Chapter VIII

A gallant fop--An ill-humoured recruit--The military agriculturist and the gentleman farmer--Death or glory--The Duke at Vimiero--Picking off the enemy--The brothers Hart.

I remember there was an officer, named, I think, Cardo, with the Rifles. He was a great beau; but although rather effeminate and ladylike in manners, so much so as to be remarked by the whole regiment at that time, yet he was found to be a most gallant officer when we were engaged with the enemy in the field.

He was killed whilst fighting bravely in the Pyrenees; and amongst other jewellery he wore, he had a ring on his finger worth one hundred and fifty guineas.

As he lay dead on the field, one of our Riflemen, named Orr, observed the sparkling gem, and immediately resolved to make prize of it. The ring, however, was so firmly fixed that Orr could not draw it from the finger, and whipping out his knife cut the finger off by the joint. After the battle, Orr offered the ring for sale amongst the officers, and, on inquiry, the manner in which he had obtained it transpired. Orr was in consequence tried by court-martial, and sentenced to receive five hundred lashes, which sentence was carried into execution.

A youth joined the Rifles soon after I myself put on the green jacket, whose name was Medley. He was but a small chap, being under the standard one inch;[2] but our officers thought he promised fair to become a tall fellow, and he was, accordingly, not rejected. Medley did not deceive them; for, on the day he first joined the Rifles, he was five feet one inch in height, and on the day he was killed, at Barrossa, he was exactly six feet one. He was celebrated for being the greatest grumbler, the greatest eater, and the most quarrelsome fellow in the whole corps. I remember he cut a most desperate figure in the retreat to Corunna; for there he had enough to bear both of fatigue and hunger; and a very little of either of these disagreeables would make him extremely bad company at any time. It was dangerous, too, to bid him hold his tongue sometimes; for he had picked up so amongst us since he was only five feet one, and grown so bony as well as tall, that he would challenge and thrash any man in the corps. Corunna, however, though it could not stop his growling, took the desire of boxing quite out of him; and he sprawled, scrambled, and swore, till he somehow got through that business. If General Craufurd could have heard but the twentieth part of what I heard him utter about him on that retreat, I think he would have cut Medley in half. He was, as I said, a capital feeder; and his own allowance was not half enough to satisfy his cravings, so that he often got some of his comrades to help him out with a portion of theirs. He was my comrade for about two years; and, as I was a shoemaker, I often had food to give him; indeed it was highly necessary either to give him what I had for my own allowance, or find some provision elsewhere, for he was the most cross-grained fellow, if his belly was not filled, that we ever had amongst us. He was killed at Barrossa, as I said, and he carried his ill-humour with him to the very last hour of his life; for, being knocked over by a musket-ball in the thigh, he was spoken to as he lay by some of his comrades, who, asking if they should assist him, and carry him to the rear, he told them to "_Go and be d--d!_" and, bidding them mind their own business, abused them till they passed on and left him. I was told this last anecdote of him by the very men who had spoken to him, and got this blessing as he lay.

We had another tall fellow in the four companies of Rifles who were in that retreat. His name was Thomas Higgins; he was six feet one and a half, and quite as lank and bony as Medley. He also was an ill-tempered fellow, but nothing to compare with him either in eating or grumbling. The tall men, I have often observed, bore fatigue much worse than the short ones; and Higgins, amongst others of the big 'uns, was dreadfully put to it to keep on. We lost him entirely when about half through this business, I remember; for, during a short halt of about ten minutes he was reprimanded by one of our officers for the slovenly state of his clothing and accoutrements; his dress almost dropping from his lower limbs, and his knapsack hanging by a strap or two down about his waist. Higgins did not take it at all kind being quarrelled with at such a time, and, uttering sundry impertinences, desired to know if they were ever to be allowed to halt any more, adding that he did not see very well how he was to be very smart after what he had already gone through. The officer spoke to one of the sergeants upon this, and bid him remember, if they got to their journey's end, to give Higgins an extra guard for his behaviour. "Oh! then, d--n me," says Higgins, "if ever I take it!" and, turning about, as we all moved on at the word to march, he marched off in the contrary direction, and we never either saw or heard of him from that hour; and it was supposed afterwards, amongst us, that he had either perished alone in the night, or joined the French, who were at our heels. These were the two tallest men in the four companies of Rifles; and both were in the company I belonged to. Higgins was the right hand, and Medley the left hand man.

