Читать книгу Stalky's Reminiscences - Lionel Charles Dunsterville - Страница 16

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I sailed from Woolwich for Malta on board a hired transport on November 1, 1884. As my sisters had already gone to join my father in India, I was the last of the family to set out on my adventures, and there was consequently no one to wave a kindly farewell on the quay and no one appeared to care twopence where I was going or what was to become of me.

I was very far from feeling depressed on this account—in fact, I never noticed the omission. It has only occurred to me now, as I set down these reminiscences. Later life has convinced me how much pleasanter it is not to be seen off, or met on arrival. On both occasions one has plenty to do and to think of, and affectionate farewells and welcomes generally mean the loss of a trunk or two.

After an uneventful voyage I reported myself for duty at regimental head-quarters in Ricasoli Barracks, and soon found myself drilling with recruits on the barrack-square, which constituted my chief employment during the first six months of my service.

During these six months I was severely snubbed, and learnt, by committing each fault in turn, the intricacies of army etiquette.

On a regimental guest-night which I found rather boring I retired to rest about 1 a.m. while there were still guests in the Mess. At about 2 a.m. I learnt that one must not do this. There is no need to give full details of events, but fate was not unkindly to me. My tub was at the foot of my bed, filled with cold water ready for the morning. One subaltern proposed that I had better have my bath at once and proceeded to put me into it. We struggled across the bath for some time and I evaded the ducking. Next morning I found at the bottom of my tub this officer’s gold watch, which had fallen out of his pocket in the struggle.

My quarters had whitewashed walls and the blood-stains on these must have startled my soldier servant. But it really was not a very serious affair. Noses bleed easily, and the blood was not all mine.

On returning to the ante-room after parade one day, a friend remarked with surprise that he had noticed that I had broken the point off my sword. I at once drew it to show him he was wrong, and so learnt that you must not draw your sword in the ante-room (a wise precaution from the old duelling days). The large amount of Port-wine I had to pay for as a punishment made this lesson easily remembered.

Three more occasions on which I had to stand the whole Mess Port-wine were when I spoke of some religious matter, when I opened a political discussion, and when I mentioned a lady’s name—three good rules well learnt, though at considerable expense to my father. A mention of Wellington’s campaign in the Peninsular cost me some more Port, and I was now more than half educated, having learnt the excellent rules that in a Mess you must not discuss religion or politics, or mention a lady’s name, or talk shop.

Carrying the Colours for the first time was a costly honour, also involving expensive refreshment for my brother officers.

My pay was five shillings and threepence a day, and my father gave me the small allowance of £100 a year, which just doubled my pay; but this fell far short of my Mess-bill, and further parental assistance was necessary at frequent intervals.

Malta, being at that time the head-quarters of the Mediterranean squadron, was a pretty lively place, and there was plenty to amuse one outside barracks. Dances were frequent, as well as all the usual forms of social gaiety.

I went to a ball at Government House, looking, as I thought, very smart in my brand-new scarlet Mess-jacket with a good deal of gold lace on it. But the room seemed full of midshipmen, and I found to my sorrow that no girl will look at a scarlet coat when there is a bluejacket around.

I am grateful to the Royal Navy for many cheerful suppers on board ship very late at night—or perhaps early in the morning. A favourite menu on these occasions was a simple one: ‘sardines, raw onions, and gin’.

Both officers and men had splendid boating facilities. I had a small sailing-canoe, out of which I got much enjoyment. A sudden puff of wind upset me when I was about a mile outside the harbour, and as I could not right the canoe, I proceeded to swim homewards, pushing it before me. Progress was slow and very hard work, so I was delighted to see a Maltese boatman coming to my assistance. With his aid I was soon ashore, when I gave him the liberal reward of ten shillings.

