The Bravest of the Brave or, with Peterborough in Spain

Jack at once stepped forward.

“I am ready to serve, sir,” he said.

“That’s right,” the officer replied heartily; “you are a lad of spirit, I can see, and will make a good soldier. You look young yet, but that’s all in your favor; you will be a sergeant at an age when others are learning their recruit drill. Now, who’s the next?”

Some half dozen of the others followed Jack’s example, but the rest were still too sore and angry to be willing to do anything voluntarily.

Jack leaped lightly up on deck and looked round; the cutter was already under weigh, and with a gentle breeze was running along the smooth surface of Southampton waters; the ivy covered ruins of Netley Abbey were abreast of them, and behind was the shipping of the port.

“Well, young un,” an old sergeant said, “so I suppose you have agreed to serve the queen?”

“As her majesty was so pressing,” Jack replied with a smile, “you see I had no choice in the matter.”

“That’s right,” the sergeant said kindly; “always keep up your spirits, lad. Care killed a cat, you know. You are one of the right sort, I can see, but you are young to be pressed. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Jack replied.

“Then they had no right to take you,” the sergeant said; “seventeen’s the earliest age, and as a rule soldiers ain’t much good till they are past twenty. You would have a right to get off if you could prove your age; but of course you could not do that without witnesses or papers, and it’s an old game for recruits who look young to try to pass as under age.”

“I shan’t try,” Jack answered; “I have made up my mind to it now, and there’s an end to it. But why ain’t soldiers any good till they are past twenty, sergeant? As far as I can see, boys are just as brave as men.”

“Just as brave, my lad, and when it comes to fighting the young soldier is very often every bit as good as the old one; but they can’t stand fatigue and hardship like old soldiers. A boy will start out on as long a walk as a man can take, but he can’t keep it up day after day. When it comes to long marches, to sleeping on the ground in the wet, bad food, and fever from the marshes, the young soldier breaks down, the hospital gets full of boys, and they just die off like flies, while the older men pull through.”

“You are a Job’s comforter, I must say,” Jack said with a laugh; “but I must hope that I shan’t have long marches, and bad food, and damp weather, and marsh fever till I get a bit older.”

“I don’t want to discourage you,” the sergeant remarked, “and you know there are young soldiers and young soldiers. There are the weedy, narrow chested chaps as seems to be made special for filling a grave; and there is the sturdy, hardy young chap, whose good health and good spirits carries him through. That’s your sort, I reckon. Good spirits is the best medicine in the world; it’s worth all the doctors and apothecaries in the army. But how did you come to be pressed? it’s generally the ne’er do well and idle who get picked out as food for powder. That doesn’t look your sort, or I’m mistaken.”

“I hope not,” Jack said. “I am here because I am a sort of cousin of the Mayor of Southampton. He wanted me to serve in his shop. I stood it for a time, but I hated it, and at last I had a row with his foreman and knocked him down, so I was kicked out into the streets; and I suppose he didn’t like seeing me about, and so took this means of getting rid of me. He needn’t have been in such a hurry, for if he had waited a few days I should have gone, for I had shipped as a boy on board of a ship about to sail for the colonies.”

“In that case, my lad, you have no reason for ill will against this precious relation of yours, for he has done you a good turn while meaning to do you a bad un. The life of a boy on board a ship isn’t one to be envied, I can tell you; he is at every one’s beck and call, and gets more kicks than halfpence. Besides, what comes of it? You get to be a sailor, and, as far as I can see, the life of a sailor is the life of a dog. Look at the place where he sleeps—why, it ain’t as good as a decent kennel. Look at his food—salt meat as hard as a stone, and rotten biscuit that a decent dog would turn up his nose at; his time is never his own—wet or dry, storm or calm, he’s got to work when he’s told. And what’s he got to look forward to? A spree on shore when his voyage is done, and then to work again. Why, my lad, a soldier’s life is a gentleman’s life in comparison. Once you have learned your drill and know your duty you have an easy time of it. Most of your time’s your own. When you are on a campaign you eat, drink, and are jolly at other folks’ expense; and if you do get wet when you are on duty, you can generally manage to turn in dry when you are relieved. It’s not a bad life, my boy, I can tell you; and if you do your duty well, and you are steady, and civil, and smart, you are sure to get your stripes, especially if you can read and write, as I suppose you can.”

