Hungry Harry: An Orphan in the Ranks

by Andrew Wareham

  The magistrate rattled off a legal formula, most of which Harry did not catch.

  “Do you so swear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Say, ‘I so swear’, if you please!”

  “I so swear, sir.”

  “Good. Sign here… Can’t? Make your mark.”

  The sergeant showed Harry how to make a cross – he had never held a pen before. The clerk witnessed the mark and from that moment Harry was a soldier, signed on for life. The clerk gave the document, the evidence that could have Harry shot if he deserted, to the sergeant.

  “Private soldier Belper, about turn!”

  The sergeant led him out of the office, still chatting idly.

  “No point to doing anything else, boyo – you can’t march barefoot. Back to the barracks and get your issue. You got the price of a pie on you, boyo?”

  Harry said that he had and the sergeant led him to the stall.

  “Beef and kidney for me, boyo. Buy one for yourself as well, if you got enough money.”

  They ate and walked back to the barracks. The sergeant, having been fed for free, was in a generous mood.

  “Word to the wise, boyo. When you gets your uniform, then it’s orders and obey on the spot. Don’t argue, don’t say nothing, just do what you’re told at the run. Obey your sergeant, whoever he is, like he was God; you won’t see me, acos of I’m in the Adjutant’s office. You’re young and healthy-looking, so they probably will put you in the Light Company, but they might say Grenadiers acos of you being bigger than most. Whichever, just keep your chaffer tight shut – not a word except they ask you a question, right?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Just right, boyo! That’s all you ever says, until you takes a place in the ranks, and not much more afterwards.”

  Harry was puzzled by the order, but, if that was how it was done, then he would fit in. He was used to doing as he was told; he had obeyed the orders given by the fat men; he had run away because the missus had said he must; he had become a soldier because Sonner had said it was best for him; now he was told to keep his mouth shut – he could do that too.

  He was taken into the stores where the Quartermaster Sergeant stared at him forbiddingly.

  “What you got here, Taff?”

  “Recruit, QM. Volunteer, run from the coal mine, so ‘e says, like.”

  The Quartermaster Sergeant nodded in grudging acceptance; the boy was not a criminal thrown out of the town clink to serve in the ranks, and he was not some fly town-boy escaping before he was found out. There was only a trickle of recruits – a bare one a day, far too few for their needs – giving him very little work; he would do his job properly.

  “How big are yer feet, boy?”

  Harry looked down, confused by the question.

  “You ever worn shoes before, boy?”

  “No, sergeant. Barefoot, always.”

  “Poor little bugger! You ain’t going to enjoy the next couple of weeks!”

  The Quartermaster Sergeant pulled two pairs of heavy shoes off of a rack, put them to Harry’s feet, decided they were more or less right. They came in three sizes: small, middling and big and never quite fitted any man.

  “Big. Remember that for when you gets another pair, three or four years from now. Foot cloths, two sets.”

  He put two pairs of flannel strips on the counter.

  “Wash ‘em a couple of times a week, don’t let ‘em get stiff with sweat. Wrap ‘em round careful, no wrinkles, no creasing, so they don’t rub blisters. Some battalions issue stockings, but they wear out too quick.”

  Harry nodded cautiously.

  Two pairs of linen trousers followed, again simply ‘large’, and a pair of old-fashioned cloth gaiters, with strings which he must blacken himself. Three linen shirts with long tails which he must wrap round his legs as the only underclothes he would get; there was a waistcoat without sleeves, which he was told was the ‘wrong sort’ but the only one they had. A leather stock to lace tightly under his chin and a tall shako military hat followed. A bright new scarlet coat as well, with brass buttons which he must keep shining. Then followed a mass of smaller objects – a hair leather and a ribbon, for the braded queue he must sport once his hair had grown longer; a forage cap, pipe-clay, clothes brush, shoe brushes and blackball, two combs and a cloth stock. His belts came last, the cross-belts to be pipeclayed, the leather round his waist to be shiny black. The infantry chest plate was given him with some ceremony, the words spelled out for him.

