I kept a close eye on my captain, however, thinking, if I did as he did I could not be wrong.
We approached the colonel; I saw he had his eye upon me. Ye powers, if such there be, who preside over steps short and long, and all others the deep mysteries of drill and parade, how much did I then need your aid! What mighty effort did I make to keep step.
Within saluting distance, Tom brought up his sword; I did the same; but, looking forward, omitted to bring it down again, till a cough from Tom, and an “Isee, Sahib!” (thus, sir,) from the half-laughing old subadar, caused me quickly to rectify the little omission.
Well, we formed close and open column, solid squares, and squares to receive cavalry, and I know not what on earth besides: there was a fearful drumming, firing, and charging, and I was half-stupefied with the noise and rapid ravelling and unravelling, embodyings and dispersings of this animated Chinese puzzle. However, I stuck close to the rear of my sepoys, and bore up through it wonderfully well upon the whole.
How astonished our descendants, some three or four centuries hence, will be, methinks, when man shall have become one consolidated mass of intellect and morality, as they ponder over our ingenious modes of effecting wholesale extermination! “Thus,” they will exclaim, perhaps, as they sigh over the aberrations and follies of their barbarous ancestors, “’twas thus they shot, slashed, and impaled one another; in this way they attacked and defended; and thus they invested the machinery of destruction with all the pomp of music, the glitter of ornament, and the splendour of decoration.”
Some, however (distinguished historians and pious Christians too), strangely enough, take a very different view of the matter—maintaining that war is an inherent adjunct of the social state—that without it we should become utterly enervated—sink into stagnation, and that, in short, there can be no healthy action without mutual destruction! that it exists at all is puzzling—but that, it must ever be is both mortifying and astounding. Between, however, man viewed as a mere animal, and man considered as an intellectual and moral being, those who hope for perfection and those who despair of it,—Quaker endurance, that bears to be spat upon, and morbid honour, that fires at a look;—between, I say, all these conflicting views and practices—these cross lights and opposite principles—many honest thinkers are sorely puzzled to make up their minds on the subject—as to whether combativeness is, or is not, an inherent element of our nature, which must as necessarily break out into a conflict occasionally, as the atmosphere brews the tempest—or whether war be not destined to swell the category of past follies, witchcraft, persecutions, astrology, and the like; and to this view I for one honestly incline.
The press and steam, right mental culture—proper social organization and international co-operation, may do wonders; so long, however, as war continues to be the “ultima ratio regum,” the arbiter, for want of a better, of national differences, let all honour be shown to those who, in wielding its powers, display, as British soldiers do, some of the noblest qualities of our nature, and who, though yielding to the necessity of shedding blood, still love to temper courage with humanity, and to mitigate its inherent evils.
At length, as all things must, our exercise came to an end. The parade was dismissed. The officers, European and native, fell out on dismissing their companies and advanced towards the commandant, who, as is customary, waited in front to receive them.
Having saluted, and returned their swords to their scabbards, there was a general unbending, and the laugh and the joke and the news went round.
“Well, Rantipole, how does the grey carry you? What did you give for him?”