THE YORKSHIRE FARMER.

It was about the year 1807 or 8, that a man volunteered from the Nottingham Militia into the Rifles. After receiving the half of his bounty, he thought that was quite as much as would serve him of the Rifle regiment, and so he declined to serve them in return, and accordingly made off, without joining them at all at that time. Four years afterwards he was discovered by the very sergeant of the Nottingham Militia who belonged to his own company when he volunteered from them into our corps. This same sergeant was then himself recruiting, and fell in with his former comrade in some town, of which I forget the name; but it was in Yorkshire. The man (whose name, also, I have forgotten now,) was then grown very fat, and was, likewise, as much altered in dress as in condition, being clad in the habiliments of a respectable and comfortable farmer of that delightful county. The sergeant, however, had a sharp eye, and penetrated both through the disguise of his then calling, and also even his portly look failed in throwing him off the scent. In fact, he went warily to work, made his inquiries, compared his notes, allowed for the time and circumstances, and, notwithstanding the respectability and reputed worth of our farmer, arrested him forthwith as a deserter from the Ninety-fifth. From Yorkshire he was marched a prisoner to Hythe, in Kent; and I remember seeing him brought in, dressed as he was apprehended, and handcuffed, and guarded by a corporal and three or four men. He was, as I said, clad in his farmer's dress, and that it was which made myself and others (who happened to be out) more especially regard him; for, although it was no great sight at that time to see a deserter brought along, yet it was not often we beheld one so apparently well off and respectable looking in such a situation. In fact, the Yorkshire farmer made a great talk amongst us; and we pitied him much. No man in his present circumstances could, I should think, feel more acutely, and he dwindled perceptibly in bulk every day, till he was brought to trial. During his confinement he had written to the colonel of the regiment, offering him sixty pounds to let him off; but I believe he never at that time got any reply to his offer, and, being tried, was sentenced to receive seven hundred lashes. When he was brought into the hollow square to receive his punishment, I remember the anxiety amongst us was twice as great as on an ordinary occasion of the sort. He did not seem a man who was afraid of the lash, as regarded the pain of its infliction, but the shame of it (considering the situation he had attained to) was apparently the thing that hurt him most. Even now, although fallen away, he was a jolly and portly-looking man, though his flesh seemed to hang about him from the quickness he had been reduced in bulk by long marches, and anxiety of mind. He addressed a few words to the colonel in a firm and manly tone, and begged him to consider his situation and circumstances, and that he was the husband of a respectable woman, and father of several children; but, however, it was not possible for the colonel to forgive him at that time, and he was ordered to be quick and prepare. The farmer, accordingly, stripped, and was tied up. The colonel addressed him, and referred to the offer he had made him when in confinement, which, he told him, had much aggravated his crime, as supposing him (the colonel) capable of selling his honour for sixty pounds. So the farmer received his seven hundred lashes that day, and never uttered a word of complaint during the infliction, except that, as he sometimes turned his head, and looked after the can of water, he would say, "Oh! poor Tom! poor Tom! I little thought ever to come to this!" I remember, after four hundred, the colonel asked him if he would sign his banishment, telling him it was to send him to another regiment, which was in foreign parts; but the farmer refused to do so, and the punishment went on. I recollect, too, that the doctor desired the drummer to lay the lash on the other shoulder, and the farmer received the whole sentence, as he well deserved. In a week or more he was to be seen walking in the barrack-square; but he avoided the society of the men, and in about two or three days afterwards, he was missing altogether, having taken an opportunity to escape; and we never again either heard of, or saw, the Yorkshire farmer.

