The Making Of A Novelist / An Experiment In Autobiography

by David Christie Murray

'You'll not be allowed to keep these,' he explained, fingering me all over to test the quality of the cloth I wore. 'You'll be in regimentals in a day or two, and it'll make no difference to you.'

One of the officers of the vessel looked in whilst this business was going on and broke in gruffly, 'You join your regiment looking like a gentleman, young man. Your officers won't think any the worse of you for going in decent. Damn it all, sergeant, what d'ye want to spoil the lad's prospects for?'

So a second time the suit was saved; but it went a week later to an old soldier who was leaving the regiment and whom it fitted to a hair. He was to leave a certain portion of his kit behind for me, which, as he assured me, would be of the utmost use; but he sold such articles as belonged to him to the men in his own barrack-room that evening, and decamped without seeing me again.

The stormy passage ended delightfully amidst the quiet beauties and serene shelter of the Cove of Cork. I have seen a great many of the world's show-places since 1865, and I dare say that my inexperience counted for much; but I cannot recall any natural spectacle which afforded me a more genuine delight. It was the morning of the 30th of May. The sun was just rising, and the roofs and spires of the city were outlined against a lucent belt of sky. Spike Island lay green and smiling in the middle of the cove; and on either side, on the emerald slopes, white villas were dotted here and there. The whole scene looked very sweet and pure and homelike, and there were certain thoughts in my own mind which made the view memorable.

We were all bundled up to the Cat's Hill Barracks, and there held over Sunday. My companions melted away unregarded, and I travelled down to Cahir under the charge of a decent old fellow who did not try to buy my clothes, but spent a good deal of time in exhorting me to write to my friends and beg their pardon for having made a fool of myself.

'Yell be doing it late,' he said, 'and ye may as well be doing it soon.'

I was quite lonely and sore enough to have taken the advice, and military glory looked a long way off; but a silly pride withheld me, and I pretended to feel well satisfied with my prospects and surroundings.

When I came to understand things a little I could see that the regiment was in a splendid state of discipline and efficiency. It had not been so a few years before, when the Lieutenant Robinson episode at Birmingham had brought the command of Colonel Bentinck into grave disrepute. Lieutenant-Colonel Shute, on whom the actual charge of the regiment devolved, set to work to bring cosmos out of chaos; and did it, though it took him a day or two of very uphill work. I know more of what a regiment should be than I did then, and I do not ask a firmer or a more judicious discipline. The men were enthusiastically loyal to their colonel, and believed in him as if he had been a sort of deity. I am persuaded that they would have gone anywhere and have done anything for him. There is nothing the British soldier respects like justice, and he likes it none the less if it is a little stern. We all had a holy dread of the colonel, though he was not a bit more of a martinet than any good officer should be; and his wife, who had a habit of giving autographed Prayer Books to the men, was regarded with a genuine affection.

I found the men, in the main, very good fellows indeed. Of course there were all sorts among them. Many were well bred and well educated, and one or two might have been met without surprise in almost any society. Some, again, were thorough-going blackguards, and others, who were among the most popular and the best soldiers, were incurably rackety and undisciplined. One man, who had thrice won his stripes as full corporal, was for the third time broken and reduced to the ranks during my first month of service. He would keep away from drink for two or three years at a time, and then in a night would undo all the results of hard work and self-denial. Take the men in the main, and it would be difficult to find a better lot; but the petty officers seemed to make it the business of their lives to put the heaviest of burdens on the shoulders of any promising recruit. They were none of them very well educated, and I suppose that it was only natural that they should fear the advancement of a youngster better tutored than themselves, and should do their best to keep him down. One only found this disposition amongst the younger non-coms.—men who had not held their places long enough to grow used to the dignity of rank.

There is, or was in my time, a soldiers' proverb, 'As nasty as a new-made corporal,' With one exception the sergeant-majors were good fellows and popular with their men. I shall not give the name of the exception, for he may be still alive; but he was commonly known as 'The Pig,' and he deserved his title. There was no meanness and no denial of military etiquette of which he would not be guilty to get a man into trouble. One badgered private assaulted him violently with a pitchfork, and suffered two years' imprisonment for that misdemeanour. 'The Pig' was quite uncured by this experience; and one night, prowling round the barrack-rooms after 'lights out' to see if he could find an after-dark smoker, he was assailed with a tremendous shower of highlows from every quarter of the room. The cavalry highlow, well aimed and low, as Count Billy Considine said about the decanter, may be made a very effective missile, and its powers of offence are not diminished by the fact that it pretty often carries a spur in the heel of it This event was spoken of with bated breath about the regiment for a day or two, but nothing came of it 'The Pig' was by no means sure of his popularity with his superiors; and there is an admirable and most trustworthy military tradition to the effect that no good officer is ever assaulted by his men.