CHAPTER VII.
ROUTE TO CANTERBURY—THE MARCH—ARRIVAL—CHATHAM—DOCKYARD—FURLOUGH TO LONDON—THAT GREAT CITY—JOIN MY COMPANY—SHEERNESS—THE DOCKYARD—GET MARRIED—ROUTE TO WEEDON—ROUTE TO IRELAND.
A few days afterwards we got the route for Canterbury. On June 2nd we marched from Chatham up High Street, with the band playing at the head of the regiment. We were accompanied by a large crowd of the townspeople outside the town, who gave us three cheers on parting; we marched ten miles that day, and were billeted in the pretty little village of Greenstreet where the people treated us with the greatest kindness and regard.
Resuming the march at seven o'clock the following morning, we arrived at Canterbury at twelve, where we were met by several of our old acquaintances, who were pleased to see us back again, and accompanied us to the barracks. During our stay here of three months we had easy times, getting sixteen nights in bed, hardly any fatigues, but plenty of drill. On the 5th September, 1849, we marched back again to Chatham, arriving there at 5 p.m. on the 6th, after two days hard marching with a full kit weighing fifty pounds. The march tired many of our men, the weather being very sultry and the roads dusty.
The fortified lines around Chatham are the frequent scenes of military siege-operations, miniature battles, and grand reviews.
In a military point of view the lines of detached forts connecting constitute a fortification of great strength, and the whole is regarded as a perfect flank defence for London in the event of an invader seeking to attack the capital from the south coast; the place is also defended by some strong forts on the Medway.
Near Chatham is Fort Pitt, a military hospital and strong fort, barracks for infantry, marines, artillery and engineers, a park of artillery and magazines, storehouse and depôt on a large scale. In a naval sense, it is one of the principal royal shipbuilding establishments in Great Britain, and a visit to it never fails to impress the stranger with a sense of the naval power of the country. The dock-yard is nearly two miles in length, containing several building-slips and wet docks sufficiently capacious for the largest ships, and the whole is traversed in every direction by a tramway for locomotives. There are on an average, 3,500 shipwrights, caulkers, joiners, sawyers, mill-wrights, sail-makers, rope-makers, riggers and labourers, with 5,000 soldiers, sailors and marines, making it lively for public-houses and saloons, which are always crowded with soldiers and sailors in the evenings.