Chapter VII: Sergeant Linham Instructs

The next morning Jack was aroused early by the trumpeters turning out to sound reveille. He immediately got up, folded his sheets and blankets, and rolled and strapped up his bed as shown by Hodson. He then assisted Brown in sweeping and cleaning up generally, getting the plates and basins ready for breakfast, and when the trumpet sounded mess in going and drawing the rations.

At breakfast-time Napper said nothing, but he looked exceedingly disagreeable, as though his previous evening’s amusement had not agreed with him.

Jack noticed that Callon’s mouth was swollen and discoloured, while there was a long, jagged scratch on his chin.

The meal over, Sergeant Linham suddenly appeared, well shaven and faultlessly dressed, as he always was.

‘Ha, hum!’ he snorted--he had a way of blowing down his nose--‘Trumpeter Blair will parade at eight-thirty A.M. for recruits’ extension drill.’ And he proceeded to detail other orders for the trumpeters.

Hodson took Jack in hand, who polished up his old, well-worn boots, brushed his clothes and cap, and then proceeded to the parade-ground, where he fell in on the extreme left of some four or five recruits who had just joined. Under the instruction of a corporal he was soon busily engaged in extension motions, and after an hour of that there was not one muscle in his body which did not ache. Still, his blood seemed to circulate more briskly, and he felt an unwonted lightness and elasticity.

The extension-drill over, Jack was just in time to get his instruments and go off with the other trumpeters to the band-room for practice. The trumpeters fell in in line, Sergeant Linham taking the practice.

‘Ha, hum!’ he cried; ‘now a little more smart, please. Right dress. Eyes front. ‘Shun!’

The trumpeters were all rigid.

‘We’ll have a little practice in field-calls after trumpet practice,’ he said. ‘Captain Norreys complained to the trumpet-major that at the field-day last Friday, when the colonel’s trumpeter sounded “Skirmishers out,” the trumpeter of the leading squadron sounded “Threes about.” Ha, hum! a disgraceful thing. If the officer I mentioned, one of the finest in the service, had not at once noticed it, such a thing might have led to the regiment getting mixed up and so have disgraced itself in the eyes of the headquarter staff.’

Who the guilty party was Jack did not know; but he heard a voice, a rather shamefaced one, say, ‘It was done in the excitement of the moment, sergeant, and I noticed it directly I’d sounded. The calls are so much alike.’

Sergeant Linham blew down his nose furiously. ‘Not a word--not a word. How dare any trumpeter get excited, especially on such a paltry excuse as a field-day. By the Lord Harry, if the old 17th ever has to face an enemy in the field again, if it ever again hears the hum of bullets and sees the colour of a foeman’s eyes, what will happen to it? Now, I want to know!’

No one answered.

‘Speak, you toads! What will happen? Am I to ask a dozen times? I repeat, I want to know!’

On again getting no answer--for Sergeant Linham was a terrible martinet on parade, and no one dared be familiar--the irascible sergeant, drawing himself up and placing his stick beneath his arm, cried, ‘You can’t tell me. I knew you couldn’t. You’re too ignorant, so I’ll tell you. At the battle of Chillianwallah, where I was attached to the 9th Lancers, a certain English cavalry regiment--I won’t say which, for they afterwards wiped out their disgrace--this regiment was advancing to charge the enemy when some one sounded “Threes about,” whether by mistake or wilfully don’t matter. The regiment turned and galloped back, riding over infantry, breaking into guns, and Heaven knows what. My squadron of the 9th cut in and saved the situation, or it might have led to the defeat of the army. When the engagement was over the colonel of that regiment blew his brains out and the corps will be known as the “Threes about,” as long as the service lasts. That’s the result of getting excited and sounding wrong calls. Now, you toads, ‘shun!’

Not a man or boy had moved while the sergeant had been speaking; but he glared round as though every one had been on the shuffle.

‘Sound the scale up and down!’ he cried; and this was done.

‘You, Blair, fall back two paces,’ said the sergeant, ‘and keep your ears open. Try and get the calls fixed in your memory.’

