The Gentleman Cadet

We had two false starts, but at the third trial we got off together, and for about fifty yards we were shoulder to shoulder. Then Horsford got slightly ahead, not more than the breadth of his own body, but I gradually regained this, and at about ninety yards was even with him and passing him. As soon as I had passed him he seemed to shut up, for he dropped behind all of a sudden, and I ran in a winner by about one yard.

Several cadets came up to me and said, “Bravo, youngster! you’ve run well; you must get me the racket-court when I want it;” whilst my own batch wanted to carry me round the parade. However, I went to my room and changed my clothes, and endeavoured not to show any sign of being gratified at my victory. It was, however, to myself as much a gratification as a surprise. Until I joined the Academy I had no idea I had the qualifications of a good runner; I had never competed with other boys, and had consequently no opportunity of discovering my powers; but suddenly to find that out of nearly one hundred and fifty cadets I was the fastest runner was a great surprise, and I began to ask myself whether I had any other powers of which I knew nothing, and which had never before been called upon.

Both Brag and Snipson were now less disposed to bully me than they were before, and so buoyant is youth that all the hard knocks I had received on first joining were almost forgotten, and I began to look forward to the time when I should be an old cadet and have fags of my own.

The result of the examinations was now out, and I found I had done very badly; from eleventh of the batch I had dropped to twenty-eighth, and the return was unsatisfactory in several things. I, however, just got into the third academy, though I was last but one, and I hoped that next term, when I should not be so much worried by fagging and bullying, I should be able to think more about my work, so I was not so much cast down as I otherwise should have been if I had not a reasonable excuse for having done badly.

What was termed the “Public” in those days was very dissimilar to the “Duke’s” day at present. Formerly the “Public” was an examination, though it was a sort of sham affair. As, however, it was a great day, I will give a full description of the proceedings.

The “Public” was the day on which the Master-General of the Ordnance, his staff, and all the principal heads of departments came to the Academy to see the cadets. The order of proceeding was as follows: —

The cadets were drawn up on parade and received the Master-General with a salute. They were then put through certain manoeuvres by the senior cadets, and afterwards marched into the dining-hall.

In the centre of the dining-hall a table was placed, large enough to enable the batch about to obtain their commissions to be seated at. Near this was a long table, at which the Master-General and officers were seated. An elevated platform, with stair-like seats, was erected at each end and side of the hall. On this the cadets were seated who were not yet qualified for commissions; a portion was also set aside for visitors belonging to the cadets.

On all being assembled in the hall, the professors at the Academy, beginning with the head cadet of the batch, asked questions, which each cadet answered in turn. Sometimes these questions required demonstrations on the board, and the cadet used his chalk to draw figures and give demonstrations.

After the professors had put questions, any of the officers present might do so, and there was often much amusement at the questions and answers – for very often the inquiries made had no reference whatever to any subject a cadet had learnt at the Academy.

One story that used to be told about these questions was, that a cadet was once asked what was sometimes used to wash out the bore of a gun. The cadet did not know what to say, so another cadet beside him whispered, “Tan ash and water.”

The cadet, standing up, got nervous when he did not know what to say, and only heard imperfectly what his prompter said.

“Tan ash and water,” again whispered the cadet.

“A ten-inch mortar!” blurted out the puzzled cadet.

The batch who heard this answer were ready to burst out laughing, especially when the officer who had asked the question, and who was rather deaf, said, “Tan ash and water – very good!”

An old officer, who was fond of a joke, was reported to have once asked the head cadet of the batch, “What would be the result, supposing an irresistible body came in contact with an immovable post on a plane?”

The cadet answered that the body would come to rest.

“No,” replied the officer; “you forget the body is irresistible, and therefore cannot come to rest.”

“It would carry away the post,” said the cadet. “No,” again said the officer; “the post is immovable.”

After a little hesitation the cadet said he didn’t know what would happen.

“Quite right, sir,” said the officer, “neither do I, nor any one else, for the conditions are impossible. I only wanted you to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Some men would have attempted long explanations.”

When the cadets had been publicly examined, the various prizes were given, and, after one or two speeches by the senior officers, the Academy broke up.

I started for London that afternoon by coach, which was one of about forty four-horse coaches that used then to pass over Shooter’s Hill every day en route from London to Dover, slept at a friend’s, and on the following day was carried by coach to the New Forest, and once more found myself in the quiet of home.

