At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner, when we adjourned to the messroom. It was a very large and handsome saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite detached from all the other buildings, but the curtailed dimensions of the table in the middle of it, and the ominous crowding together of the regimental plate, like a show-table in Rundle and Bridge’s back shop, gave startling proofs of the ravages of the “pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday;” for although the whole regiment was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which was for me. The lieutenant-colonel, the major, and, I believe, fifteen other officers, had already been gathered to their fathers, within four months from the day on which the regiment landed from the transports. Their warfare was o’er, and they slept well. At the first, when the insidious disease began to creep on apace, and to evince its deadly virulence, all was dismay and anxiety—downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst casehardened veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over—the mortality increasing, but the dismay decreasing and so it wore on, until it reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by which period there was absolutely no dread at all. A reckless gaiety had succeeded not the screwing up of one’s courage for the nonce, to mount a breach, or to lay an enemy’s frigate aboard, where the substratum of fear is present, although cased over by an energetic exertion of the will; but an unnatural light-heartedness, for which account, ye philosophers, for I cannot—and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, or a small twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circumstances, have caudled and beflannelled themselves, and bored you for your sympathy, at no allowance, as they say.
The major elect, that is, the senior captain, was in the chair; as for the lieutenant-colonel’s vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for any man in the regiment. A stranger of rank, and interest, and money, would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental staff made but one captain a major, as my neighbour on the left hand feelingly remarked. All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner, and no allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o’clock in the evening.
“Sit down, doctor,” said the president—“take some wine; can recommend the Madeira, claret but so, so your health.”
The doctor bowed, and soon became as happy and merry as the rest; so we carried on, until about ten o’clock, when the lights began to waltz a little, and propagate also, and I found I had got enough, or, peradventure, a little more than enough, when the senior captain rose, and walked very composedly out of the room—but I noticed him pinch the doctor’s shoulder as he passed.
The Medico thereupon stole quietly after him; but we did not seem to miss either—a young sub had usurped the deserted throne, and there we were all once more in full career, singing and bousing, and cracking. bad jokes to our hearts’ content. By-and-by, in comes the doctor once more.
“Doctor,” quoth young sub, “take some wine; can’t recommend the Madeira this time,” mimicking his predecessor very successfully; “the claret, you know, has been condemned, but a little hot brandy and water, eh?”
The doctor once more bowed his pate, made his hot stuff, and volunteered a song.—After he had finished, and we had all hammered on the table to his honour and glory, until every thing danced again as if it had been a matter of very trivial concern, he said, “Sorry I was away so long; but old Spatterdash has got a damned thick skin, I can tell you—could scarcely get the lancet into him—I thought I should have had to send for a spring phleme—to tip him the veterinary, you know—and he won’t take physic: so I fear he will have but a poor chance.”
Spatterdash was no other than mine host who had just vacated!
“What, do you really think he is in for it?” said the second oldest captain who sat next me; and as he spoke he drew his leg from beneath the table, and, turning out his dexter heel, seemed to contemplate the site of the prospective fixed spur.
“I do, indeed,” quoth Dr Plaget. He died within three days!