and when, lame though I was, I managed to carry him on my back up to the cover of Brandling’s battery on the Causeway Ridge. So you may believe we were friends and comrades, and had a love for each other “passing the love of woman.”

My chum was not a very social person, although always on perfectly good terms with his comrades of the “gentlemen’s” barrack-room. He had frequent accesses of gloom, caused, I assumed, by the sudden shipwreck he had made of a career that must have been very promising, for he was a man of strong intellect, highly accomplished, a fine linguist, and well versed in military history and the science of war. When the shadow fell upon him, he used to spend much of his time in the stable with his mare. She was rather a notable animal. Desperately wounded as she was in the retreat from the Balaclava Charge, she had pulled herself together, reached the rallying-place of the Light Brigade, and formed up on the flank of the troop to which she belonged. She had recovered from her injuries with extraordinary rapidity, and had withstood with singular fortitude the hardships and starvation of the terrible winter; and she now among all troop horses in the regiment was the only survivor of the famous Charge. The dreadful Crimean winter had left its mark upon her. Before that evil time her nature had been gentle, and her paces smooth and easy. But during the worst of it, too weak to stand, she had long lain embedded in frozen mud and snow. She had risen, indeed, out of this misery, and had regained strength and shapeliness, but ever after she was the roughest trotter in the regiment. And with the ease of her paces had gone, too, the mare’s temper. She had become a vicious and dangerous savage, to approach which was unsafe for any one save only the trooper who had ridden her in the Charge, to whom she was uniformly gentle and affectionate. Johnstone would sit by her for hours at a time on the manger at her head, or on the hanging bale by her side, talking in low tones to the old jade, and she listened to him for all the world as if she understood him, which, indeed, I am sure, he more than believed that she did.

Christmas Day in the army is the great festival of the year. The preparations for its adequate celebration are commenced days in advance. I hear – but I do not know whether it is true – that the cost of the Christmas dinner is now defrayed out of the canteen fund. But in our day – at all events in the cavalry regiments – the captain of each troop took, and was proud to take, that obligation upon himself as regarded his own men. There used to be quite a little ceremony about the matter. Some ten days in advance the troop sergeant-major would go round the barrack-rooms, and make a little speech in each room. “Men,” he would say, striking an attitude, “our worthy captain has commissioned me to inform you that he will have great pleasure in having the men of his troop eat their Christmas dinner at his expense, and that he will also contribute toward the celebration of the day half a gallon of stout per man, which he regards as an adequate allowance if his men, as he anxiously desires, are to keep reasonably sober, and not discredit him and themselves by getting drunk.” Cheers would follow this intimation, and a sarcastic old soldier might interject the remark, “The captain don’t know, Sergeant-Major, how strong A troop heads are. We could drink a gallon per man, and never turn a hair!” Whereunto the honest sergeant-major would retort, “Ah, Lucas, we know what a power of suction you have without showing the drink, but remember it’s not a fortnight since when you were walking pack-drill for being as drunk as a boiled owl.” Lucas thus suppressed, the sergeant-major would proceed: “Now, men, take a day or two to make your minds up what you prefer for dinner – geese, turkeys, roast pork, veal – whatever delicacies of the season you may fancy, and then let the orderly corporal know your choice, so that he may give the order in good time. The materials for the plum-pudding – they are – of course you know.”

Then the artistic genius of the room would betake himself to mural decorations, representations in colours of the banners of the regiment, the captain’s coat-of-arms, such legends as “A Merry Christmas to all!” “Long life to our worthy Captain!” “The ‘Skilamalinks’ take the right of the line!” and so forth. Adjacent plantations are harried of Christmas trees, holly, and mistletoe, and each room becomes an evergreen bower. Christmas Eve is the period of busy labour, skill and triumph on the part of the pudding-compounder, whose satellites pick raisins of their stones, chop the lemon-peel, and heroically refrain from taking surreptitious sips of the brandy destined to invigorate the pudding. Volunteers are ready with their clean towels to serve as pudding-cloths, and then a procession marches to the cookhouse, where the puddings are consigned to the copper over which the conscientious compounder holds his long vigil. It is a pleasant time when on Christmas Day the bountiful fare is spread on the barrack-room table, and when the captain goes round the rooms, and says a few genial words to the men standing at attention while they listen. Then the oldest soldier, nudged by his mates, takes one pace to his front, halts, comes to preternaturally rigid attention, and shoots out the words, “Captain Jolliffe, sir” – then stammers painfully for the space of about a minute, and finally blurts out – “wish to thank you, sir – most liberal dinner, stout, sir – drink your health, sir – proud of our captain, sir – wish you and yours Merry Christmas and many of ’em!” “Same to you, men,” replies the captain – genially tastes the stout which the cheekiest man tenders him in a stoneware soup basin, and with, mayhap, the words “Be merry but be wise” clanks out of the room, followed by a cheer.