Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849 - Various - Страница 3

On the evening of the 13th of February last, I was sitting in my library, at my residence in – Square, when a double knock at the door announced the postman. Betty presently entered, bringing, not as I anticipated, a letter or two, but a small packet, which evidently excited her curiosity, as it did mine.

The first thing upon the said packet that caught my eye was a large seal of red wax – the royal arms! – then, above the direction, "On Her Majesty's service!" – just beneath, the word, "Medal!" Yes, the medal that I had earned five-and-thirty years before, in the hard-fought fight on the hill of Toulouse – long expected, it was come at last! And, let me tell you, a very handsome medal, too; well designed, well executed; and accompanied with a very civil letter, from that old soldier, and true soldier's friend, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the military secretary. This letter being, no doubt, precisely the same as hundreds of "Old Peninsulars" have by this time received, I presume I am guilty of no breach of confidence in here transcribing it for the benefit of my readers: —

"Horse-Guards, 31st January 1849.

"Sir, – I am directed by the Commander-in-Chief to transmit to you the Medal and Clasps graciously awarded to you by her Majesty under the general order of the first of June 1847. I have the honour to be, &c.

"Fitzroy Somerset."

As I never attempt to describe my own feelings, except such as are describable, I shall not relate what I now felt on the receipt of this much desired, anxiously expected medal. But this I will say; – long live the Queen! long live Queen Victoria! God bless her! Oh, it was a kind thought: it was a gracious act. It comes to cheer the heart of many an old soldier, and of many a middle-aged gentleman like myself, who got nothing but honour and aching bones for his share in the Peninsular glories; and now has something that he can add to the archives of his family, and leave to those who come after him. "Graciously awarded to you by her Majesty: " Yes; and I feel it as much so, as if her Majesty's own gracious hands had placed it in mine. And, if ever she wants defenders, so long as this arm can wield – but enough: romance would be out of place.

After the delivery of the medals had been proceeding for some time, I was coming, one morning, out of the Horse-Guards, when I met old Major Snaffle, who had just got his. The major belongs to that class who are known in the army by the name of "grumblers;" and, having been knocked down by the wind of a shot at the Trocadero, having been brought away in the last boat but nineteen from Corunna, having seen the battle of Salamanca from the top of a tree, having been seized with the ague but an hour before the storming of Badajoz, having again been very ill in the south of France from eating unripe grapes, having regularly drawn his pay and allowances, and never having been absent from his regiment on sick leave when he could not get it, now justly deems himself a very ill-used man, because more has not been done for him. "Well, major," said I, "I wish you joy. So you have got your medal at last." "Yes," growled the major, or rather grunted, "at last I have got it. Long time, though, six-and-thirty years – long time to wait for half-a-crown."

My own profession, at present, is very different from that of arms. Nor can I presume, having been in but one general action, to rank with those brave old fire-eaters of the Peninsular army, whose medals with many clasps – bar above bar – tell of six, seven, eight, critical combats or more, in which they took a part under the illustrious Wellington, in Portugal, in Spain, in the south of France. By the bye, how I should like to see the Duke's own medal! What a lot of bars HE must have! – what a glorious ladder, step rising above step in regular succession, when he sits down to soup in his field-marshal's coat! But I was going to say – to return from great things to small – so far from being able to claim high military honours for myself, though serving under his Grace's orders in the Peninsular war, I was not there at all in a strictly military capacity. Yet as, from this very circumstance, I had opportunities of seeing scenes, characters, and incidents, connected with the British army, of a different kind from those described by other writers on the subject, I am induced, by the arrival of my medal, to place on record a short narrative of my personal adventures in the Peninsula and south of France.

