Discipline.—Standing in a proper position.—Young Soldiers for the East Indies.—The Articles of War in the Army and the Navy.—The Sentinel and St. Paul’s Cathedral.—Mutilation among foreign Troops.—The reckless Irishman.—His mad freak.—His lighthearted observation.—His sentence.—Discipline on board the Atalanta.—The selfish severity of a sea captain.

“I will now say a word or two on discipline, because without it an army of soldiers would be a lawless and uncontrollable mob; a mere reckless rabble, almost as dangerous to their friends as their enemies: nothing like steadiness and discipline! One slow step in the path of duty is better than the double march in that of insubordination. It is discipline that keeps the army and the navy of England in order.”

“What is discipline? Is it flogging those that do wrong and disobey orders?”

“Discipline is the instruction, as well as the control of soldiers, sailors, and marines. Bravery alone would never enable men to discharge their duty in the field; it is discipline which renders their strength, skill, and bravery efficient. A good soldier should have somewhat to hope; a bad one should have something to fear.”

“A soldier’s exercise is a part of his discipline; is it not, uncle?”

“It is, and a very important part, too; what may seem to you of no consequence, is of real value in the discipline of the army. Every, even the least, important movement in military affairs, is a link in the chain of discipline that cannot be dispensed with without loss. The act of standing in a proper position may be thought a trifle, yet, in military tactics, it is of great importance. If a soldier cannot stand properly he cannot step properly, and still less can he march, countermarch, face, wheel, and perform the various evolutions required of him; in which case he is not only less efficient himself, but also a hindrance to his comrades.”

“We never thought standing properly was of half so much consequence.”

“If you reflect, boys, for a moment, common sense will tell you, that if one man stands upright and another crooked; if one takes up a little space, and another a great deal; if one makes a long step and another a short one; if one be quick in his movements and another slow, confusion must of necessity follow, and no officer can calculate either on the ground which the troops under him will occupy or the time they will take up in their marches and evolutions. If obedience be the first duty of a soldier, order is the second.”

“What is the next thing that is learnt by a soldier after position?”

“You must not expect me to explain all that is taught in the army. My account must be a sort of running fire; a touch and go on, or I shall never find time to tell one half that I have to say. I said, that a proper position was of consequence, and so it is. In whatever position, however, a soldier may be, he should never stand with his back to an enemy, and when his eyes are right, his heart never should be wrong.”

“Soldiers are sometimes very young. One that passed us yesterday was not above twenty.”

“Very likely. There are many that go abroad very young. Some time ago three hundred men, belonging to the 89th regiment of foot, came from Chatham to Gravesend, with their newly appointed officers. They all went on board the East India ship the Bombay, their destination being the East Indies. Among the whole three hundred not one was twenty years of age.”

“What are articles of war, uncle?”

“Articles of war are express rules and orders, drawn up for the navy, as well as for the army, that sailors and soldiers may know, if they commit an offence, what penalties they incur. The articles of war in the navy are enacted by act of parliament, and contain almost every possible offence that a sailor can commit. The articles of war in the army are not enacted by act of parliament, but have been framed from time to time at the pleasure of the Crown.”

“But do all soldiers and sailors know the articles of war?”

“They do, or ought to know the principal of them, for in every ship in the royal navy they are hung up in the most public place, and beside this, they are ordered to be read to the ship’s company at least once a month.”

“Are they read to soldiers too?”

“The principal of them are. Some offences are punishable with death, and some with lighter penalties.”

“What offences can be punishable with death among soldiers?”

“Any officer or soldier who shall begin, excite, cause, or join in any mutiny or sedition, or be present without trying to suppress it, or delay to give information; or shall desert the service,—or hold correspondence with, or give information to the enemy,—or abandon his post, or quit his colours to go in search of plunder; or strike, or offer to strike a superior officer—any officer or soldier doing these things is liable to suffer death, transportation, or such other punishment as by a general court-martial shall be awarded.”

“Well, these offences would be very bad, certainly, for a soldier to commit.”

“There are other crimes also punishable with death; such as when a soldier disobeys lawful commands; or does violence when in foreign parts to any one bringing in provisions; or treacherously makes known the watchword to any one not entitled to receive it; or intentionally occasions false alarms in action or camp; or casts away his arms in presence of an enemy; or sleeps at his post,—for a sentinel on the watch of duty should keep guard over himself. I will tell you something strange about a soldier sleeping at his post. It is said that a sentinel, in troublous times, found lying at full length on the ground, was tried by a court-martial for neglect of duty. The poor fellow was in great danger of being shot. When called upon for his defence, he said, that he was not asleep, but only listening to discover any approaching sound, and that while in that attitude he distinctly heard the big bell of St. Paul’s cathedral strike thirteen. This was of course not believed; for, in the first place, it was doubted whether the clock of St. Paul’s could be heard at all at such a distance from London, and in the next, it was not at all likely that it would strike thirteen. Strange, however, as the thing appeared, it turned out to be true, for on inquiry, it was proved beyond a doubt that the clock did on that night, owing to some unaccountable circumstance, strike thirteen!”