  “Bedfordshire Fusiliers. That’s us – that’s what you are now.”

  They did not mention that more than half of the items they had given him were referred to as ‘necessaries’, which he must pay for himself by deductions from his bounty and wages.

  “Lose any of ‘em and you pays for ‘em, byo – so keep your eye out for thieving sods in the barracks room. Pipeclay and blackball especial like, they walks any time you don’t look out for ‘em.”

  The Quartermaster Sergeant agreed with his normal expression of gloom; he felt a sudden, rare mood of generosity and handed over another blackball and a paper twist of tallow.

  “That’s for the queue, nipper; you’ll need it. You’ll get a knapsack and canteen and pouches next week, when they comes in – we ain’t got any in store just now.”

  Harry picked up the load, more clothes than he had possessed in total in the whole of his life, and followed the Sergeant back to the Adjutant.

  “Grenadier Company, sergeant – they’re short of big fellows, and he will be substantial when he grows to his full size.”

  “Says he’s eighteen, sir.”

  “Not a day more than sixteen, I will lay you, sergeant!”

  They demanded to know Harry’s actual age and he replied that he reckoned he had been eight winters in the mine, though it might have been no more than seven because he hadn’t known about counting. He thought he could remember two seasons of snow and then one where it just rained all winter and then three more of snow and then the one when they built the trackway down the hill. He back checked on his fingers.

  “So this one just gone by will make the eight, sir.”

  “Just sixteen – they sell them out of the workhouses when they’re eight.”

  “Two years of growth in him, sir. Make a six footer, sir.”

  Average height for recruits was six inches less than that; Harry would stand out, which might make him vulnerable to his officers’ displeasure. It was better to put him with the biggest men, not that any were especially large.

  “I think so, sergeant. Take him across to his barracks-room.”

  The battalion had only eight companies, for being short of officers, and each had a single sergeant and corporals for each section; all of them, non-commissioned officers as well, were old in Harry’s eyes.

  “One new recruit, Sergeant Hollis!”

  “Needs bloody thirty, not one, Taff!”

  “Get some of them next week, Sergeant Hollis – Assize Court sittin’, like.”

  “Bloody gaol-delivery bastards!”

  “We got to take what we can get. Mostly they knows where we are a-going and they ain’t comin’ nowhere near us.”

  Hollis nodded and weighed Harry up.

  “Does he know, poor little sod?”

  “Doubt it. Private Belper, permission to speak! Do you know where the battalion’s posted?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  The two shook their heads.

  “Might as well tell you, boyo, it’s too late now. Cape Coast Castle, boyo – down in the Bight of Benin – to work the garrison there.”

  It meant nothing to Harry.

  “’Beware, beware, the Bight of Benin; there’s one comes out for forty goes in’. The Fever Coast, boyo. Cape Coast Castle ain’t the worst place, that’s Goree Island; they took Goree from the Frogs in the war, in 1776, I think it was, and sent a battalion of Carmarthen boys there to be the garrison. Not a one of them came back – the Yellow Jack took every l
ast man of them. They gave Goree back to the Frogs – they was bloody welcome to it! They raised us special to go down to the Bight – most of the army’s been put out on the streets, since the war in America ended, but even so, they’re having hell’s own time pulling in the men. That’s why the officers are all old – couldn’t live on their half-pay or too drunk too often. They all came in a rank higher than they left the army at the end of the war, and if they live they’ll go back to better half-pay and with the chance of being put across to a Militia Battalion instead, kept in employment till they die.”

  It still meant little to Harry.

  They explained as well that the battalion, being newly raised, was housed in a barracks rather than billeted out round the town as was normal.

  “Too many who need training in everything, and who would take the chance to run with their bounty.”

  Sergeant Hollis assigned a cot to Harry and showed him how the blanket must be made up; there was only the one blanket on the straw pallet, but it had to be laid out correctly.

  “Got enough beds for one each, because we ain’t got the men. That makes it easier, not ‘aving to share. Puts your stuff in your knapsack and uses that as a pillow and that keeps it safe at night.”

