Barracks, Bivouacs and Battles

Sholto Mackenzie had eaten Queen Victoria’s rations for some six months, had been dismissed recruits’ drill, and become a duty soldier, when the order was issued that the “30th Light,” the regiment into which he had enlisted, was to go out for its turn of service in India, and of course the young soldier went with his regiment. Those were the days before big Indian troopships and the Suez Canal; reinforcements for India went out round the Cape. Sholto’s troop was accompanied by two married women who were on the strength of the regiment. Nowadays the soldier’s wife adorns her room in the married quarters with cheap Liberty hangings, and walks out in French boots and kid gloves. Mrs. Macgregor and Mrs. Malony lived each her married life and reared her family in a bunk in the corner of the troop-room of which she had the “looking after.” Such a life seems one of sheer abomination and barbarism, does it not? Yet the arrangement had the surprising effect, in most instances, of bringing about a certain decency, self-restraint, and genuinely human feeling alike in the men and the married woman of the room. Neither Mrs. Macgregor nor Mrs. Malony had ever been abroad before; and both evinced a strong propensity to take with them copious mementoes of their native land. Mrs. Macgregor, honest woman, had manifested that concentrativeness which is a feature in the character of the nation to which, as her name indicated, she belonged. She had packed into a great piece of canvas sheeting a certain feather-bed, which, as an heirloom from her remote ancestors, she was fond of boasting of when the other matrons were fain to sew together a couple of regimental palliasse covers, and stuff the same with straw. In the capacious bosom of this family relic she had stowed a variety of minor articles, among which were a wash-hand jug of some primeval earthenware, a hoary whisky decanter – which, trust Mrs. Macgregor, was quite empty – a cradle, sundry volumes of Gaelic literature, and a small assortment of cooking utensils. Over those collected properties stood grimly watchful the tall, gaunt woman with the gray eye, the Roman nose, and the cautious taciturnity. Of another stamp was Mrs. Malony, a little, slatternly, pock-marked Irishwoman. Her normal condition was that of a nursing-mother – nobody could remember the time when Biddy Malony had not a brat hanging at that bosom of hers which she was wont partially to conceal by an old red woollen kerchief. Biddy was a merry soul, spite of many a trial and many a cross – always ready with a flash of Irish humour, just as ready as she always was for a glass of gin. She had not attempted the methodical packing of her goods and chattels, but had bundled them together anyhow in a chaotic state. Her great difficulty was her inability to perform the difficult operation of carrying her belongings “in her head,” and after she had pitchforked into the baggage-van a quantity of incongruous débris, she was still in a bewildered way questing after a wicker bird-cage and “a few other little throifles.”

Embarking along with his comrades and reaching the main deck of the troopship, Sholto found the two ladies already there – Mrs. Macgregor grimly defiant, not to say fierce, in consequence of a request just made to her by a sailor for a glass of grog; Mrs. Malony in a semi-hysterical state, having lost a shoe, a wash-tub, and, she much feared, one of the young Malonys. Matters were improved, however, when Sholto found the young bog-trotter snugly squatted in the cows’ manger. The shoe was gone hopelessly, having fallen into the water when its wearer was mounting the gangway; and Mrs. Malony happily remembered that she had made a present of the missing wash-tub to a “green-grosher’s lady” in the town of embarkation.

Sholto had been made lance-corporal soon after the troopship sailed, and served in that rank during the long voyage with so much credit that when the regiment reached Bangalore the colonel of the 30th Light gave him the second stripe, so that he was full corporal in less than a year after he had enlisted. During a turn of guard duty about three months after he joined at Bangalore, he happened to hear it mentioned in the guard-room that a new officer – a cornet – had arrived that day, and had been posted to the vacancy in the troop to which Sholto belonged. The new-comer’s name was not stated, and beyond a cursory hope that he would turn out a good and smart officer, Corporal Mackenzie gave no further heed to the matter. Late the same night, he was relieving the sentry on the mess-house post when the merry party of officers broke up. Laughing and chatting they came out under the verandah, a little more noisy than usual, no doubt because of the customary “footing” in champagne paid by the new arrival. As they passed Sholto, a voice caught his ear – an unfamiliar voice, yet that stirred in him an angry memory; and as the officers lounged past him in the moonlight, he gazed into the group with earnest inquisitiveness. Arm and arm between two subalterns, his face inflamed with drink, his mouth full of slang, rolled the man he had thrashed among the Scottish pines. As he grinned his horse-laugh Sholto discerned the vacuum in his upper teeth which his fist had made that evening; and now this man was his officer. The eyes of the two met, and Kidson gave a sudden start and seemed about to speak, but controlling the impulse, he smiled a silent smile, the triumphant insolence of which stung Sholto bitterly. Verily his enemy was his master; and Sholto read the man’s nature too truly not to be sure that he would forgo no jot of the sweet revenge of humiliation.

