Old Soldier Sahib

Frank Richards

Description

Old Soldier Sahib is like every man's real, ideal army book -- and it is the story of the author's own experiences as a Royal Welch Fusilier in India and Burma at the dawn of the 20th century before the Great War. He tells graphically of barracks life and the life of a recruit in England in the early 1900's, of Indian service, of the military men and routine and the round of events, amusing and dramatic and romantic in the British army.
Recounts with rare and brutal honesty the everyday life of a common soldier in the Indian Empire.

Sujets

• Fiction
• World War I
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774642856
• Langue: English

Extrait

Old Soldier Sahib
by Frank Richards

First published in 1936
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
by the same author

OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE
Old Soldier Sahib




by FRANK RICHARDS
D.C.M., M.M.


Late of the Second Battalion
Royal Welch Fusiliers

To
THE PRAYER-WALLAH
in the hope
that this meets his eye

CHAPTER I ENLISTMENT
I have some recollections of my father and mother butwill commence my story in the year 1893, when I wasleft an orphan at the age of nine and adopted by anuncle and aunt who were living at Blaina, Monmouthshire.My Uncle, who was Welsh, was a twin-brother tomy mother; my Aunt was also Welsh, and at the time ofmy adoption they had four children of their own, twoboys and two girls. David was three years older thanme, Evan was about the same, the girls were bothyounger. As the years rolled on more children arrived,but my Uncle and Aunt treated me exactly the same inevery way as they did their own children: no boy couldhave had better parents than what they were to me. Iwas quite happy with my cousins and we always shieldedone another in any scrape we were in; even to-day westill regard ourselves as brothers and sisters.
Blaina was a busy industrial town, with seven coal-pits,a large tinplate works, blast-furnaces and coke-ovens—allworking regularly. In those days if a man ora boy was dissatisfied with his job he could always leaveit and immediately get another. In fact, there was sucha shortage of labour that one of the bosses of the blast-furnaces,situated just off the main road, used to standon the road the greater part of the day, stopping trampsas they came along and begging them to sign on andstart work at once. My Uncle was a roller in the tinplateworks and earned very good money. He was fond of hispint but always looked after his home. He had neverbeen to school in his life and could not read or write,not even so much as his own name. But he was shrewdabout money and figures and could work out sums inhis head quicker than we children could on paper. Nothingpleased him better than when my Aunt readsomething out of the paper to him which interestedhim: he would get it by heart and be able to repeat itvery nearly word for word some days later. He couldspeak a little Welsh, but it did not come natural to himto do so.
My Aunt spoke Welsh as well as she did English, orbetter, and she could also read and write both languagesfluently. She did her best to teach us children Welsh,but the little I learned as a boy I soon forgot in after life.My Uncle regretted his own lack of education and wasalways drumming in our ears the importance of attendingschool and never missing a lesson: the only time heever severely chastised any one of us was when he discoveredwe had been playing truant. There was aschool-attendance officer in the district, but he did nothave the power at this time of summonsing the parentsof a child who was absent from school: all he could dowas to report the fact of the child’s absence to the parentsand leave them to deal with the matter. Evan and Idetested school; we were always thinking of the timewhen we would be twelve years of age and could beginreal work. Between the ages of ten and twelve we musthave been absent from school more times than we attendedit; Evan and I used to keep count of the numberof hidings we had from my Uncle and the number ofcanings we had from the schoolmaster during thatperiod, but I for my part have forgotten the final score.
I can’t remember my Uncle ever going to Church orChapel; I often heard him say that the men he associatedwith in the pub had a more genuine Christianspirit than the men who attended Church or Chapel.My Aunt was a little religious, however, and often attendedChapel on a Sunday morning, taking us childrenalong. After dinner she would send us to Sunday School,which I also detested. Only twice did I go there andafterwards invariably played truant, going bird-nestingor roaming the mountains; and came home to my teawith a far better appetite than what I would have hadif I had sat through Bible lessons. My Aunt often saidthat I was fast going to the Devil and when she foundout, just before I began work, that I had ceased to saymy nightly prayers she started to cry and said that shewas afraid I was already in his clutches.
