Motto for a soldier.—Glory.—Reply to a challenge.—The caricature.—Discharges.—A picquet, sentinel, vedette, advanced guard, and flag of truce.—Crossing rivers.—Presentations.—Camps of instruction.—Comfort of a cigar.—Tribute to the brave.

“The love of country is creditable to every heart; and I would have you, boys, cherish it in yours. I would, if I could, have every soldier, and indeed every Englishman, take for his motto,
‘Old England for ever!
The land, boys, we live in!’

and make up his mind that it is his bounden duty to do all he can for the country that gave him birth. Most of the old boys at Greenwich 182Hospital, and Chelsea College, who have lost an arm or a leg, or are otherwise injured, would heartily join in this sentiment, though they somehow seem to think fighting, and their country’s good, the same thing.”

“When a soldier is wounded, no doubt he tries to comfort himself with the honour he has got in the battle?”

“O boys! boys! ‘Will honour take away the grief of a wound?’ A soldier had need have something better to support him than the mere love of glory: he ought to have the consolation of knowing that he has fought in a just cause, and that it is his country’s good, and not his own that he aims at. In my time, perhaps, I have run after the bubble glory as ardently as the boy pursues his butterfly; but there are seasons—I speak from experience—when the heart of a soldier is sick of war; and then he muses and moralizes like other men. When, harassed, day after day, and night after night, when, bivouacing on the cold ground, or watching by the dying embers of the camp-fire, and, especially, when lying among the wounded on the battle-field, he sees friends and foes around him who have been swept down by the sharp scythe of war, he yearns for the calm quiet, the soothing peacefulness of a happy home, where the wasting sword of battle is unknown; and then, like others, he can break out in ardent exclamations against mad ambition, questioning the value of 183mere glory, and even doubting the lawfulness of making earthly honours an object of his desires.
‘O glory! glory! Mighty one on earth!
How justly imaged by the waterfall!
So wild and furious in thy sparkling birth,
Dashing thy torrents down, and dazzling all;
Sublimely breaking from thy glorious height,
Majestic, thundering, beautiful, and bright.
‘Oh! what is human glory, human pride?
What are man’s triumphs, when they brightest seem?
What art thou, mighty one! though deified?
Methuselah’s long pilgrimage—a dream!
Our age is but a shade, our life a tale,
A vacant fancy, or a passing gale.’

“You see, that though I am an old soldier, I have no notion of men fighting for mere glory. The good of their country and the real welfare of those around them is a better motive to move a soldier’s or a sailor’s heart than all the glory that can be acquired.”

“Officers sometimes fight duels, uncle, that cannot be for the good of their country.”

“Very true. He who kills another in a duel lays up for himself a bed of briers and a pillow of thorns. There are restless nights and ugly dreams in store for him. Perhaps you may have heard of the reply that was once given to a challenge. As, however, it is short, I will repeat it to you. It ran pretty much in this manner: ‘I have two objections to this duel affair; the one is, lest I 184should hurt you, and the other is, lest you should hurt me. I do not see any good that it would do me to put a bullet through any part, though even the least dangerous part of your body. As to myself, I think it more sensible to avoid than to place myself in the way of anything harmful. I am under great apprehension you might hit me: that being the case, I think it more advisable to stay at a distance. If you want to try your pistols, take some object—a tree, or anything else about my dimensions; if you hit that, send me word, and I shall acknowledge that if I had been in the same place you might have hit me.’”

“That was a famous answer, however.”

“I once saw a caricature of two sailors fighting a duel in a saw-pit with blunderbusses. If this method should ever become popular, the number of duels will not be very great. ‘Do you know the use of the sword?’ was once tauntingly asked of a brave officer by a mad-headed young ensign, who wished to provoke him to a duel. ‘Better than you do, young man,’ was the noble reply: ‘A soldier’s sword should defend his country from her foes, and not be plunged into the hearts of her friends.’ I knew a private soldier in the dragoons, well educated, but of a proud and violent temper, who quarrelled with his captain, and sent him a challenge. The captain refused to fight with a private; and this so wounded the pride of the dragoon that he destroyed himself with one of his 185own pistole. I would have all such untractable, reckless spirits discharged from the army.”

