CHAPTER I
RECRUIT AT ALDERSHOT
Enlistment in 16th Lancers—The "Old Soldier" in the 'Seventies—Barrack-room life—Rations—Pay—Kit and equipment—Uniform—Drills—Treatment of sick—Breaking out of barracks—Sundays—First Christmas Day—Night guards—Military offences and punishments—Guard-room—Articles of War—Muster parade Punishment drill—Musketry course—Dismissed drills—Day guards—I allow a deserter to escape and so commit my first "crime"— Imprisoned in guard-room—My second "crime"—Promoted Lance-Corporal—Backward state of training—Field-days—Reasons for defective training—Lord Wolseley, Sir Evelyn Wood, and other rising Generals effect great reforms—Successes in competitions at skill-at-arms.
I was seventeen and three-quarters years old when, having decided to seek my fortune in the army, I took the "Queen's Shilling" from a recruiting sergeant in the city of Worcester on the 13th of November 1877. The minimum age for enlistment was eighteen, but as I was tall for my years the sergeant said that the deficient three months would involve no difficulty, and he promptly wrote me down as eighteen years and two months—so as to be on the safe side—and that has been the basis of my official age ever since. For some reason that has now escaped my memory I was detained at Worcester for four days, receiving in the meantime two shillings and a halfpenny per diem for board and lodgings. The odd halfpenny strikes one as being a queer item, but it had no doubt been arrived at by Her Majesty's Treasury after careful calculation of the cost actually incurred. The recruiting sergeant, a kindly disposed individual, took possession of the whole sum, giving me in return excellent, if homely, accommodation and food at his own house.
The regiment I selected to join, the 16th (Queen's)
