The Gentleman Cadet

“Ah, that’s a sort of pedantry,” replied the General, “which is what I set my face against. Your classic belongs to a large school, and prides himself immensely on his knowledge. He only values men according to what he finds they know of classics. Now, this is a mistake. You will find that horse-jockeys and stablemen do the same. If you make a remark to a horsey man, showing you are not up in horse slang, he at once sets you down as a muff, for he has only one standard of excellence, viz, knowledge of horses, just as you have of classics. Just now you took it out of Shepard there about the Latin names of hawks, and then you seemed to think that knowing these names made a naturalist. This I don’t agree to. Now, I’d back Shepard to tell quicker than you a summer from a winter cage when he saw one.”

“I think I could tell that,” replied Stanley.

“How?” inquired the General.

“Well, the winter cage ought to be warmer and hung on the sunny side of the house, and perhaps covered with something to keep the cold wind out.”

A shout of laughter from the General, in which both I and Miss Stanley joined, interrupted Stanley in his remarks. He looked annoyed and surprised, and seemed waiting for an explanation.

“There!” said the General, “you have done worse than make a false quantity; you have shown you know nothing of what I meant. You must know that ‘a cage’ means in the forest a squirrel’s nest, and that the squirrel makes a summer and a winter cage – one of sticks, the other of moss.”

We had several other little “passages of arms” during dinner, much, I fancied, to the amusement of Helen Stanley, who seemed to enjoy seeing her cousin taken down a little.

On the following morning a ride was proposed to see one of the largest beech-trees in the forest, which was in Eyeworth Wood. The party consisted of my youngest sister, Miss Stanley, Stanley, and myself. We had scarcely mounted our horses before I saw that Stanley was a very indifferent rider. He tried his best to conceal the fact, but it was of no use. The pony he was riding was a well-bred forest pony, strong, and high spirited. The animal seemed (as horses soon do) to have discovered that his rider was an indifferent horseman, and began to play various tricks, much to the discomfiture of Stanley, who kept his seat with difficulty. I could see that Stanley was fast losing his temper, and when his cousin told him to keep his hands lower, and not to jerk the pony’s mouth, he seemed to be ready to quarrel with any one.

“I see what you mean,” Stanley replied, looking at me. “These forest brutes require riding more in the butcher-boy style.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s the way – more like a butcher-boy and less like a tailor!”

I thought Stanley would have hit me with his whip. He raised it, and probably would have done so; but his pony, seeing the whip raised, bounded off, and deposited Stanley on his back on the turf.

We saw he was not hurt, so out attention was turned to catching his pony, which we soon succeeded in doing, when he mounted again and safely accomplished the remainder of his ride.

Miss Stanley was nearly the whole time by my side, and I found myself more and more charmed with her. I was flattered by her manner, and felt that there would be great satisfaction in gaining her approval in my future career at Woolwich.

“I shall always look out for your name in the papers,” she said, “to see when you get any prizes. I saw your name in the Times as having passed when I was at Brussels, and I was so glad.”

“I am not likely to get any prizes,” I replied, “except my commission; that will be a good prize.”

“Oh, you are certain to get some if you try for them! Why, see how well you have done already. I am certain if young men had some one to back them up, and give them encouragement, there would not be so many failures as there are. I think there is nothing so charming as an intellectual, clever man!”

I did not know what to reply to this remark, for I was not only very young but very inexperienced at that time, and was not aware of a fact which I believe experience has since taught me, viz, that young ladies usually like a man who is not intellectual, but who can talk any amount of what is termed nonsense, whilst it is usually middle-aged ladies who seek after intellect and prefer the society of those who possess it.