Yet, ere I commence the yarn, a word, one word, for the honoured dead. Many, who came home safe from the Peninsula, fell at Waterloo. Others were borne from the western ports of Europe across the Atlantic, to be marks for Kentucky riflemen and New England bushfighters. Of the survivors, multitudes upon multitudes have gradually dropped off; and those who now remain, of the legions that conquered at Vimeira, at Vittoria, and at Orthes, to receive her Majesty's gracious gift, are probably fewer in number than those who are gone. One "Old Peninsular" I have heard of, in whose own family and connexions, had all lived, there would have been fourteen or fifteen claimants of the medal. He is now, if he still survives, the only one left. In my own connexions we should have made seven; and now, besides myself, there remains only one venerable uncle, who is comfortably located in a snug berth in Canada. There was my honoured father, who received the thanks of parliament for his services at Corunna, and pounded the French batteries at Cadiz. There was my cousin, Tom Impett, of the 53d, whom I found with a musket-ball in his leg two days after the battle of Toulouse, in a house full of wounded men and officers. He died in Canada. There was another venerable uncle, as kind an uncle as ever breathed, and as honest a man as ever lived. He died, to his honour, far from rich, after having been personally responsible for millions upon millions of public money, the sinews of war, all paid away in hard cash for our Peninsular expenses. He was generally known at headquarters by a comical modification of his two Christian names. There was Captain, afterwards Colonel B – , of the Royal Engineers, a quiet, mild-tempered man, with military ardour glowing in his breast – the man of education and the gentleman. We met near the platform of St Cyprien; and he had the kindness to entertain me with a calm disquisition on the fight, while we were both in the thick of it. He had his share of professional employment in the Peninsular sieges, and got a bad wound or two; but lived to fortify Spike Island, and was at length lost at sea. And then there was colonel H – , who commanded a Portuguese brigade with the rank of brigadier-general – an extraordinary composition of waggery, shrewdness, chivalry, and professional talent. He came down to Lisbon while I was there, on his way to England, quite worn out with hard service and the effect of his wounds, or, as he told us himself, "unripped at every seam." He died not many days after, on his passage to England.

Now for myself. I commenced keeping my terms at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the year 1809, the seventeenth of my age. A college life was not altogether my own choice; for nearly all the males of my family, for three generations, had served or were serving their country either in the army, navy, or marines, to the number of some ten or twelve; and I myself had always looked forward to wearing the king's uniform. Moreover, as the Peninsular war had already commenced when I went to college, and I had learned at school the use of the broadsword and small sword, had been drilled, and could handle a musket, my thoughts often turned to military scenes, especially when I read in the daily journals of victories won, first by Sir Arthur Wellesley, then by Lord Wellington. But, once at Cambridge, I caught the fever of academic emulation. My cousin B – (brother of the Captain B – above mentioned,) had been senior wrangler, and had given me some useful hints as to the mode of reading with effect; I read hard, obtained a Trinity scholarship in my first year, first class the same year, ditto the second year, and stood fair for a place among the wranglers. But now my health broke; not, however, from hard living, but from hard study. I was compelled to give up; and, not choosing to read for a middling degree after having been booked for a high one, determined to go out among the hoys. Now my penchant for military adventure returned with full force. I was miserably out of health, with an excellent constitution – in proof of which I always found that I lost ground by nursing, but gained by a rough open-air life. A campaign or two would be just the thing for me. And I beg to offer this suggestion to growing young gentlemen who are sickly, and consequently hipped, as I was. If, with rough living – that is, with much moving about, and constant exposure to the atmosphere – you grow worse, I can give you no comfort; you are a poor creature, take all the care of yourself you can. But if, with the same kind of life, you grow better, stronger, stouter, heartier, saucier, depend upon it, you have some stamina. This was my case. I saw that a sedentary life was not the life I was made for; an active life was the life for me; and my thoughts dwelt more and more on the Peninsula. I rubbed up my French, procured a Gil Blas in Spanish, ditto in Portuguese, a Portuguese and a Spanish grammar, and, for a sick man, made wonderful progress in all the three languages.

But, alas! there was a hitch. I was an only son, and an only child – intended for the law! My dear father had already made me a present, while at school, of Fortescue De Laudibus; and I had already gobbled up a portion of that excellent work – for I was always an omnivorous reader – and had digested it too. And then what would my dear mother say, if I talked to her about going to be shot at for the benefit of my health? It was a delicate point to manage, and how to manage it I knew not.

In the long vacation of 1812, which closed my third year at Trinity College, Cambridge, I brought matters to an explanation. My father's ship, the – , 74, was then in the Downs, and we had lodgings on Walmer beach. I stated my desire to enter the army, and my firm conviction that nothing else would restore my shattered constitution. But my father was inflexible, my mother answered all my arguments, and I saw that I had no chance.

But when one way of gaining an object fails, another sometimes presents itself. My two uncles, of whom I have spoken, were already in the Peninsula, both of them in the same department, the senior at the head of it, with the privilege of occasionally nominating his own clerks. Their friends in England heard from them now and then; and I saw a letter from my senior uncle to a particular old crony of his own, who had influential connexions, asking him why he did not come out to the army with the rank of A. D. P. M. G.,16 instead of staying at home, and eating roast pig for supper.