Very soon the orderly sergeant of the troop fell unwell, and Sholto had to take up his duty, one detail of which was to carry the order-book round to the bungalows of the troop-officers for their information. This duty entailed on Sholto the disagreeable necessity of a daily interview with Mr. Kidson. That officer took the opportunity of throwing every imaginable slight on the corporal, but was careful not to give warrant for any specific complaint. But it was very bitter to be kept standing at attention for some ten minutes at a time, orderlybook in hand, until Mr. Kidson thought fit to lay aside his book, or to desist from pulling his terrier’s ears. Often the cornet was in his bedroom; and while waiting for his appearance Sholto noticed how ostentatiously careless his officer was as to his valuables – a handful of money or a gold watch and chain left lying on the table amid spurs and gloves and soda-water bottles.

The morning after an exceptionally long wait for Mr. Kidson’s emergence from his bedroom, Sholto was returning from the horse lines when the regimental sergeant-major met him and ordered him to his room under arrest. In utter bewilderment he begged for some explanation, but without success. When he reached his cot, he casually noticed that his box was open and the lock damaged, but he was too disturbed to give heed to this circumstance. Presently a sergeant came and escorted him to the orderlyroom. Here he found the colonel sitting in the windsor arm-chair with the discipline book open before him, the adjutant standing behind him, and on the flank Mr. Kidson and the sergeant-major of his own troop. The colonel, if a stern, was a just man; and in a grave tone he expressed his concern that so heinous a charge should come against a young soldier of character hitherto so creditable. Sholto replied that he had not the remotest idea what the nature of the charge was. The old chief shot a keen glance at him as he spoke —

“Corporal Mackenzie, you are accused of stealing a gold watch and chain, the property of Mr. Kidson. What have you to say to this charge?”

The lad’s head swam, and for a moment he thought he was going to faint. Then the blood came back to his heart and flushed up into his face as he looked the colonel straight between the eyes and answered —

“It is a wicked falsehood, sir!”

“Then of course you deny it?”

“I do, sir, if it were the last word I had to say on earth!”

“Mr. Kidson,” said the old soldier in a dry business tone, “will you state what you know about this matter?”

Thus enjoined, Kidson briefly and with a certain nervous glibness stated that after Corporal Mackenzie had left his quarters on the previous afternoon, he had missed his watch and chain. That morning he had renewed the search unsuccessfully. He had previous suspicions of Corporal Mackenzie having from time to time stolen money from off his table. He had reported the matter to his troop sergeant-major, who had at once searched Corporal Mackenzie’s kit, with what result the sergeant-major would himself state.

The sergeant-major for his part had only to testify that having been spoken to by Mr. Kidson on the subject of his loss, he had taken another sergeant-major with him, and searched Corporal Mackenzie’s box, where he had found the missing watch and chain, which he had at once handed to the adjutant, who now held it.

The evidence was strong enough to hang a man.

“Corporal Mackenzie,” said the colonel, with some concern, “the case seems very clear. What you have to say, if anything, you must say elsewhere. It is my duty to send you back for a district court-martial.”

Sholto was confined in a room adjacent to the quarter-guard for a few days, when he was brought before the court-martial, which heard the evidence against the prisoner, to whom then was given the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses. But the president would not allow interrogations tending to establish animus on Mr. Kidson’s part against the prisoner, and finally poor Sholto lost his temper, and exclaimed with passion —

“Your permission to cross-examine is nothing better than a farce!”

“Perhaps,” retorted the president, with a grim smile, – “perhaps you may not think the punishment which will probably befall you a farce!”

Sholto’s defence was in a sentence – the assertion of his complete innocence. He had known Mr. Kidson in other days, he said, when as yet both were civilians, and they had parted in bad blood.

