Chapter XXV
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys.
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
The cabin was spacious and comfortable. Binnacle, the skipper, was a short, thick-set little stump of a fellow, with a round, good-humoured face, which had become browned by exposure in every climate and on every sea under the sun. He was very anecdotical, perpetually joking and laughing, and had one peculiarity, that he never in conversation inter-larded his remarks with nautical phraseology, like the conventional or orthodox sailor of romance and the stage.
He had never sailed before with a horse on board, and now that he had actually one hundred of those useful quadrupeds under his hatches, he spent a great deal of his spare time among them, tickling their ears and noses—more, perhaps, than some of them quite relished, if one might judge of the manner in which they occasionally showed the whites of their eyes, and lashed out at the rear end of their stall-boxes.
On board we smoked, of course, played chess, loo (rouge-et-noir, a little), and daily watched with interest the steamers which passed us, full of troops, British or French, all on their way to the East. Some of us kept diaries and made memoranda for friends at home: but some grew tired of doing so, or reflected that they might not live to record that, on such a day, the white cliffs of old England were again in sight.
We had quite a bale of the “Railway Library” on board; but to reading we preferred telling stories, to kill time, or watching, telescope in hand, for bits of continental scenery, as we ran along the coast of Portugal, spanned the Gulf of Cadiz, and hauled up for the Straits of Gibraltar, after passing the rocky promontory of Cape St. Vincent, which we saw rising from the sea north-north-east of us, about ten miles distant, on the fifth day after we sailed from Spithead.
During the day we had not many leisure hours, as there is no situation in which troops more urgently require the personal superintendence of their officers than when on board ship.
All the lancers were supplied with white canvas frocks, to save their uniforms, and were divided into three watches, each of which in turn was on deck, with at least one officer. We had an officer of the day and guard, who posted sentinels, armed with the sword, at the breaks of the poop and forecastle, to maintain order, and, when the weather permitted, we had an hour of carbine and sword exercise, to the great edification of Captain Binnacle and his crew. Every morning the bedding was brought on deck and triced in nettings alongside; no smoking was permitted in the stables or between decks.
The cattle were of course our chief care, and Beverley was always particular about his mounts. Experience and theory had long convinced him that the sire dominated in the breed of chargers; thus he ever eschewed the produce of half-bred stallions and stud horses. We gave them mashes dashed with nitre, and mixed bran with their corn; daily we had their hoofs and fetlocks washed in clean salt water, their eyes and noses sponged, and when at times the windsails failed to act, and the hold became close, we washed the mangers with vinegar and water, and sponged the horses’ nostrils with the same refreshing dilution.
Notwithstanding all our care, however, before we sighted Malta we lost three—one of which was my uncle’s present, the black cover-hack with the white star on her counter. It became glandered.
Pitblado, who had seen the nag foaled, and had many a day taken it to graze in Falkland Park, and on the green slopes of the Mid Lomond, flatly refused to shoot it when I ordered him to do so, but gave his loaded carbine to Lanty O’Regan, who had fewer scruples on the subject.
When this episode occurred, Cape Espartel was bearing south-east of us, about twelve miles distant; and by our glasses we could distinctly see the features of that remarkable headland of Morocco, the north-western extremity of the mighty continent of Africa, with its range of basaltic columns, which nearly rival in magnificence those of Fingal’s Cave at Staffa; and the noon of the following day, as we bore into the Mediterranean, saw the great peak of Gibraltar rising from the horizon like a couchant lion, with its tail turned to Spain.
When my poor nag, previous to its slaughter, was being slung up from the hold, Beverley was much impressed by the real grief of honest Pitblado for its loss; and told me an interesting Indian anecdote of a pet horse that belonged to the 8th Royal Irish Hussars.
Beverley seldom spoke of India, for it was a land that was not without sorrowful recollections to him; and we all knew that he wore at his neck a large gold locket, containing a braid of the hair of his intended bride—a lovely girl, who was shot in his arms, and when seated on his saddle, as he was spurring with his troop through the horrors and the carnage of the Khyber Pass—on that day when nearly our whole 44th Regiment perished—and poor Beverley, with her dead body, fell into the hands of the Afghans.
“When we last went out to India,” said he, “that was when I was but a cornet of sixteen, and several years before you joined us, we relieved the 8th Royal Irish, who had been there long—I know not how many years, but time enough to gain on their colours Pristinæ virtutis memores, with ‘Leswaree,’ and ‘Hindostan’—honours which they shared with the old 25th Light Dragoons,* for five-and-twenty years was then the common term of Indian expatriation.
“The 8th had been at the storming of Kalunga, where their old and beloved colonel—then General Sir Robert Rollo Gillespie—was killed at their head, and fell with that splendid sword, inscribed ‘The gift of the Royal Irish,’ clenched in his hand. His horse was a remarkably noble animal, which had been foaled of an Irish mare at the Cape of Good Hope; but he had the beautiful Arabian head, the finely-arched neck, long oblique shoulders, ample quarters, well-bent legs, and long elastic pastern of his sire—a splendid Godolphin barb. Black Bob was indeed a beauty!
“After the affair at Kalunga he was put up for sale, with his saddle and housings still spotted with the blood of the gallant Gillespie, who was so greatly beloved by the brave Irish fellows of the 8th that they resolved to keep his horse as a memorial of him; but, unfortunately, the upset price was three hundred guineas.
