Not content with the light sprinkling of down which nature had planted and was nurturing on my upper lip, I spared from my scanty pay a sum of one shilling and sixpence for a bushy pair of false moustaches, which, however, all my efforts to make stick proved futile: they only made me sneeze; so I was obliged to fall back upon the old toothbrush and square of Indian ink presented to me by Dorcas, wherewith to blacken my young crop, to make believe that I was more of a man than a boy. The regiment was divided into three detachments of two troops each, and I belonged to the first that marched out of our old quarters, including the band. A large crowd had collected to witness our departure. A deal of hand-shaking and clinging to the stirrups was going on as we filed out of the barrack-gate to the tune of “The girl I left behind me;” and many a tear was shed by those who, having made a short acquaintance with some of the men while they had been quartered here, were destined never to see them again; indeed, I recollect that four of the number that marched with me on that morning died, a few years after, of a fever that broke out in the camp at Chobham; the bones of eight were left to whiten in the death-vale, after the battle of Balaklava; and three were killed during the Indian revolt, whither they had gone, transferred, at their own request, to other regiments. Few, however, of the whole regiment were left when actions, disease, and the short-comings of the commissariat had done their work, at the conclusion of the Crimean campaign. But of this I shall write in due course, and proceed with my narrative and detachment on our line of march.
As is customary on a regiment leaving quarters, hundreds of the “tag, rag, and bob-tail” followed us through the streets to the outskirts of the town, the last to leave us being the girls; and they would have trudged on, keeping our company as long as they could have held out, but for the order to “trot,” which the trumpet sounded directly on leaving the street pavement.
“Good-bye, Mary!” “good-bye, Helen!” “farewell, honey, dear!” was followed by a series of wild shrieks that could be heard for some distance above the clattering of hoofs and the clanking of sabres. Our first day’s march was a distance of eighteen miles. The billeting party had preceded us in the usual way on the day before, and quarters were provided for every man, in numbers of from one to half-a-dozen, according to the accommodation to be obtained at the various hotels and public-houses in the town where we halted. All the inhabitants appeared to have turned out to welcome us, and they lined the roadside for nearly a mile ere we reached the market-place, where we formed up, surrounded by a dense crowd, while the band played, after which we were dismissed to our respective billets. I was particularly fortunate in having nice comfortable quarters to myself, in a small public-house near the outskirts of the town, kept by an aged widow; and she made a great fuss over me.
“Deary me! why, he is but a child,” she remarked, as my gallant “Restless” capered into her stable-yard. The neighbours, such as were left at home, collected about the place.
“Shame on the government for enlisting such a boy! I wonder how his poor mother took it!”
Impudent and conceited though I had become, this allusion to my mother broke through a little of my fortitude. However, I appeared not to notice the running fire of remarks these good-natured people made from time to time, as I dismounted and busied myself in cleaning my horse and accoutrements, after which my kind hostess invited me into her private parlour, to a nice dinner she had provided expressly for me, consisting of a roast leg of lamb, with mint sauce, and a “rhubarb dumpling.”
“I always make it a point to treat a soldier to the best I can afford, because he risks his life to save others and their property,” she said, as she reached me a chair, and told me to be seated.
Now, I was particularly fond of pudding, but I had never tasted any since I left home, and in reply to her question, as to which I would prefer first, pudding or meat, I preferred the former. A little boy, about six years of age (the old lady’s grandson) sat on a stool in the same apartment, and appeared completely absorbed in my every movement. I was very hungry—soldiers are invariably hungry, and thirsty too, after a long march—the nice rich dumpling, turned bottom upwards out of an earthenware basin in which it had been boiled, was already on the table, with the syrup oozing from a fissure in the side into the clean willow-pattern dish.
“Help yourself,” said this kind old woman.
I did help myself, with a will too, and she assisted by sprinkling sugar and pouring rich thick cream over the portion I had taken to myself. She then took her seat in the corner, and the manner in which her dumpling disappeared evidently gave her as much pleasure as it did me; but the little boy—Tommy she called him—appeared, as I thought, rather spiteful in the frowns he gave me from time to time, as the demolition of the dumpling continued.