“So, gentlemen – lieutenants will each take charge of a company of recruits, the two most senior ensigns assisting, the exception being ‘A’ Company, as present constituted, which will have the rawest recruits and will need the greatest care, two commissioned officers assigned there. The other three ensigns will have their functions which I will explain to them later. Company officers will take an active role, present at drill, musketry and route marches and I shall look to them to produce a written list of daily and weekly activities for my perusal and a report at the end of each week on progress made or difficulties encountered. Reports will, of course, include mention, by name, of men who should be got rid of or who should be noted for early promotion.”
Their mouths gaped open as they absorbed the incredible orders: they had not joined the Army to write reports and several of them were hardly capable of stringing two sentences together on paper in any case.
Septimus glanced at his notebook and read out the assignment to companies of each of the lieutenants and two of the ensigns; he checked that each man could remember what he was to do.
"Companies will parade in working dress tomorrow morning, gentlemen, yourselves at their head. I would recommend you to make the acquaintance of your company sergeants, gentlemen – I am sure the sergeant-major will assist you in that.”
Septimus waited as they filed out, turned to the remaining young men.
“Ensigns Micklewhite, Alderman and Edwards – would you introduce yourselves, gentlemen, I am afraid that I have yet to fix your names and faces in my mind!”
Micklewhite and Alderman were boys of no more than sixteen or seventeen, Edwards two or three years older by appearance, an unpleasant, thin, sneering face, dissolutely lined – perhaps he was merely unfortunate in his lineaments, Septimus reflected, but possibly he was as nasty as he looked.
“Mr Edwards, I would wish you to take responsibility for route marching, so I would like you in the next four days to plot out courses of fifteen miles for the men to take. Written details to me, on Monday. You understand your task?”
“Yes, sir.” Edwards about-faced and marched out, showing no sign of emotion at all. He was old to be an ensign, Septimus thought, particularly one who had very recently bought his place; sent down from University, perhaps, dumped on the battalion by his father – they would see.
“Mr Micklewhite, you will be my training adjutant. Mr Alderman, you will command Sergeant Mockford and his platoon and will take charge of the butts. I shall expect to hear musketry every day, morning and afternoon, so you will need to organise powder and ball with the Quartermaster and make a timetable for activities that does not clash with that of Mr Edwards or of the company officers. You will find that Mockford is an experienced man and that he is of an unusual degree of literacy for a ranker; I would recommend you to make a full and sensible use of him.”
Alderman nodded nervously. He might be of some value, Septimus thought; if he was worried about the job he had been given then he presumably intended to attempt to do it rather than simply dump it all onto Mockford.
“If you are in doubt at any time, Mr Alderman, or need assistance with, for example, the Quartermaster, then come to me.”
Alderman left, probably to discover exactly where the butts were located, hopefully to make Mockford’s acquaintance.
“Now, Mr Micklewhite, find the sergeant-major and ask him to produce a nominal roll of each of the companies by the end of tomorrow together with a brief statement of each company’s current level of efficiency. If I might advise you, sir, you will be in very regular contact with the ‘major and will, I do not doubt, discover him to be worthy of your respect. After you have spoken with the ‘major dismiss from duty for today, reporting to me in these offices at seven o’clock tomorrow, equipped, I suggest, with notebook and pencil.”
A few minutes later the aggressive drunk of the previous evening knocked at the door.
“Lieutenant Brookes, sir!”
“Mr Brookes.”
“Yesterday evening, sir, before dinner…”
“What of it, Mr Brookes?”
Septimus was deliberately noncommittal – if Brookes wished to quarrel then he would oblige him, but he would offer no provocation.
“I should apologise, sir. A birthday celebration, a school friend – I come from Christchurch, sir – and too much brandy taken!”
“Then there is no more to be said, Mr Brookes! A minor matter and well settled. My hand on it, sir!”
They shook, ceremoniously.