Jack nodded with a half smile.

“In that case,” the sergeant said, “you may even in time get to be an officer. I can’t read nor write—not one in twenty can—but those as can, of course, has a better chance of promotion if they distinguish themselves. I should have got it last year in the Low Country, and Marlborough himself said, ‘Well done!’ when I, with ten rank and file, held a bridge across a canal for half an hour against a company of French. He sent for me after it was over, but when he found I couldn’t read or write he couldn’t promote me; but he gave me a purse of twenty guineas, and I don’t know but what that suited me better, for I am a deal more comfortable as a sergeant than I should have been as an officer; but you see, if you had been in my place up you would have gone.”

The wind fell in the afternoon, and the cutter dropped her anchor as the tide was running against her. At night Jack Stilwell and the others who had accepted their fate slept with the troops on board instead of returning to rejoin their companions in the hold. Jack was extremely glad of the change, as there was air and ventilation, whereas in the hold the atmosphere had been close and oppressive. He was the more glad next morning when he found that the wind, which had sprung up soon after midnight, was freshening fast, and was, as one of the sailors said, likely to blow hard before long. The cutter was already beginning to feel the effect of the rising sea, and toward the afternoon was pitching in a lively way and taking the sea over her bows.

“You seem to enjoy it, young un,” the sergeant said as Jack, holding on by a shroud, was facing the wind regardless of the showers of spray which flew over him. “Half our company are down with seasickness, and as for those chaps down in the fore hold they must be having a bad time of it, for I can hear them groaning and cursing through the bulkhead. The hatchway has been battened down for the last three hours.”

“I enjoy it,” Jack said; “whenever I got a holiday at Southampton I used to go out sailing. I knew most of the fishermen there; they were always ready to take me with them as an extra hand. When do you think we shall get to Dover?”

“She is walking along fast,” the sergeant said; “we shall be there tomorrow morning. We might be there before, but the sailors say that the skipper is not likely to run in before daylight, and before it gets dark he will shorten sail so as not to get there before.”

The wind increased until it was blowing a gale; but the cutter was a good sea boat, and being in light trim made good weather of it. However, even Jack was pleased when he felt a sudden change in the motion of the vessel, and knew that she was running into Dover harbor.

Morning was just breaking, and the hatchways being removed the sergeant shouted down to the pressed men that they could come on deck. It was a miserable body of men who crawled up in answer to the summons, utterly worn out and exhausted with the seasickness, the closeness of the air, and the tossing and buffeting of the last eighteen hours; many had scarce strength to climb the ladder.

All the spirit and indignation had been knocked out of them—they were too miserable and dejected to utter a complaint. The sergeant ordered his men to draw up some buckets of water, and told the recruits to wash themselves and make themselves as decent as they could, and the order was sharply enforced by the captain when he came on deck.

“I would not march through the streets of Dover with such a filthy, hang dog crew,” he said; “why, the very boys would throw mud at you. Come, do what you can to make yourselves clean, or I will have buckets of water thrown over you. I would rather take you on shore drenched to the skin than in that state. You have brought it entirely on yourselves by your obstinacy. Had you enlisted at once without further trouble you would not have suffered as you have.”

The fresh air and cold water soon revived even the most exhausted of the new recruits, and as soon as all had been made as presentable as circumstances would admit of, the order was given to land. The party were formed on the quay, four abreast, the soldiers forming the outside line, and so they marched through Dover, where but yet a few people were up and stirring, to the camp formed just outside the walls of the castle. The colonel of the regiment met them as they marched in.

“Well, Captain Lowther, you have had a rough time of it, I reckon. I thought the whole camp was going to be blown away last night. These are the recruits from Southampton, I suppose?”

“Yes, colonel, what there is left of them; they certainly had a baddish twelve hours of it.”

“Form them in line,” the colonel said, “and let me have a look at them. They are all ready and willing to serve her majesty, I hope,” he added with a grim smile.