The change that had taken place in me during my first half-year at the Academy was very great. Instead of being a raw country boy I was now a somewhat experienced young man. The knocking about I had received at the Academy had forced me to use my perceptive powers in every way to save myself from being thrashed for neglect; and I had thus cultivated my observational faculties, so that I noticed far more than probably I ever should had I remained at home.

Now that I was at home I found I was somewhat of a hero. All the countrymen round – the foresters – who knew me as quite a little boy, now touched their hats to me, for they called me a “sodger-officer!” and had heard I had done something wonderfully clever at an examination. I also found that among our friends I took quite a different position to what I had done four months before. In reality, I learnt now the advantage of being a soldier, for I was looked on as one; and I felt the benefit of this when I heard young ladies tell their brothers what a pity it was they had not been drilled, and taught to stand up, and walk like Mr Shepard!

I had been at home about a week when my father told me one morning that he had a letter from Howard, who would be in the neighbourhood shortly.

“I will write and ask him to stay here a night or two. You would like to compare notes with him about the Academy, I dare say.”

“Yes, that I should,” I replied, for I still looked, on Howard as a hero, and found my veneration for him by no means decreased when I remembered that he must have gone through all I had, and all I must go through before I obtained my commission; also that he was an old cadet when the present old cadets were only schoolboys. I wanted also to hear from Howard what used to go on when he was a cadet, and compare the bullying, fagging, etc, in his day with what I had myself experienced; for it was a doubtful point in my own mind whether or not I had been more bullied than other neuxes, and whether, if I had been, it was due to any peculiarity in myself, or was owing to the old cadets in my room being what was termed regular bullies.

When I met Howard he expressed his surprise at my improved appearance. “You’ve grown and filled out,” he said, “and before long you’ll be a formidable antagonist with your fists. And how do you like the shop?” he inquired.

I had a brief conversation with Howard then; but it was not till after dinner, when the ladies had left, and Howard, my father, and I were alone, that I became inquiring and confidential; and it was only then that my father became aware of the extent to which bullying was carried at the Academy thirty add years ago. His astonishment was great, for the tales I told were capped by Howard, and there was no margin left on which to place any doubts as regards the truth of our incidents.

After I had described the angle of forty-five, and the running round the table whilst the old cadets flipped me, Howard said, “Yes, all that’s pretty bad, but were you ever kept up half the night looking out for squalls, or has that gone out of fashion?”

“I’ve never heard of that. What is it?” I inquired.

“To look out for squalls a cadet was divested of nearly all his clothes, and was made to climb up the iron bars of the window and there hold on. If he came down without orders he received a tremendous thrashing, and it was supposed to be a trial of a cadet’s obedience to orders. I remember, when I was a neux,” said Howard, “I was sent up once to the top of the window, and told to remain there till further orders. After some time I heard both the old cadets snoring, so I thought I might as well come down and go to bed. I had scarcely gone down many inches when one of the old cadets called out, ‘By George, sir, you shall have a thrashing for that! You thought I was asleep, eh? I just pretended to snore, to see if you could be trusted to obey orders. Why, you ought to remain there till you dropped rather than leave your post!’ I went up again, and remained for above an hour, when I was so cramped I could with difficulty move. Both cadets were snoring, but I suspected another trap, so hesitated about coming down. At length, however, I could hold on no longer, and fell heavily to the ground, from which I was picked up insensible. But I soon got all right, and wasn’t much hurt after all.”

“But,” said my father, “these things are perfectly brutal. Don’t the authorities interfere?”

“Yes,” replied Howard, “they would if what was done was brought before them in any way; but it rarely happens that they hear of these things.”

“But don’t the boys – the fags – complain to the authorities about such ill-usage?”

“If they did, the life they would lead would be unendurable. Every cadet, old and young, would cut them, and they would be bullied to such an extent that I don’t believe any boy would stay at the Academy. He would be considered a sneak; and if a cadet once gained such a name it would be all over with him.

“A case once happened when I was a neux,” continued Howard, “where a cadet told his mother of some of the things he had to do as a neux. His mother foolishly wrote to the Captain of the Cadet Company about it, and said she hoped he would see her son was not put to perform menial offices. The captain of course had to treat the matter officially; there was an inquiry, and it resulted in the head of this cadet’s room being rusticated for a half-year. Well, the result was that the neux became a marked man; he was fagged, and thrashed, and sent to drill so often, that he could not stand it, and at last ran away from the Academy. It’s of no use for a cadet to attempt to go against the stream; he must grin and bear it.”