“Well, that was a strange thing indeed! The poor soldier would never forget the clock of St. Paul’s.”

“In the articles of war, any soldier who shall intentionally injure his eyes, or maim himself by firing off his piece or otherwise, is liable to the loss of his pay and pension, in addition to other punishment.”

“Do soldiers ever do such things as those?”

“Oh yes! Many instances of the kind have occurred. I remember that when the Turkish Sultan fought against Mehemet Ali, the men required for the army in Egypt so little liked the service, that when sent off to join their corps, some knocked out their teeth, others blinded themselves, and numbers made themselves cripples, so that by far the greater number had to be sent back. In order to put a stop to this course of proceeding his highness, the viceroy, issued an order to the governors of the different districts, that every soldier who maimed or disabled himself should, in future, be sent to the galleys for life, and that some relation of his should be chosen to supply his place.”

“But did you ever hear of any man in the British army doing anything of the kind?”

“I have, boys, but listen to me. I knew an Irishman, a daring reckless fellow as ever pulled a trigger, or mounted the breach on a forlorn hope. He served in India; and in wading a swamp, in charging the enemy, or in storming a stockade, never sure was his equal; but what of all that? he was, at the best, but a bad soldier.

“Pat feared no danger. But a soldier’s first duty is obedience, and this duty he could never practise. He was an idle, swearing, swaggering, drunken fellow. It was no use trying to reclaim him, for imprisonment, piquetting, and tying him up to the halberds, produced no reformation.

“Some of the privates in Pat’s regiment were invalided, and were on the point of returning to Old England, and Pat was determined to return too. Another man would have thought the matter over coolly, but Pat had no thought in him; so, splitting a brace of bullets into half a dozen pieces, and ramming them into his pistol, he pulled the trigger, and sent the whole charge through his left hand, that he might be invalided.

“I was close beside him when the regimental surgeon came in to examine his hand. After feeling among the shattered bones for some time,—‘I can save the thumb and finger,’ cried the surgeon; and taking out his instruments, in a few minutes he had removed the whole of the shattered hand, all but the thumb and finger.

“You would have thought that, what with the pistol-charge and the surgeon’s knife, Pat’s Irish heart would have been conquered—but no, nothing like it.—‘What do you guess, now, I am thinking about?’ said he to the surgeon. ‘Can’t guess at all,’ replied the surgeon. ‘Why,’ said Pat, coolly, ‘sure enough I was thinking that I should take a pinch of snuff yet, with my odd thumb and finger when I got home to my mother in ould Ireland.’

“Pat got neither prize-money nor promotion by this mad freak, for a court-martial awarded him a thousand lashes. The greater part of his punishment, however, was remitted; he was sent up the country to be a sweeper in a fort, and, for aught I know to the contrary, he may be there still. Pat was a drunkard, and when a soldier gives way to drinking, farewell to his good character and his dreams of promotion! Drunkenness is of itself a degrading vice, and it leads a man on into almost every other. Now, with such characters as Pat, how could the army be kept together without discipline?”

“Very true. Discipline must be kept up in the army, and indeed in the navy too.”

“I will give you, boys, two striking instances of the effect of discipline on board ship. They are taken from the Supplement to the Saturday Magazine, though I believe they were at first related by that excellent and well-informed officer, Captain Basil Hall, in his interesting ‘Fragments of Voyages and Travels.’ The first instance will show you the great advantage of steadiness and discipline in circumstances of danger. His Majesty’s ship Atalanta, commanded by Captain Hickey, in November 1813, was standing in for Halifax harbour, in one of the thick fogs so frequent on that coast, when it unhappily mistook the signal-guns of another vessel, in the same situation, for those which are fired during such weather from Sambo Rock, as guides to ships entering the harbour; the consequence was, that the Atalanta struck on the rocks, and the first blow carried away the rudder, half the stern-post, together with great part of the false keel, and, it is believed, a portion of the bottom. The ship instantly filled with water, and was buoyed up merely by the empty casks, till the decks and sides were burst and riven asunder by the waves.

“The captain, who throughout continued as composed as if nothing remarkable had occurred, then ordered the guns to be thrown overboard; but before this could be even attempted, the ship fell over so much that the men could not stand. In lowering the boats for the crew to take to, one, the jolly-boat, was lost; the ship was now fast falling over on her beam-ends, and directions were given to cut away the masts; but the crash caused the ship to part in two, and a few seconds afterwards she again broke right across, between the fore and main-masts.