A week passed at General Holloway’s like a dream, and it came to an end as suddenly, as the General was taken seriously ill, and we all had to leave. Before I left I had confessed to Helen Stanley that I was desperately in love with her, and that I should never be happy without her; but to my utter discomfiture she informed me that she was engaged to her cousin, and had been so from a child, though she did not care for him one bit. I believed fully when I heard this that I should never be happy again, and that I should wander about one of those “blighted beings” that one hears and reads of, and occasionally sees, who have been disappointed in love, and who never recover from it; but I am happy to say that, though for many days I felt terribly desolate, and seemed to live without a purpose, yet before I had been a week at the Academy I had begun to laugh at my own folly in having fallen in love in less than a week with Miss Helen Stanley.

Chapter Fifteen

Life as an Old Cadet

There is scarcely a more marked difference between the condition of a master and a slave than there was thirty years ago between the state of an old cadet and a neux. On joining the Academy at my fourth half I became an old cadet, and possessed all the rights and privileges of my exalted position. I had now full liberty to wear my chin-strap up, to go out without straps to my trousers, to fag any last-joined or second-half cadet, and, in fact, to do very much as I liked. I was second in my room, the head of the room being a corporal one batch senior to me; the third of the room was a second-half cadet, and the fourth a last-joined.

It was now my turn to send for various last-joined cadets, and call upon them to sing songs, make odes to the moon, and speeches in favour of fagging; and I must own that there was very great delight in exercising this authority. Among the last-joined in my division were two of Hostler’s boys, who were considerably more advanced than I was when I was at school with them. Now, however, there was a great gulf between us, and I found it necessary to let them know it, for their education had been very much neglected, as they actually gave me a familiar nod and said, “How do, Shepard?” when they first met me at the Academy, they being in plain clothes and last-joined, I in uniform and an old cadet.

Although I followed the usual routine of fagging the neuxes on every possible occasion, I strictly avoided what I had considered cruelty when I was myself a neux; so that such amusements as angles of 45 degrees, flipping round tables, climbing stools, etc, I set my face against, and endeavoured to discourage in others.

I made up my mind to work this half-year very hard, and to try and prove to all my friends that I had some brains and could pass examinations well. There was a prize given for mathematics in the class in which I was; but this was almost certain to fall to the cadet who was first in my class the last half-year. I, however, hoped to hold my position of sixth in mathematics, if not to take some places, and thus to show that it was neither by fudging nor by a fluke that I had passed so well at the last examination. I had now every opportunity for working; I was not worried by fears of being fagged or disturbed in any way, and could be as quiet as I liked in my room. When a neux got rather forward and seemed likely to pass an old cadet, there was immediately a pressure brought to bear on the junior to prevent him from working. I had not been forward enough in my first or second half to be a dangerous competitor, so I never was warned to leave off “swatting,” but others had been. In the same class with me there were no cadets more than one half junior to me, so there was no reason to bring the “old cadet” influence to bear, even had I thought such a proceeding right, which I did not, so we all worked on our merits.

Perhaps, as far as exciting incidents happened, my fourth half-year was the most barren of all. The routine through which I had passed had caused me to thoroughly enjoy what would otherwise probably never have been looked upon as an enjoyment. To go to bed and know that I could go to sleep with no risk of being disturbed for the purpose of going to some room to sing, or make speeches, was in itself a luxury, and I believe in afterlife there are few people who so thoroughly enjoy themselves as those who in their younger days have had to rough it on service or in savage or uncivilised countries.

Sitting, as we are at present, in a snug room, the windows rattling and the house actually shaking with the south-east gale blowing, we feel the greatest satisfaction in comparing our present condition with that of some years ago, when we were tossing about in the Bay of Biscay in a leaky vessel, short of water and provisions. As we hear the rain dash against our windows at night, and remember that our roof is waterproof, we feel a singular pleasure in thinking what a comfort it is not being in our old bell-tent in the far South, through which the rain would come like a sieve, and which sometimes required us to go out in the rain and slacken the peg-lines, in order to prevent their contraction by wet from pulling up the pegs and dropping the wet tent on us. By comparisons we to a great extent learn to appreciate and enjoy, and the comparison between my position during my first, and fourth half-year, as a cadet was such as to make me thoroughly enjoy my life.