There was another agriculturist who, I remember, was in the Rifles with me. He was the eldest son of a gentleman-farmer, who resided in Yorkshire, and as handsome a youth as I think I ever beheld; but he was one of the wildest chaps, perhaps, in the whole county, and, although he was not above four or five-and-twenty, his parents had found it out to their cost. In one of his sprees, happening to fall in with Sergeant Sugden of our corps, nothing would content him but he must enlist. Sugden, you may easily conceive, was not averse to indulge such a "_perspiring_" hero, and very soon had him for a recruit. Although there must have been considerable difference in the style of life amongst us to what he had been used to, yet he appeared nowise displeased with, the change. To be sure, he was rather too lively a bird at times, and, having plenty of money, occasionally got himself into trouble, but nothing particularly disagreeable happened, and altogether he was very much liked in the corps, in which he went by the name of "The Gentleman Farmer." Just before a detachment of the Rifles started for Portugal, a gentleman rode into the barrack-square, and inquired of some of the men for this young spark, whose name I cannot now remember. The meeting was not a very amicable one, for the new-comer was the gentleman-farmer's brother, who upbraided him with his conduct in enlisting, and told of the anxiety and sorrow this new freak had caused at home. After they had somewhat mollified their quarrel, they sought an interview with our commanding-officer; and the brother immediately, in the name of the parents, offered any reasonable sum the colonel chose to name, so he would but grant the gentleman-farmer a discharge. The colonel, however, was not willing to lose him, and refused at that time to grant the request.

"He is a wild and untamed spirit," he said; "and as he is just now under orders for foreign service, he had better go; let him have a year of that fun; it will do his complaint good; and, if he lives, we shall see him, I hope, return an improved man."

The new-comer, therefore, was fain to put up with this answer, and next morning returned home to his parents, apparently much cut up and disappointed at his ill success. Accordingly the gentleman-farmer embarked for Portugal, and was soon after witness of a wilder scene of discord and horror than, I dare say, even his hair-brained ideas quite contemplated when he enlisted for a soldier; in short, he took his first lesson of actual warfare at the siege of Badajoz, and, entering with heart and soul into the breach, his head was dashed into a hundred pieces by a cannon ball.

Thomas Mayberry was a man well known at that time in the Rifles. He was a sergeant in my day, and was much thought of by our officers as a very active and useful non-commissioned officer, being considered, up to the time of his committing the slight mistake I shall have to tell of, one of the most honest men in the army. With the men he was not altogether so well liked, as he was considered rather too blusterous and tyrannical. Whilst in the town of Hythe, he got the fingering of about two hundred pounds, for the purpose of paying for necessaries purchased for the men of his company, and which two hundred pounds he had, in a very short space of time, managed to make away with, and lose in the society of a party of gamblers, who at that time infested the town of Hythe. Captain Hart, who then commanded the company Mayberry belonged to, was not a little thunderstruck, some little time after, at finding that the several tradesmen who furnished the articles for the men had never been settled with, and, sending for Mayberry, discovered the delinquency. Mayberry was a prisoner in a moment; and Captain Hart was as much astonished as if his own father had committed a fraud, so well and so much was Mayberry thought of. He was brought to court-martial, together with two other men, whom he had seduced to become partners in his gambling transactions; and, on the inquiry, it was further discovered that he had been in the habit of cheating the men of his company out of a farthing a-week each for the last ten months. That was, perhaps, the worst thing against him. He was sentenced to receive seven hundred lashes. Corporal Morrisson and Patrick Divine, his two participators in this roguery, got, I remember, the former three, and the latter one hundred, awarded to them.