“They are all ready, no doubt,” Captain Lowther replied; “as to their willingness I can’t say so much. Some half dozen or so agreed at once to join without giving any trouble, foremost among them that lad at the end of the line, who, Sergeant Edwards tells me, is a fine young fellow and likely to do credit to the regiment; the rest chose to be sulky, and have suffered for it by being kept below during the voyage. However, I think all their nonsense is knocked out of them now.”

The colonel walked along the line and examined the men.

“A sturdy set of fellows,” he said to the captain, “when they have got over their buffeting. Now, my lads,” he went on, addressing the men, “you have all been pressed to serve her majesty in accordance with act of parliament, and though some of you may not like it just at present, you will soon get over that and take to it kindly enough. I warn you that the discipline will be strict. In a newly raised regiment like this it is necessary to keep a tight hand, but if you behave yourselves and do your duty you will not find the life a hard one.

“Remember, it’s no use any of you thinking of deserting; we have got your names and addresses, so you couldn’t go home if you did; and you would soon be brought back wherever you went, and you know pretty well what’s the punishment for desertion without my telling you. That will do.”

No one raised a voice in reply—each man felt that his position was hopeless, for, as the colonel said, they had been legally impressed. They were first taken before the adjutant, who rapidly swore them in, and they were then set to work, assisted by some more soldiers, in pitching tents. Clothes were soon served out to them and the work of drill commenced at once.

Each day brought fresh additions to the force, and in a fortnight its strength was complete. Jack did not object to the hard drill which they had to go through, and which occupied them from morning till night, for the colonel knew that on any day the regiment might receive orders to embark, and he wanted to get it in something like shape before setting sail. Jack did, however, shrink from the company in which he found himself. With a few exceptions the regiment was made up of wild and worthless fellows, of whom the various magistrates had been only too glad to clear their towns, and mingled with these were the sweepings of the jails, rogues and ruffians of every description. The regiment might eventually be welded into a body of good soldiers, but at present discipline had not done its work, and it was simply a collection of reckless men, thieves, and vagabonds.

CHAPTER III: A DOMESTIC STORM

Great was the surprise of Dame Anthony when, on sending down her servant with a letter to Jack Stilwell, the woman returned, saying that he had left his lodging two days before and had not returned. All his things had been left behind, and it was evident that when he went out he had no intention of leaving. The woman of the house said that Master Stilwell was a steady and regular lodger, and that she could not but think something had happened to him. Of course she didn’t know, but all the town were talking of the men who had been taken away by the press gang, and she thought they must have clapped hands on her lodger.

Dame Anthony at once jumped at that conclusion. The pressing of fifty men had indeed made a great stir in the town during the last two days. The mayor’s office had been thronged by angry women complaining of their husbands or sons being dragged away; and the mayor had been the object of many threats and much indignation, and had the evening before returned home bespattered with mud, having been pelted on his way from the town hall by the women, and having only been saved from more serious assaults by the exertions of the constables.

Dame Anthony had been surprised that her husband had taken these things so quietly. Some of the women had indeed been seized and set in the stocks, but the mayor had made light of the affair, and had altogether seemed in an unusually good state of temper. Dame Anthony at once connected this with Jack’s disappearance. She knew that the list had been made out by the mayor, and the idea that her husband had taken this means of getting rid of Jack, and that he was exulting over the success of his scheme, flashed across her. As the mayor was away at the town hall she was forced to wait till his return to dinner; but no sooner had the meal been concluded and Andrew Carson and the two assistants had left the table than she began:

“Richard, I want to look at the list of the men who were pressed.”

The request scarcely came as a surprise upon the clothier. He had made up his mind that his wife would be sure sooner or later to discover that Jack was missing, and would connect his disappearance with the operations of the press gang.

“What do you want to see that for?” he asked shortly.

“I want to see who have been taken,” his wife said. “There is no secret about it, I suppose?”

“No, there is no secret,” the mayor replied. “According to the act of parliament and the request of her majesty’s minister I drew up a list of fifty of the most useless and disreputable of the inhabitants of this town, and I rejoice to say that the place is rid of them all. The respectable citizens are all grateful to me for the manner in which I have fulfilled the task laid upon me, and as to the clamor of a few angry women, it causes me not a moment’s annoyance.”