Septimus wondered what lay behind the apology – natural virtue or sophisticated cunning? Either way, the affair was closed, dead, never to be referred to again for any consideration; it had not happened, according to the code of honour. He thought for a few more minutes, decided that it might be as well to indulge in a little pistol practice – it could do no harm to be seen to be a good shot and it should stimulate the retelling of the old stories.
“Cooper, pistols and powder to the butts, please – time to amuse myself.”
Enough men saw Septimus at the butts with a bandoleer of six heavy pistols to generate a wave of curiosity and comment. Mockford and his platoon in the barracks and Cooper with the mess servants told the tales in elaborate detail and great length. They boasted of the Irishman cut down with a single shot at twenty paces as he was about to kill Mockford, of the ‘Paddy bigger than Major Treasure, with a bloody cannon what you kills elephants with’, who was shot and then chopped down to size. They expatiated on the crafty flank attack that won St Jeanne for the king, Stroppy Seppy personally shooting down the governor and all of his staff. Finally, they whispered of the officer of the New Foresters, the sod who did children, who was caught with his trousers down, and how the man had smashed both his legs and left him crawling by his victims for the French to catch and – eventually – cut his head off.
They were well embellished stories, just the sort to catch men’s imaginations; the recruits decided that this officer could be one to follow, except for those who had discovered their mistake and were planning how best to desert.
Man of Conflict Series
BOOK ONE
Chapter Nine
The sergeants, a dozen strong, were gathered on the drill square at eight o’clock and were told of the new regime, were warned of the need to perform, or else. Many of them were too old, too unfit, to do more than hold a beer mug, would have to sit behind desks, but a few were able to work and be useful as soldiers. Septimus spent five minutes on explaining to these half dozen that they could make an effort or they could be posted out, to a regiment warned for India, and that he needed men who would help him. They knew that there was no pension, nothing for an old soldier when he grew infirm past service, but recruiting sergeants could potter about for many years after they became unfit to stand in the line, and good service now could guarantee that reward. They dismissed to bring their companies to the parade.
It was a shambles, the worse for the fact that the men were trying their hardest – anticipating the word of command, trying to keep in step and peering anxiously at each other’s legs, standing tensely rigid at attention or ease. They stumbled and staggered and collapsed and grew more and more desperate while the officers swore and fussed and gave more and more orders, apart from a couple who laughed.
They finally formed into their company squares and Septimus inspected the five blocks of men, was inclined to congratulate himself that he had specified working dress – he would have had to take note of full dress incorrectly worn and presented, but almost all could be forgiven in the uniforms men cooked and swept and marched and shot in. Micklewhite stood at his shoulder, noting down names and numbers in a running buzz of muttered comments.
“A Company, front rank, third man. What’s your name, soldier?”
A very exact stamp of the left foot and quivering attention, number rattled off, followed by, “Barrett, sir!”
“Served before, Barrett?”
“No, sir!”
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Barrett was in his mid-twenties, Septimus guessed; he was also less than wholly truthful. Probably Barrett had served in another regiment, met a girl and deserted, been disappointed eventually and joined up again, going back to a life he liked and was good at; he would be useful and Septimus was certainly going to make no enquiries.
It took two hours and at the end there were twenty names in the book, half of them ex-soldiers of obvious ability, the rest a mixture of cripples, consumptives and half-wits to be pushed out.
“March ‘em off, ‘major! A to musketry this morning – basics of handling the Bess, that’s all, there won’t be an issue of powder and ball organised yet. B this afternoon. Both to police their barracks, gleaming clean by day’s end. C and D, fatigues this morning, drill this afternoon, E the opposite. E to mount guard for the next fourteen days and nights, then D to take over. Get their sergeants to name squad leaders, the old soldiers will probably be the best.”
The sergeant-major saluted, stamped to his position in front of the parade and screamed his orders. The parade marched away, slowly disintegrating as the small amount of cohesion was lost.