“Two officers of the 25th Light Dragoons raised it speedily to a hundred more. But not to be baffled, the poor fellows subscribed among themselves, and actually raised five hundred guineas, for which the beautiful black horse, with his housings, was sold to them.
“Black Bob thus became their property, and always preceded the regiment on the march. He knew the trumpets of the 8th better than those of any other regiment. The men were wont to affirm that he had a taste for the Irish brogue, too, and that he pricked his ears always highest at ‘Garryowen,’ in regard that his mother was a mare from the Wicklow Hills.
“Bob was fed, caressed, petted, and stroked as no horse ever had been before; and always when in barracks, as the corps proceeded from station to station where he had been with his old rider, he took the accustomed position at the saluting base when the troops marched past, just as if old Rollo Gillespie was still in the saddle, watching the squadrons or companies defile in succession, and was not lying in his grave, far away beneath the ramparts of Kalunga, among the Himalaya mountains in Nepaul.
“Well, as I have said, at last we came to relieve the 8th, who were dismounted, and had their horses turned over to us. They were to go home, as we had come out, by sea. The funds of the hussars were low now; pay was spent and prize-money gone. They were in despair at the prospect of losing their pet horse; but no such passengers ever went round the Cape, so they had to part with Bob at last.
“A civilian at Cawnpore bought him, and the hussars gave him back more than half the price, on receiving a solemn promise that Bob was to have a good stable and snug paddock wherein he was to pass the remainder of his days in comfort; and this pledge the new proprietor kept faithfully. But Bob had only been three days in his new quarters, when he heard the trumpets of the 8th waking the echoes of the compound, as they marched, dismounted, before daybreak, to embark on the Ganges, for Calcutta.
“It was the old air of the regiment, ‘Garryowen.’ Then Bob became frantic. He bit and tore his manger to pieces; he lashed out with his hoofs and kicked the heel-posts and treviss boards to pieces. He destroyed his whole stall, and sunk among the straw, bleeding, cut, and half strangled in his stall collar.
“After a time, when day by day passed, and he saw no more the once familiar uniforms, and heard no more the voices or the trumpets of his old friends, he pined away, refused his corn, and even the most tempting mashes, totally declining all food. So he was turned into the paddock; but then he leaped the bamboo fence, and with all his remaining speed rushed direct to the barracks at Cawnpore.
“There he made straight for the cantonment of the European cavalry, and came whinneying up to the saluting post, where he had so often borne old Gillespie and seen the squadrons of the 8th defiling past, and there, on that very spot, the horse fell down and died!”*
“I have often heard similar stories of dogs—but never such a yarn of a horse,” said Captain Binnacle, who was greatly impressed by this anecdote, and smoked a long time thoughtfully and in silence after it.
“Fact though!” said Beverley, curtly, and rather haughtily, as he tipped the ashes off his cigar.
“That horse had the heart of a man. But I could spin you a yarn, colonel, of a man that had the heart of a beast—ay, of a wild wolf; and it all occurred under my own eye—for I had to shed human blood in the matter; though I doubt not God above will acquit me therefor, seeing as how my own conscience acquits me.”
The impressive manner so suddenly adopted by our worthy little skipper attracted the attention of Beverley, Studhome, and M’Goldrick, and all the listening group.
Even Jocelyn—a gay fellow, who had more affaires de fantaisie than affaires de coeur, and who never permitted the impulses of that useful utensil, his heart, to go further than proved convenient or comfortable—felt himself interested by the gloomy and stern expression that came into the face of Captain Binnacle.
“Would you like to hear my yarn, gentlemen?” said the latter.
“With pleasure—certainly—by all means—if you please,” said we, alternately, and all together, for Binnacle was evidently anxious to spin it.
He gave a glance aloft, and another at the sky. The evening was fine and clear. The mate had charge of the deck, the ship was running under her head-sails, courses, top-sails, and topgallant sails before a fine strong breeze, which, as she rolled from side to side, made our horses reel and oscillate in their padded stalls below. The watch of lancers were all smoking or chatting on the port side; the sail-makers, squatted under the break of the forecastle, were busy on a set of new studding-sails; the carpenters were at work repairing the headrails forward.
The result of Binnacle’s glances was satisfactory; and, descending to the cabin, whither we all followed, he ordered glasses and decanters, with a case of four square bottles that held something stronger than decanters usually do. We all betook us to brandy-and-water, except Frank Jocelyn, who imbibed noyeau and lemonade, a decoction which Binnacle viewed with sublime contempt; but Frank wore his hair, divided in the middle, and invariably used w for r, so we excused him, as one might do a young lady.
After a few preliminary coughs and hems, Binnacle told us the following story, which is so horrible that it fully requires—let us hope deserves—an entire chapter to itself.
Notes
* A corps disbanded in 1818; and formerly the 29th Light Dragoons, were raised in 1795.
* There was another pet of the 8th Hussars, which met with a different fate. The jet-black horse, on whose back their colonel, T. P. Vandeleur, was killed at the battle of Leswaree “long kept his place with the regiment, and afterwards became the property of Cornet Burrowes, who took great care of him until the corps left India, when he was shot, that he might not fall into unworthy hands.”—Narrative of Leswaree. By Dr. Ore.