There was much in those days that cadets had to complain of, but which defects have since been remedied. Formerly any cadet seen smoking was liable to discharge. If a cadet were seen to enter a billiard-room he would stand a fair chance of being rusticated. Trifling offences were also not unfrequently treated as most grievous crimes, and favouritism, that fatal enemy to all discipline, to all true energy, and to all satisfaction with the service, was not unknown at the Academy.

As an example of the severe punishment sometimes inflicted formerly for apparently light offences, a cadet, head of a room, had not reported the second of his room for marking his cupboard by means of a needle arrow blown from a tube. The cupboard of course was marked and slightly damaged, and the head of the room was given seven days’ arrest for neglect in not reporting the case.

There was in those days a sort of struggle going on between the cadets and the authorities, relative to cadets being put on their honour to own to certain offences committed by them, and which there was no evidence on which to convict them other than their own confession. The cadets were advocates for the system of honour, which may be explained by the following case: —

On the Common there was a house which had on its gates some grotesque figures in stone. These figures attracted the attention of the cadets, who periodically used to remove them, and place them on another gate. When the parade was formed the officer on duty used to call, “Fall out the gentlemen who removed the figures from the house on the Common!” and instantly the culprits would fall out, and would receive a much lighter punishment than if they had been discovered without their own confession.

This system worked very well until it became whispered among the cadets that one of the non-commissioned officers attached to the Academy used to practise a system of espionage, and used to watch cadets into a certain public-house on Shooter’s Hill, where they used to assemble to smoke and talk of an afternoon. This fact became known, and instantly the cadets, by universal opinion, agreed that this was a breach of faith on the part of the authorities, and consequently they refused any longer to be “on honour.” For a time there was a sort of strike between the cadets and the authorities, during which some amusing adventures occurred.

In our division there was an old cadet who had been a corporal, but had been reduced for having what was called a “grog party” in his room. This cadet decided to have another party after roll-call, and to bar out the officer on duty, in case he tried to enter the division. To accomplish this, the cadet procured several powerful screws, and actually screwed up the door between the officers’ quarters and the division. We all agreed “on honour” not to reveal who the cadet was who performed the deed, and waited in expectation of the event.

At about half-past ten we had all assembled in the room of the cadet named, and were very jolly singing, when the neux who had been put on watch over the door reported that the officer was trying to enter. Immediately we all took off our boots, and went to our rooms and got into bed with wonderful rapidity, for we anticipated what would follow. The officer, failing to enter by the side door, soon came round to the front, which we had not attempted to secure, and entering the room of the cadet who had entertained us, asked him what he meant by making such a disturbance, and who it was who had fastened up the door. The cadet looked much surprised, and said he had heard the noise, but could not tell where it was; and that he could not tell anything about the door being fastened.

Each of our rooms was visited, but we were all in bed and shammed being asleep, and pretended we knew nothing of the noise that had taken place.

On the following morning there was no response to the request of the officer on duty, that the gentleman would fall out who had nailed up the door communicating with the officers’ quarters. The consequence was that the whole division were confined to the enclosure, with the threat that they would be so confined until the cadet who had screwed up the door came forward.

A consultation was now held among the seniors, and it was agreed to appeal, as there was no proof that the act was committed by any cadet actually belonging to the division, the time at which the screwing was performed was not known, and if it was done before roll-call it might easily be done by any cadet of another division. These probabilities having been brought forward and represented, the authorities released the cadets of our division, and we flattered ourselves we had gained a victory.

