CHAPTER XXXIV
1871–1874. DOVER. ALDERSHOT

Ordered to Dover—​Garrisons—​Short service—​“Golden Rules”—​Administrative duties—​Lady de Ros—​Alas! Alas!—​M. Henry Dunant—​Aldershot.

The official Report of the mission performed had to be sent in, that done, orders directed me to take over duty in the South-eastern District, of which Dover is Headquarters. A few weeks elapsed, when I received an order of readiness for India. For the first and only time in my career I had to plead inability to proceed; long-continued semi-starvation in Paris had so lowered physical strength that reluctantly I was forced to plead the circumstance. The authorities were pleased thereon to consider that episode equivalent to a tour of foreign service; my name was placed at the bottom of the roster, and so the next three years were spent at the favourite station of England.

All that time the quiet routine of duty was more of an agreeable occupation than arduous or unpleasant work. Among some of the resident families acts of civility towards myself and family were numerous; intercourse with staff and regiments most pleasant, so that recollections of place and people remain agreeable.

Military positions and Departmental establishments connected with the ancient town itself had to be visited from time to time; so also had several throughout the “district,” including Shorncliffe camp, whence had proceeded in the early years of the century the force destined for Spain, under command of Sir John Moore; Canterbury, with its associations connected with St. Augustine; Maidstone, provincial capital of England’s garden; Brighton, etc.

Gradually was the system of short service in the ranks of the Army taking the place of that to which most officers of considerable standing had been accustomed. Complications and friction occurred in such a stage of transition among departments concerned in giving the change effect. In the ranks themselves all was not propitious; the old class of non-commissioned officers gave place to young and inexperienced, whose authority, even when rightly exerted, was not always tacitly accepted by the youthful and unbroken elements concerned. Moral influence such as emanated in many instances from old and experienced sergeants had all but died out; trivial shortcomings on the part of young lads were magnified into “crimes”; more than ordinary difficulty experienced by officers in keeping things smooth, yet “going.”

In matters of administrative routine difference of views between officers concerned seemed inevitable; a satisfactory phase of official life, however, was that in the few instances in which such divergence occurred it was limited to official relations. Previous experience induced me to formulate certain principles in accordance with which correspondence submitted for decision should be dealt with; to them I endeavoured to adhere.[320] Another point taught by experience was that, in directing particular administrative ends to be attained, to leave to officers concerned the details of means by which instructions were to be carried into effect; in that way responsibility attached to the executive, while at the same time it left to them freedom of action.

As a matter of history relating to an important episode, and some personages connected therewith, it is worth while to refer to the account of the famous ball in Brussels on June 15, 1815, related to me by Lady de Ros, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and who was present on the occasion in question. How, while dancing and conviviality proceeded, sounds of waggons and other heavy conveyances, guns and tumbrils among them, broke upon the ears of the gay throng; how small groups of the higher officers entered into grave and subdued talk; how, without exciting notice, singly they slipped away; how in the early hours of morning of the 16th, “the Duke” himself took his departure; how, as the remaining guests left the room, the turmoil in the streets of the Belgian capital resounded with the bray of bugles, trumpets, and military movements;[321] and how, before the day was over, several of those who had so left were brought back wounded, some dead, from Quatre Bras.

[Subsequently, taking advantage of the sixty-one days’ leave to which officers are entitled, I visited the house, now a convent, which stands on the site of the ball-room just mentioned—​40–42, Rue de la Blanchisserie.]