When the square was formed for punishment, and the three were brought out, it was necessary to check the men of the regiment, or they would have hooted and hissed them on the parade. I recollect, also, that there was a civilian, of the name of Gilbert, whom Mayberry had defrauded, and he had inquired the time of his punishment, and was present in the rear during the infliction, having expressed to some of Mayberry's companions that he was content to lose the money, so that he saw the fellow well flogged:--a pretty good proof that, when their own interests are nearly concerned, your civilian has no objection to even be an eye-witness of the infliction of the lash, about which there has lately been such an outcry. It is, indeed, no uncommon thing, now-a-days, to see a man who has committed crimes, which have caused him to receive the execrations of his sometime companions in arms, as he is being drummed out of the corps, received by a host of folks without the barrack-gates, and taken to their bosoms as an object of commiseration.

When Mayberry was tied up, he was offered, as was then customary, the option of banishment; but he refused it, notwithstanding considerable entreaty was made to him by his two comrades to accept it, as, by so doing, they thought they all would escape the lash. However, Mayberry decided to take the seven hundred, and bore the sentence without a murmur. Not so the two others: Morrisson screamed and struggled so much, that he capsized the triangle, and all came sprawling together, so that he was obliged to be held by a man at each side. Divine came last. He was rather an effeminate-looking man; and the colonel rode round, and told him he lamented being obliged to break so fair a skin; but he must do his duty. However, as he had borne a good character, and was not so much to blame as the other two, he let him down after five-and-twenty.

Mayberry after this was much scouted by his fellow-soldiers, and also ill-thought of by the officers; and, on a detachment being sent to Portugal, he volunteered for the expedition. Captain Hart, however, would fain have declined taking him, as he had so bad an opinion of him after this affair; but Mayberry shewed himself so desirous of going, that at last he consented, and took him. At the siege of Badajoz, Mayberry wiped off, in a measure, all his former ill conduct. He was seen by Captain Hart to behave so bravely in the breach, that he commended him on the spot.

"Well done, Mayberry!" said he; "you have this day done enough to obliterate your disgrace; and, if we live, I will endeavour to restore you to your former rank. Go now to the rear; you have done enough for one day." Mayberry, however, refused to retire, although covered with wounds; for he was known to have killed seven with his own hand, with his rifle-sword-bayonet.

"No going to the rear for me," he said. "I'll restore myself to my comrades' opinion, or make a finish of myself altogether."

He accordingly continued in the front of all, till at last he was seen to be cut down, in the clear light of the fire-balls, by a tremendous sword-cut, which cleft his skull almost in twain. Morrisson, I heard, also died at that siege. Divine returned safe home, and died of fatigue at Fermoy.

It has been said, I have heard, by officers of high rank in the army of the Peninsula, that there never were such a set of devil-may-care fellows, and so completely up to their business, as the 95th. It would be invidious to make a distinction, or talk of any one regiment being better, or more serviceable, than another; but the Rifles were generally in the mess before the others began, and also the last to leave off. It was their business to be so; and if they did their work well, so did every other British corps engaged in that country, at least I never either heard or saw to the contrary. There was, perhaps, as intelligent and talented a set of men amongst us, as ever carried a weapon in any country. They seemed at times, to need but a glance at what was going on to know all about its "why and wherefore." I remember seeing the Duke of Wellington during the battle of Vimiero; and in these days, when so much anxiety is displayed to catch even a glance of that great man's figure as he gallops along the streets of London, it seems gratifying to me to recollect seeing him in his proper element, "the raging and bloody field," and I have frequently taxed my mind to remember each action and look I caught of him at that time.

