Lieut. Colonel Clephane, who for many years was connected with the Cameron Highlanders, has been good enough to furnish us with a number of anecdotes illustrative of the inner life of the regiment and of the characteristics of the men in his time. Some of these we have already given in their chronological place in the text, and we propose to conclude our narrative with one or two others, regretting that space does not permit our making use of all the material Colonel Clephane has been so obliging as to put into our hands.
It may probably be affirmed, as a rule, that there exists in the regiments of the British army an amount of harmony and cordial reciprocation of interest in individual concerns, which cannot be looked for in other professional bodies. From the nature of the circumstances under which soldiers spend the best years of their lives, thrown almost entirely together, sometimes exclusively so, and moving, as fate and the War Office may determine, from one point to another of Her Majesty’s dominions on their country’s concerns, it naturally arises that an amount of familiar knowledge of each other’s characteristics is arrived at which in the world at large is rarely attainable. We should state that the period of the following reminiscences is comprehended between the year 1835 and the suppression of the Indian mutiny.
In the 79th Highlanders the harmony that existed among the officers, and the completeness of the chain of fellow-feeling which bound together all ranks from highest to lowest, was very remarkable. It used to be said among the officers themselves that, no matter how often petty bickerings might arise in the fraternity, anything like a serious quarrel was impossible; and this from the very reason that it was a fraternity, in the best and fullest sense of the word.
And now a temptation arises to notice one or two of those individual members of the regiment whose demeanour and eccentricities of expression furnished a daily supply of amusement:—There was a non-commissioned officer, occupying the position of drill-sergeant about five-and-thirty or forty years ago, whose contributions in this way were much appreciated. “I think I see him now,” writes Colonel Clephane, “sternly surveying with one grey eye, the other being firmly closed for the time being, some unlucky batch of recruits which had unfavourably attracted his attention; his smooth-shaven lip and chin, a brown curl brought forward over each cheek-bone, and the whole surmounted by the high white-banded sergeant’s forage cap of that day set at the regulation military angle over the right ear. He was a Waterloo man, and must have been verging on middle age at the time of which I write, but there was no sign of any falling off in the attributes of youth, if we except the slight rotundity beneath the waistbelt.” No one could be more punctiliously respectful to his superior officers than the sergeant, but when he had young gentlemen newly joined under his charge at recruit drill, he would display an assumption of authority as occasion offered which was sometimes ludicrous enough. On one of these occasions, when a squad of recruits, comprising two newly-fledged ensigns, was at drill in the barrack square, the sound of voices (a heinous offence as we all know) was heard in the ranks. The sergeant stopped opposite the offending squad. There was “silence deep as death”—“Ah—m—m!” said he, clearing his throat after a well-known fashion of his, and tapping the ground with the end of his cane—“Ah—m—m! if I hear any man talkin’ in the ranks, I’ll put him in the guard ’ouse” (here he looked with stern significance at each of the officers in turn)—“I don’t care who he is!” Having thus, as he thought, impressed all present with a due sense of the respect due to his great place, he gave a parting “Ah—m—m!” tapped the ground once or twice more, keeping his eye firmly fixed to the last on the more suspected of the two ensigns, and moved stiffly off to the next batch of recruits. No one ever dreamed of being offended with old “Squid,” as he was called, after his pronunciation of the word squad, and those who had, as he expressed it, “passed through his hands” would never consider themselves as unduly unbending in holding serious or mirthful colloquy with their veteran preceptor. Thus, on another occasion of considerably later date than the above, some slight practical joking had been going on at the officers’ mess, a practice which would have been dangerous but for the real cordiality which existed among its members, and a group of these conversed gleefully on the subject next morning after the dismissal of parade. The peculiar form assumed by their jocularity had been that of placing half a newspaper or so upon the boot of a slumbering comrade, and setting it on fire, as a gentle hint that slumber at the mess-table was objectionable. One officer was inclined to deprecate the practice. “If he had not awoke at once,” said he, “he might have found it no joke.” “Ah—m—m!” uttered the well-known voice close behind the group, where the sergeant, now dépôt sergeant-major, had, unnoticed, been a listener to the colloquy, “I always grease the paper.” This was literally throwing a new light on the subject, and was the worthy man’s method of testifying contempt for all undue squeamishness on occasions of broken etiquette.