  The Grenadier Company was short of men, barely thirty yet, and there was small chance of many more – the local folk were on the short side, it seemed.

  “Just two platoons – can’t even work us into sections like what it ought to be. Corporal Smith ‘as got your lot, and ‘e’s out on the drill square the while. Two messes in each platoon – you shares in together and all pays the same for extras. The rations money gets taken out of your pay – you don’t see it. You takes turns to be cook, unless somebody wants the job, what does ‘appen, though not always, but ‘as in your lot. Fair shares – fat bugger or skinny, you all eats the same or you gets a kickin’ if you tries ‘elpin’ yourself to some other bugger’s plateful.”

  There were wooden plates and spoons in the room, with spares, because the stores had not got the official issue yet. Harry helped himself to one, put it with his pile of newly acquired gear.

  “You a drinker, Belper? Gin and beer, that is.”

  “Never tried it, Sergeant Hollis.”

  “Good. You got any sense, you’ll keep it that way. There’s a kettle and a fire to boil it on and you can put a penny a day in to buy tea. You gets five pints a day of small beer in the issue – give that away and you’ll find blokes to show you ‘ow to get on. They’ll set your belts up for you and teach you ‘ow to put the pipeclay and blacking on, and the same for the shoes and the stock. A couple of penn’orth of tobacco a week, and there’ll be a mate to give you the wink on ‘ow to get by, and to keep an eye out for your gear when you’re out on guard of a night. It’s up to you, you don’t ‘ave to – but it makes good sense if you do. Especial, like, in this battalion just now, what with the sort of blokes we got comin’ next week and the officers what we got now.”

  Harry was not yet officially on the strength, so there would be no ration issue for him until the morning. Sergeant Hollis led him out of the barracks and permitted him to spend some of his bounty on feeding them both in a chop house; then he let Harry buy him a gin to wash the meal down.

  “Right, boy, let’s get you back to where you belongs. Corporal Smith will get your uniform together and make the arrangements.”

  He spent the evening learning how to polish his shoes and apply pipeclay to the cross-belts and how to actually wear his uniform.

  In the morning he shared the oatmeal and drank a cup of tea before he was put into his uniform again and led out to the drill square, trying not to hobble in the heavy shoes which were constricting his unaccustomed feet.

  There were three other recruits with less than a month’s service in the company and Harry was put into line with them.

  “You knows right from left, Private Belper?”

  “No, corporal.”

  Corporal Smith, forty, carrying a beer belly and possessing very little brain but with the smartness of a quarter of a century’s service, had met that problem before.

  “Well, boy, you knows hay from straw, don’t you?”

  “No, corporal.”

  “Where you been all your life, boy?”

  “Coal mine, corporal.”

  Normal practice was to make the recruit carry a wisp of hay in his left and a straw in his right hand – farm boys soon got used to the commands, ‘left hay’, ‘right straw’ and learned which was which.

  There was another method which also worked quickly.

  “Which hand do you piss with, boy?”

  Harry raised the right.

  “That’s the right, boy. I says ‘by the left’, which side is it?”

  “Not the one I uses, so it’s this one, corporal.”

  “Don’t forget!”

  An old soldier, signed on again to the only life he knew, was brought across to act as fugelman; he stood to the front and performed each command as the corporal shouted. The four new men watched and at the repetition of the command did their best to imitate the fugelman. Time after time, repeating the same few movements; by the end of a day Harry could stand to attention and at ease and could perform the salute, an achievement that one of the others could not match despite his extra days of service, but he was simple, poor lad.

  He marched back to the barracks room at the end of the day, Corporal Smith calling time.

  He could smell a stew cooking.

  He sat on his bed and eased his heavy shoes; looking round he saw that the other men were all barefoot and he released his toes from their unnatural confinement. They hurt.

  There were seven others in the platoon, grinning more or less sympathetically as they watched him rub his feet.

  “Never worn nothing on your feet afore, nipper? Grab your plate, it’s almost ready.”