Like all the hipped, a miserable race, I was constantly thinking about myself; and now a happy thought struck me. As to parliamentary interest, to be sure I had none. Besides, being under one-and-twenty, I was not of an age to aspire to an officer's rank, in a department of so much responsibility as the paymaster-general's; therefore, the above standing of assistant-deputy, which put an epaulet on the shoulder at once, was not to be thought of. But then, if Buonaparte would only have the kindness to keep us in hot water two or three years longer, I might rise to the said rank by previous good conduct in the office of clerk, and that my uncle could get me at once.

I again broke ground with my honoured parents. My father assured me that, if I went to Lisbon, where he had been stationed with his ship, I should find it a hell upon earth: though I afterwards learned that he had contrived to spend a tolerably happy life there. "And as to your being attached to headquarters, and following the movements of the army, I," said he, "have seen quite enough of service ashore to be able to tell you that you will be soon sick of that." But, to cut the story short, my dear mother now began to incline to my view of the subject. To be sure a clerkship was not exactly what they had thought of for me – but it might lead to something better – no man's education was complete without a tour on the Continent – the usual tour through France, Italy, and the south of Germany, was rendered impossible by the war – and where, in all Europe, could a young man travel, except in Spain and Portugal? Fighting, and paying those who fought, were different things – I might keep out of the way of bullets, and yet contrive to see the world. In short, these arguments prevailed. A letter was written out to my uncle, begging him to write a letter to the head office in London, nominating me as one of his clerks for Peninsular service. I went back to Cambridge, attacked Spanish and Portuguese with renewed ferocity, took my degree of A. B., and returned home in the early part of 1813, just in time to meet a letter from the best of uncles, stating that he had written to the home authorities, and was anxiously expecting my valuable assistance in the Peninsula.

Nothing was now wanting but the nomination from London. That anxious month! Morning after morning I watched for the postman's knock; and, at every such summons, it was myself that opened the door to him. But great bodies move slowly, and official dignity delights to announce itself by tardiness of action. At length the wished-for communication arrived; a letter, "On His Majesty's Service," of no common magnitude; a seal of correspondent amplitude; and an intimation, in terms of stately brevity, that I was appointed a clerk of the military chest attached to the Peninsular army, and was to attend at the office in London to receive my instructions.

During that month the bustle of preparation, in our usually quiet domicile, had been immense. Stockings sufficient to set up a Cheapside hosier, shirts enough for a voyage to India, flannel commensurate with a visit to the North Pole – everything, in short, that could be thought of, was prepared for the occasion with kind and provident care. I said farewell, reached London, reported myself, got my orders and an advance, booked my place for Falmouth, and found myself the same evening a passenger to Exeter by the fast coach.

In those times, the journey from London to Falmouth by the fast coach was a light off-hand affair of two nights and two days. We reached Exeter on the second night, and there I was allowed the indulgence of three hours' bed, till the Falmouth coach was ready to start. As part of the said three hours was occupied in undressing and dressing, and part also in saying my prayers, I entered the new vehicle far more disposed for sleep than for conversation. But there I found, to my consternation, a very chatty passenger, perfectly fresh! He was a man of universal information – in short, a talented individual, and an intellectual character; had his own ideas upon morals, politics, theology, physics, metaphysics, and general literature; was particularly anxious to impart them; and was travelling to obtain orders in the rum and hollands line. Ah, what a night was that! Oh the dismal suffering which a prosy talker inflicts on a weary head! Of all nuisances, the most unconscious is the bore. I do think the Speaker of the House of Commons is the most ill-used man in the three kingdoms. Reflect: he must not only hear – he must listen! And then think what a time! – hour after hour, and day after day! For a period amounting, in the aggregate, to no small portion of the life of man, must that unfortunate victim of British institutions sit and hearken to