“I don’t know why you are telling me all this, Richard,” his wife said calmly. “I did not cast any reflections as to the manner in which you made your choice. I only said I wished to see the list.”

“I do not see that the list concerns you,” the mayor said. “Why do you wish to see it?”

“I wish to see it, Richard, because I suspect that the name of my Cousin Jack Stilwell is upon it.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Alice, who had been listening in surprise to the conversation, suddenly starting to her feet; “you don’t mean that they have pressed Jack to be a soldier.”

“Leave the room, Alice,” her father said angrily. “This is no concern of a child like you.” When the door closed behind the girl he said to his wife:

“Naturally his name is in the list. I selected fifty of the most worthless fellows in Southampton, and his name was the first which occurred to me. What then?”

“Then I tell you, Richard,” Dame Anthony said, rising, “that you are a wretch, a mean, cowardly, cruel wretch. You have vented your spite upon Jack, whom I love as if he were my own son, because he would not put up with the tyranny of your foreman and yourself. You may be Mayor of Southampton, you may be a great man in your own way, but I call you a mean, pitiful fellow. I won’t stay in the house with you an hour longer. The wagon for Basingstoke comes past at three o’clock, and I shall go and stay with my father and mother there, and take Alice with me.”

“I forbid you to do anything of the sort,” the mayor said pompously.

“You forbid!” Dame Anthony cried. “What do I care for your forbidding? If you say a word I will go down the town and join those who pelted you with mud last night. A nice spectacle it would be for the worthy Mayor of Southampton to be pelted in the street by a lot of women led by his own wife. You know me, Richard. You know when I say I will do a thing I will do it.”

“I will lock you up in your own room, woman.”

“You won’t,” Dame Anthony said scornfully. “I would scream out of the window till I brought the whole town round. No, Mr. Mayor. You have had your own way, and I am going to have mine. Go and tell the town if you like that your wife has left you because you kidnapped her cousin, the boy she loved. You tell your story and I will tell mine. Why, the women in the town would hoot you, and you wouldn’t dare show your face in the streets. You insist, indeed! Why, you miserable little man, my fingers are tingling now. Say another word to me and I will box your ears till you won’t know whether you are standing on your head or your heels.”

The mayor was a small man, while Dame Anthony, although not above the usual height, was plump and strong; and her crestfallen spouse felt that she was capable of carrying her threat into execution. He therefore thought it prudent to make no reply, and his angry wife swept from the room.

It was some time before the mayor descended to his shop. In the interval he had thought the matter over, and had concluded that it would be best for him to let his wife have her way. Indeed, he did not see how he could do otherwise.

He had expected a storm, but not such a storm as this. Never before in his fifteen years of married life had he seen his wife in such a passion, and there was no saying whether she would not carry all her threats into execution if he interfered with her now. No. It would be better to let her go. The storm would blow over in time. It was natural enough for her to go over and stay a few weeks with her people, and in time, of course, she would come back again. After all, he had got rid of Jack, and this being so, he could afford for awhile to put up with the absence of his wife. It was unpleasant, of course, very unpleasant, to be called such names, but as no one had heard them but himself it did not so much matter. Perhaps, after all, it was the best thing that could happen that she should take it into her head to go away for a time. In her present mood she would not make things comfortable at home, and, of course, his daughter would side with her mother.

Accordingly, when the carrier’s wagon stopped at the door the mayor went out with a pleasant countenance, and saw that the boxes were safely placed in it, and that his wife was comfortably seated on some shawls spread over a heap of straw. His attention, however, received neither thanks nor recognition from Dame Anthony, while Alice, whose face was swollen with crying, did not speak a word. However, they were seated well under the cover of the wagon, and could not be seen by the few people standing near; and as the mayor continued till the wagon started speaking cheerfully, and giving them all sorts of injunctions as to taking care of themselves on the way, he flattered himself that no one would have an idea that the departure was anything but an amicable one.