This, however, threw him into a perfect frenzy, and he shrieked ‘What, do you value your life at only ten shillings?’ I tried to explain to him that he had saved me trouble but not my life, and if when one had one’s life saved one had to pay the value of one’s life, it would be better not to be saved at all. I was none the worse for my ducking, beyond losing a rather valuable stone out of a ring—I shudder to think that I used to wear rings, but this was a family one.

In January 1885 we were ordered to Cairo, and hoped we might be sent up the river to join the Nile Expedition, but as our 1st Battalion was already there we were kept at the Base.

If Malta had been fairly lively, Cairo put it altogether in the shade. It was before the days when Cairo became a fashionable resort and, being war-time, there were no ladies there. So without their refining influence we were rather wild.

Our favourite amusements in the evening were roulette and baccarat, played in the numerous gambling-dens. Senior officers showed us the way and we were not slow to follow their example. I won at times a mass of golden coins, at other times I lost still more without pausing to consider that I had very little to lose.

The crash very soon came, before I could even wire to my father for help. I awoke one morning to find my tent surrounded by Egyptian Police, and an evil-looking document was thrust into my unwilling hand. But before handcuffs could be actually applied, my brother officers arrived on the scene, and steps were taken that brought the matter to a satisfactory end.

I am now eternally grateful to them for what they did for me, but at the time I did not regard the possibility of having to leave the army as anything very dreadful. I was happy enough in my regiment, but disappointed, as we all were, at being kept at the Base, and the dullness of barrack-square routine in peace-time had already in one short year considerably damped my military ardour. I had wild ideas of starting life afresh in Patagonia, or Timbuctoo, or anywhere where one could feel ‘on one’s own’—which simply meant, I suppose, that I had not yet got accustomed to discipline. My father eventually adjusted matters and set me on my legs again, but with a warning that the next time I should have to extricate myself without his assistance.

Soon after this episode my company was sent to Suez, a dull place after the gay life of Cairo. We had detachments both in this town and at Port Said, and neither of these towns was at all the sort of place a mother would choose for her boy of twenty—in fact, they probably held in those days about the world’s record for iniquity.

At Suez there were one or two gambling-dens which helped us to get rid of our pay, and roulette formed our only recreation at night. But by day we were fortunate in being able to get a little shooting on the marshes formed by the overflow from the sweet-water canal.

There was just enough water, with a few clumps of reeds and tall grasses, to tempt an occasional bird to alight and risk the fusillade of the Suez pot-hunters. Curlew, coot, and now and then a duck or snipe, was all that our shooting-ground yielded us, but it gave us outdoor amusement, and even the coots were a welcome change from our rations of bully-beef.

If we could have had it as our private preserve it would have served all our wants, but being just outside the town, it attracted every scallywag who owned a fire-arm of any sort. It was amusing to watch the procedure. A single curlew would alight somewhere about the middle of the marsh. Then from behind each clump of reeds would gradually become visible the various head-dresses of the seventeen nationalities who had determined to make their evening meal off that unfortunate bird. Bowler hats, a fez or two, a tweed cap, a solah topee—and I think there was once a Levantine Greek in a top-hat. If the bird was killed there was always a dispute as to the ownership, because probably five or six had fired at the same time. But more often the bird flew away unharmed, leaving little to quarrel about except the accusation of premature firing.

I shot a brother officer here. We were coming home after sunset when a duck suddenly alighted on the water. The bird was quite visible above the sky-line, but was lost in the darkness when he got below the line. But we knew about where he was, so we determined to stalk him by going round opposite sides of a big clump of tall grass and so getting him between us. It was a dangerous expedient and the duck got up exactly as we were facing each other. I shot Gilbert and he shot the duck.

The pellets were only just underneath the skin and were easily removed by the doctor, and I was compelled to stand a glass of Port for each pellet. There seemed to be an enormous amount of them, and it was an expensive affair. Gilbert and I still meet occasionally, and I think he still hopes to find a few more pellets.

