CHAPTER XVII.
Under the able tuition of Sergeant Giblett I became, in a few days, sufficiently a proficient in the mysteries of marching, &c., to allow of my falling in with Lieut. Rattleton’s company, the left grenadiers,[29]and it was consequently arranged, with the concurrence of the adjutant, that I should make mydébuton parade when next the battalion was out for exercise.
On the day previous to that event taking place, after tiffin, a sepoy orderly brought in the regimental and station orders; and Tom, after reading them, directed my attention particularly to a paragraph in the former, which ran thus:
“The regiment will parade for exercise to-morrow morning, at a quarter after gun-fire, furnished with ten rounds of blank cartridge per man.”
“There! my sub,” said Rattleton; “to-morrow you will see a little service, and smell gunpowder for the first time in your life.”
“You’re wrong there,” said I; “you seem to have forgotten my recent engagement with the Dacoits; why sir,” said I, affecting to bristle up, “though you do command a company I have seen far more active service than you have. A siege—a pursuit—a rout—and aretreat, are pretty well, I take it, for an ensign of two months’ standing.”
“Ha! ha! Well, that’s true, to be sure,” rejoined my friend, laughing; “you have, indeed, seen balls fired with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and against the peace of our sovereign lord the king—but I would sink thebolt, Frank, when I talked of my Junglesoor exploits. But, seriously, you must get all your military trappings ready overnight, and I’ll see that you are called in good time in the morning.”
I retired to bed rather earlier than usual, oppressed with a most unpleasantly alarmed state of feelings, something akin, probably, to that which a man experiences the night before he is hanged—or has to fight a duel—or to encounter any other disagreeable novelty. I wished the initiatory process fairly over, having somehow or other allowed my anxiety to work on my imagination till I pictured it as something very formidable.
I was aroused, next morning, by Rattleton’s singing, with reference to my dormant state, I suppose, “Arise, arise! Britannia’s sons, arise,” and by a rough shake of the shoulder.
“Eh! what?—what’s the matter?” said I, starting up, rubbing my eyes, and yawning.
“Come, my sub, jump up, jump up! parade! parade! the gun has fired.”
“Why, it’s pitch dark, Tom,” said I, still stretching; “you surely don’t go to parade in the middle of the night?”
Tom assured me it was the proper hour, and that it would soon be light; his bearer ran in at the same moment, open-mouthed, to say the colonel was on horseback and had just ridden past.
This announcement quickened my movements; so I reluctantly jumped out of my warm nest, and, after a miserable cold dabble, dressed myself by the light of a candle, “in the lantern dimly burning,” buckled on my Andrea Ferrara, brushed up my hair, took a peep in theglass, to see how I looked on an average, and then,grande tenue, and arm-in-arm, marched off to parade with my friend.
“The day, you see, is beginning to break,” said he.
“I wish, with all my heart, it would make haste about it,” I returned (“and I think I do see a few ruddy streaks in the east), for this is a heathenish hour, a most Cimmerian gloom to manœuvre in. For my part, I am sure I could not distinguish a rank of soldiers from a brick wall.”
“You will soon become accustomed to it,” answered my commandant, “and find the reasonableness of this and other Indian customs, which now appear singular to you; better to be comfortable in darkness than to grill in broad day.”
“Tom,” said I, “you must tell me where I am to stand, and what I am to do, for I know no more than the man in the moon.”
“You’ll have merely to march in the rear of the company,” said my commander; “keep step, and salute in passing in review; all that, I think you understand.”
As we passed through the sepoy lines, and approached the parade, the men were just in the act of falling in, and my ears were saluted by a strange and confused hubbub, loud shouts, and words of command in odd voices.
There was the “Hall dreez” (halt dress), “Lupt buccas wheel” (left backwards wheel), and “Qeeck marruch” (quick march), of the native officers (by whom one-half of the platoons, at least, were commanded), and the same, though in more intelligible English, in the sharper tones of the Europeans.
Then there was a rattling of muskets, and a ringing of ramrods; the loud voice of the commandant; the clattering of the adjutant’s steel scabbard, and the ringing of his horse’s hoofs, as he thundered down the ranks in a prodigious fuss—why, I could not tell—unless to create a sensation. Our adjutant, however, of theZubberdust Bullumteers, was a prodigiously smart officer, and always galloped three times as fast as was necessary.
It was all exciting and strange to me, to find myself thus, for the first time, about to participate in real military proceedings; the actual game of soldiers, which I had hitherto only viewed, with becoming awe,à la distance, or mimicked, as a younker, with penny drum and falchion of tin. I was now about to realize one of my dreams of boyhood.