The trumpeters then went through the different camp-calls on the trumpet, and very pretty they sounded. Many of the short calls Jack, who had a very quick, musical ear, was able to remember; but the long ones, like ‘Reveille,’ were too complicated.

‘Stables,’ a very pretty call, Dawes (who had only joined a few months) had great difficulty in sounding. He kept getting horribly flat on one note, and ‘Hooky-beak,’ as the boys called Linham, grew crimson with rage.

‘You’ve no more ear for music than a pariah dog, Dawes!’ he cried. ‘Now, sound it again.’

Trumpeter Dawes did so, but again was flat on the high note.

‘Squeeze it--squeeze it, you one-lunged bandicoot,’ cried the sergeant; and Dawes endeavoured to do so, but made a worse hash of it than before.

‘Brittain, get out the cards,’ cried Linham; and from a cupboard Brittain got out some great cards about two feet wide and of different lengths, on which the various calls were printed in huge notes.

‘Hang up the “Stable” call,’ cried Linham.

Brittain did so, and Linham pointed to it with his stick.

‘Now, sound it, you blubber-lipped walrus, and if you don’t get the B flat this time I’ll put you back with the raw recruits!’

Jack looked at the card hanging up and saw that the note the unfortunate trumpeter could not sound was not B flat, but D, a very awkward note to produce on the trumpet, and one which is used only in the ‘Stable’ call.

The sergeant waved his stick, a curious-looking souvenir of his Indian service. It was made of ebony or some other black wood, the end being carved into the shape of an elephant’s head, having two long, white ivory tusks stuck in, which gave it a very realistic appearance.

Jack had noticed that the sergeant, while the trumpeters had been sounding, had waved his ebony stick about in a most wonderful way, as though beating time, but with motions that would have driven a bandmaster crazy and that would have puzzled any body of musicians.

Before Dawes began to sound, the sergeant cried, ‘Now, keep in time. I’ll count;’ and he gave his stick a preliminary flourish like a trooper making ‘cut two’ with his sword, and causing Dawes to jump back, the ferule of the stick having whizzed within a few inches of his nose.

‘Stand still! How dare you move!’ yelled Linham. ‘Now, “Stables”--prepare to sound;’ and Dawes stood straight as a poker and brought the mouthpiece of his trumpet to his mouth. ‘Sound!’

Dawes made a fair start on the low C, the sergeant standing in front of him, waving his stick frantically and counting aloud. His method of counting was peculiar. He began, ‘One, two, three, four, five,’ and so on, and proceeded up to about thirty-five, getting in anything from three to five beats in a bar. As the call was in three-four time, Jack had the greatest difficulty to keep from laughing; and when on the fatal D Dawes broke down, and Linham yelled, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong! you’re sounding B flat again!’ he had to snigger.

At this moment the trumpet-major entered the band-room; and, after talking with the sergeant for a few moments, Linham was instructed to take Jack, Dawes, and Brown to a small room off the band-room, and there to give them an hour’s scale practice, while the trumpet-major instructed the rest in some new harmonies which he had written for the longer and more musical calls.

Marching his three trumpeters away to the small room, Sergeant Linham gave them a long address, enlarging upon the stupidness of boys in general and trumpeters in particular, giving some most fantastic information about the notation of the calls, which convinced Jack that no matter how good a trumpeter the sergeant might happen to be, he knew nothing whatever about music, sounding by ear; a fact which puzzled him much at the time, but which he afterwards found to be quite correct.

The three boys had to sound the scale up and down on the trumpet, and Jack, who had a good lip and was naturally quick at music, was able to perform fairly creditably, a fact which pleased Linham immensely.

‘You show promise, decided promise,’ he said. ‘Listen carefully to what I tell you and I’ll make a trumpeter of you--ay, and a musician too, ha, hum!’

Jack had his own opinion about that, and sounded the scale over and over. Every time he sounded a note untruly, let it be C, G, D, or anything else, the sergeant pulled him up with a ‘Ha, hum! flat, flat. Squeeze the lips; spit the tongue; you’re sounding B flat!’