A member of the court demanded that Mr. Kidson should have the opportunity of contradicting this assertion, if in his power to do so; whereupon that officer emphatically swore that to his knowledge he had never seen Corporal Mackenzie in his life before he joined the 30th Light there in Bangalore. So Sholto was put back to wait for many days while the finding of the court-martial was being submitted to the Commander-in-Chief.

One evening Mick Sullivan his comrade brought him his tea as usual – the good fellow never would let the mat-boy carry his chum his meals. He stood looking at Sholto for a while with a strange concern in his honest face; and then he broke silence —

“Sholto, me lad, it’s me heart is sore for you this day. Yer coort-martial will be read out to-morrow morning! Aye, and – and” – his voice sank into a whisper – “the farrier-major has got the ordhers for to rig the thriangles. It’s to be flogged ye are, my poor fellow!”

Sholto sent his chum away abruptly; he could not talk, he could hardly think; all he could do was to wish himself dead and spared this unutterable shame. Death came not, but instead the morning; and with the morning came Mick with a copious dose of brandy, which he entreated his comrade to drink, for it would “stun the pain.” “Every fellow,” he argued, “primed himself so before a flogging, and why shouldn’t he?”

But Sholto refused to fortify himself with Dutch courage; and then poor Mick produced his last evidence of affection in the shape of a leaden bullet which he had beaten flat, and which held tight between the teeth, he knew from personal experience, was a great help in enabling a fellow to resist “hollerin’ out.”

Presently the escort fell in and marched the prisoner to the riding-school. Sholto found there two troops of the regiment drawn up, in front of them a knot of officers, among whom he noticed Mr. Kidson, and in front of them again the colonel, with the court-martial documents in his hand. The lad’s eye took in the doctor, the farriers – each with his cat – and the triangle rigged against the wall under the gallery. The sergeant of the escort ordered him to take two paces to the front, remove his cap, and stand at attention. And so he stood, outwardly calm, waiting for his sentence.

“Proceedings of a district court-martial” – the colonel began, reading in a loud voice from the scroll in his hand. To Sholto the document seemed interminable. At last the end came. “The Court, having considered the evidence brought before it, finds the prisoner, No. 420, Corporal Sholto Mackenzie, G troop, Thirtieth Light Dragoons, guilty of the said charge of theft, and does hereby sentence the said prisoner to be reduced to the rank and pay of a private dragoon” – here the colonel paused for a moment and then added – “and further to undergo the punishment of fifty lashes.”

The regimental sergeant-major strode up to Sholto, with a penknife ripped the gold lace corporal stripes from the arm of his jacket, and threw them down on the tan. Then the colonel’s stern cold voice uttered the word “Strip.” There was a little momentary bustle, and then Sholto was half hanging, half standing, lashed by the wrists and ankles to the triangles, while the farrier-major stood measuring his distance, fingering the whip-cords of his “cat,” and waiting for the word “Begin”!

Suddenly a wild shriek pealed through the great building from the gallery above the head of the man fastened up there to be flogged.

“Arrah musha, colonel dear!” followed in shrill accents – “for the love of the Holy Jasus and the blissed Vargin, hould yer hand, and spare an innocent man! I tell ye he’s as innocent as the babe unborn, and it’s mesilf, Bridget Malony, an honest married woman on the strength, that can pruve that same! Ochone, colonel dear, listen to me, won’t yez?”

All eyes were concentrated on the little gallery. It was a sort of gazebo, built out from the wall at the height of about ten feet, and the only access to it was from outside. Bending eagerly over the rail, attired in nothing but a petticoat and a chemise, her hair streaming wildly over her shoulders, and with a round bare place like a tonsure on the crown of her head, which gave her a most extraordinary appearance, was visible Mrs. Malony. She had been struck down by a sunstroke the day Sholto was put under arrest, and had been in hospital ever since.

The general opinion was that the good woman was crazy: but Mrs. Malony knew her own mind – she had something to say, and she was determined to say it. She had just finished her wild appeal to the colonel, when she cast a hurried glance over her shoulder, and then, indifferently clad as she was, nimbly climbed over the rail, and dropped upon the tan. At that moment a couple of nurses rushed into the balcony, but they were too late. Mrs. Malony had got the “flure”; straight up to the colonel she ran on her bare feet, and broke out again into vehement speech.