Time’s misty veil has long rested on those days, but still I can recal the stirring interest I used to experience when the recruiting-sergeant, on a fair-day, marched through our village. I think I now behold him, with his drawn sword and flying ribbons, proud as a turkey-cock, with all the tag-rag and bobtail at his heels.
What a glorious thing I thought it was to be a soldier—a real, downright, actual soldier—to wear a red coat, and fight the French! How I longed to be the fifer, or even the little duck-legged drummer, as he strode valiantly through the mud, with his long gaiters—very little older than myself, too, and yet privileged to wear arealsword! Even the gawky smock-frock clowns, won by the sergeant’s eloquence, touching the joys of a soldier’s life, and forming a part of the tail of this flaming meteor, came in for a share of my envy.
“Ah!” I used mentally to exclaim, “I’ll certainly be a soldier when I am a man!” Here, then, was the realization; a downrightbonâ fideregiment, real guns, real colonel, and all, and I a constituent portion of it—in a word, an officer! Thus, my gratification, in a great measure, overcame my uneasiness.
“The battalion will pass in review—march!” roared the colonel; and away we went, as solemn as mutes at a funeral, I behind my sepoys,—sword drawn, stiff as the little man in the Lord Mayor’s carriage, right leg foremost. It was an agitating moment, and I in a nervous tremour, lest I should commit some blunder. We turnedthe angle of the square,—the band struck up,—and we approached the saluting flag.
“Rear rank, take open order!”
The native officers made a long leg; I did the same, and found myself in front of the company, exposed to general notice. To use a coarse, but expressive phrase, I was in a “devil of a stew.”
I kept a close eye on my captain, however, thinking, if I did as he did I could not be wrong.
We approached the colonel; I saw he had his eye upon me. Ye powers, if such there be, who preside over steps short and long, and all others the deep mysteries of drill and parade, how much did I then need your aid! What mighty effort did I make to keep step.
Within saluting distance, Tom brought up his sword; I did the same; but, looking forward, omitted to bring it down again, till a cough from Tom, and an “Isee, Sahib!” (thus, sir,) from the half-laughing old subadar, caused me quickly to rectify the little omission.
Well, we formed close and open column, solid squares, and squares to receive cavalry, and I know not what on earth besides: there was a fearful drumming, firing, and charging, and I was half-stupefied with the noise and rapid ravelling and unravelling, embodyings and dispersings of this animated Chinese puzzle. However, I stuck close to the rear of my sepoys, and bore up through it wonderfully well upon the whole.
How astonished our descendants, some three or four centuries hence, will be, methinks, when man shall have become one consolidated mass of intellect and morality, as they ponder over our ingenious modes of effecting wholesale extermination! “Thus,” they will exclaim, perhaps, as they sigh over the aberrations and follies of their barbarous ancestors, “’twas thus they shot, slashed, and impaled one another; in this way they attacked and defended; and thus they invested the machinery of destruction with all the pomp of music, the glitter of ornament, and the splendour of decoration.”
Some, however (distinguished historians and pious Christians too), strangely enough, take a very different view of the matter—maintaining that war is an inherent adjunct of the social state—that without it we should become utterly enervated—sink into stagnation, and that, in short, there can be no healthy action without mutual destruction! that it exists at all is puzzling—but that, it must ever be is both mortifying and astounding. Between, however, man viewed as a mere animal, and man considered as an intellectual and moral being, those who hope for perfection and those who despair of it,—Quaker endurance, that bears to be spat upon, and morbid honour, that fires at a look;—between, I say, all these conflicting views and practices—these cross lights and opposite principles—many honest thinkers are sorely puzzled to make up their minds on the subject—as to whether combativeness is, or is not, an inherent element of our nature, which must as necessarily break out into a conflict occasionally, as the atmosphere brews the tempest—or whether war be not destined to swell the category of past follies, witchcraft, persecutions, astrology, and the like; and to this view I for one honestly incline.
The press and steam, right mental culture—proper social organization and international co-operation, may do wonders; so long, however, as war continues to be the “ultima ratio regum,” the arbiter, for want of a better, of national differences, let all honour be shown to those who, in wielding its powers, display, as British soldiers do, some of the noblest qualities of our nature, and who, though yielding to the necessity of shedding blood, still love to temper courage with humanity, and to mitigate its inherent evils.
At length, as all things must, our exercise came to an end. The parade was dismissed. The officers, European and native, fell out on dismissing their companies and advanced towards the commandant, who, as is customary, waited in front to receive them.