Before the practice was over Jack had mastered the ‘Band’ call and ‘Markers’ sufficiently to be able to sound them, after a fashion. In this he was of course much helped by hearing Dawes and Brown sound the calls before him. Brown was rather stupid, and Dawes (who had thick lips) was ‘throaty’ and would certainly never make a first-class trumpeter.

These two gentlemen very strongly resented being put back with Jack, and when the parade was dismissed they gave vent to their feelings in unmistakable terms.

Jack found Hodson.

‘Well, how did you get on with old Jimmy?’ asked the latter.

Jack told him one or two things that had happened in the small room.

‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said Will Hodson. ‘Jimmy’s a real treat; you’ll see some fun with him before you’ve been with us long.’

Jack was very well pleased with his morning’s work, and felt he should soon master the trumpet and bugle, looking forward to the time when he should be entitled to wear the cross-trumpets and be posted to a troop. There was more practice that afternoon, followed by a visit to the regimental barber, who sheared off all Jack’s locks.

The next day part of Jack’s uniform was finished, and for afternoon drill, for the first time, with Will Hodson’s help, he donned the white striped overalls, neat blue undress jacket, and the jaunty forage-cap. Wellington boots and spurs, which to Jack’s ears jingled most martially, completed his attire; and as he took up his trumpet and bugle to fall in for parade, Will Hodson declared that Jack looked a fair treat, and that there wasn’t a smarter-looking trumpeter in the 17th.

Bandsman Napper during this time let no opportunity slip of perpetrating little tyrannies on Jack, and showing him that he had not forgotten the episode of the letter.

Exactly a week had passed since Jack had entered Hounslow Barracks with Sergeant Barrymore, and on the Saturday afternoon he was crossing the square on his way from trumpet-practice when a trooper who had just come in cried out to him, ‘Isn’t your name Blair, sonny?’

‘It is,’ replied Jack.

‘There’s a lady at the gate asking for you, then.’

Jack’s heart gave a great thump. A lady to see him! Who could it be? Was it----

He hastened to the gate, and there, talking to the stalwart sentry, a handkerchief and purse in one hand, a parasol in the other, stood his mother. Jack went up to her and held out his hand. ‘Mother!’ he cried.

The old lady, in her black silk gown and widow’s neat bonnet, which did not conceal her silvery hair parted in the centre and smoothed down on each side of her head, gave one look at the young soldier, on whose well-knit, upright figure drill had already set its mark; then, recognising Jack, she opened her arms, gave a sort of gasping cry, and folded her son to her breast, saying, ‘John, John, my dearest son, to think that I should ever see you thus in the garb of a common soldier!’

Just at this moment Napper, on his way out to spend the evening, passed Jack and his mother, and overhearing Mrs Blair’s remark, he made a grimace at the sentry, saying in audible tones, ‘Poor mammy’s darling, I wonder whether she’s brought him a bit of sugar?’

Jack flushed as he heard the remark, and drew his mother away from the gate. Where to take her he knew not, for, alas! there is no privacy in the barrack-room. Across the square they went, many an eye being turned on the lady, who was pouring forth lamentations the while she wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.

At that moment Sergeant Barrymore espied the pair, and, understanding what had happened, crossed over to them. ‘Madam,’ he said politely, ‘I can see from the likeness between you and Jack that you are his mother. If you will step across to my quarters my wife will be happy to offer you a cup of tea.’

Jack looked the thanks he could not express, and Mrs Blair said, ‘Thank you, I will go to my son’s room.’

Jack had to explain that he shared his room in common with many others, and begged that she would accompany him to the sergeant’s quarters.

After Mrs Barrymore had assisted the old lady to take off her bonnet and gloves, she came and sat on the sofa beside her son, and taking his hand said, ‘Oh John, why on earth have you done this foolish thing?’

Jack explained the circumstances under which he had left Phogg & Cheetham’s; how Barrymore had rescued him from the tramps; and how, despairing of ever getting another situation, he had enlisted. ‘Mr Bailey told me that whatever happened I must not be a burden to you,’ he said, ‘and this seemed to open a career to me. I like the life and think I shall be happy; there are plenty of chances of promotion for a well-behaved, educated lad.’