Some portion of such suffering I myself was now compelled to endure, by my communicative friend in the Falmouth coach. To be sure, it was only a single proser; but then there was variety in one. He commenced by a few remarks on the weather, by which he introduced a disquisition on meteorology. He then passed, by an easy transition, to the question of secondary punishments; glanced at the theory of gravitation; dwelt for some time on heraldry; touched on hydrostatics; was large on logarithms; then digressed on the American war; proposed emendations of our authorised version; discussed the Neptunian theory; and at length suspended his course, to inform me that I was decidedly the most agreeable fellow-traveller he had ever met with. The fact is, I was sitting up all this time in the corner of the coach, in a state of agony and indignation indescribable, meditating some mode of putting a stop to the annoyance, and mentally seeking a solution to the question – What right has a very stupid person to make your brain a thoroughfare for his stupid ideas, especially when you would particularly like to go to sleep? He mistook my silence for attention, and thought he was appreciated. This went on till daylight – continued to breakfast-time – proceeded during breakfast – ceased not when we had re-entered the coach-talk, talk, talk, de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis– still the same stream of stuff. That long, that dreary journey from Exeter to Falmouth! The soft lull of somnolency came at length to my relief; and I began to nod my assent, much to my tormentor's gratification. But presently I was dead asleep; and, most unfortunately, my head dropped forward into the pit of his stomach. The breath, knocked out of his body, escaped with a gasp, like an Indian's "ugh!" In a moment I was broad awake, and made a thousand apologies, which he politely accepted, and renewed the thread of his discourse. Again, I dropped off; and again my head dropped forward. Another "ugh!" another ocean of apologies, another resumption of the endless yarn. The other passengers, two sedate and remarkably silent gentlemen of Falmouth, in broad-brimmed hats and drab coats of a peculiar cut, had each his weather-eye open, and began to enjoy the joke amazingly. Gradually, once more, the incessant clack subsided in my ears to a pleasing hum; I was off; the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar muscles once more lost their tension beneath the narcotic influence of incessant sound; and my drowsy head gave a pitch as before, with the same results – "ugh!" – apologies unlimited – ditto accepted – and more yarn. The Quakers – I beg their pardon, the "Friends" – are, you must know, eminently humourists. This, please to take notice, arises from their superior intelligence, and high degree of mental culture; the result of which is high susceptibility. You might now have seen, in our two fellow-travellers in the Falmouth coach, what you would see nowhere but in their "connexion" – two men ready to die of laughing, and each looking as grave as a judge. For a few miles it went on. Talk – sleep – head pitched into bread-basket – "ugh!" – pungent and profound regrets – regrets accepted – talk recommenced – and so on with a perpetual da capo. At length the most gifted of gratuitous lecturers began to perceive that he was contributing to the amusement of the party in a way that he had not intended, and grew indignant. But I pacified him, as we drove into Falmouth, by politely soliciting a card of his house; stepped out of the coach into the coffee-room of the hotel, out of the coffee-room into bed as soon as it was ready, and made up for two sleepless nights by not coming down to breakfast till two o'clock the next day.

The Lisbon packet was not to sail for a week. My extra baggage arrived in due time by the heavy; and I occupied the interval, as best I could, in a pedestrian survey of the environs of Falmouth, walks to Truro, Pendennis Castle, &c. I was much delighted with clouted cream, and gave the landlady an unlimited order always to let me have a john dory for dinner, when there was one in the market. N.B. – No place like Falmouth for john dories. Clouted cream always ask for, when you go into the West – very good with tea, not bad with coffee; and mem., unimpeachable with apple-pie.

The packet, that was to have the honour of conveying me from Falmouth to Lisbon, was a little tub of a gun-brig, yclept the Princess Wilhelmina. Judging from her entire want of all the qualities requisite for the service on which she was employed, I presume she must have obtained the situation through some member of parliament. Her captain was laid up with the gout; and we were to be commanded by the mate, who turned out to be a Yankee, and an ugly customer; but more of him anon. At the same hotel where I had established my habitat, was a military party, three in number, waiting, like myself, for the sailing of the packet; yet not, like myself, men fresh in the service, but all three regular "Peninsulars" – men who had returned on leave from the British army, and were now about to join, in time for the opening of the campaign. They had established themselves in a front drawing-room on the first floor, seemed very fond of music, and had good voices. But as they always sang together, and each sang his own song, it was not easy to determine the vocal powers of each. The coffee-room was quite good enough for me; and there I had the honour of forming the acquaintance of another fellow-voyager that was to be – a partner in a large London house in the Manchester line, whom, to avoid personality, I beg leave to distinguish by the name of Gingham. He had many of the peculiarities of Cockneyism, and some that were entirely his own; but I found him a very pleasant companion, and we perambulated the town and neighbourhood in company.