“A considerable crowd of men had got into the pinnace (or boat), in hopes that she might float as the ship sunk; but the captain, seeing that the boat was overloaded, desired some twenty men to quit her, and his orders were as promptly obeyed as they were coolly given, so completely was discipline maintained by the character of the commander, and consequent confidence of the crew. The pinnace then floated, but was immediately upset by a sea; the people in her, however, imitating the conduct of their captain, retained their self-possession, and, by great exertions, righted the boat, and got her clear of the wreck, where, at a little distance off, they waited further orders from their captain, who, with forty men, still clung to the remains of the vessel. It was now, however, absolutely necessary to quit it, as the wreck was disappearing rapidly; and in order to enable the boats to contain them, the men, as removed to the pinnace, were laid flat in the bottom like herrings in a cask, while the small boats returned to pick up the rest, which was at last accomplished with great difficulty; but, except the despatches, which had been secured by the captain from the first, and a chronometer, everything on board was lost. The pinnace now contained eighty persons, the cutter forty-two, and the gig eighteen, with which load they barely floated, the captain being the very last person to quit the wreck of the ship; and hardly had he got into the boat when the last fragments disappeared: three hearty cheers were given by the gallant crew. The fog continued as dense as ever, and they had no means of knowing in which direction to proceed, and if it had not been for a small compass, which one man had appended to his watch, for a toy, it is most probable that they would not yet have been preserved; at last they were all landed in safety, about twenty miles from Halifax, nearly naked, wet through and shivering, and miserably cramped by the close crowding in the boats. The captain took the worst provided, and most fatigued, round to the harbour in the boats, and the rest, under the officers, marched across the country in three divisions, with as much regularity as if going well-appointed on some regular expedition, though very few had any shoes, and they had to traverse a country only partially cleared; the same evening the whole crew, without one missing, officers, men, and boys assembled at Halifax in as exact order as if their ship had met with no accident.”

“That is a very striking account indeed! Captain Hickey was a noble fellow!”

“The second story is tragically different from the first, and presents one of the most striking pictures of passive courage ever presented to the contemplation. A captain of a ship of war, whose sole object of ambition was to distinguish himself by capturing an enemy’s vessel, conceived that his surest mode of obtaining the fulfilment of his wishes was by disciplining his crew so strictly, that, in the event of an engagement, he would be sure of victory by his superiority in this respect; but, in order to obtain this, he harassed his crew by such strict regulations, such constant and unremitting exertions, and such excessive severity, as to alienate all affection, and to bring his crew to the verge of insubordination.

“The day at length arrived when his expectations seemed about to be realized. A strange sail appeared in sight, which was soon made out to be an enemy. He summoned his crew, and addressed them in an energetic speech; reminding them of their duty, and of the glory which awaited them; he gave orders to clear for action, and was instantly and scrupulously obeyed. But the hour of retribution was at hand. His crew knew of his ambition; knew it to be the source of their suffering, and determined to be revenged in the fullest manner. Their own spirit forbad them to do anything cowardly or mean, but they stood to their guns, and, when the enemy began the engagement, they kept their places, and refused to return a shot; in vain their commander and his officers reproached, exhorted, supplicated; with their arms folded they waited their fate, nor flinched while broadside after broadside struck them down. The battle, or rather the attack, was soon over; the enemy, surprised at the non-resistance, boarded the English vessel, and found the officers and their crew nearly all destroyed. The captain lived long enough to feel the bitter anguish of disappointment, and to be conscious of having been the cause; but he fell at last, before the vessel was taken possession of.”

“That was carrying discipline too far, however. Poor fellows! How those men must have hated the captain!”

“No doubt they did. Had not the captain been blinded by his own selfishness, he would have seen their discontent. Whether in the service or out of it, that man who disregards the feelings of others is not fit to be placed in authority. When men are tried too much, the heart is like a full cup, that a drop will make run over. I was once present when a young officer was very hard on an old soldier, whom he at last called a stupid old fool. The veteran at once lost all command of himself—he stepped from the ranks and told the young officer, that he had served his country for years, while he, his officer, had never smelt gunpowder. The officer had been in the wrong, and was prudently advised to pass by the outbreak of the old soldier. Before now, I have seen men on the very eve of mutiny, when a prudent and considerate word on the part of an officer, has broken their proud hearts at once, and brought them to a sense of their duty. Englishmen hate oppression, and it ought never to be practised. When officers temper the discipline of the service with due consideration, and kindly feeling, soldiers, sailors, and marines, are ready to follow them through fire and water.”