Every patriot will forgive a digression on the day (December 6th) these lines are being written, for it is a landmark in the annals of the Army as recording the last occasion (fifty years ago) that British infantry advanced in line in old Peninsular formation—in slow time—halting periodically and dressing on their coverers as we see on a Hyde Park parade, under a terrific fire of shot and shrapnel, and then, breaking into the old-fashioned charge, the irresistible cheer, and cold steel as a climax.
For on that decisive day the Gwalior contingent, 80,000 strong, splendidly drilled, the flower of the Sepoy Army, was shattered by Colin Campbell and his handful of 3,400 men, and the neck of the great Mutiny was broken.
No man living to-day who heard that crumpling sound and that avenging cheer can ever—will ever—forget it, and it behoves you, my masters, to remember, when you see the red and white-striped ribbon on the mendicant selling matches, or his more fortunate comrade patrolling outside a shop door, that in the words of Colin Campbell: “Every man of them that day was worth his weight in gold to England.”
And here one is reminded of a German prejudice of the Dowager Queen Adelaide (whom we all prayed for in our youth), who at levées and Court functions insisted on kilted officers appearing in “trews”—the absence of the “breeks” being too shockingly shocking.
And whilst on this subject I am reminded, by the recent death of George FitzGeorge at Lucerne, of many incidents more or less military.
At Gibraltar as late as ’65 was a sentry posted on a promontory that originally commanded a view of the Straits—but which a high wall had subsequently obliterated—whose orders were “To keep a sharp look out and immediately to report if the Spanish fleet was in sight.”
The Governor at the time was Sir Richard Airey, the most courteous of the old English school of gentlemen, but probably the worst Quartermaster-General that ever permitted boots and blankets to accumulate at Balaclava and brave men to freeze and starve at the front. It was an inspiration of his to utilise the stores with which Gibraltar is permanently provisioned by a periodical issue of salt pork rations that had accumulated since the Crimean War. Needless to add, much was mouldy, and many the complaints, and on one occasion when a vehement report reached him, he replied: “Leave it here, it shall be seen to.” Not long after invitations were issued for a dinner at the Convent, to which the “Board” on the rotten pork were invited.
The banquet was the finest a French cook could produce, and one dish with “Sauce Robert” especially appreciated.
“That, gentlemen, is your rotten pork, and shows you how some men are never satisfied,” was his Excellency’s appropriate (!) comment. But there is not a cordon bleu in every regimental cook-house.