'It is my intention to start my learning here and now.' Arthur glanced over to where the corporal was busy attaching a large empty water butt to the feed scales.Then Arthur looked along the front rank until his eyes came to rest on a man about halfway along, a well-proportioned individual in his mid-thirties with a shock of dark hair. Arthur pointed to him.
'What's your name?'
'Stern, sir.'
'Stern, get your full marching kit, and musket.' The soldier glanced to Sergeant Phillips as if asking for confirmation. Arthur snapped at him, 'Do it! Now!'
'Yes, sir.' The man fell out and ran back into the barracks. Arthur turned to the sergeant. 'I want you to give him the standard issue of cartridges for a soldier on campaign.'
'Yes, sir.'The sergeant turned and ran off towards the barracks' arsenal. When Private Stern and the sergeant returned and the soldier had placed the cartridges in his belly belt, Arthur quickly examined him to make sure that all the kit he expected to see was there. 'Where's your blackjack?'
'Couldn't find it, sir.'
'Then we'll use another man's.' Arthur jerked his thumb back at the barracks. The soldier trotted off, accoutrements jingling as he went. He returned an instant later with a leather beaker and fastened it to his belt.
'That's better,' Arthur nodded. 'Now get in the water butt over there, the one the corporal has attached to the feed scales. Come on, Private! Quickly now.'
The private doubled across the yard and clambered over the side of the butt and squatted down inside, so that his head and shoulders and the barrel of his musket protruded above the rim.
'Corporal, you can weigh him now.'
'Yes, sir.'
Arthur had the man weighed in full kit, then without his pack so that he would be at the same weight as when he was in battle, and finally the soldier was ordered to strip down to his plain uniform and boots before the last weighing. Deducting the man's weight in uniform from the total of his marching rig gave Arthur the total weight of equipment. He turned to the assembled men. 'Seventy-six pounds. That's how much each of you carries on his back when you're on campaign.'
'Aye!' a voice called from the end of the line. 'An' doan' we ken it, laddie!'
Arthur smiled as he leaned towards the sergeant. 'Do you know that man's voice?'
'Overton, sir. I'd stake my life on it.'
'Overton!' Arthur shouted. 'Out here, now!'
There was a shuffling in the ranks as a huge man squeezed through and marched up to the new ensign. He stared over Arthur's shoulder, and his lips had tightened into a sneer. Arthur narrowed his eyes as he addressed the soldier. 'Since you are in such fine voice, Overton, I want you to go and get your full equipment. Then you will march round this yard until you have covered twelve miles. When that's done, Sergeant Phillips will come for me and then we'll see how much further you can go. Should be an interesting experiment. I hope to understand precisely what weight and distance variables can be applied to troop movement.' He smiled. 'And I thank you for your services in this experiment. Sergeant Phillips!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Dismiss the men. Except Overton here, of course.'
As the company returned to their barracks Arthur looked round the yard and made some quick calculations.'A hundred and seven times round the parade ground. Call it a hundred and ten. Make sure he sticks to the perimeter. Oh, and get that one out of the water butt.'
Over the following months the new ensign became a source of considerable interest to the men and officers at the barracks as he wasted no opportunity to learn more about the men, the equipment and the organisation of the British Army. It was the latter that perplexed Arthur most. Rather than being left to run its own affairs the army was thoroughly caught up in a web of official hierarchies. The Treasury was responsible for the commissariat that supplied the 73rd's food and transport needs; the army's medical services were overseen by the Surgeon General's office; the troops were paid through the office of the Paymaster General; camp supplies were organised by the Storekeeper General and the Master General of Ordnance was responsible for the upkeep of the barracks. If ever the regiment should go on campaign then the officials of the Quartermaster General would be added to lines of records that caught the regiment in a tangle of bureaucracy that would have instantly broken the nerve of a more dedicated adjutant than Captain Braithwaite.
'Imagine what would happen if ever we went into battle, young Wesley,' he complained one day. 'Daren't fire a single volley for fear of unleashing an avalanche of paperwork. I sometimes wonder if those johnnies in Whitehall aren't secretly working for a foreign power intent on sabotaging our ability to fight.'
If the men of the regiment were impressed by the new officer, his behaviour came as a revelation to his family. So much so that Richard even provided his brother with a private income of one hundred and twenty-five pounds a year to subsidise his meagre pay. At the same time Richard continued to press his political friends to advance Arthur's career.
Then in November, a letter arrived at the officers' mess and was presented to Arthur as he sat down to lunch with the other officers of the regiment. Chewing on a small hunk of fresh-baked bread Arthur broke the wafer and opened the letter.
'Good Lord,' he mumbled.
Captain Braithwaite glanced up. 'What is it, Wesley?'
'Well, it seems I'm to be appointed an aide-de-camp to the new viceroy of Ireland, with the rank of lieutenant.'
'Lucky man. That'll mean an extra two shillings a day. And a new regiment.' Braithwaite crumpled his napkin. 'Confound it, man! That'll mean having to find another ensign for the 73rd.You might have told me about this before.'
Arthur raised the letter. 'Sir, this is the first I knew about it. My brother has arranged it.'
'Your brother? Can't have bloody relatives making a man's career for him. Does he do this sort of thing often?'
'You can't imagine,' Arthur smiled wearily.
'Still, eh? Ireland. Dublin Castle is where you'll be. But, of course, I was forgetting.' Braithwaite thrust his fork in Arthur's direction. 'You're from Ireland. An Irishman. I imagine it'll be just like going home, eh?'
Arthur stiffened. 'Sir, being born in Ireland no more makes me an Irishman than being born in a barn makes one a horse.' Then he smiled. 'But it is a home of sorts.'
Back to Ireland. It was over eight years since he had left. His mind filled with memories, flashes of images of Dangan, Dr Buckleby, his father awkwardly swiping at a shuttlecock in the great hall… So long ago, it seemed. When he returned to the island, it would be as a very different person from the boy who had left it so reluctantly all those years ago.
Chapter 36
France, 1786
The cannon trials at the arsenal at Nantes proved to be an interesting diversion for Napoleon. Nearly every other country in Europe was equipped with heavier calibre guns. One of the generals at the Ministry of War had decided that the army needed to investigate the possibility of re-equipping the artillery to match the wider standard. Of course, such an undertaking was expensive and a number of foundries had been asked to submit cannon for testing. For nearly two weeks Napoleon and over a hundred other officers of various ranks from across the army observed the submitted weapons being put through their paces.
The sampled weapons performed well enough, particularly a gun designed to be drawn by a team of horses for swift deployment on the battlefield. Napoleon was immediately intrigued by the possibilities of such a weapon. Even though the artillery officers were impressed by the weapons on offer, the cavalry and infantry officers were not. Any programme to replace the existing weapons would be bound to result in less expenditure on the other elements of the army.With no agreement possible, the trials were concluded and everyone returned to his unit.