One or two subordinates in the same department were not without their own distinguishing characteristics. Colonel Clephane writes—“I remember one of our drill corporals, whose crude ideas of humour were not unamusing when all were in the vein, which we generally were in those days. He was quite a young man, and his sallies came, as it were, in spite of himself, and with a certain grimness of delivery which was meant to obviate any tendency therein to relaxation of discipline. I can relate a slight episode connected with this personage, showing how the memory of small things lingers in the hearts of such men in a way we would little expect from the multifarious nature of their occupations, and the constant change to them of scenes and features. A young officer was being drilled by a lance-corporal after the usual recruit fashion, and being a tall slip of a youth he was placed on the flank of his squad. They were being marched to a flank in what was called Indian or single file, the said officer being in front as right hand man. When the word ‘halt’ was given by the instructor from a great distance off—a favourite plan of his, as testing the power of his word of command—the officer did not hear it, and, while the rest of the squad came to a stand still, he went marching on. He was aroused from a partial reverie by the sound of the well-known broad accent close at his ear, ‘Hae ye far to gang the nicht?’ and, wheeling about in some discomforture, had to rejoin the squad amid the unconcealed mirth of its members. Well, nearly thirty years afterwards, when probably not one of them, officer, corporal, or recruits, continued to wear the uniform of the regiment, the former, in passing through one of the streets of Edinburgh, came upon his old instructor in the uniform of a conducting sergeant (one whose duty it was to accompany recruits from their place of enlistment to the head-quarters of their regiments). There was an immediate cordial recognition, and, after a few inquiries and reminiscences on both sides, the quondam officer said jestingly, ‘You must acknowledge I was the best recruit you had in those days.’ The sergeant hesitated, smiled grimly, and then replied, ‘Yes, you were a good enough recruit; but you were a bad richt hand man!’”
The sequel of the poor sergeant’s career furnishes an apt illustration of the cordiality of feeling wherewith his officer is almost invariably regarded by the fairly dealt with and courteously treated British soldier. A few years subsequent to the period of the above episode, Colonel Clephane received a visit at his house, quite unexpectedly, from his old instructor. The latter had been forced by this time, through failure of health, to retire from the active duties of his profession, and it was, indeed, evident at once, from his haggard lineaments and the irrepressible wearing cough, which from time to time shook his frame, that he had “received the route” for a better world. He had no request to make, craved no assistance, and could with difficulty be persuaded to accept some refreshment. The conversation flowed in the usual channel of reminiscences, in the course of which the officer learned that matters which he had imagined quite private, at least to his own circle, were no secret to the rank and file. The sergeant also adverted to an offer which had been made to him, on his retirement from the 79th, of an appointment in the police force. “A policeman!” said he, describing his interview with the patron who proposed the scheme; “for Godsake, afore ye mak a policeman o’ me, just tie a stane round my neck and fling me into the sea!” After some time, he got up to retire, and was followed to the door by his quondam pupil, who, himself almost a cripple, was much affected by the still more distressing infirmity of his old comrade. The officer, after shaking hands, expressed a hope, by way of saying something cheering at parting, that he should yet see the veteran restored to comparative health. The latter made no reply, but after taking a step on his way, turned round, and said, in a tone which the other has not forgotten, “I’ve seen you once again any way” and so they parted, never to meet again in this world.
These are small matters, but they furnish traits of a class, the free expenditure of whose blood has made Great Britain what she is.
