Gosport and Portsmouth were in those days the first stepping stones in the filtration towards Aldershot, after which, and only after a drill season, the grandest soldiers England ever possessed, were considered as presentable troops.
The barrack squares in those happy days, after a regiment had landed, resembled oriental bazaars rather than the starchy, adamant quadrangles familiar to the present generation. Every forenoon officers and men were surrounded by hucksterers of every care and creed, and one’s very quarters were invaded by Jews and Gentiles anxious to sell or buy something.
“This is the most arakristic trap in the west of England, so ’elp me Gawd; isn’t it, Cyril?” one Hebrew would inquire of another, as the points of an ancient buggy and a quadruped standing in the square were extolled to ambitious youngsters; and “Yes it is, so ’elp me Gawd,” often succeeded in selling a rattle-trap that had done duty in every regiment stationed at Gosport from time immemorial. Old clothes-dealers, too, abounded by the score, ready to buy anything for next to nothing. But some of us youngsters were not to be caught like the veterans who were unfamiliar with depôt ways, and the judicious deposit of a farthing in a pocket now and again resulted in phenomenal prices for cast-off garments till the hucksterers “tumbled,” and the harvests ended; and so, between the goose step and a thousand other delights, the happiest days many of us ever enjoyed (though unaware of it at the time) passed slowly on.
At this period the Volunteers had just come into existence, and, not having developed the splendid qualities they proved themselves possessed of during the Boer War, naturally came in for considerable chaff and ridicule.
As a specimen of the senseless jokes that abounded at the time, I may quote what was generally mooted in military messes, that at a recent levée the volunteers who had attended had shown so much esprit de corps that Her Majesty had ordered the windows to be opened; and it is, I believe, an absolute fact that on one occasion an inspecting officer nearly had a fit when the major of a gallant corps appeared with the medal his prize sow had won pinned upon his breast.
It was the Volunteer review in Hyde Park in 1860 that was responsible for my first appearance in uniform. Determined that the review should lack nothing of military recognition, stands had been erected, for which officers in uniform were entitled to tickets for themselves and their relations. In an unlucky moment the announcement had caught the eye of a sister, with the result that, terribly nervous, nay almost defiant, I was marched boldly down to Bond Street on the day of the review, and, nolens volens, dressed at Ridpath and Manning’s in my brand new cast-iron uniform.
Conceive, kind reader, a wretched youth—dressed inch by inch by a ruthless tailor in broad daylight on a sunny afternoon, incapable of deceiving the most inexperienced by his amateur attempts of appearing at home—huddled into the clothes, and then hustled into the street by a proud sister and father, and some idea of my abject misery will be apparent to you.
It was at the moment, whilst waiting on the pavement to enter our carriage, that a huge Guardsman passed and thought fit to “salute.” My first instinct was to wring him by the hand and present him with a sovereign; then all became indistinct, and I tumbled into the carriage.
The excitement was too much for me—I almost fainted.
A splendid specimen of the Hibernian type in my regiment was a man called Madden (and by his familiars “Payther”), who, as a character, deserves special mention. This giant had not long previously been “claimed” by an elder brother whilst serving in a Highland Regiment, and it was reported that on one occasion, when on sentry at Lucknow, the general officer impressed by his six feet three in full Highland costume, having pulled up and addressed him with, “What part of the Highlands do you come from, my man?” was considerably nonplussed by being informed, “Oi come from Clonakilty, yer honour, in the County Cork.” Our colonel, too, was an undoubted Irishman by birth; but had succeeded, after forty years’ service, in being capable of assuming the Scotch, Irish, or English dialect as circumstances seemed to require. In addition, moreover, to an excessive amount of esprit de corps, he had the reputation of being the greatest liar in the Army; not a liar be it understood in the offensive application of the term, but incapable of accuracy or divesting his statements of exaggeration when notoriety or circumstances gave him an opening. This failing of “Bill Sykes,” as he was called, was so universally known throughout the Army, that one evening a trap was laid for him by some jovial spirits in the smoking-room of a famous Army club.