Having saluted, and returned their swords to theirscabbards, there was a general unbending, and the laugh and the joke and the news went round.
“Well, Rantipole, how does the grey carry you? What did you give for him?”
“Two hundred and fifty dibs” (i.e., rupees); “wouldn’t take four hundred for him at this moment.”
“Isn’t he a little puffed in that off fore-leg?” said Captain Syphax, drily.
“No, not that I know of.”
“Who was at Mrs. Roundabout’s hop last night? they say that old Crosslight, the brigade major, was more than ordinarily attentive to the widow.”
“Oh! I didn’t hear that—by the way, Tom, when does your affair come on?”
“Nonsense! how do I know?”
“Hear him; hear him! hear the Benedict!”
“Rantipole, I’ll bet you five gold mohurs,” said one of the subs, “that my old Toorkie beats your new purchase once round the course,P. P.”
“Done! but I don’t sport gold mohurs; say five chicks,[30]and it’s a bet; or I don’t mind if I make it ten.”
“Chicks, Tom,” said I, aside; “isn’t it rather an odd thing to bet fowls on a horse race? this is another of your Indian customs, I suppose, the reasonableness of which is not apparent at a glance.”
Tom stamped and laughed at my query, like a madman, to the astonishment of all present.
“Here,” said he, in a whisper, and pulling me aside “you great griff you! chicks are sequins, or chequins abbreviated to chicks;—not fowls, as you imagine: have you never heard that before?”
“Never,” said I.
“What’s the joke, Rattleton, what’s the joke?” said the colonel, good-humouredly; “come, let’s have it, and don’t keep it all to yourself.”
“Oh, nothing, sir, nothing particular, sir,” said Tom;“nothing, but rather a griffinish query of my friend Gernon’s, which tickled me a little.”
“I am afraid you are rather too hard upon him,” said, the colonel; “remember, Rattleton, I could tell a few stories of griffins if I chose.”
Tom felt the rebuke, and had the laugh turned against him.
The colonel now addressed me, and, in a very kind and encouraging manner, eulogized the way in which I had acquitted myself on my first appearance in public, adding, “I hope we shall send you to your regiment up the country quite a proficient, and calculated to reflect credit on your instructors in the Zubberdust Bullumteers.”
As our worthy commandant was anxious that I should have an insight into the various branches of military duty, the adjutant was desired to make me attend regimental courts-martial, invaliding committees, guard mountings, &c., that I might see how these duties were carried on.
The first court-martial I attended was a regimental one for the trial of a black drummer for theft.
Tom took me to the bungalow of the superintending officer, who is always an European, and whose duty it is to conduct the proceedings which he records, assisted by the regimental interpreter, who is also the quarter-master of the regiment.
Shortly after our arrival, the native officers composing the court made their appearance; they were all large, portly men, singular compounds of those moral antipodes, the European and the Asiatic.
Instead of the black military stock of the English officer, they wore, over white cotton collars, necklaces of gold, formed of massive embossed beads, each almost as large as a small bean or nutmeg; the overalls of the majority had been pulled up over theDotee, or waistcloth, a Hindoo article of dress, containing almost cloth enough to serve for the envelopment of a mummy.
The Native Court-martial.
The Native Court-martial.
The Native Court-martial.
This swathing of the loins, gathered into a bunch behind and before, renders a considerable amplitude of waistband indispensably necessary, and causes, moreover, very often an unseemly protuberance under the jacket flaps on the hinder regions, ornamental, no doubt, in a dromedary or Hottentot Venus, though any thing but improving to the appearance of a military man.
In spite, however, of these little drawbacks, or, perhaps, I should say humpbacks, there was much in the general appearance of these Indian veterans which to me, as a novice, and not altogether an unobservant one, was exceedingly striking and interesting, not having yet had an opportunity of observing them so leisurely; to those, however, accustomed to see them daily, these feelings doubtless had long since died away.
Two or three were aged men, whose snowy whiskers and mustachios contrasted strikingly with the swarthy hue of their well-chiselled and manly countenances; gold and silver medals hung on their breasts, mementoes of past services under a Wellesley, a Coote, a Baird, a Harris, a Lake, or some other of the many commanders who have led the brave and faithful sepoy, where’er in this hemisphere Britain has had a cause to maintain, and whose deeds are chronicled in some of the brightest pages of Indian military history.
