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I had some idea about this of entering Her Majesty’s
service as a fighting man in the army, but an accident occurred to me while
skylarking one day. I broke my arm, so my military ambition was cooled for a
time, but as soon as I got well, it grew on me again. So I took a stroll as far
as Charles St. Westminster and presently caught the eye of a soldier of the 67th
Regiment of Foot and in which I intended to have enlisted. With this view I
walked with him as far as the Essex Serpent public house and was mounting the
stairs to the recruiting room to have my dimensions taken, when a sergeant of
The Rifles took my eye. An altercation immediately ensued between him and the
soldier of the 67th, as to which corps I should enlist in. I expected
and half hoped there would have been a terrific encounter. The soldier of the
first named corps insisted upon my being his recruit and the Sergeant maintained
the dispute by appealing to me. I was much taken by the Rifle uniform and
declared for the Rifles, upon which after a great deal of bother respecting the
recruiting money, it was arranged that each party should have an equal share
thus ended the first step I had taken in the service. Not then being quite of
the standard height, I was put to bed for three days with a view of stretching
me to the required height. But even then, I was not tall enough to appear before
the Colonel till I was further heightened by having a piece of soap stuck under
my hair and some wool put in the heels of my stockings, which brought me to the
required height. Whereupon the Colonel passed me and now comes the Doctor. I had
some difficulty as to my arm, but I had youth on my side as I was then only
seventeen and the old doctor thought I should grow, so he likewise passed me.
Here then my troubles ended in that respect. On the day that I passed, a young
fellow, the son of a farmer in the county, enlisted. He had been sent by his
father to market with horses and wagon and a load of hay, all of which he sold,
spent part of the money and then enlisted. He had about £30 left when he came
down to Charles St. which lasted about three weeks on the spree. We were sent at
this time to Parkhurst Barracks, near Newport Isle of Wight, to learn our drill.
I got on pretty well with that, but one of our squad by the name of “Finnigan”
was a very stupid sort of a fellow and when told to turn to the left, always
turned to the right, which put us all out more especially the drill Sergeant who
used to detain us at the drill beyond the usual hour. I did not like the stiff
stock at first and so I slept in it one night to get used to it on being told to
do so by one of the old soldiers for a lark. It made a fine mark around any fair
skin for sometime afterwards, they don’t catch me to do so again. There are
plenty of ways of coming the old soldier over the young recruits, but I believe
I was pretty well up to all their dodges and managed to steer clear of all
disagreeables. Provision being dear about this time, we did not get too much to
eat, so the whole of our pay was taken to purchase food except 3d per day, which
was allowed to purchase other luxuries. This was generally spent on the purchase
of small barley cakes, which the drill sergeants wife used to make, and if we
did not become good customers he led us a Devil of a life by giving cold coffee
for breakfast and an extra double over the barrack square. After keeping us out
longer than usual one day, a fellow in the squad the name of “Warren” who chewed
tobacco, took the quid out of his mouth and planted slap in the sergeant’s ear.
This made him in a deuce of a rage but of course none of us split so we did not
get punished for it. After we had learnt our drill we had to take our regular
turn of sentry go. About this time the master tailor’s wife cut her throat and
it was rumoured among the more superstitious, that her ghost visited the spot
that Pat Finnigan was doing sentry go. So we agreed for a lark, that at twelve
o-clock the same night a chap with the name of “Scott” should be the ghost and
frighten poor Pat, but while we were busy arranging out our plan of attack
another mischievous fellow went and told Pat what was about to take place. This
somewhat spoilt our arrangement to frighten him and we were not acquainted with
this. Aat the appointed time “Scott” sallied forth with a sheet folded over him
and made his way to the sentry box in front of which Pat was standing, as quick
as Pat saw him advancing he retreated into the sentry box and remained there
until “Scott” the ghost drew near. Pat immediately challenged three times, all
at once, by calling out “who comes there” three times and making a dashing
charge after the ghost, caught him up as he was about to enter the barrack room
door, inflicting a cut with his sword in his latter end as he gained the top of
the steps. The poor ghost bellowed out tremendously and awoke the sergeant in
charge of the room, to whose enquiries Scott said he had fell down stairs and
hurt himself very much and this ended the practical joke with a caution to be
more circumspect for the future. From Parkhurst Barracks we were sent to
Portsmouth and the only occurrence that took place was a regular fight with the
Red Coats. When we were shifted to Gosport, there was an old man used to visit
our quarters there with plum pudding, made up into bars like soap and used to
raffle it away, but somehow or other the Old Soldiers used to keep us out of it
and us poor rookies got none. So one day when the old fellow came with a fresh
cargo, we covered him with the rug and bolted with the basket of pudding and had
a regular scuffle for it, I getting a pair of black eyes for my share of it and
a week confined to barracks, the others got scott free. |