I left school and began work on the very day I wastwelve. My first job was door-boy in a colliery. I had tobe down the mine before seven in the morning andfinished in the evening at five o’clock. My job was aneasy one. I had to open and close one of the ventilation-doorsfor the hauliers and their ponies to pass throughwith their full or empty trams. I was paid seven shillingsand sixpence a week. I worked two months as a door-boyand then got a job in the tin-works. This also wasan easy job: with a bucket of grease and a brush Igreased the cold rolls, as they were called, to preventthem from getting heated. The majority of the tin-workersdid eight-hour shifts, but the boys and youngwomen who worked at the cold rolls did twelve hours.My wages were now nine shillings a week. I never becamean expert at this job and somehow managed toget more grease over my clothes in one day than whatI could put on the rolls in a week. I had soon more orless ruined our kitchen chairs: when I returned fromwork and sat in one of them I found that I could notrise without bringing it up also, stuck fast to my backside.This job did not suit me at all and it also affectedmy health. More for the sake of my health than thefurniture my Uncle and Aunt decided that I must gounderground again.
A week or two later I was back in the pit working fora man in a stall at the coal-face, who paid me a weeklywage of eleven shillings, which was considered a highwage for a boy of twelve. The stalls were driven to leftor right of the main headings. Although in the sameseam of coal, some stalls were better for working in thanothers; some had a good roof overhead and coal easy tocut, while others had a poor roof and difficult coal. Ihad to work very hard at my new job, but I did notmind that. My buttie was an excellent man in everyway and although sometimes he swore ferociously, henever swore at me or even grumbled at my work duringthe six years I worked with him.
The pit I worked in was one of five owned by a privatecompany. There was a head-manager who visited eachof the five in turn. He was a deeply religious man whoattended Chapel regularly; and the majority of theover-men, foremen and staff of the pits followed hisexample, to keep on the right side of him. It was noticeablethat most of the good places in the pit were workedby men who were deeply religious, so men who had badplaces found it advantageous to turn deeply religioustoo, and attend the Chapel where the manager worshipped.He noticed their presence and as soon as theirbad stalls had finished they were sent to turn new stallswhere the roof was good and the coal easy to cut. Stallswere rarely driven more than sixty yards; they werethen cut by headings which were driven for that purpose.In one stall where we worked my buttie and Icould always tell when the manager was down the pitand approaching us through the stalls on our left, becausethe man in the stall immediately on our left, assoon as he saw the manager with his staff approaching,would immediately strike up a hymn. By the time themanager reached his place he was working and singinglike a demon. But although this man attended the correctChapel and although the manager usually stoppedfor a few minutes’ earnest chat with him when he cameby on his rounds, he never got the main heading whichhe was angling for, where more money could be madethan in a stall. I never cared much for this hymn-singer;he was always grumbling at the boy who workedwith him and calling him a lazy young hound. Afterworking alongside him for nine months I came to realizehow lucky I was to be working with a man who madeno pretence at being a Christian but succeeded betterthan many of his deeply religious mates.
It was the custom at the dinner hour for a number ofmen and boys to collect together underground in oneroad. I enjoyed myself at these dinner hours, especiallywhen a road-man who cleared the main headings of littlefalls of rubbish was present. He was an old soldier whohad served in different countries and his wonderfulyarns of India so enthralled me that I vowed that whenI was old enough I would be a soldier and see thiswonderful place which, he said, was a land of milk andhoney. He was always telling us what a damned foolhe had been to leave the Army, and that if he had histime over again he would enlist at once and not takehis discharge until it was forced on him.
I was far healthier working underground than I hadbeen in the tin-works. The air was quite good in theworkings. The head-manager had the main airwayskept in excellent condition, and saw that the roof andtimber overhead in the roads were high enough toallow a pony to walk along without roughing his back.The miners were keen on sport, especially Rugby football.Pick-up games were frequent at the pitheads andthe play though friendly was extremely rough. Blainahas always had a good rugger-team. About 1900 soccerwas introduced, but rugger will always remain theminers’ favourite game, I believe. In agreement withthe owners all miners took a holiday on the first Mondayin every month