A week later a letter arrived for Dame Anthony and the mayor at once recognized the handwriting of Jack Stilwell. He took it up to his room, and had a considerable debate with himself as to whether he would open it or not. The question was, What did the boy say? If he wrote full of bitter complaints as to his treatment, the receipt of the letter by his wife would only make matters worse, and in that case it would be better to destroy the letter as well as any others which might follow it, and so put an end to all communication, for it was unlikely that the boy would ever return to England.

Accordingly he opened the letter, and after reading it through, laid it down with a feeling of something like relief. It was written in a cheerful spirit. Jack began by saying that he feared Dame Anthony and Alice would have been anxious when they heard that he was missing from his lodgings.

“I have no doubt, my dear cousin, you will have guessed what has befallen me, seeing that so many have been taken away in the same way. I don’t think that my late master acted handsomely in thus getting rid of me; for, as the list was made up by him, it was of course his doing. But you will please tell him from me that I feel no grudge against him. In the first place, he did not know I was going away to sea, and it must naturally have angered him to see one known to be connected with him hanging about Southampton doing nothing. Besides, I know that he always meant kindly by me. He took me in when I had nowhere to go, he gave me my apprenticeship without fee, and, had it not been that my roving spirit rendered me disinclined for so quiet a life, he would doubtless have done much for me hereafter. Thus thinking it over, it seems to me but reasonable that he should have been angered at my rejection of the benefits he intended for me.

“In the next place, it may be that his action in shipping me off as a soldier may in the end prove to be for my welfare. Had I carried out my intention and gone as a sailor, a sailor I might have remained all my life. It seems to me that as a soldier my chances are larger. Not only shall I see plenty of fighting and adventure, which accords well with my spirit, but it seems to me—and a sergeant who has shown me much kindness says that it is so—that there are fair chances of advancement. The soldiers are for the great part disorderly and ignorant men; and, as I mean to be steady and obedient so as to gain the goodwill of the officers, and as I have received a good education from my dear father, I hope in time to come to be regarded as one somewhat different from the common herd; and if I get an opportunity of distinguishing myself, and do not get killed by a Spanish bullet or pike thrust, or by the fevers which they say are not uncommon, then it is possible I may come back at the end of the war with some honor and credit, and, the sergeant said, may even obtain advancement to the rank of an officer. Therefore my late master, having done me many good turns, may perhaps find that this last one—even though he intended it not—is the best of all. Will you make my respects to him, dear cousin, and tell him that I feel no grudge or ill will against him? Will you give my love to my Cousin Alice? Tell her that I will bring her home some rare keepsakes from Spain should they fall in my way; and you know I will do the same for yourself, who have always been so good and kind to me.”

“The boy is not a bad boy,” the mayor said, well pleased as he laid down the letter. “It may be that I have judged him too harshly, seeing that he set himself against what was best for his welfare. Still, one cannot expect men’s heads on boys’ shoulders, and he writes dutifully and properly. I believe it is the fault of Andrew Carson, who was forever edging me on by reports of the boy’s laziness and carelessness. He certainly has a grudge against him, and he assuredly exceeded his place and authority when he lifted his hand against my wife’s cousin. It seems to me truly that I have acted somewhat hastily and wrong headedly in the matter. I shall give Master Carson notice that at the end of a month I shall require his services no longer—the fellow puts himself too forward. That will please Mary; she never liked him, and women in these matters of likes and dislikes are shrewder than we are. Perhaps when she hears that he is going, and reads this letter, which I will forward to her by the carrier, she may come back to me. I certainly miss her sorely, and the household matters go all wrong now that she is away. She ought not to have said things to me; but no wise man thinks anything of what a woman says when she’s angry; and now that I think things over, it certainly seems to me that she had some sort of warrant for her words. Yes, I certainly don’t know what can have come over me, unless it was that fellow, Andrew Carson. Richard Anthony has not been considered a bad fellow else he would never have become the Mayor of Southampton; and for fifteen years Mary and I have got on very well together, save for the little disputes which have arisen from her over masterful disposition. But she is a good wife—none could wish for better—though she is given to flame out at what she considers unrighteous dealings; but every woman has her faults, and every man too as far as that goes, and upon the whole few of them have less than Mary. I will write to her at once.”