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THE ENROLLED GUARD
The wheel of Time brought round many changes during our eight years stay in Western Australia, all making for progress and improvement. Under the latter head the disbandment of the old Enrolled Guard must be classed; but it was really a sad day for the poor old veterans, and the Governor determined to try and make the parting as little painful as possible. So, on the thirty-first anniversary of the battle of Alma, he invited all the non-commissioned officers and men to a mid-day dinner at Government House in Perth. Our best efforts could only collect fifty-three, and many of these were very decrepit, poor old dears. They were nearly all that were left of the soldiers who had been brought out to guard the convicts fifty years before, and who, when convicts were no longer sent out to Western Australia, were induced to remain, in what was then a very distant and unknown colony, by gifts of land and a small pension. Some were enrolled as a Guard for Government House and other public buildings, and it was the remains of this little force, gradually grown too infirm and decrepit for even their light duties, who had, on that bright spring morning, to give way to the smart up-to-date young policemen.
The step had been contemplated for some little time, and we had just returned in 1885 from a short visit to England, during which there had been an opportunity for my husband to mention the subject to his Royal Highness the late Duke of Cambridge, then Commander-in-Chief. It will not surprise those who remember the deep interest in the British soldier always shown by H.R.H. to hear that the Duke listened with great attention to all that was told him, asked many questions, and ended by saying, “Well, give them all my best wishes, and tell them how glad I was to hear about them.” It is needless to say that these kind and gracious words formed the text as it were of the little parting address made by the Governor after the parade which preceded the dinner, and it was touching to see how gratified the veterans were. In spite of the old habits of discipline which they were all doing their very best to remember and act upon, there was a movement and a murmur all down the ranks, and I strongly suspect there was something very like a tear.
It was, indeed, a pathetic sight, as all last things must always be, to see these old men in their quaint, antiquated uniforms, shouldering their obsolete rifles, and to realise this was the very last time they would ever stand in rank as soldiers. On every breast gleamed medals, and there were two Victoria Crosses. Men stood there who had fought both in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny, as well as in China, Burmah and New Zealand, and now it was all over and done with, and they would never step out to the dear old familiar tunes any more.
Still we did our best to keep up their spirits, and not to allow the occasion to become at all a mournful one. Both the Governor and their own Commandant said kind and cheering words to them, and they were soon marching off to the big ball-room which had been given as military a character as possible.
If I had at all realised what the united ages of my guests would have amounted to, I think I should have had all the roast beef and turkey passed through a mincing-machine, for I soon foresaw difficulties in that way. We, i.e. my large band of girl-friends and I, waited on them, and the gentlemen carved. It was difficult to get the men to choose what they wanted to eat, for the general answer to their young waitresses was, “Bless your pretty heart, I’ll have just whatever you likes, and thinks I can bite!”
Of course, the repast ended with the one toast of the “Health of her Majesty the Queen,” with musical honours and equally, of course, it was cheered and shouted at to the echo, and one felt it was by no means a perfunctory and empty ceremony, for every man there had fought and bled for her. Then we gave them each a pipe (they called it either a “straw” or a “dhudeen” according to their nationality) and a stick of tobacco, and left them in charge of our house steward, who gave a most amusing account afterwards of how they had at once begun to fight their battles over again, for many of them had been brought from other parts of the Colony for this occasion and had not met for a long time. Their reminiscences were somewhat grisly it seems, for Pat would relate how he had “bayoneted a nagar” in Africa or New Zealand, capped by Mike’s announcement that he “took the shilling fifty years ago, served in six general engagements, was twice wounded, and three times nearly kilt.” Whereas Dick would only regret that he had served twenty years, eleven months and thirty days, and claimed sympathy on the ground that if he had served “tin days more, bad luck to me if I wouldn’t have had another pinny a day on me pintion.” But why he did not put in that ten days extra service never seems to have come into the story.
I do not know whether, unlike his comrades, Mickey’s teeth were still serviceable, but he boasted that, although he was sixty-six years old, he “hadn’t a grey hair in me head, and I can run, jump or leap with ’ere a man in barracks! There boys, hurroo!” Paddy was only a soldier for two years, but he had been badly wounded at Sebastopol and spent a long time in hospital; an experience which he would not have missed for the world however, for the Queen visited him there and gave him a silk handkerchief hemmed by herself. “D’ye hear what I say, boys? The Queen hemmed it with her own fingers and I’ve got it still, and it’s to be buried with me, so it is.”
Then there were reminiscences of the dinner on the Alma day. “We had raw pork served out with biscuit, and divil a stick of wood to cook the meat with.” The V.C. man who had ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade could only remember a raw onion as having formed his rations on that day, but he spoke fondly of it.
If I had felt any doubts as to whether the entertainment had been a success they would have been dissipated by the question put to me whenever I came across an old Enrolled Guardsman afterwards. No matter what I spoke of he invariably brought the subject round to that dinner and ended it with, “I suppose you’d hardly be thinking of giving us another party like that, would you now, mum?” It rather went to my heart to say I was afraid not, but I really believe it was the meeting each other and talking over old times which they had so enjoyed. That is all nearly twenty years ago, and I sadly fear there are but few of our guests of that day still alive, and when I think of how many dear ones who stood by my side that day, not old and decrepit like the soldiers, but in the full flush of youth and health and strength, have, like them, gone into the Silent Land, I wonder at my own courage in writing at all of those happy days.