‘Things ain’t comfortable in the old corps, not just now; and there’s going to be a row. They won’t let on to you,’cos you’re a non-com, and what’s more, only a recruit. There’s men in the regiment mean mischief, if they only get the chance; and if they don’t, they’ll make it, sure as my name’s Joe.’
‘What can they do?’
‘They don’t think or care. All they want is a rumpus, so as to get old Byfield in trouble and make him leave, and that they’ll be able to do. Don’t join them, not whatever they say. Keep your ears cocked, and nip in—only on the right side.’
Hanlon had taken his discharge and got the promise of a billet at Dr. Plum’s, when the storm actually broke in the Duke’s Own.
Colonel Byfield had been agitated beyond measure at the news of the approaching move of his regiment to one of the large camps, and in view of the scrutiny which there awaited him his petty tyranny had passed all bounds. He had parades morning, noon, and night. He exercised the men ad nauseam at squad drill, goose step, and the manual and platoon. He marched them perpetually in battalion up and down the barrack yard, and he took them out day after day upon Triggertown Common for light infantry drill. All this, albeit torture of the most painful description, they could have tolerated probably without a murmur had not the Colonel, dissatisfied with the progress made, sentenced the regiment to be deprived of all leave in all ranks.
This was the point at which the worm turned. One fine morning, long after the ‘dressing’ bugle had sounded, followed by the ‘non-commissioned officers call’ and the ‘fall-in,’ not a man made his appearance upon parade. Colonel Byfield and the officers had the whole square to themselves. The rest of the regiment with the exception of a number of men belonging to one company, F, formed up in the ditch, and while the commanding officer was whistling at vacancy, marched off in excellent order to a distant part of the glacis, where they piled arms and refused to return.
It would be tedious, and it indeed forms no part of this history to narrate, except in the briefest terms, the progress of this very serious military lâche. The men, as is usual in such cases, went to the wall. The ringleaders were hunted out, tried and severely punished, and the whole regiment was ordered to proceed on foreign service forthwith. The causes which had led to the disturbance were closely investigated, and as a natural consequence Colonel Byfield was placed upon half-pay.
It was for a long time doubtful whether Diggle, who was the next senior, should be allowed to succeed to the command; but he brought all the interest he could to bear, and he eventually won the day.
As Colonel Diggle, commanding a corps really distinguished, although temporarily under a cloud, he found Sir Rupert Farrington not indisposed to accept his proposals for Letitia; and the marriage came off just before the regiment embarked for Gibraltar.
It was at Farrington Hall that the conversation turning, as it had done more than once before, upon the recent mutiny, brought our hero, Herbert Larkins, prominently to the front.