Chapter XXIV: Sergeant Drumbirrel

The regiment which I had joined was entirely composed of Scotsmen, with a very few exceptions, being one of the old national corps which had existed before the union of the countries; but, as twenty men were required to complete the strength before embarkation, the lieutenant-colonel, the Earl of Kildonan, had obtained a beating-order, and sent out parties from his head-quarters, to obtain recruits in England, and hence my meeting with Sergeant Drumbirrel in the little market town of Compton Kennel.

The regiment had been raised in 1678, by Charles, fifth Earl of Mar, for the service of Charles II.; it was then armed with light muskets, and hence the name of _Fusiliers_, which it still retains, even in these our days of breechloaders, Whitworth and Lancaster rifles. Its first baptism in blood was at the battle of Bothwellbrig, and after serving in all the useless and wanton wars of Orange William, of Queen Anne, down to the campaigns of Marlborough, Peterborough, and Cornwallis, it was now about to commence a new career of glory, under Sir Charles Grey, in the conquest of the West Indian Isles.

As we marched along the dusty highway, all this was told me by Sergeant Drumbirrel, who, with all his recruiting tricks, was a droll and intelligent fellow from Ayrshire; and a veritable record of all the past history of the Scots Fusiliers, which, with the true _esprit de corps_ of a British soldier, he declared and believed to be the _first_ regiment in the civilized world.

An irritated father having followed us, with the intention of giving a farewell horse-whipping to his son, who had enlisted, overtook our party, when halted at the first wayside inn, about ten miles from Compton Kennel; but our halberdier was ready for any emergency, being a man of endless resource. To save the youth's bacon, he tied him up in a sack, and placed him among twenty others, which were filled with potatoes, in a room, into which the astonished farmer had traced his son, without being able to discover him; and this trifling incident furnished the party with a subject for merriment and jokes, until we reached our halting-place for the night. The lad's name was Tom Telfer, of whom, more anon.

Perceiving that I was very much cast down in spirit, and also that I kept somewhat aloof from my companions, Sergeant Drumbirrel pressed me to drink.

"You made me take too much last night," said I, reproachfully.

"Too much! why, we drank the best of brandy, so that is impossible."

"My mother----"

"Come! don't be a Molly and quote your mother, now when you are a soldier; but what did _she_ say?"

I sighed bitterly and replied,--

"She ever taught me that liquor was an enemy."

"Then you should do as I do."

"How is that?"

"Make it a _friend_. Here, boy, the smallest drop in life won't do you the least harm; a hair of the dog--you know the rest."

Thus urged, I took a draught of brandy-and-water from the sergeant's canteen, and thereafter became considerably invigorated and more communicative.

"Did you know Captain Ellis, of the Fusiliers," I asked.

"Ellis--Ellis, who served with Burgoyne, and was killed on the banks of the Hudson?"

"Yes."

"Know him--odd's life, lad, and that I did! A kind good friend he was to me, and saved me once from the halberts, when found asleep on my post on a cold and wintry American night. A better officer or a braver one never wore a red coat! I was by his side when the death-shot struck him, and I was one of those who buried him at the foot of a tree before we retired, and just as night was coming on, for we all loved the captain too well to leave him without a soldier's grave. Was he a relation of yours, my lad?"

Touched by what the sergeant said in his blunt honest way, my eyes filled with tears, and I replied,--

"I am his only son."

"You!"

"I."

"You, little Oliver, whom I carried on my back on the march to Skenesborough, when the baggage-waggons broke down and were lost in the woods!" exclaimed the sergeant, grasping both my hands with friendly warmth; "well, well, what queer things do come about in this world! You have grown so much, I could never have known you; and ten years in America and Jamaica have made some change in me. I have no need for hair powder _now_, Master Oliver; time is powdering me fast enough. You must tell me how this came to pass; and the good lady your mother----"

"I have been most ungrateful in leaving her; though the act was somewhat involuntary."