“When are soldiers discharged?”

“Under different circumstances. We will not here allude to desertion, for then, men and muskets too sometimes go off without being discharged. At times soldiers are found unfit for service; they have purchased their liberty; the army has been reduced; their period of service has been completed; or some crime has been committed by them, on account of which they are dismissed with disgrace. It often happens, however, that a soldier, unfit for one duty, is very capable of performing another, and thus many are invalided; they are put on garrison duty, though unfit for general service.”

“Ay! that seems a very good plan. Garrison-duty, then, is not so hard as other service?”

“It is not. Sometimes, when soldiers are discharged, they have pensions, and sometimes they have not. Many a man, who is not active enough for a picquet in the field, makes a good sentinel in garrison.”

“What is a picquet?”

“A picquet is an out-guard, posted before an army, to reconnoitre and give notice of the approach of an enemy. Picquets have been called the watchdogs of an army.”

“Is a picquet and a sentinel the same?”

“No; for a sentinel is one man, whereas picquets are often strong bodies of horse and foot. Sentinels 186in the night should be careful not to give false alarms. I knew of one case, wherein a camp was put in confusion by a sentinel firing his piece at a horse, which had strayed; the sentinel mistook the animal for an enemy—the alarm became general, but at last the cause of it was discovered. In case of a sudden surprise, the picquet guard make what resistance they can, that the army may have time to get ready. Picquets should be composed of smart fellows, all alive and equal to their undertaking; men who will behave kindly to the inhabitants around them, and keep on good terms with them. Telescopes and pocket-compasses are very necessary to picquets. At night, sounds may be heard at a great distance, and the vedettes posted by the picquet, should be very silent to catch a distant sound. At night, too, a person can see better, looking up hill than looking down. These, and a hundred other things, should be well known by picquets, to render them thoroughly useful.”

“You did not say what a vedette was?”

“A vedette is a sentinel on horseback. His carbine should be advanced ready for use, and his horse’s head turned in the direction of expected danger. Once, when I was on a picquet in Spain, near Corunna, a vedette gave the alarm, and a body of horse burst upon us so suddenly that had it not been for a couple of carts and some timber, which we had but just dragged across the narrow 187pass before us, every soldier must have been sacrificed. These are moments that try men, and tell us what they are. Advanced guards are parties of horse or foot, and frequently of both the one and the other, marching on before large forces, and thus covering the front of a column.”

“How do soldiers manage when a flag of truce is sent?”

“I will tell you. A flag of truce is sent to an enemy when a cessation of hostilities is required; when time is wanted to bury the dead, or when articles of peace are about to be drawn up. It is the duty of an officer carrying a flag of truce to make the best of his eyes, that he may observe all he can of the strength and position of the enemy. And when a flag of truce arrives the receivers of it should blindfold the messenger who bears it, if he goes to head-quarters. The bearer of a flag of truce is generally preceded by a trumpeter.”

“How do soldiers manage to get across brooks, that are deep, and rivers? That must be no easy matter?”

“The crossing of great rivers is one of the most difficult of military operations, yet this is frequently necessary to be done in the face of an enemy. It is effected in different ways; sometimes a river, which cannot be crossed in a straight line, may be crossed in a slant one. When not fordable at all, pontoons, and pontoon 188bridges are resorted to. Pontoons are flat-bottomed boats, made of wood, but lined with tin or copper, as the case may be, a little better than twenty feet long. Bridges of boats, too, are used, as well as cables, stretched from the bank by tackles and capstans, and resting on the decks of vessels, moored at different distances. Flying bridges are at times very serviceable. They are formed by anchoring a floating body in the water to receive the action of the stream obliquely, by which a force is derived from the current to move the vessel across the river. Then, there are rafts of timber, casks, air-tight cases, and inflated skins, resorted to, as well as carriage-bridges, and suspension-bridges, bridges on trestles, piles, truss-frames, and other applications of carpentry.”

“Oh! tell us what an inspection is?”

&l............