Jo'Burg Days: Fair Stood The Wind – Part 10
…I quite pitied one unfortunate I saw drummed out of his regiment and the Army as an incorrigible. There was a full parade on the green where the reservoir above Amatola Row is, and the Provost Marshal cut off the facings and buttons of his uniform, after his sentence by court martial was read. He was then escorted by members of his regiment away from the parade ground accompanied by the drums and fifes play “The Rogue’s March.”…
Barbara Durlacher continues her fascinating and well-documented account of early settlement in South Africa.
RECOLLECTIONS OF WILLIAM JAMES SYMONS OF LIFE
IN THE EARLY DAYS OF KINGWILLIAMSTOWN,
BRITISH KAFFRARIA,
EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE 1857-65
From what I have seen of the military of later years, which has not been a great deal, and also judging from what I read, there are not so many roughs in the Army today as there were in the past.
“Once I was tried for selling my kit,
Twice for desertion,
If ever I ‘list for a soldier again
The Devil may be my sergeant.”
The above is part of one of the ditties of those times. I was passing through the barracks one morning when I saw a number of the garrison paraded. On enquiry I ascertained it was a punishment parade, one of the men being flogged. I am glad to know this punishment has since been abolished.
A senseless, degrading punishment, I saw a shot drill, and it was of no practical utility. Just imagine a man having to carry a pile of cannon balls from one end of the Provost prison yard and place them at the same position at the other end, and repeat the operation for so many hours at a time without ceasing, with his comrades on duty over him to see that he did not halt or loiter on his job.
I quite pitied one unfortunate I saw drummed out of his regiment and the Army as an incorrigible. There was a full parade on the green where the reservoir above Amatola Row is, and the Provost Marshal cut off the facings and buttons of his uniform, after his sentence by court martial was read. He was then escorted by members of his regiment away from the parade ground accompanied by the drums and fifes play “The Rogue’s March.” Some of my readers may recognise the tune as, “Oh, Poor Robinson Crusoe.”
Having sometimes as many as four thousand troops of all grades at times in garrison, it is not surprising that there were amongst them some, one might say, almost untameable in spite of discipline. I well recollect one man of the Queen’s, Humpy Leach, who for a glass of liquor would chew up with his teeth the glass in which it was served! I don’t imagine he swallowed his tit-bit but he did undoubtedly chew it up into small fragments.
A more interesting event than any of the above was a full garrison parade, to witness the bestowal of the Victoria Cross on Colour-Sergeant Peter Leach for bravery in the Crimea. In the assault on the Redan Battery the officer was shot down and Leach led on to victory.
It was the practice of the Home authorities to make the Cape a sanatorium and halfway station between England and India, troops being landed here to become partly acclimatised on the voyage out, and to recuperate on the return voyage. I recollect a couple of regiments, the 73rd, I think was one, which landed in King in a very weak condition as to health, having suffered badly from fever.
A few days after the arrival of a regiment in barracks the Sgt. Major, accompanied by drums and fifes would parade all the main streets and cry down the credit of the fresh-coming regiment, informing all and sundry that if they gave credit to its members they did so at their own risk, as their money would be irrecoverable.
After the lapse of all these years I can look back with pleasure at the hours enjoyed with many others, listening to the various military bands playing on mess nights, when the vicinity of the officer’s mess, if the nights were fine, was thronged with listeners. Each night at first post the brass band used to play, and I and my partner of 53 years, and the sharer of my trials and pleasures, have sat and listened to the tunes “Will you love me then as now,” and other old songs now forgotten, and can still talk with pleasure tinged with regret that alas, those times are past recall, yet we still are spared to each other, and have seen the young of our flock grow up and become scattered, and they all have pleasant recollections of their childhood and youth in King Williamstown, or as some say, “ Dear old King.”
With regard to a letter from “Dua” in your columns challenging my statements, I can only say the building grant to the Legion of forty pounds was the amount spoken of at the time, and I never heard it contradicted. Re the grant of land to pensioners and their families, a member of my own household is one of a family of five, the head of the family being a pensioner, and they each had a grant of 10 acres, 50 in all, at Balassi, the ground afterwards and now, I believe, in possession of a family named Nicolson.