“How is it, Tom,” said I, “that the European officers, who have shared in the same dangers, and who have fought in the same fields, exiles from home and kindred, and grilling under your fiery sun here, are not also honoured with medals for remarkable services?”[31]
“Upon my life, Frank, I can’t tell you; it is one of those profound mysteries which it does not become unassisted reason to probe too closely: there must be some latent policy in it, though it is far beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. My old native officer, Subadar DavyPersaud, one day, in my presence, asked your friend Captain Marpeet, when lounging at my bungalow, what was the reason of it? ‘We are puzzled, Sahib,’ said he, ‘to make it out; they are either of no value, and given to us, as baubles are to theBaba Logue(children), or else you gentlemen, who led us on, and shared in our dangers and hardships, are very ill-treated by the Kumpany Ungruis Bahadour, in not being allowed to share in the distinction, which we should prize much more if our officers did share it.’”
“That seems like a poser,” said I.
“It does,” replied Tom; “’tis plausible; but it just shows into what errors mere unassisted reason may lead us.”
“But what said Marpeet to it? he is a right loyal man, and always sticks up for the ‘Honourable John.’”
“Why,” said Tom, “Captain Marpeet, being a bit of a logician, proved syllogistically to old Davy Persaud that all was as it should be, thus: ‘It was well known,’ said he, ‘and an established fact, that the Honourable Company are liberal, generous and considerate masters; that they don’t do illiberal, impolitic, and inconsiderate things—ergo,’ and there Marpeet brought his conclusions to bear in high style, and regularly demolished David Persaud’s position; ‘ergo, this must be all right, though appearances are the other way.’ Your friend, however, confessed to me afterwards, that when at home he should have been glad could he have sported a bit of ribbon at his button hole, or something of the sort, just to show that he had frozen patriotically on the mountains of Nepaul, and struck a blow for old England at Laswarrie and Putpergunge.”
I was much surprised, and not a little amused, to observe that each native officer was accompanied by an attendant, generally some simple looking Coolie youth, carrying his chair, and odd three-cornered pieces of furniture some of them were.
“Tom,” said I,sotto voce, “there seems to be nowant of chairmen at your meeting; but, seriously, tell me, is it usual for the native officers to carry about their chairs in this sort of way?”
My friend answered that it generally was, and that not only native, but European officers did the like, subalterns’ bungalows not being usually overstocked with furniture.
“The possession of a chair, by the way, and the right to sit in it in the presence of his European officer,” added he, “are prerogatives on which the subadur or jemadar sets a high value.”
“Enlighten my griffinism a little, Tom,” said I, “and expound the cause thereof.”
“Why, the reason,” rejoined my friend, “is, I believe, this. No inferior in India ever sits in the presence of a superior, unless squatting on his heels on the ground may be so considered; and you must have perceived that a chair is never offered to a sepoy or non-commissioned native officer, under any circumstance of long detention or the like, which it would perhaps be to Europeans of the same rank in those cases; in fact, if it were, it would be stoutly refused, and the man would think you were bantering him. But when promoted, when he gets his commission, he acquires astatusin society, is an ‘uppiser’ (an officer), one of thesirdar logue, and in some respects on a par with his European superior. He now sports a gold necklace orkanta; and sets up a chair and a tatoo (pony), as indispensable concomitants of his newly-acquired rank—riding on the one, and in all probability sitting on the other, for the first time in his life. I have been a good deal amused,” continued Tom, “to see them sometimes, when seated opposite their houses, or rather huts, in the lines, enjoying theirotium cum dignitatein these same chairs, illustrating amusingly enough the invincible force of habit—legs partly doubled up under them, feet slantingly projecting under the arms thereof, instead of depending before, according to the usages of Christendom. Blacky does not readily adoptnew habits and European improvements; or if he does, he often mars their object by engrafting on them something of his own.”
“I dare say,” said I, “from what I have seen, that this is true enough.”
“A gentleman up the country, for example,” continued Tom, “some time ago, wished to introduce the use of the wheelbarrow into his garden, with other English improvements; when next he went there, he found the coolie, or gardener’s assistant, to his astonishment, carrying the wheelbarrow on his head, with a load of gravel. Why, a week ago, I gave my vagabondbawurchee(cook), whom, you know, I sent to the right about yesterday, a tin flour dredger, that I might be spared the mortification of having my food unnecessarily manipulated. The very next time I went to thebawurchee khana(cook house), I caught the villain taking the flour in pinches out of the perforated head of my dredger (as one would take a pinch out of a snuff-box) and sprinkling it over the cutlet. Ah! I fear that nature designed natives and jackasses to be managed by the cudgel!”