Some time after this event, the same cadet put in practice a very bold scheme, which was not discovered during the term. His room was on the ground-floor, and the window, like all others, was guarded by cross-bars, arranged diamond-shape. The cadet was very small and thin, and he had found that he could, by removing one entire cross of iron, open four of the diamond patterns. Having procured a file made out of a watch-spring, he sawed the iron bars in two; secured them temporarily with putty, so that they did not show unless closely examined; then removing these after roll-call, he squeezed himself through, and was at liberty. According to his own account, he had wonderful adventures of a night, as he on one occasion pretended to be a highwayman, on another a ghost; but the wonderful part of the affair was, that he was never found out, and it was not till six months afterwards that it was discovered the iron bars had been sawn and were held together only by putty.

It was, I believe, a fact that, just at this time, there was less real bullying than there used to be when I first joined; any way, I saw less of it. A healthier tone also seemed to prevail at the Academy – a condition I attributed to a certain extent to the departure of Snipson, and one or two other similar characters – for it is surprising the influence produced in a large establishment by one or two bad style of men. We had started a pack of beagles, and used to run a drag, and now and then turn out a hare, or rabbit, for a hunt. This brought running and athletic exercises into popular favour, and I soon took a most prominent position at the Academy as a runner and boxer.

It is often amusing to look back upon the cause of disputes or quarrels, and to see how absurd they are after all, and how out of the merest trifles gigantic events are produced, the original cause of which is not unfrequently forgotten. There was a cadet named Baldock, who was older and bigger than I was, and who was very proud of his skill as a boxer. He was supposed to be the best pugilist at the Academy, and thirty years ago using one’s fists well was looked upon in a very different light from what it now is. More than once Baldock and I had put on the gloves and had a friendly spar, and I was tolerably certain I was the better boxer of the two – thanks to Howard’s training. No one, however, seemed to be aware of this, not even Baldock, because I had always touched him very lightly when I could have hit him hard, and he had consequently no evidence of my capacity as a hitter.

One Friday evening we were boxing, when one of the cadets commenced chaffing him, and telling him he was getting two hits for one; this caused him to lose his temper, and, getting a chance, he struck me a tremendous blow fair on the forehead. I was nearly knocked over by this, but recovered myself, and, after a dodge or two, got equally as fair a hit at Baldock. For three or four minutes we – struck away at each other in earnest; Baldock then said, “It’s lucky for you we’ve gloves on.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied; “I’d sooner have them off.”

In less than a minute our gloves were off and a ring was formed, seconds appointed, and we set to work deliberately to fight, for no other reason than to try who was the best man.

I had almost instantly decided what course to adopt in the encounter. Baldock was bigger and I believed stronger than I was, and was a good boxer; but I, from always running, especially with the beagles, was in the best condition. I was also quicker and more active on my legs than he was, and had great confidence in my hitting power. I at once found I had a great advantage in Baldock underrating me, for in the first round he tried to finish me off at once, and I consequently caught him three or four sharp hits without his once breaking through my guard or getting a blow home. This evidently annoyed him, and he did not use his head as well as he might have done. His advantages, therefore, were to some extent lost, and I certainly got the best of the first two rounds.

After this Baldock got more steady, and we fought on like two prizefighters for nearly three quarters of an hour, when the cadets round interfered and stopped us, victory having failed to declare on either side. We shook hands at the termination of the affair, and, as is not unusually the case, became the best of friends – so much so that in less than a fortnight afterwards Baldock was my assistant in a row, in which we were enabled to acquit ourselves creditably.

Baldock and I were walking one afternoon from Eltham, through the fields by Shooter’s Hill Wood, when we came to a stile on which two “louts,” as we termed them, were sitting. On our coming near them they did not attempt to move, but sat grinning at us.

“Why don’t you get off that stile,” said Baldock, “when you see people coming?”

“You can get through the ’edge as you’re a cat,” said one of them, “we ain’t a going to move for you!”

In an instant Baldock seized one of the louts by the legs and tumbled him backwards over the stile; he then jumped over, and I followed him; but as I did so I received a blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by the lout on the stile. I was nearly stunned by the blow, but, recovering myself, called to Baldock to come back and thrash them. We both turned and walked towards the two men, who shouted, “Come on! we ain’t afraid of you!”