“Mr Mason, Mr Eeles! My office, if you please!”
Septimus spoke separately to Mason and Eeles, for the sake of courtesy, but the walls were thin and he had as well have shouted at them together. He explained, in painstaking detail, why parades were not meant to be funny, and exactly what he thought of officers who behaved as if they were watching a low farce, and how he proposed to act if the offence were to be repeated.
“Mr Mason, you will be Officer of the Day for alternate days for the next month, starting from six o’clock this evening.”
Eeles was given the same punishment, starting from the following day.
“Number One Dress, gentlemen, and sidearms. You will be present at the Guard Room for each change of guard, that is, at every fourth hour, inspecting the guard in a brief parade; obviously, you will be in full uniform. You will, personally, inspect sentries during the night hours, and check the men’s mess, tasting their food and signing the duty roster to certificate the meals as good. You will check the Armoury, thoroughly, at least once in each twenty four hours, reporting immediately any breach in good order there.”
Neither lieutenant had ever performed Officer of the Day duties before, in common with all others in the depot. Previously the role had been delegated to a sergeant who had slept the twenty four hours away. They were not pleased to find the reality resurrected, but neither was so foolish as to complain.
It took a month to transform the depot into a semblance of good order; the final stage being effected after one of the most useless recruits was moved to desert.
A few of the men had been brought in by crimps - civilian recruiting agents, the polite called them, gentlemen who were paid some fifty shillings for each recruit they brought in. They were expensive, as their people had to be regarded as volunteers and hence entitled to the ten guinea bounty, and a poor regiment such as the New Foresters used them as little as possible; the men they brought to the Colours were too often of the poorest quality as well, too old, too sick or too nearly moronic to be of any great use. Any bright-looking man brought in by a crimp was regarded with the greatest suspicion – there were professional criminals who made their living by moving round the country, enlisting in a different regiment each month and going over the wall with the bounty, often shared with the crimp who had brought them in.
Jacky Wilson had been brought in by a crimp - he was very stupid and had believed the crimp when he had told him of the life of leisure soldiers enjoyed, the good food, the willing girls whose heads could be turned by scarlet regimentals, the prize money and loot that would fall into his pockets when they went to war. He had discovered his error and then deserted incompetently, in much the same way he had done everything else in his three months as a soldier. He legged it over the wall at midnight, carrying a stolen bayonet, sneaked through town until he came to a shop that sold reach-me-downs for labourers, forced his way through the back door and found coat and shirt and trousers that fitted, discarding his uniform with its name tags on the floor, keeping his boots because they were worn in and comfortable. He set out on the road to Romsey, across the New Forest, intending to go back home to mum and not bright enough to realise that he would be searched for, not even skulking on the back tracks and pathways. He was overtaken by a mounted messenger and the constable in Brockenhurst spotted him as he bought a loaf of bread and utilised the services of half a dozen shop lads – glad of the excitement – to arrest him. Jacky was back in the barracks by noon, confronted with an accusation of burglary by two o’clock.
The magistrates would have hanged Jacky for breaking into premises at night and stealing goods to a value in excess of one shilling, but Septimus spoke privately to the Chairman of the Bench, begged that the Army might deal with its own, promised that hanging would surely be the lesser penalty.
Next morning Major Treasure sat in court, irritated at the bother it caused him, flanked by the Quartermaster Captain and Lieutenant Brooks; they listened with apparent amaze to the toll of Wilson’s depredations, stared at the bayonet and heard his confession of desertion and to taking the weapon to ‘look after meself, like’.
They sentenced him to a thousand lashes.
The proceedings were duly recorded and sent to the General Officer Commanding in London, were confirmed, unread except for the covering letter, in a fortnight.
