The Young Dragoon: Every Day Life of a Soldier. Drayson Alfred Wilks

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ on the government for enlisting such a boy! I wonder how his poor mother took it!”

      Impudent and conceited though I had become, this allusion to my mother broke through a little of my fortitude. However, I appeared not to notice the running fire of remarks these good-natured people made from time to time, as I dismounted and busied myself in cleaning my horse and accoutrements, after which my kind hostess invited me into her private parlour, to a nice dinner she had provided expressly for me, consisting of a roast leg of lamb, with mint sauce, and a “rhubarb dumpling.”

      “I always make it a point to treat a soldier to the best I can afford, because he risks his life to save others and their property,” she said, as she reached me a chair, and told me to be seated.

      Now, I was particularly fond of pudding, but I had never tasted any since I left home, and in reply to her question, as to which I would prefer first, pudding or meat, I preferred the former. A little boy, about six years of age (the old lady’s grandson) sat on a stool in the same apartment, and appeared completely absorbed in my every movement. I was very hungry – soldiers are invariably hungry, and thirsty too, after a long march – the nice rich dumpling, turned bottom upwards out of an earthenware basin in which it had been boiled, was already on the table, with the syrup oozing from a fissure in the side into the clean willow-pattern dish.

      “Help yourself,” said this kind old woman.

      I did help myself, with a will too, and she assisted by sprinkling sugar and pouring rich thick cream over the portion I had taken to myself. She then took her seat in the corner, and the manner in which her dumpling disappeared evidently gave her as much pleasure as it did me; but the little boy – Tommy she called him – appeared, as I thought, rather spiteful in the frowns he gave me from time to time, as the demolition of the dumpling continued.

      The old lady said that “puddings did not agree with her so well as they formerly did.” So I took it for granted that she intended the whole of it for myself, and I forthwith commenced to denude the dish of the lot. Tommy could hold his thoughts no longer.

      “Granny, is the souger goin’ to eat it aw?” said he.

      I at once dropped my fork, abashed and disgusted with myself for what might appear selfishness; however, as an act of reparation, Tommy had the satisfaction of clearing up the remnant, after which he appeared in better humour. After doing justice to the lamb and mint sauce, I completed my stable duty, and dressed for a walk until stable time in the evening. For several days nothing occurred that would interest the reader beyond the usual events incidental to a march, such as a few men misconducting themselves in being late for roll-call, not cleaning their appointments to suit the whimsicalities of a sergeant, for which they were reported to the commanding officer and ordered to walk from town to town behind the light-baggage cart, under escort of the “baggage guard,” their horses being led by their more fortunate, but in many instances more culpable comrades. Walking with high-heeled boots, leather stock, and tight-fitting clothes, with a heavy dress cap on the head in a blazing hot sun, is considered heavy punishment for a cavalry soldier, yet I have known men compelled to walk ten days successively for no other crime than being two minutes late for parade. During this march I came in for my first quota of punishment since I had been a soldier, which was administered in the form of a couple of days’ walking in the order I have described, twenty-two miles the first day, and sixteen the next, under a fearfully hot sun; the distance was nothing if I had not been encumbered with a costume totally unfitted for the purpose, and under restraint too, kept up to the pace of a horse’s walk so as not to lag behind the escort; and this punishment was awarded to me through no fault of my own.

      It was on the seventh day after leaving barracks. Thirty of us were billeted at one house, and the rest upon private houses, in consequence of there being but one public-house in the village. The landlord of this was a farmer and maltster; we had to sleep and stable our horses as best we could; indeed, many of the animals were picketed in the open fields, the men were turned into the malt offices to clean their appointments, etc. The malting season being over there was plenty of room for them to do this. On the day we marched in we were at dinner all together in a “club room” adjoining the house; a loud report was heard, which every one knew to be from a carbine, being much louder than from a common gun. Every cavalry soldier carries ten rounds of ball-cartridge in his pouch on the line of march; these pouches and cross-belts to which they were attached had been left in the places where we had been cleaning them.

      On sallying forth in the direction of the report we found four or five boys, apparently from ten to fourteen years of age; each was armed with a carbine, and adorned with a cross-belt. They had stuck a piece of white paper on an apple-tree in the garden behind the house, and were firing away our ammunition at the target, no doubt calculating upon a fine afternoon’s sport. Every carbine was loaded (one with the cartridge the wrong end downwards), and when we arrived another youngster was just taking up a position to “present” and fire in addition to the one that had already “let fly” and missed his mark. Whither the ball stopped it was perhaps lucky that no one knew, as both horses, cattle, and people were moving about within range.

      One of these ammunition pouches was found to belong to me, and with the rest of the owners of carbines and pouches, I was at once taken before the commanding officer, and we were all ordered to walk a couple of days each. One of the men whose duty it became to lead “Restless,” came in for treble the amount of punishment by his failing to keep my horse within bounds. On one of these days the route lay along the road that skirts the ruins of Kenilworth Castle. Across this road runs a wide brook, which has to be forded by travellers. “Restless” seriously objected to be led through this water, and tugged at the bridle to such an extent as to pull the man off his horse plump into the middle of the brook, the result being that both his own horse and “Restless” got loose, and were with difficulty caught. For this accident, the man was ordered to walk the remainder of the march to barracks. I well remember the scene that occurred on the arrival of the poor fellow in barracks after seven days’ walk.

      “This,” said he, “shall be the last day’s duty I will ever do in the – th Hussars; not that I care a straw for the walking, as I can walk as well as any man in the regiment, but because I have been punished undeservedly by a man who is a deserter from another regiment,” this was alluding to the sergeant who had reported him to the commanding officer for “carelessness” in letting the horse loose, although the poor fellow had stuck to his hold on the bridle of “Restless,” until actually pulled out of his seat. There was a dogged determination about David Mason (for that was his name, and a better soldier never threw his leg over a saddle) as he uttered these words, while sitting on the edge of his bed and stripping his worsted socks from his blistered and bleeding feet, having limped into the barrack-yard with one hand resting on the rear part of the baggage cart, about half an hour after the arrival of the detachment.

      “This is the last day’s duty I shall ever do in the – th Hussars,” he repeated to a lance-corporal who had heard a portion of his first ejaculation.

      “You had better make haste and get down to stables,” said the corporal.

      I was grooming my horse when David entered the stable, and he at once walked up to the sergeant and confronted him. “Sergeant D – ,” said he, “you are a tyrant, a coward, and a deserter from the 52nd Light Infantry!”

      The sergeant trembled like an aspen leaf, and his face turned as pale as a sheet: turning to me and a comrade in the next stall, “Take this man to the guard-room,” and poor Mason was at once escorted to confinement.

      They were both deserters: Mason from the 82nd foot, and the sergeant from the 52nd; but by some means or other, never explained to me, Mason knew the sergeant while the sergeant did not know Mason, although it was said that he had more than once hinted that the latter had the appearance of a foot soldier in some peculiarity СКАЧАТЬ