Drayson Alfred Wilks - The Young Dragoon: Every Day Life of a Soldier стр 5.

Like mine, his best clothes were at home; he had left home in a hurry. Every atom of clothing had to be sold. I tried hard to keep the blue worsted stockings which my poor old mother had knitted with her own blessed hands, and the calico shirt my sisters had made at the village school, but the hard-visaged, firm-toned sergeant of my squad was inexorable.

Bundle em up, bundle em up, and be handy about it; you will have more to think about besides yer mother now, said he.

I never liked the old ruffian, as the men frequently designated him, after that; and it was a relief to the whole troop when he fell one of the first victims to a fever that broke out in the camp at Chobham a few years afterwards.

I looked affectionately at my old clothes: the blue smock-frock, artistically worked with white thread all over the part that covered the back, breast, and shoulders the white Jerry hat, in the brim of which stuck a feather from the wing of a rook hatched in the old rookery that had for many years before I was born stood at the corner of the bridlepath leading from my fathers farm-yard to the hills we called the sheep pastures; but the sergeant was inexorable. Bundle em up, bundle em up. I snatched the feather from under the greasy band, and for years it was deposited in the bottom of my sabretache. That simple crows feather I thought had flown over the old house at home, and I looked upon it as a sort of connecting link between myself and my family, and often have I gazed upon it until sick at heart. It may seem strange; and those people who have an idea that a soldier has no feeling I have often heard people say that soldiers have no souls may feel disinclined to believe my statement when I say that nothing in the shape of money, unless it would have insured my discharge, would have induced me to have parted with that simple feather.

But to return to my story. The hob-nailed boots stockings, shirt, fustian trousers, and waistcoat I had no coat were all sold to an Irishwoman for four shillings and sixpence: I spent the money among my comrades. My fellow recruit kept his watch, but freely assisted to drink the proceeds of my wardrobe.

I duly received my kit, which I may here remark absorbed the whole of the bounty (at that period amounting to four pounds, eleven shillings, and sixpence), and left me upwards of two pounds in debt; this was deducted from my daily pay of sixteen pence. The rations consisted of three-quarters of a pound daily of boiled meat soup, potatoes, coffee, and bread all of good quality; and these only cost eightpence, which, together with the stoppages, left me in the receipt of a daily income of threepence. The obliging corporal of my squad handed me over that sum every morning at breakfast-time. One penny of this I generally invested in a herring, rasher of bacon, or a lump of rancid butter, at the little chandlers shop adjacent to the canteen in the barrack-yard; the other twopence was generally expended in beer, for I had not then learned the expensive habit of smoking. The cleaning materials such as Bath-brick, soap, pipeclay, chrome-yellow, oil, blacking, etc we could any time procure on credit from the sergeant-major of the troop, who booked our account and rendered it monthly. For these we paid most extravagant prices; and it was more than eight months before the two pounds, in which I was indebted at commencement, was paid off. I had, however, a new pair of overalls at a guinea, and a pair of Wellington boots at sixteen shillings and eightpence, during the interval. It is not, I believe, generally understood that, in addition to his rations, the soldier has to pay for a good portion of his clothing.

The regiment was composed of about equal numbers of Irish and English; and, to give the sons of Erin their due, I found them quite as agreeable and more obliging in their manner to recruits than their Saxon comrades. Strange to say, there was only one Scotchman in the corps, and he volunteered to the 9th, or Queens Lancers, and embarked with the regiment for India, in the winter of 184 .

I soon became reconciled to my new life, and entered on my duty with a determination to excel, if possible, in that most difficult and arduous duty for a cavalry recruit riding drills, in which I most erroneously imagined I should be all but perfect. I had ridden the cart-horses to water and pasture; had often trotted, and even galloped, my fathers old cob Billy to the shoeing smiths, and had never yet been thrown. The first introduction, however, to those tormentors of the poor recruit the rough-riders soon convinced me that I was most woefully mistaken, as I found that all I had practised at home must be abandoned, indeed forgotten, before I could be properly said to have advanced one step in the military style of equitation.

The staff of the riding-school consisted of the riding-master, who was also a lieutenant, a sergeant, one corporal, and a private. The riding-master, although an exceedingly clever man, was one of the most ugly and hard-hearted wretches that ever was born. He was only excelled in brutality, to the recruits committed to his charge, by the corporal, who was more like the being always represented as the Devil, than any human creature. The sergeant was a mild-spoken, kind-hearted man, who patiently instructed his pupils, whether horses in course of training, or recruits; and I need not add, that he was idolised by the whole regiment, especially the gulpin class, or raw recruits. The private was agreeable enough in the barrack-room, or any where out of the riding-school, particularly while being treated to drink by a recruit in the canteen, but being in a subordinate position to the corporal, he was scarcely less brutal than that fiend in human shape. Many a poor lad has been injured for life by this monster, who was one of the most drunken fellows in the regiment. He had been three times tried by court-martial, and reduced to the ranks, for habitual drunkenness. At last, five years after I enlisted, he was again confined on the charge of drunkenness, and assaulting a private soldier in the barrack-room with a sabre, the private keeping him at bay with some beautiful, but terrible practice, for ten minutes, during which neither was injured. Being at length overpowered by numbers, he was carried like a raving maniac to the guard-room, and there locked up; but on being visited in half an hour afterwards, was found dead with his throat cut.

Chapter Five

I was fortunate, I have already said, in having the sergeant rough-rider (a superior man to the corporal in every shape) for my instructor generally during my griffinage.

Well, youngster, he would say, suppose you give me your serious attention through this drill. He fully and most patiently detailed his instructions in such a manner that I could properly understand both what he said and what he meant.

I know, said he, that it is a very difficult matter for you to practise the instructions I am giving you. Yet, by perseverance, and, above all, a determination to overcome every difficulty, you, like the rest of us, will ultimately succeed, and, I hope, become a very smart and well-conducted hussar.