Sixteen days after he ran, the training battalion formed up in a hollow square around a wooden triangle – a simple framework knocked up from four by two timbers by the Quartermaster’s people; tradition demanded that the triangle be made by lashing the sergeants’ spontoons together, but it tended to leave them messy and hard to clean so most battalions made do with a simpler affair. It was raining, cold and miserable out of the west. The men stood to attention as Wilson was led out by a sergeant’s guard, drum banging slackly to a slow beat; he was already stripped to the waist, shivered as his hands were strapped above his head to the apex of the triangle and the leather apron to protect his kidneys was tied around his middle. Ten provosts, military police for the day, had been borrowed from a battalion of Dorsets at Dorchester, stood with freshly-made cats to hand.
The cat consisted of a leather wrapped, two feet long, rope stock with nine thongs, each of about twenty inches, spliced on. A single thick lash of the same length would do too much damage; the nine thinner tails hurt just as much but would take far longer to kill a man, were obviously more humane. Because Wilson was a thief as well as a deserter the tails were each twice knotted towards their end.
The provosts were to lay on a hundred each, in two shifts of fifty so that their arms would not tire; they had been chosen carefully, five of them left-handers, so as to lay an even pattern on the criminal’s back.
Wilson, who had never seen a flogging and did not really understand what was happening, stood mute and cold, waiting patiently for them to get on with it.
Septimus stood forward, read out the proceedings of the Court and the sentence awarded and announced its confirmation, thus conforming to the demands of legalism, then nodded to the Dorset’s sergeant.
“Let punishment commence!”
The cat was drawn well back behind the provost’s shoulder, smashed down on Wilson’s back, driving the air from his lungs in a hoarse bellow and spattering the first blood onto the turf.
Each fifty took just over five minutes.
In the first hour Wilson screamed and jerked and struggled against his bonds; by the end of the second he barely twitched. The crowd of townies, the idlers and patriotic who turned up to watch every parade, had mostly dispersed in the first few minutes, but a few remained, licking their lips, to the very end, convinced that military justice should be extended into civilian life – that would bring an end to these revolutionaries and reds with their demands for freedom and more money!
The surgeon confirmed that Wilson was still alive, a
s he had done at intervals throughout the punishment, and supervised the pouring of buckets of heavily salted water over his back, cleaning the lacerated, skinless meat from shoulders to waist, washing the blood from the destroyed flesh and muscle.
The drum banged still as Wilson was dragged away.
“Parade! Dismiss!”
The sergeant-major marched them off and a party of defaulters returned to clean up and sluice the contaminated turf with gallon after gallon of fresh water. The Quartermaster supervised the recovery of his timber and nails and the provosts were given a crown apiece and put onto a carrier’s wagon for the trip back to their own barracks.
Septimus returned to his office, Micklewhite, pale-faced and close to vomiting, trailing behind, as always.
“The last touch, Mr Micklewhite. Now they have fear as well. I think I can take leave for a fortnight, to Winchester.”
Brother George had a welcome in his house, his wife, Jane, equally happy. Septimus saw she was pregnant, was pleased for them that they would have another child in place of the boy they had lost to the fever; he wondered for a moment just how old Jane was - well into her thirties surely, much of an age with his own mother, he supposed, and she had come to no harm.
“How’s trade, George?”
“Better than ever, brother! Shiploads of wheat from the Russian Crimea and the Americas are replacing the trade with the Germanies, lost to us by this war. We are bringing in ship’s timbers from Upper Canada, a new venture but highly profitable now that the Navy is demanding so much – I have an agent over there purchasing furs and timber for the firm, and salt fish for Portugal, as well – the Papists can never get enough of it. As well, we have retained our interests in beef and cheese and wheat from Ireland and have gone into hides and tallow. We have expanded by twenty per centum in each of these last two years, will do better in the next twelvemonth, provided the war continues and foreign competitors are frozen out of our markets. Your share of the profits is already close to three thousands, and I shall put it into best enclosed farmland in the locality.”
The Soldier Brat (Man of Conflict Series, Book 1) Page 16