“Why, that is Captain Marpeet’s principle to a T,” said I. “Sound thrashings, according to him, with some races, are meant to answer the purpose of sound reasonings with others; it requires caution, however, in applying that principle. For example, it would be far from safe to try it on some of those big-calved fellows one sees behind the coaches at home,—eh, Tom?”
“You’re right, Frank—you’re right; I see the drift of your remark. It does seem unmanly to thrash those who cannot and will not retaliate. But they’re confoundly stupid and provoking; and your crouching spaniel always invites a kick.”
By the time we had terminated our “aside,” the native officers had saluted, and after some little fuss and rattling of their huge sabres, had settled down into a quiescent state, each man in his own proper chair, and wearinghis hatcum privilegioas bravely as my Lord Kinsale himself.
The superintending officer, a smart young Light Bob, was in readiness with his recording apparatus—his foolscap, and his pen and ink. The interpreter opened his book, containing the forms of oath to be administered to the assembled Christians, Mahomedans, and Hindoos, all cordially united to administer the common right of every creed and colour—justice.
The black-bearded Moolah stood by with theKoran, wrapped in many a fold of linen, to guard it from the polluting touch or look of the infidel, whilst the regimental brahmin, his forehead marked with bars of ochre and pigment, indicative of his sanctity, was also in attendance, holding in his hands a brazen vessel, filled with theGunja jhull, or Ganges water, in which was immersed a sprig of (as I was told) the sacredtoolsie. On these two symbols, or foundations of their respective faiths, the Mussulmans and Hindoos are sworn.
The superintending officer now directed the prisoner to be brought in, and an orderly sepoy immediately called out “Aundo Bridgemaum!”
“What does he mean by that?” I inquired.
“He means,” said Tom, “‘bring in the prisoner,’bridgemaumbeing the native way invariably of pronouncing the English word ‘prisoner.’”
The first native sworn was Rustum Khan, an old Mahomedan subadar.
After saluting with deep respect the volume of his faith, he received it from the Moolah on the palms of his hands, holding it thus, with a look of profound veneration, whilst the regimental interpreter recited the form of the oath, which he repeated after him.
The Hindoos, received the vessel containing the Ganges water in their hands, and were sworn to judge impartially in like manner.
The trial now began.
The prisoner, a poor little black devil of a drummer,was asked by the interpreter if he was guilty, or not guilty; to which he replied “Jo up ka kooshee” as interpreted by Tom, “whichever my lord pleases.”
Thisnaïvereply made the superintending officer relax his judicial gravity. The interpreter also smiled.
The stolid old subadars, however, could perceive nought but stupidity in it, evidently, and one of them angrily said to the prisoner, “Guddah(ass), say one or the other.”
Being, with the exception of a few words, wholly ignorant of the language, I could not, of course, follow the examination. The reader may, however, rest assured that he has not, in consequence, lost any information which it would be of much consequence for him to obtain.
The superintending officer and interpreter seemed to have it all their own way, rebuking crude judgments and irrelevent questions, &c. (just as a judge bothers a stupid jury); laying down the law to the subadars and jemadars, who nodded like Chinese mandarins, in deep acquiescence to their superior wisdom, saying “such bhatandbhote khoob.”[32]
The native officer, before coming into the Court, has generally (i.e., in five cases out of six) made up his mind after a longbhat cheet(chat, or discussion, as to the guilt or innocence of the party), touching both the act and its criminality; but is guided in his verdict or decision, nevertheless, pretty much by what the European officers may say to him: his own peculiar notions of justice and good evidence are, perhaps, clear enough; but, confused by European refinements, the sublimity of which his untutored mind cannot reach, he yields himself passively to be guided by thedictaof theSahib Logue.
Upon the whole, when the Court was cleared, and Tom and I repaired to his bungalow, I felt that I had added something to my little stock of experience, in havingwitnessed this mode of administeringjusticein a sepoy corps.
The next thing of the kind I attended was an invaliding committee, a body assembled periodically for the purpose of examining those soldiers whose age or infirmities rendered them unfit for further active service, which I need not describe.
The system of granting pensions to old and worn-out veterans is an admirable one; it binds the native soldier to us more strongly than anything else, and is one of the firmest foundations of our power in India. Frequently, at a more advanced period of my Indian career, have I had occasion to observe its admirable workings. I have listened to the old veteran, in his native village, with pleasure, surrounded by his children, and children’s children, as he has recounted his deeds, showed his medals and his scars, and spoken with, I believe, sincerely grateful feelings of the generosity of the “Kumpany Angraiz Bahadour.”