The Young Dragoon: Every Day Life of a Soldier. Drayson Alfred Wilks
a country “gawky’s” mouth water; but the crowning part of the dashing sergeant’s attire, and one that most took the attention of passers-by, particularly the girls, was the bright scarlet pelisse – loose jacket – profusely trimmed with gold lace and bear-skin, hanging carelessly over his left shoulder. He had a jet-black moustache, not then so common as it is now, and no doubt thought no “small beer” of himself as he stalked majestically over the pavement, glancing in the shop windows that reflected his figure as he passed them. On our return towards the point from whence we started, we met the regiment of “Queen’s Bays,” in “complete marching order,” a style in which cavalry frequently turn out and march a few miles, to perfect the men in packing their kit and being ready to move quickly in case of emergency. They were all mounted on bay horses with docked tails; the band was playing “Paddy, will you now?” and although a dull and foggy December morning, the black and smoky streets through which the troops marched looked gay and animated. Every one admired the soldiers. My resolution was fixed. I had never before seen a cavalry regiment mounted and in full dress. The sergeant probably noticed the effect produced on my weak mind, and struck while the iron was hot.
“Better ’list and be a soldier,” said he. “I don’t mind if I do,” said I. On arriving at the rendezvous he took me up a narrow staircase, on the landing of which was a standard, fixed to indicate the height of intending recruits. I was one inch below the standard height of the regiment, he said, but being young and evidently growing fast, that was immaterial. We descended to a sort of tap-room, where a huge fire was burning, and several soldiers with dirty-looking female companions were seated around, smoking and drinking. The men rose, and proposed my health. At a sign, however, from the sergeant they were seated, and were comparatively silent. The sergeant, assuming a pompous air, then put the following questions to me: —
“Are you married? Are you an apprentice? Did you ever serve in her Majesty’s army or navy? Have you ever been cupped or marked with the letter D?”
To all these questions my answers were an emphatic “No.”
“Are you free, able, and willing to enlist in her Majesty’s – th regiment of Hussars?”
“I am,” said I.
He then gave me a shilling, and informed me that I was a soldier, and that in addition to the shilling, he would advance me three or four days’ pay to stand treat to my comrades, several of whom – recruiting parties from infantry regiments – had by this time joined our company. The sergeant handed me four shillings; this, with the seventeen pence, amounted to six shillings and fivepence, and was soon spent in drink and tobacco. It was the beginning of a new era with me, and (shame though it be) I must tell the truth, and say that I rather liked it. I, however, managed to keep the enlistment shilling; and although now more than twenty years ago, during which I have passed through some strange scenes, I have still retained that identical coin, through which I had a hole drilled, and for the most part wore it suspended round my neck under my shirt by a lock of my youngest sister’s hair, sent to me about six months after in a letter, with a post-office order for five shillings to pay for its being plaited by the hairdresser.
On the day following my enlistment I was introduced to the doctor appointed for the purpose, who requested me to strip perfectly naked, after which I was subjected to a close examination, and declared sound. Two days after this I was forwarded, with five more recruits, to Norwich, the head-quarters of my regiment, and on our arrival we were again examined by the regimental surgeon, and we all “passed.” My companions were mostly labourers, except one, who said he was a cutler out of work: he afterwards turned out to be a married man with one child, when he was punished and afterwards discharged.
Being supplied with my regimentals, I was ordered to “make away” with my old clothing, dealers in which attended the barrack-rooms every morning in search of plunder. My suit was rather primitive, and not likely to fetch much; still it was worth more than that of a fellow recruit who happened to be domiciled in the same room with me, for he had been a sort of labouring boy in a tallow-chandlering concern, and the sergeant had ordered him to take his greasy clothes away out of the room and bury them in the dung-heap. He had, however, a good silver watch, and therefore his personal effects were worth more than mine.
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 father’s 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 crow’s 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 chandler’s 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 Queen’s 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