‘That interfering Bailey! he had no business to say anything of the kind,’ said Mrs Blair. ‘You should have come home at once, John. Your sisters and I would have welcomed you with open arms, and we would have shared our last crust with you. Did we ever give you a wry word that you should have thought yourself compelled to take such a terrible step as this?’

‘It was because I knew you would do all this that I determined not to be a burden to you,’ said Jack. ‘I have got to make my own way in the world, and the sooner I begin the better. I would a thousand times rather be a soldier than a quill-driver.’

‘As an officer I should not have minded so much, but as a private soldier--no, it must not be. You know that although I have been on distant terms with my family ever since I married your late dear father, they are in good circumstances. My brother is a colonel and holds an appointment at the Horse Guards. I shall write to him and beg of him to procure your discharge.’

‘Mother,’ said Jack firmly, ‘this you must not do. Ask no favours for me. It would cost a lot of money to buy me out, and I will not be beholden to those people who cast you off. Besides, I should be still in the same position; I should have no career before me. So, as I have chosen this life, I will stick to it.’

At tea-time Sergeant Barrymore assured Mrs Blair that her son had done nothing derogatory. ‘One of the best officers in our regiment,’ he said, ‘is a man who won his commission from the ranks. Your son has chosen an honourable career and joined one of the finest regiments in the service. Let him remain, madam, and you will have no cause to regret it. I have great hopes of Master Jack.’

The superior manner of the sergeant and the air of comfort about his quarters rather impressed Mrs Blair and she began to think that a soldier’s life was not altogether the common, low drudgery, with men little better than convicts for companions, which she had thought it; and when later on Jack took her down to the station and saw her off by train she was to a certain extent reconciled to the idea. Dearly as he loved his mother, Jack heaved a half-sigh of relief as her train steamed out, and he thanked his lucky stars that she had not seen the ordinary barrack-room or realised the actual conditions of the life to which he had pledged himself for twelve long years.

He reached barracks only just before ‘First post’ was sounded, and went straight to his room. When he got there he found the occupants thereof rather noisy.

Napper was sitting on the table, with a pipe in his mouth, relating something to the others which was making them laugh loudly. As Jack came in he looked up and cried out, ‘Talk of the er--commander-in-chief and you’ll hear his wings or his spurs. Why, here is our mammy’s darling. “Oh John, John, to think that I should ever see you in the garb of a common soldier”--boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo;’ and the bully pretended to cry loudly.

Jack, his heart heavy with having just parted from his mother, felt his blood boil at these words; but he said nothing, only crossed to his bed, which he proceeded to take down.

‘Did mammy bring you that bit of sugar?’ continued Napper.

‘No, she gave him twopence for lollipops,’ said another.

‘Not she,’ cried Napper; ‘the old washerwoman hadn’t got the twopence to spare. She’d want that for a drop of gin on the way home. Her nose showed where all her twopences went.’

At this gross insult Jack fairly shook with rage; but he determined to govern his temper as long as he could.

‘How did the old girl get a holiday to come and see you?’ asked Napper again. ‘Or does her laundry shut early on Saturdays?’

Jack had removed his cap and jacket, and busied himself with his bed, when Napper, picking up a wet cloth which lay on the table, threw it at Jack, saying, ‘Send that up to the old puddin’-boiler and ask her to wash it for us when she is sober.’

Jack waited for no more. He picked up the cloth and dashed it in his tormentor’s face. ‘There’s your washing back again,’ he said, ‘and here’s my intimation to you that if you ever open your foul mouth in my presence to say anything disrespectful of my mother again I’ll wring your nose.’ Then seizing Napper by the collar of his jacket, he shook him till that gentleman’s head seemed for a moment to be in danger of coming off.

‘You scum, you washerwoman’s brat!’ yelled Napper, jumping to his feet. ‘What do you mean by that?’ and he made a furious rush at Jack.

He was met by a well-planted blow between the eyes which laid him flat on his back, and Jack said, ‘It means, Bully Napper, that you and I must settle once and for all who is going to be master here.’