  The speaker was at least fifty, an old man, short and pot-bellied and almost wholly bald apart from the queue stuck out behind his head. He was wearing a dirty apron, splashed by years of grease.

  “I’m Smudger – Smith like the corporal, so they calls me that – and I does the cooking, every day. Got your mug? I dishes out the beer as well.”

  “Not for me, Smudger – don’t like the stuff.”

  “You dunno what’s good for you, boy. More for the rest of us. There’s tea in the pot – seven pence a week, that is.”

  Smudger held his hand out, accepted a sixpence and two ha’pennies.

  “Cash on the nail! That’s ‘ow it should be. What’s your name, boy?”

  “Harry, Smudger; H-arry.”

  Smudger laughed and told the others his name, making a play of its pronunciation; they shrugged and nodded. It was his name and if that was what he wanted, well, it was his choice.

  “That’s Jim, and Billy sat by ‘im. Jock and Mac over the other side. Patrick and Paddy in the middle. That’s us, and all of us and not enough. The corporals mess with the sergeant, not with us. Just thirty-one in the company, and the three of them, and the Captain. There’s a lieutenant, too, but we ain’t seen ‘im yet acos ‘e ain’t got ‘ere like ‘e should ‘ave last week. We sees the Captain on Friday, when we ‘as a parade. You won’t be on parade, not first week – you stands at the side to watch.”

  Harry sipped at his tea, black but with a little sugar, something he had never tasted before, and watched as the eight plates were filled with scrupulous equity. There was ration beef, and potatoes and slices of turnip and onion and a few shreds of cabbage and each man received as nearly as possible precisely the same amount of each. The food was filling and, to Harry’s palate, tasty enough, particularly as there were two slices of fresh bread as well, to mop up the broth.

  “I ain’t good for much these days, boy, but I can bloody cook.”

  Harry nodded to the old man, agreed with him.

  “Good food. Beef takes a bit of chewing, mind you, but it ain’t bad.”

  The others said the same – the fo
od was as good as they had ever eaten in their previous lives, and far more of it. None of them had been certain of a bellyful before joining up. Smudger explained the messing to Harry.

  “You gets your daily bread, officially, pound and a half of it – but we gets half of that as oatmeal for breakfast instead. Pound of beef or half that of pork – but that’s with the bone in it, and I manages to swap for fat bacon once or twice a week, for a change. There’s a quarter-pint of pease, what goes in the stew mostly, and a bit of rice for thickening the broth. I keeps the butter back for the days we has bacon, for cooking it, and the cheese is bloody awful, like chewing rock it is, so I swaps that for onions mostly. Every week, each bloke hands over one of his shillings to me and I uses that to buy in down at the market – that’s where the spuds and the rest comes from.”

  Harry dug into his pocket again and produced two sixpences.

  “Straight enough, Harry – you’ll do!”

  The others muttered agreement as they stretched out round the small hearth. All of them had mugs of small beer to hand; Harry saw a bottle of clear liquid going round, topping up the beer, which was very weak.

  “Gin, nipper. Want to give your tea a helping hand?”

  “Nope. Never tried it and don’t want to start, thank’ee!”

  Billy laughed, said he would soon change, he would learn.

  Harry sat back, silently watching, mostly because he had very little to say. He knew nothing of the things they talked of. There had been a bare-knuckle fight on the previous Saturday which they had all watched – only local men but discussed avidly. Harry had never heard of the Fancy. Patrick thought he might give it a try himself one of these days – he was bigger than Harry and looked strong enough.

  They slept early, for they would be up with the dawn, before that for Smudger who would cook their breakfast and was informally excused all other duties – he was simply too old to drill and parade, but he knew his way round the army and was a useful man.

  Harry remained in the Awkward Squad for a week and then was told that he was a bright lad and learned quickly and could take his place in the ranks with the others. The three who had been in the squad when he had joined remained there – the one for being too stupid to learn anything at all and the other pair for deciding they did not fancy the life and that they might be discharged as useless if they showed unable to learn.