After a prosperous voyage the good steamer Candra dropped anchor in Queenstown Bay, and next day the regiment was disembarked. And then a surprise was in store for the ‘Death or Glory Boys.’ The band of a Hussar regiment came to play them to the station, and when the regiment marched out through the dock-gates they saw a vast multitude of people. English troops had never been popular in Ireland; even in England they had been coldly treated. The army had waned in popularity during the forty years of peace since the Peninsula days.
But for two years the people had been full of the doings of the troops. They had read with moist eyes and kindly hearts the story of the heights of the Alma, of the valley of Balaclava. Their feelings had been wrung when they read of the thousands dying of cholera, of cold, of starvation, and of overwork before Sebastopol.
Their pulses had been quickened when they learned how the ragged, famished, disease-stricken handfuls had hurled back into the fog, whence they emerged, the thousands of the Czar, contending on the slopes of Inkermann from dawn almost till sunset, dying proudly—nay, joyously—where they stood, but never retreating. And, lastly, they had glowed with pride when they heard of the dogged pertinacity with which the handful of heroes, struggling against almost every evil to which an army is open, maintained that stubborn fight in the trenches, enduring without one word of complaint, facing with cheerfulness every danger, suffering privation in silence, meeting death and wounds before the enemy with a smile of contempt, or willingly yielding up their lives from sickness, because they held it was their duty. Every soldier had fulfilled his promise to Queen and Country.
And so the British soldier had shown that he was the same as the men who had hurled back the flower of Napoleon’s army in the Peninsula. He had vindicated his existence; he stood forth in the simple grandeur of his nature; he had shown his countrymen—nay, all the world—that he was the same calm and superb fighter as of yore, and his countrymen had taken him to their hearts and determined to show him they loved him.
So it happened that when the Lancers entered the streets the warm-hearted, impulsive Irish people gave full vent to their feelings. They shouted, they cheered, they forced themselves in amongst the horses, in several instances actually dismounting the Lancers. They shook hands with them, the women even kissing them, they pressed presents upon them, offered them food, drink, tobacco, and so on; and at last all progress was stopped till a large body of police arrived and literally forced a way for the embarrassed soldiers.
‘Good heavens, Will!’ said Jack to his friend when at last they were safely in the railway-station, ‘what an experience! The people seem to have gone mad. I’d almost as soon go through another Balaclava as that.’
‘I don’t know that I would not rather,’ said Will. ‘I’ve had three buttons torn off my tunic, been nearly cut in half by people hanging on to my sword, and been kissed by a terrible old woman who I should think has lived all her life on whisky, onions, and tobacco!’
When they arrived at Cahir, where they were to be stationed, the town had determined to give the Lancers a right royal welcome. The officers were invited to a banquet and ball by the mayor, the non-coms, and men were fêted and feasted; the townspeople pressed forward to make the acquaintance of the men, and asked them here and there till every one was tired. They soon got to know which of the men had ridden in the famous charge, and every one who wore the clasp with Balaclava on it was certain of a warm and hearty welcome.
Things presently began to settle down into the usual home routine, many men went away on furlough, and Jack himself was hoping to get away. He was sent off one day to Queenstown to meet some details from the depôt, returning next day.
When on the next morning he passed through the gate he almost burst out laughing as the sentry smartly ‘carried’ his lance and brought his left hand across his body till it touched the lance in salute.