An engineer.—Mining.—Sappers.—Gunners.—The Surveillante.—Loss in the British army.—Furlough.—Muster-roll.—Punishment.—Poor Jack sent aloft.—Captain Hall on naval punishments.—Instance of injustice to a seaman.—The captain proved to be in the wrong.—Tribute to the brave.—Letter of a private soldier.—The Tenth and the Imperial guards.

“Now, uncle, you will please to tell us what an engineer is?”

“An engineer, boys, is one who has a knowledge of warlike engines, and who directs the attack or defence of a fortification, building or repairing according to the circumstances of the case, such works 113as have been injured by the enemy. It takes a wise man, and one of quick apprehension, to make a good engineer; he should have resources always, as we say, ‘at his finger ends.’ He ought to possess much practical knowledge, and a readiness and ability to apply it instantaneously. When Buonaparte made his attack on Jean D’Acre, the handful of brave fellows under Sir Sidney Smith never would have been able to withstand him had they not been ably assisted by the talents of Phillipeaux, the engineer. A good engineer will make a weak place strong; enable a few to withstand many, and obtain a victory where nothing is expected but defeat.”

“Bravery will never do without knowledge and skill, it seems.”

“Not, at least, in a case where the attacking party is so strong as that at the siege of Acre. An engineer should be well acquainted with mining, or the art of blowing up rocks and fortifications with gunpowder, and this he cannot be unless he can ascertain with correctness the heights, depths, breadth, and resistance of the materials he has to displace.”

“What a many things are necessary to be known by soldiers and sailors!”

“Sappers are men who work at the trenches, or ditches. If a brigade of eight men are employed at any point of the works, you will see half of them working away at the sap, or trench, 114while the others are busily occupied in supplying gabions, fascines, and such other things as may be wanted.”

“Why, there is no place safe in time of war, for what with the cannon and riflemen above ground, and the miners and sappers below, you are always in danger.”

“A soldier’s life is a life of danger, and every one should do his duty; but, for all that, no sapper should undermine the reputation of his comrades, and no rifleman should aim at a lower mark than honour. Gunnery is the art of determining the motions of bodies, whether they are projected from cannon, mortars, or howitzers. Without a knowledge of gunnery an attack or a defence would be very feeble. The power of well-charged and well-directed cannon is very great. A good gunner never sends a ball on an useless errand.

“In the battle between Lord Hawke and the French, the gallant admiral, finding so much to depend on the capture of the French admiral’s ship, the Soleil Royale, desired to be laid alongside her; but the pilot hesitatingly replied, that he feared to do so, from the rocky shoals of the coast off which the battle raged. Hawke, however, was not to be dissuaded, and bore down upon her, with every gun double-shotted. The captain of a French seventy-four gun ship, the Surveillante, aware of Hawke’s design, gallantly threw his ship between Hawke and the French 115admiral, in time to receive Lord Hawke’s fire, which saved the French admiral, but sent the Surveillante and every soul on board to the bottom.”

“Then, the Surveillante was sent down with a single broadside?”

“She was. And a well-managed and effective battery will make a breach in the strongest wall that ever was built, in a very short time. War is a dreadful weapon, and it ought never to be wielded in a bad cause.”

“What thousands and thousands of Englishmen must have been killed by gunpowder!”

“Ay, there have indeed; but soldiers say, ‘every bullet has its billet.’ The English army, from the time Lord Wellington was appointed commander in Portugal, to the peace, is supposed to have sustained the following loss.
In 1808     fell, officers     69     men     1015
1809           243           4688
1810           7           924
1811           459           7384
1812           816           11030
1813           1025           14966
1814           400           4791
1815           717           9485
                     
            3807           54283

“This account does not include the Brunswickers, Hanoverians, Portuguese, nor Spaniards.”

116“It seems a wonder there were no more killed. One would expect half the soldiers and sailors that went into battle would be killed.”

“No, that is not the case. At Salamanca there was one soldier in ninety killed; at Vittoria, one in seventy-four; and at the battle of Waterloo, one in forty. At the battle of the Nile there was one sailor killed in thirty-six; at Trafalgar, one in forty-one, and at Copenhagen one in thirty-nine.”

“How often do soldiers get leave to go home and see their friends?”

“Not very often. If they could go when they liked the ranks would be rather thinner than they are. A poor widow that I once knew, whose son was a soldier, expected him home on a furlough—day after day passed, and he did not come; at last a soldier entered her dwelling. Seeing the uniform, the poor woman sprang forwards: alas! it was not her son, but a comrade who had brought her the news of his death. The commanding-officer can grant a furlough, or leave of absence, to non-commissioned officers and soldiers when he pleases, and as long as he pleases, but he is not frequently applied to. If a furlough is obtained by a soldier from his captain for twenty days, it will be some time before it comes to his turn again, for only two men are allowed to be absent from a troop or company, unless in particular cases, at the same time. The muster-roll is kept with great care.”

117“What is the muster-roll—a list to call over the names of the soldiers?”

“I will tell you. A muster-roll is a list of the officers and men in every regiment or company, by which they are called over, receive their pay, and are otherwise inspected. When you hear of a soldier having lost his name on the muster-roll, it means that he is dead. If an officer makes a false return, such as allowing the name of a soldier to stand on the muster-roll as being with his regiment when he is absent from it, he is liable to be cashiered, that is, dismissed the service.”

“That would be a very severe punishment to an officer, but as the men are punished when they do wrong, the officers ought not to escape.”

“The men are, as you say, punished when they do wrong. I wish that punishments could be safely done away in the army and navy, but when we consider that the men are principally drawn from the lowest and most ignorant classes, it would be too much to expect them to be kept in order if insubordination were not punished. Punishment, though it may not make a culprit a better man, may prevent him from repeating the offence, and deter others from committing it; still justice should be tempered with mercy, and I have known cases wherein clemency has had the happiest effect.”

“How are officers and men generally punished?”

“You may remember that the Articles of War point out what punishment is due to a crime, 118though oftentimes it is not inflicted. Officers who have offended are occasionally put under arrest, and naval officers are entered at the bottom of the list of their own rank. Soldiers are imprisoned, and sometimes flogged, and Poor Jack, instead of having a rope’s end, is, now and then, sent up to the main-top, and kept there in a blow till he is almost ............