“I swear to yer honner the corporal is as innocent as my little Terence, what should be at his mother’s breasht this moment. He is, so help me God! There is the rapscallion uv a conspirator,” she yelled, pointing a long, bare, skinny arm at Mr. Kidson; “there is his white-livered tool!” – and up went the other arm like a danger-signal pointing to the sergeant-major. “Hear me shpake, sor,” cried the woman, “and sure am I ye’ll belave me!”

“Nonsense,” said the chief, “you are mad or drunk, woman! Here, take her away!” and he beckoned to the nurses.

But the major, a Scotsman, intervened.

“At least hear her story,” he argued; “there must be some reason in all this fervour of hers. I know the woman; she is no liar.”

“Well, what have you to say, Mrs. Malony?” said the colonel.

“One moment, sir!” interposed the major, and there passed a few words in an undertone between him and the colonel – then the latter spoke aloud.

“Mr. James,” said he, addressing the adjutant, “take Mr. Kidson outside and remain there with him, and you, Sergeant-Major Norris, take charge of Sergeant-Major Hope. Mr. James, you will see that the two are kept apart.”

And then Mrs. Malony gained her point and was allowed to tell her story. She had been “doing for” Mr. Kidson, she said, ever since he joined. The day before Sholto was put under arrest, when she was in the lumber-room of Mr. Kidson’s bungalow, she overheard the plot concocted between him and the sergeant-major. Early next morning, when the regiment was out at “watering order,” she had watched Sergeant-Major Hope go to Corporal Mackenzie’s cot, pick the lock of his trunk, take out his holdall, and therein place Mr. Kidson’s watch and chain. An hour later, when she was on her way to the bungalow of the “praste” to ask “his riverence’s” advice as to what she should do, she received a sunstroke, and was insensible for several days. When she recovered consciousness she had forgotten everything that happened for a day or more before her accident until that morning, when she happened to hear the attendants gossiping amongst themselves that Corporal Mackenzie was to be flogged that day for stealing Mr. Kidson’s watch and chain. Then everything flashed vividly back into her memory, and she had made her escape from the hospital and reached the scene just in time.

Mrs. Malony spoke with amazing volubility, and the telling of her story did not occupy more time than a few minutes. When she was done, and stood silent, panting and weeping, the colonel turned to the sergeant of the guard and ordered the prisoner to be unfastened and marched back to the guard-room. While Mrs. Malony had been speaking, nobody had noticed Sholto, and when they went to cut him loose, they found that he had fainted. The parade was dismissed; and the colonel, the major, and the adjutant adjourned to the orderly room. Mr. Kidson was ordered to be brought in. He met Mrs. Malony’s accusation with a flat and contemptuous denial, desiring with some insolence in his tone to know whether the colonel could think it proper to take the word of a crazy Irish barrack-room slut before that of an officer and a gentleman. “That depends on circumstances, and whether I happen to accept your definitions,” was the colonel’s dry comment, as he formally put Mr. Kidson under arrest, and having ordered him to his quarters, called for the sergeant-major to be brought in. This man was a poor faint-hearted rascal. He was ghastly pale, and his knees trembled as he flinched under the colonel’s searching eye. On cross-examination he broke down altogether, and at length, with many protestations of remorse, confessed the whole truth, and that Mr. Kidson had bribed him to co-operate in the scheme to ruin Corporal Mackenzie. This wretched accomplice was in his turn sent away into close arrest, and Mr. Kidson was re-summoned into the orderly room and informed that his sergeant-major had confessed everything.

The two field-officers were fain to avert from the regiment the horrible scandal, even at the cost of some frustration of justice. The option was given to Kidson of standing a court-martial, or of sending in the resignation of his commission within an hour and quitting the station before the day was out. Then and there the shameless blackguard wrote out the document, made an insolent sweeping salaam all round, mounted his tat, and rode off to his bungalow. As he was crossing the parade-ground he encountered Sholto Mackenzie, who had just been released by the colonel’s orders, leaving the guard-room a free man and surrounded by a knot of troop-mates, conspicuous among whom was Mick Sullivan, half mad with delight. As Kidson passed the group with a baleful scowl, the trammels of discipline snapped for once, and a burst of groans and hooting made him quicken his pace, lest worse things should befall. In two hours more the disgraced man was clear of the cantonment.

