On a regimental guest-night which I found rather boring I retired to rest about 1 a.m. while there were still guests in the Mess. At about 2 a.m. I learnt that one must not do this. There is no need to give full details of events, but fate was not unkindly to me. My tub was at the foot of my bed, filled with cold water ready for the morning. One subaltern proposed that I had better have my bath at once and proceeded to put me into it. We struggled across the bath for some time and I evaded the ducking. Next morning I found at the bottom of my tub this officer’s gold watch, which had fallen out of his pocket in the struggle.
My quarters had whitewashed walls and the bloodstains on these must have startled my soldier servant. But it really was not a very serious affair. Noses bleed easily, and the blood was not all mine.
On returning to the ante-room after parade one day, a friend remarked with surprise that he had noticed that I had broken the point off my sword. I at once drew it to show him he was wrong, and so learnt that you must not draw your sword in the ante-room (a wise precaution from the old duelling days). The large amount of Port-wine I had to pay for as a punishment made this lesson easily remembered.
Three more occasions on which I had to stand the whole Mess Port-wine were when I spoke of some religious matter, when I opened a political discussion, and when I mentioned a lady’s name – three good rules well learnt, though at considerable expense to my father. A mention of Wellington’s campaign in the Peninsular cost me some more Port, and I was now more than half educated, having learnt the excellent rules that in a Mess you must not discuss religion or politics, or mention a lady’s name, or talk shop.
Carrying the Colours for the first time was a costly honour, also involving expensive refreshment for my brother officers.
My pay was five shillings and threepence a day, and my father gave me the small allowance of £100 a year, which just doubled my pay; but this fell far short of my Mess-bill, and further parental assistance was necessary at frequent intervals.
Malta, being at that time the head-quarters of the Mediterranean squadron, was a pretty lively place, and there was plenty to amuse one outside barracks. Dances were frequent, as well as all the usual forms of social gaiety.
I went to a ball at Government House, looking, as I thought, very smart in my brand-new scarlet Mess-jacket with a good deal of gold lace on it. But the room seemed full of midshipmen, and I found to my sorrow that no girl will look at a scarlet coat when there is a bluejacket around.
I am grateful to the Royal Navy for many cheerful suppers on board ship very late at night – or perhaps early in the morning. A favourite menu on these occasions was a simple one: ‘sardines, raw onions, and gin’.
Both officers and men had splendid boating facilities. I had a small sailing-canoe, out of which I got much enjoyment. A sudden puff of wind upset me when I was about a mile outside the harbour, and as I could not right the canoe, I proceeded to swim homewards, pushing it before me. Progress was slow and very hard work, so I was delighted to see a Maltese boatman coming to my assistance. With his aid I was soon ashore, when I gave him the liberal reward of ten shillings.
This, however, threw him into a perfect frenzy, and he shrieked ‘What, do you value your life at only ten shillings?’ I tried to explain to him that he had saved me trouble but not my life, and if when one had one’s life saved one had to pay the value of one’s life, it would be better not to be saved at all. I was none the worse for my ducking, beyond losing a rather valuable stone out of a ring – I shudder to think that I used to wear rings, but this was a family one.
In January 1885 we were ordered to Cairo, and hoped we might be sent up the river to join the Nile Expedition, but as our ist Battalion was already there we were kept at the Base.
If Malta had been fairly lively, Cairo put it altogether in the shade. It was before the days when Cairo became a fashionable resort and, being war-time, there were no ladies there. So without their refining influence we were rather wild.
Our favourite amusements in the evening were roulette and baccarat, played in the numerous gambling-dens. Senior officers showed us the way and we were not slow to follow their example. I won at times a mass of golden coins, at other times I lost still more without pausing to consider that I had very little to lose.
The crash very soon came, before I could even wire to my father for help. I awoke one morning to find my tent surrounded by Egyptian Police, and an evil-looking document was thrust into my unwilling hand. But before handcuffs could be actually applied, my brother officers arrived on the scene, and steps were taken that brought the matter to a satisfactory end.
I am now eternally grateful to them for what they did for me, but at the time I did not regard the possibility of having to leave the army as anything very dreadful. I was happy enough in my regiment, but disappointed, as we all were, at being kept at the Base, and the dullness of barrack-square routine in peacetime had already in one short year considerably damped my military ardour. I had wild ideas of starting life afresh in Patagonia, or Timbuctoo, or anywhere where one could feel ‘on one’s own’ – which simply meant, I suppose, that I had not yet got accustomed to discipline. My father eventually adjusted matters and set me on my legs again, but with a warning that the next time I should have to extricate myself without his assistance.
Soon after this episode my company was sent to Suez, a dull place after the gay life of Cairo. We had detachments both in this town and at Port Said, and neither of these towns was at all the sort of place a mother would choose for her boy of twenty – in fact, they probably held in those days about the world’s record for iniquity.
At Suez there were one or two gambling-dens which helped us to get rid of our pay, and roulette formed our only recreation at night. But by day we were fortunate in being able to get a little shooting on the marshes formed by the overflow from the sweet-water canal.
There was just enough water, with a few clumps of reeds and tall grasses, to tempt an occasional bird to alight and risk the fusillade of the Suez pot-hunters. Curlow, coot, and now and then a duck or snipe, was all that our shooting-ground yielded us, but it gave us outdoor amusement, and even the coots were a welcome change from our rations of bully-beef.
If we could have had it as our private preserve it would have served all our wants, but being just outside the town, it attracted every scallywag who owned a firearm of any sort. It was amusing to watch the procedure. A single curlew would alight somewhere about the middle of the marsh. Then from behind each clump of reeds would gradually become visible the various head-dresses of the seventeen nationalities who had determined to make their evening meal off that unfortunate bird. Bowler hats, a fez or two, a tweed cap, a solah topee – and I think there was once a Levantine Greek in a top-hat. If the bird was killed there was always a dispute as to the ownership, because probably five or six had fired at the same time. But more often the bird flew away unharmed, leaving little to quarrel about except the accusation of premature firing.
I shot a brother officer here. We were coming home after sunset when a duck suddenly alighted on the water. The bird was quite visible above the sky-line, but was lost in the darkness when he got below the line. But we knew about where he was, so we determined to stalk him by going round opposite sides of a big clump of tall grass and so getting him between us. It was a dangerous expedient and the duck got up exactly as we were facing each other. I shot Gilbert and he shot the duck.
The pellets were only just underneath the skin and were easily removed by the doctor, and I was compelled to stand a glass of Port for each pellet. There seemed to be an enormous amount of them, and it was an expensive affair. Gilbert and I still meet occasionally, and I think he still hopes to find a few more pellets.
In the summer our detachment was ordered to Suakim, half-way down the Red Sea on the East Coast of Africa – a nice place for a summer resort. If I were to state what the thermometer actually was I should not be believed, but it was certainly a long way over 120 degrees in the shade. We lived in tents with an extra matting roof to lessen the effect of the direct rays of the sun, but even with that we lost a great many men with heat-stroke.
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