They certainly looked as if they were not afraid, and as if they ought not to be, for they were half as big again as we were, and in their rough clothes and great hob-nailed boots looked even bigger. The affair was a splendid example of skill and training versus brute force. The two louts had probably never before encountered opponents who were skilled in the use of their fists, and they merely swung their fists round without meaning. The consequence was, that in about seven minutes the louts were half blind, their noses were bleeding, and they were telling us they had had enough.

“Take care how you insult gentlemen cadets again,” said Baldock, “for there are fifty cadets who can thrash us with one hand!”

This was his farewell remark as we doubled off without a scratch or touch, except on our knuckles, from the blows we had given. “I think,” said Baldock, “that cram of mine about the cadets will make the louts careful; and I tell you what, Shepard, I’d a deuced deal rather have you alongside of me in a fight than against me. How splendidly you dodged that fellow’s round blows, and gave it him straight between the eyes! You’ll be as good a boxer as Howard, who used to be so famed at the shop.”

“Howard taught me how to box,” I said.

“The deuce he did! Ah, then, I don’t mind having fought you for an hour without making much impression on you. I never knew that before. Howard has a tremendous reputation, and I believe deserves it.”

The half-year was now drawing to a close, and we were all thinking about the examinations. I adopted the same plan that I had formerly, and used to work very hard in academy, and of a night used to think over various problems and test what I actually knew. The head of my room never saw me working out of study hours, and fancied I was not going in to do much; and with him one of the six cadets ahead of me used to work of an evening, whilst I used to read books of sporting or travels. When all was quiet, however, I used to think over various questions, and felt tolerably certain I knew these better than if I had superficially gone over them with another cadet. I was much amused at the general idea that I should go back again near the bottom of the class, as it was not likely I should fluke again, as it was supposed I had last examination. I, however, waited my time, and determined to be very careful at the examination, and not be too sure I had done a question correctly until I had read it over a second time.

The mathematical examination at length commenced in my class, and I was surprised to find the cadet absent whom every one thought would be first. I soon heard that he was taken ill the evening before, and had gone to hospital, every one believing he had worked too hard, as he was known to have kept up lights for several nights previous to the examination.

I read over the examination paper, and believed I could do each question. I commenced them in order, and arranged my Work very carefully and neatly, and before half the attendance was over I had finished them all. I then carefully read over each of my answers, and corrected some errors that I discovered in the working, and in fact re-did the questions that were wrong. I never took my attention once off my paper after commencing, and at length, when satisfied I had done all I knew, I found I had still an hour to spare. I then took a look round the room, and saw the Inspector in the octagon talking to the mathematical master, and looking at me. I felt certain I was the subject of conversation, and I instantly remembered the suspicion there had been of my having fudged last half. I also saw that the desks had been arranged so that near me were the worst mathematicians in the class, so that, even had it been possible for me to see their work, I could not have gained advantage from it. I saw also that some of the cadets who had beaten me last examination were in difficulties. There is no mistaking this at an examination; there was the usual red-flushed face, the unsettled positions, the biting of nails, the perpetual dipping of the pen in the ink, and yet writing nothing, indicating that there was a fix somewhere. Seeing the Inspector still in the octagon, I took up my paper, and gave it the master, who asked me if I had done all the questions.

“I think I have,” I replied.

“Very well, then, you may leave the room,” said the Inspector.

I went out and had a game of rackets to take away the heady feeling I had about me; then went and read the papers, and did not look at a book before going in for my afternoon examination.

Again I set to work in the same deliberate way, and found that I could, as I believe, do all the questions. The examination in mathematics lasted two days, and I believed I had done far better than at my last trial; but there is always great uncertainty as regards what one has really accomplished, mistakes being made which we never dream of, and usually fail to discover if we read over our own answers, even half a dozen times.