There is in all regiments a class which, very far remote as it is from the possession of the higher, or, at all events, the more dignified range of attributes, yet, as a curious study, is not undeserving of a few notes. It is pretty well known that each officer of a regiment has attached to his special service a man selected from the ranks, and in most cases from the company to which he himself belongs. Now, it is not to be supposed that the captain of a company will sanction the employment in this way of his smartest men, nor, indeed, would the commanding officer be likely to ratify the appointment if he did; still, I have seen smart young fellows occasionally filling the position of officer’s servant, though they rarely continued long in it, but reverted, as a rule, sooner or later, to their places in the ranks, under the influence of a soldier’s proper ambition, which pointed to the acquisition of at least a non-commission officer’s stripes; not to speak of the difference between Her Majesty’s livery and that of any intermediate master, however much in his own person deserving of respect. The young ensign, however, in joining will rarely find himself accommodated with a servant of this class. He will have presented to him, in that capacity, some steady (we had almost said “sober,” but that we should have been compelled forthwith to retract), grave, and experienced old stager, much, probably, the worse of wear from the lapse of time and from subsidiary influences, and serving out his time for a pension (I speak of days when such things were), after such fashion as military regulations and an indulgent captain permitted. This sort of man was generally held available for the newly joined ensign, upon much the same principle as that which places the new dragoon recruit on the back of some stiff-jointed steed of supernatural sagacity and vast experience of a recruit’s weak points in the way of security of seat, which last, however, he only puts to use when he sees a way of doing so with benefit to his position, unaccompanied with danger to his hide; in other words, while regarding with much indifference the feelings of the shaky individual who bestrides him, he has a salutary dread of the observant rough-rider. A soldier servant of the above class will devote himself to making what he can, within the limits of strict integrity, out of a juvenile master; but woe betide the adventurous wight whom he detects poaching on his preserve! On the whole, therefore, the ensign is not badly off, for the veteran is, after all, really honest, and money to almost any amount may be trusted to his supervision; as for tobacco and spirits, he looks upon them, I am afraid, as contraband of war, a fair and legitimate forfeit if left within the scope of his privateering ingenuity.
Many years ago, while the 79th Highlanders formed the garrison of Edinburgh Castle, Her Majesty the Queen, who had very lately ascended the throne of Great Britain, paid a visit to the metropolis of her Scottish dominions, and a guard of honour from the above regiment was despatched down to Holyrood to keep watch and ward over the royal person. It was late in the season, or early, I forget which, Colonel Clephane writes, and when the shades of evening closed round, the officers of the guard were sensible, in their large, gloomy chamber, of a chilly feeling which the regulated allowance of coals failed to counteract. In other words, the fuel ran short, and they were cold, so it was resolved to despatch one of their servants, a type of the class just alluded to, for a fresh supply. Half-a-crown was handed to him for this purpose—a sum which represented the value of more than a couple of hundredweights in those days,—and Donald was instructed to procure a scuttlefull, and bring back the change. Time went on, the few embers in the old grate waxed dimmer and dimmer, and no Donald made his appearance. At last, when the temper of the expectant officers had reached boiling point, increasing in an inverse ratio to their bodily caloric, the door opened, and Donald gravely entered the apartment. The chamber was vast and the light was dim, and the uncertain gait of the approaching domestic was at first unnoticed. Calmly disregarding a howl of indignant remonstrance on the score of his dilatory proceedings, the latter silently approached the end of the room where the two officers were cowering over the dying embers. It was now seen that he carried in one hand a piece of coal, or some substance like it, about the size of a six-pounder shot. “Where have you been, confound you! and why have you not brought the coals?” roared his master. Donald halted, steadied himself, and glanced solemnly, first at the “thing” which he carefully bore in his palm, then at the speaker’s angry lineaments, and in strangely husky accents thus delivered himself:—“Not another—hic—bit of coal in Edinburgh; coalsh—hic—’sh very dear just now, Mr Johnstone!” The delinquent’s master was nearly beside himself with fury when he saw how the matter stood, but he could not for the life of him help, after a moment or two, joining in the merriment which shook the very frame of his comrade. Donald, in the meantime, stood regarding both with an air of tipsy gravity, and was apparently quite bewildered when ordered to retire with a view to being placed in durance vile. This incident naturally ended the connection between him and his aggrieved master. It is but fair to state that the hero of the above little anecdote, though I have called him “Donald,” was a Lowlander.