In the previous article it has been told how in the early days of the great mutiny Mick Sullivan and his comrade were transmogrified from cavalrymen into members of that gallant regiment the Ross-shire Buffs – the old 78th Highlanders – and did good service in the “little fighting column” at the head of which Havelock fought his way up country from Allahabad to Cawnpore. It was on the afternoon of Havelock’s first fight, the sharp action of Futtehpore, that Sholto Mackenzie and Mick Sullivan were lying down in the shade of a tree waiting for the baggage to come up. Futtehpore town had been carried by a rush, and there had been some hand-to-hand fighting in the streets – for the mutinied Sepoys dodged about among the houses and had to be driven out. There was a delay in following up the fugitives; for a waggon-load of rupees had been upset in the principal street and the temptation of the silver caused the soldiers to dally, while others straggled in search of food and drink. Meanwhile the mutineer cavalry rallied beyond the town. Palliser’s Irregulars were sent forward to disperse the formation, followed by such men of our infantry as could hastily be mustered. Among those who went forward was Sholto Mackenzie. Palliser’s native troopers were half-hearted and hung back when their chief charged the Sepoy horse, with the result that Palliser was dashed from his horse, and would have been cut to pieces but for the devotion of his ressaldar, who lost his own life in saving that of his leader.

“Did you notice,” said Sholto to his comrade as they rested, “the squadron leader of the Pandy Cavalry that handled Palliser’s fellows so roughly out yonder?”

“Bedad, an’ I did not!” replied Sullivan. “Every divil av thim was uglier than the other, an’ it’s their own mothers should be ashamed to own the biling av thim!”

“Look here, Mick,” said Sholto, “I’ll take my oath I saw that dog Kidson to-day, in command of the Pandy Squadron!”

“Kidson!” ejaculated Sullivan in the wildest astonishment. “It’s dhramin’ ye are! Sure Kidson must be either prowlin’ somewhere in Madras, or else on his road home to England!”

“I tell you I am as sure I saw him to-day as I am that I see you now. It was he who dismounted Palliser and cut down the ressaldar. I am convinced it was he and none other!”

“Well, if you’re so sure as that, it’s no use to conthradick ye. Plase the saints, ye may get a close chance at him soon, and then – Lord pity him!”

Mick’s aspiration was fulfilled. The “close chance” came to Sholto a few days later, in the heart of the battle of Cawnpore. The Highlanders had rolled up the Sepoy flank by a bayonet charge, had shattered their centre, and captured the village on which it rested. The mutineer infantry of the left and centre were in full rout, their retreat covered by a strong body of native cavalry which showed a very determined front.

Sholto and his comrade were close together in the ranks of the Ross-shire Buffs, when the former suddenly grasped the latter’s arm, and in a low earnest voice asked —

“Mick, do you see that officer in charge of the covering squadron of the Pandies?”

Sullivan gazed long and intently, and then burst out —

“By the holy poker, it’s that treacherous blackguard Kidson!”

“Right, Mick, and I must get at him somehow!”

“Wid all my heart, chum, but it’s aisier said than done, just now, at any rate. You must mark time, and trust to luck!”

Just then Barrow came galloping up at the head of his handful of horsemen, and besought the chief to let him go at the mutineer sowars. But Havelock shook his head, for Barrow’s strength all told was but eighteen sabres. But a little later Beatson, the Adjutant-General, who, stricken with cholera and unable to sit his horse, had come up to the front on a gun-carriage, saw an opportunity after the General had ridden away, and took it on himself to give Barrow leave to attack. The flank of the grenadier company of the Highlanders, where Sholto stood, was close to Beatson’s gun-carriage, in rear of which his horse was led, and a sudden thought struck the young fellow. Stepping forward with carried rifle, he told Captain Beatson that he was a cavalry soldier, and noticing the led horse, begged eagerly to be allowed to mount it and join the charge for which the volunteer cavalry were preparing.

“Up with you, my man!” said poor dying Beatson. “Here, you shall have my sword, and I don’t want it back clean, remember!”

Sholto was in the saddle with a spring, and made the nineteenth man under Barrow’s command; a mixed lot, but full of pluck to a man. As he formed up on the flank, there reached his ears honest Mick’s cheery advice —

“Now, Sholto, me dear lad, keep yer sword-hand up and yer bridle-hand down, an’ remimber ye reprisint the honour an’ glory of the ould 30th Light!”