Napoleonic Literature
Kincaid: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade
Chapter I
Joined the Rifles. Walcheren Expedition. A young Soldier. A Marine
View. Campaign in South Beeveland. Retreat to Scotland.
I JOINED the second battalion rifle brigade, (then
the ninety-fifth) at Hythe Barracks in the spring of 1809, and in a month
after we proceeded to form a part of the expedition to Holland under the
Earl of Chatham.
With the usual Quixotic feelings of a youngster,
I remember how very desirous I was, on the march to Deal, to impress the
minds of the natives with a suitable notion of the magnitude of my importance
by carrying a donkey-load of pistols in my belt and screwing my naturally
placid countenance up to a pitch of ferocity beyond what it was calculated
to bear.
We embarked in the Downs, on board the Hussar frigate,
and afterwards removed to the Namur, a seventy-four, in which we were conveyed
to our destination.
I had never before been in a ship of war, and it
appeared to me, the first night, as if the sailors and marines did not
pull well together, excepting by the ears; for my hammock was slung over
the descent into the cockpit, and I had scarcely turned-in when an officer
of marines came and abused his sentry for not seeing the lights out below,
according to orders. The sentry proceeded to explain that the middies would
not put them out for him, when the naked shoulders and the head of one
of them, illuminated with a red nightcap, made its appearance above the
hatchway, and began to take a lively share in the argument. The marine
officer, looking down with some astonishment, demanded, "d - n you, sir,
who are you?" to which the head and shoulders immediately rejoined, "and
d - n and b - t you, sir, who are you?"
We landed on the island of South Beeveland, where
we remained about three weeks, playing at soldiers, smoking mynheer's
long clay pipes and drinking his vrow's butter-milk, for which I
paid liberally with my precious blood to their infernal musquitos; not
to mention that I had all the extra valour shaken out of me by a horrible
ague which commenced a campaign on my carcass and compelled me to retire
upon Scotland for the aid of my native air, by virtue of which it was ultimately
routed.
I shall not carry my first chapter beyond my first
campaign, as I am anxious that my reader should not expend more than his
first breath upon an event which cost too many their last.
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