In the summer our detachment was ordered to Suakim, half-way down the Red Sea on the East Coast of Africa—a nice place for a summer resort. If I were to state what the thermometer actually was I should not be believed, but it was certainly a long way over 120 degrees in the shade. We lived in tents with an extra matting roof to lessen the effect of the direct rays of the sun, but even with that we lost a great many men with heat-stroke.

I invented an excellent device for procuring a cool sleep in the long hot afternoons. I spread a date-palm mat on my bed and poured water on it, and then lay down on it without any clothes. The hotter the desert wind blew, the greater the evaporation, and I kept delightfully cool. But as a result I laid the seeds of rheumatic fever, which developed some months later and nearly put an end to my career.

In the winter of 1885 we were ordered to rejoin regimental head-quarters at Cairo, which soon afterwards left for India. This was rather a disappointment to us, as we were not on the Indian roster and were hoping to go to one of the colonial stations; but the war in Egypt had upset all rosters, so our new destination was Rawal Pindi, in the Punjab, where we arrived in January 1886. Rheumatic fever bowled me out en route and I had to be left behind, sick, in Deolali, where, with good doctors and kind nursing, I was soon pronounced out of danger, and rejoined my regiment in a month’s time.

Travelling up country, I was lucky enough to have a day to spend in Lahore and so met Kipling, and we enjoyed a talk over each other’s adventures.

Kipling was then living with his parents, while employed on the staff of the Civil and Military Gazette, and had already risen to fame as the author of many witty satires on Indian life. We were both twenty years of age and looking forward eagerly to what life might have to show us. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend two days with him before continuing my journey to Rawal Pindi, where I rejoined my regiment in the middle of the training season.

Life in Rawal Pindi was a very fair mixture of hard work and social gaieties. The climate in winter is excellent, and a little shooting can be got in the neighbourhood.

From Pindi we were sent in April to a summer camp in the Himalayas—Upper Topa, where we had a damp and unpleasant time in our tents during the heavy and continuous rains of an extra liberal monsoon.

I soon began to interest myself in the people of the country and their languages, passing the Higher Standard Urdu within a year. This was a great advantage to me, as I soon found it impossible to continue the financial struggle in a British regiment with an allowance of only £100 a year, and being much attracted by the smartness and general appearance of the Indian units, Cavalry and Infantry, that formed part of the garrison, I decided to apply for the Indian Army.

This was no easy matter. I was told bluntly that my application would not be forwarded, and I received a good telling-off from the Captain of my company, who said, ‘Do you think I’ve been training you for three years, and teaching you to be a decent representative of the regiment, in order that you may chuck the whole thing just when you are beginning to be of some use to us?’ and more to the same effect, with various expletives.

I persevered, however, and in the end my application was forwarded and I had the good fortune to be posted to the 24th Punjabis, stationed at Mian Mir.

Here I soon found that the most important part of my education lay before me, as, in addition to purely military training, I had now to learn something of the history of India, and the languages, religions and customs of the men with whom I was now to serve.

The learning of languages is easy to some, but terribly difficult to others. I had the advantage of having passed in Urdu before I decided to enter the Indian Army, and within two years I passed in Punjabi, Pushtu, and Persian. From a complete ignorance of the religions of India, I was soon able to understand sufficient of Hinduism, Mahomedanism, and the Sikh religion to avoid hurting the prejudices of those races; but I naturally made mistakes at first, which occasioned a certain amount of trouble. Coming from a country where we are all of one religion, and where there is no ‘caste’, it was extremely difficult at first to realize the great importance that Indians attach to all matters concerning food and drink, and how each religion, and each caste in each religion, has its own different rules regarding these matters.

I took a great liking, however, to the Pathans, Sikhs, and Dogras of whom the regiment was composed, and by availing myself of every opportunity of conversing with them when off duty soon got to know all that was necessary concerning their customs and modes of life, and in a very short space of time began to feel quite at home in my new surroundings.