“I should think it would entirely break a boy’s spirit,” said my father, “and ruin him for life.”

“Not a bit of it,” replied Howard. “It is not that I advocate bullying; but I have never seen very much harm done by it. That it ought to be stopped I think there is no doubt, for I believe that of all the despotic tyrants in the world a boy is the greatest. To him there is a delight in tyrannising; and bully he will. Usually it is size and strength that makes the bully; and this is its worst form, and is known to exist everywhere. Now at the Academy it is not size or strength that gives the right to fag, but seniority only. The smallest old cadet may kick or fag a last-joined giant.”

“It is a bad, brutal system, and ought to be put an end to,” said my father. “If I had known the extent to which this system was carried at Woolwich I never would have let Bob go there.”

“I’m very glad you didn’t know then,” I replied, “for the worst is over now, and I’ve really only another half-year of it, and then I shall be tolerably free.”

“What I believe ought to be done,” said Howard, “is to separate fagging from gratuitous bullying. Nothing is more offensive in society than an unlicked cub, and you find many of these in places where men don’t belong to either service, or have never been to public schools. I believe, from what I have read in Marryat’s novels, that in the navy there is far more bullying with the youngsters than there ever has been at Woolwich; and I fancy also at our principal public schools there is plenty of it. The generality of boys are not so sensitive as we older people are, and we give them credit for feeling much as we should; whereas I know now that I look back with rather a sense of satisfaction to the bullying I went through, and the manner in which I stood it. You see, Mr Shepard,” continued Howard, “we men in the army have to lead a roughish life of it; we don’t always live in drawing-rooms, or mix with ladies; so a soft, delicate, sensitive sort of fellow, who can’t stand a little bullying without crying out for help, is not the sort of man we want for an officer. Now I can see that Bob there is twice the man he was when I first knew him, and he is more fit to battle with the world, than he would have been, if he had merely stopped at home translating Herodotus and catching butterflies.

“I’ll tell you another advantage there is in having fagging at Woolwich. When an officer gets his commission in either the Artillery or Engineers, his seniors never play tricks on him, or attempt skylarking – all that was done with when the officers were neuxes at the Academy. In the Line, how ever, unless an ensign joined from Sandhurst, and had passed through a phase of bullying, he was the victim of various practical jokes; and then there was no regular time at which these practical jokes ceased. Now it is not the right thing for a commissioned officer to be made the butt for the jokes of his seniors; still the ensigns are sometimes so raw, so self-sufficient, and require to be put in their proper places so much, that their seniors have no hesitation in bullying them for a time. It is far better, to my mind, that a cadet about fifteen should be subjected to a system of bullying – if you like to call it so – than that an ensign in her Majesty’s service should be. Fancy, too, what a set of fellows we might get in the service if they were not knocked into shape by their companions! Why, look at your neighbour’s son, Hynton, who may some day be a baronet! He’s nearly twenty, and is little better than a lout, because he has never been to school, but has always had a tutor at home. He is conceited, stupid, and thinks, because he is tall, stout, and strong, that he may do anything. He would have been made into a capital fellow by a little course of fagging when he was a youngster?”

“Ah!” replied my father; “you are a thorough advocate for the system, I can see; but I am dead against it. I think it brutalises boys, and makes bullies of them in afterlife.”

“I don’t think that,” replied Howard. “I believe men who are bullies will be so under any circumstances, and are not inclined to be so by being first fags and then having the power to fag. In my day, also, at the Academy downright bullying was discountenanced by all the old cadets, or at least nearly all of them, and any cadet known to be a regular bully was stopped from being allowed to fag.”

“That’s not the case now,” I remarked. “A cadet may bully as much as he likes.” I thought of Snipson and Brag as I said this, and the amount of suffering I had gone through on first joining came fresh to my memory.

“Then the Academy is degenerating,” said Howard; “and if what I may call wholesome fagging goes out, it will be because a bad style of men get to be old cadets, and carry things so far that the authorities will stop it altogether.”

On the following morning I took a walk with Howard, and took the opportunity of telling him of my having been obliged to hang by my arms whilst I was pegged at by racket-balls; and I asked if any such thing was done in his day.

“The fellow who did that must be a snob,” said Howard, “and deserves to be kicked by the old cadets! Unless you or the other neuxes had struck, or been cool in some way, that kind of thing ought not to have been done.”