I remember seeing the great Duke take his hat off in the field of Vimiero, and methinks it is something to have seen that wonderful man even do so common-place a thing as lift his hat to another officer in the battle-field. We were generally enveloped in smoke and fire, and sometimes unable to distinguish or make remarks upon what was going on around, whilst we blazed away at our opponents; but occasionally we found time to make our comments upon the game we were playing. Two or three fellows near me were observing what was going on just in the rear, and I heard one man remark, "Here comes Sir Arthur and his staff;" upon which I also looked back, and caught sight of him just meeting with two other officers of high rank. They all uncovered as they met, and I saw the Duke, as I said, (then Sir Arthur Wellesley) take off his hat and bow to the other two. The names of the new-comers, however they were learnt, whether from some of the men who had before seen them, or picked up on the instant from an officer, seemed to be well known, as well as the business they were engaged in talking of; for it ran along the line from one to the other that Sir Hugh Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard were about to take the command, instead of Sir Arthur Wellesley, a circumstance which, of course, could only be a random guess amongst these fellows at the moment.

The intelligence of these men was indeed very great, and I could relate instances of their recklessness and management which would amuse the reader much. I remember a fellow, named Jackman, getting close up to the walls at Flushing, and working a hole in the earth with his sword, into which he laid himself, and remained there alone, spite of all the efforts of the enemy and their various missiles to dislodge him. He was known, thus earthed, to have killed, with the utmost coolness and deliberation, eleven of the French artillerymen, as they worked at their guns. As fast as they relieved each fallen comrade did Jackman pick them off; after which he took to his heels, and got safe back to his comrades.

There were three brothers in the Rifles, named Hart,--John, Mike, and Peter,--and three more perfectly reckless fellows, perhaps, never existed. Nothing ever escaped their notice; and they would create the greatest fun and laughter, even when advancing under the hottest fire of the enemy, and their comrades being shot down beside them. I remember Lieutenant Molloy, who was himself as fine a "soldier as ever stepped, and as full of life in the midst of death" as these Harts, being obliged to check them at Vimiero. "D--n you!" he said to them, "keep back, and get under cover. Do you think you are fighting here with your fists, that you are running into the teeth of the French?"

I never saw those three men, to appearance, the least worse for hard work during the time we remained in Portugal. They could run like deer, and were indeed formed by Nature and disposition for the hardships, difficulties, and privations of the sort of life we then led. They were, however, all three pretty well done up during the retreat to Corunna; though, even in that dreadful business, their light-heartedness and attempts at fun served to keep up the spirits of many a man, who would else have been broken-hearted before the English shipping appeared in sight. They even carried their pleasantry on that occasion so far as to make a jest of their own appearance, and the miserable plight of the whole turn-out, as we disembarked upon the beach at Portsmouth. One of them even went so far as to observe, "that we looked more like the rakings of h-- than the fragments of an army!"

Nothing, indeed, but that grave of battalions, that unwholesome fen, Flushing, could have broken the spirits of three such soldiers as John, Mike, and Peter Hart. A few weeks, however, of that country sufficed to quiet them for evermore. One, I remember, died; and the other two, although they lived to return, were never worth a rush afterwards, but, like myself, remained living examples of what climate can bring even a constitution and body framed as if of iron to.

Nothing, I suppose, could exceed the dreadful appearance we cut on the occasion of the disembarkation from Corunna; and the inhabitants of Portsmouth, who had assembled in some numbers to see us land, were horror-stricken with the sight of their countrymen and relatives returning to England in such a ghastly state; whilst the three Harts, with feet swathed in bloody rags, clothing that hardly covered their nakedness, accoutrements in shreds, beards covering their faces, eyes dimmed with toil, (for some were even blind,) arms nearly useless to those who had them left, the rifles being encrusted with rust, and the swords glued to the scabbard;--these three brothers, I say (for I heard them myself,) as they hobbled up the beach, were making all sorts of remarks, and cracking their jokes upon the misery of our situation, and the appearance they themselves cut.

I recollect seeing at this time an affecting instance of female affection displayed. One of our officers, whose name I will not mention, and who was much beloved by us all, observed his wife waiting for him on the beach, as he disembarked from the boat. He met her as she rushed into the sea to embrace him, and they were locked in each others' arms before they touched the dry land.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: The standard at that time, when men were quickly used up, was five feet two with us.]