Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/450

 . 12, 1861.] To the guns must be added eight forage-waggons, gun and howitzer ammunition, and store-timber, water, store, and medicine-carts, spare gun and rocket-carriages, and a spare gun-carriage. Besides gunners and drivers there are six shoeing-smiths, three collar-makers, two wheelers, and a farrier. An 18-pounder field-battery carries four 18-pounder guns, and is furnished with 245 officers and men, and 220 horses. The terrible 12-pounder Armstrong guns are now used by the Artillery.

It is a bright and sunny morning in early spring, the heights over the Academy and Shooter’s Hill do not show their leaflessness in the pale blue mist, while the green sward of the common looks pleasant in contrast with the broad dusty parade-ground, all the more pleasant as it is forbidden ground from which the vigilant orderly warns off all intruders. From nine to half-past nine, the chromatic bugle band plays a series of marches and gay music, and then after an interval of barely half-an-hour, camp-colours, little squares of scarlet, are pitched, sentries and orderlies range themselves along the edges of the parade and common, ladies with parasols of every hue take up commanding positions in the neighbourhood of the huge ugly pedestal of stone, which is one day to be crowned by a statue, and is now flanked by four large Indian guns, with one in the rear, brought from Bhurtpore, where a horse-artillery orderly, the brigade-major, the captain of the staff, an aide-de-camp, and field-officers of the Marines are waiting the arrival of the general. Officers, mounted and dismounted, collect in little knots and chat over regimental matters of state; others are collected under the portico of the Mess-house; greetings are exchanged between long-parted friends; some have just returned from foreign service, and some are about to leave the garrison to take their vacant places. The cheerful hum of conversation is heard through the open windows of the library. The orderly rooms till, as prisoners and defaulters are being conducted there; subalterns prepare to visit the rooms, and the business of the day begins, although, from an early hour, trumpet calls have announced various drills and duties; non-commissioned officers move about with morning states in their hands; watering-parties are seen winding along over the common; and the open ground near the riding-school is occupied by men engaged in the ingenious practice of the menage, not the least interesting sight in Woolwich, owing to the docility of the horses, and the cool, quiet manner in which their riders turn and direct them in every possible direction, sideways, backward, forward, in a round, silently with the light touch of the spur or the mere motion of the hand. A long procession of the Military Train passes down to the Arsenal with waggon-loads of stores, and fatigue parties proceed with pick and mattock to their work.

Perhaps an inspection is taking place on the parade of some brigade proceeding on foreign service, or if the visitor be fortunate he may witness on the common the interesting manœuvres of a field-day, the brilliant charge of the Lancers, or the rapid continuous fire of the Marines, while the boom of the field-batteries, and the dull roll of the carriages and waggons which are concealed by dense clouds of dust as the horse-artillery dart past and wheel into line, is succeeded by the almost unintermitted thunder of their guns, as they sustain a tremendous fire upon, happily, a merely supposed enemy, until the whole scene is concealed under wreaths of blue eddying smoke.

The scene on a Thursday morning is of a more quiet but scarcely less imposing character. The general rides up, the staff salute, the guards present arms; and, after a short strain of music the band marches down the line in slow time, and returns at the quick step to a lively tune. At the left of the line is a mounted field-officer, with an orderly of Lancers, with his picturesque lance and fluttering pennon, in attendance. The guard now carry and then shoulder arms; the rear rank takes close order; the words of command are then given—“open colums right in front; right about face; right wheel, quick march; halt; front: march past in slow time:” and, this over, the Marine guard moves off to a quick march to the dockyard, while a brigade of foot-artillery marches past the general to the inspiring music known commonly as “Tear ’em,” but more euphoniously, we believe, as the Cobourg March. Once more they march past in quick time, and then, after a brief halt, having deployed into quarter distance columns, march past again while the merry music makes the many footfalls sound like that of a single man. General, staff, guards, and band disappear, and the parade is left to sentries walking up and down in the hot sun, a few idlers with clinking scabbards, and some squads of recruits drearily plodding up and down as they are initiated into the minute intricacies which precede the pomp and circumstance of a review or the real work of the battle-field.

A heavy dull sound is heard across the common, in the direction of the trees through which appear the brick cottages of the married soldiers and the dusky huts of the Military Train; a brigade is being inspected, or the cadets being exercised in the mortar battery; or if the sound is still more hollow, coming from a greater distance, it denotes there is practice at the butts in the marshes at Plumstead.

The afternoon parade is formed; the main guard turns out; the fatigue party is mustered; a long line of troops is drawn along the entire extent of the parade; the horse-artillery dismounted are on the right, next to them are Lancers, then come two batteries of the brigade; to the left are drawn up a squadron of the Military Train. The general arrives, with the D.A.Q.M.G., and Brigade-Majors of Artillery and Military Train, rides slowly down the front of the line, and galloping back past the rear rank, passes to his permanent position, when the entire parade forms column and marches past in divisions. Before the band of the Horse-Artillery strikes up a stirring march, in the pauses of the tramp of the troops can be faintly heard the solemn dirge-like music of the Dead March, as a funeral party slowly winds along the road from the hospital to the cemetery of Wickham, offering a sad, strange contrast to the outburst of trumpets and the crash of drums. First in slow march, then at the quick step, and a third time in close column, the dense mass of men moves past, and among them is many