"Too late to think of that now. Your health again, Master Oliver. I hope to see you a captain yet, like your father (as to _me_, I've got to the top of my profession). You will find your name a password to every heart in the Fusileers."

The sergeant took a long draught from his canteen and resumed,--

"In the hard winter of '75, when Quebec was besieged by the Yankees, we suffered horribly, though _I told_ the general how it would be. It made one melancholy to see the poor, pale, wasted soldiers full of spirit, though their canteens and haversacks were empty, patient though suffering, sick at heart in soul and body, wolf-eyed by famine, toil, and battle, standing on their dreary posts, at Quebec, among the frozen snow, through which the bare skeletons of men and horses were everywhere visible. One night I must have died of cold (for my watchcoat was frozen like a deal board, and the flesh of my fingers stuck to the barrel of my firelock), but for your father, Master Oliver. He gave me his blanket to wrap round me, and shared with me the contents of a canteen, as I to-day am proud to do with you. God bless him, he had the heart to feel for a poor comrade. I remember the storming of Skenesborough, when he got that ugly knock on the head. We were in brigade with the old '9th and 20th.' I volunteered for the forlorn hope; for being a bit of a devil, I always went for anything desperate; and I remember, as if 'twere yesterday, the night of the 5th of July and the preparations, we stormers made for the event of the next day."

"Preparations--you would be reading your Bibles, I suppose?" said I simply.

"Bibles!" reiterated the sergeant, bursting into a loud fit of laughter.

"How, then, did you prepare?"

"By changing every rag we possessed into ready money at the sutler's tent--by eating and drinking and fun; for if we survived, a dead man's kit would always come handy, and if we were knocked on the head, what the devil was the use of letting ours come to the drumhead, or be buried in the trenches with us? So a jolly night we had of it, cleaning our firelocks, snapping the flints, drinking and singing,

'Why, soldiers, why
Should we be melancholy boys,
Whose business 'tis to die?'

Well, at three o'clock in the morning of the 6th, we landed--formed in the water, and rushing up the mountain, assailed the stockades, while the general, by my advice--for, as I said before, General Burgoyne always took _my_ advice--sent the 20th in rear of the fort to cut off the retreat of the Yankees; but they all escaped save a few prisoners. My eyes, Master Oliver, I remember well the first time the good captain and I were under fire together. It was on that 8th of July, when we were detached towards Fort Ann to support His Majesty's 9th foot, which was attacked by hordes of Yankees, French, and wild Indians, who are worse than incarnate fiends. A terrible march we had of it, cutting down trees to clear a way where men never trod before; fording weedy creeks, and floundering through reedy marshes in heavy marching order, with knapsacks and blankets, campkettles, and sixty rounds per man, till the 30th of July, when we crossed the Hudson by a bridge of boats. And there it was that General Sir John Burgoyne came galloping up to me and said,--

"'Duncan, what do you think of the position of these rascally Yankees?'

"'Send forward the 20th and the 62nd, general,' said I, 'and if they fail, the 21st will be sure to settle the business.'

"'You're right, sergeant--you always are right.'

"'Thank you kindly, general,' said I, saluting him, for I was always very respectful. So on went the old Kingsleys, as we always called the 20th, and next the 62nd; but deuce a thing they did but blaze away their powder and lose their men in heaps, till we--that is, the Fusiliers, Master Oliver--came up, shoulder to shoulder in line, with colours flying, and the drums and fifes playing 'Britons, Strike Home!' and _home_ we did strike with the charged bayonet; for, as Sir John says in his despatch (though ungrateful enough, never to mention _me_), 'just as night closed in, the enemy gave ground on all sides, and left us completely masters of the field.'"

The sergeant and I became sworn comrades; we had now a thousand things to talk of. He was kind, attentive, consolatory, and said everything he could think of to fire my energy and keep my spirit up. Under his influence, it rose superior to the thoughts that had crushed it; and I now resolved to become, if possible, the arbiter of my own destiny, agreeing with Musæus, that "an _active_ man is not content with being what he is; but strives to _become_ what he _can be_."