that day firmly resolved never again to have any dealings with his adopted son. He was an utter failure and a scamp, and it only needed Joe Sweetman’s efforts to defend him to settle the matter.
“It is just what I told you would happen,” Joe had said defiantly. “The lad has spirit, and far from being the rogue you think him, is filled with the desire to see life and make his way in the world. I am not a great judge of character, but if ever there was a youth unfitted for office life, that one is Phil. You have only yourself to thank after all. You have endeavoured to force a profession on him, whereas you should have given the lad an opportunity of selecting one for himself. Mark my words, Edward: Phil will live to do well and be a credit to you, and one of these days you will acknowledge that the step he is taking now was a good one and for the best. Now I’ll write to him, and give him a few words of advice.”
And this Joe did, sending a characteristic letter, written not to damp Phil’s hopes, but to encourage him, and let him see that there was one old friend at least who still thought well of him.
Find your own place in the world, Phil, he wrote; and if it is a good one, as I feel sure it will be, there is one who will be proud of you. You start in the ranks, and so fall into discredit among your friends. You are on the lowest rung; stick to it, and we will see where you come out. Meanwhile, my lad, I will send you ten shillings a week, paid every month in advance. You will find it a help, for soldiers want spare cash as well as other people.
At last the morning arrived for Phil and Tony to enlist, and, attended by the sergeant-major, they made their way to Wellington Barracks. Both felt somewhat nervous and bashful, especially when they passed the sentries at the gate.
“My eye!” exclaimed Tony in a whisper, “what swells them coves look! Shall we wear them hats, do yer think?”
“Of course you will,” the sergeant-major, who had overheard the remark, replied. “That is the Guards’ bearskin, and you’ll learn to be proud of it yet. It’s a grand head-dress, and there isn’t another half as good; at least that’s what I think, though chaps in other regiments would stick up for theirs in just the same way. And you’ll find, too, that the forage-cap with the red band round it, that’s worn well over the right ear – well over, mind you, youngsters – is as taking a thing as was ever invented.”
Phil and Tony both agreed, for the men walking about in uniform with forage-caps on did look smart and well dressed.
“Now here we are at the orderly-room,” said the old soldier, a moment later. “Wait a moment and I’ll speak to the sergeant-major.”
Phil and Tony stood looking with interest across the parade-ground. Then they suddenly heard a voice say in a room at the door of which they were waiting: “Two recruits, and likely-looking fellows, I think you said, sergeant-major? March them in.”
A moment later a big man with bristling moustache, and dressed in a tight-fitting red tunic, came to the door, and in a voice that made Phil and Tony start, and which could easily have been heard across the square, exclaimed: “Now, you two, get together; yes, just like that. Right turn! Quick march!”
It was a new experience, but Phil, who stood nearest the door, carried out the order smartly, and, snatching his hat from his head, followed the sergeant-major. A moment later they were standing in front of a table covered with green baize, and with a number of books and blue papers all neatly arranged upon it. Behind it sat an officer, dressed in a dark-blue uniform, with braided front, and a peaked cap encircled with a dark band and bearing a miniature grenade in front. It was the adjutant, and he at once cross-questioned the new recruits.
“Both of you have been in a menagerie,” he remarked with some astonishment, “but surely you – and he pointed towards, Phil – have had some education?”
“Yes, sir, I have been to a good school,” Phil answered, “and before I joined the menagerie I was a clerk in an office for a short time.”
“Ah, just the kind of man we want!” exclaimed the officer. “And both of you wish to enlist in the Grenadier Guards? Very well; send them across to the doctor’s.”
“Right turn! Quick march!” The words almost made Tony jump out of his skin, but he and Phil obeyed them promptly, and next moment were breathing a trifle more freely in the open air. A corporal was now sent for, and he conducted them across to another room. Here they were told to strip, and a few minutes later were ushered into an inner room, in which were the regimental doctor and a sergeant who sat with a book before him. Phil and Tony were sounded and thumped all over, and then told to hop up and down the floor. They swung their arms round their heads till they were red in the face, and swung their legs to and fro to show that they had free movement of their joints. Then their eyes were tested, and these and their hearing having proved satisfactory, they were declared fit for the army, and were told to dress themselves.
“What’s coming next, Phil?” whispered Tony, with a chuckle. “We’ve been interviewed – or whatever they calls it – by the officer, and now we’ve been punched all over, like folks used to do with that prize mare the boss in the old show was so fond of.”
“Wait and see,” Phil answered, for he too was wondering what their next experience would be.
They had not long to wait. The same corporal who had conducted them before took them round to the back of the building, up a steep flight of stairs, and showed them into the quarter-master’s stores. And here they spent almost an hour, during which time a complete set of uniform, with the exception of a bearskin, was served out to each of them. Their civilian clothing was then taken from them and safely packed away, and feeling remarkably queer, and uncertain how to carry the smart little cane which had been given them, they were marched away to the barrack-room, heads in air and chests well to the front, as every new recruit does when in uniform for the first time, and trying to look as though they were well used to their new circumstances, whereas every man they passed grinned, and, nudging his comrade, chuckled: “New uns! Look at the chest that redheaded cove’s got on ’im, and don’t the other hold his nose up?” or something equally flattering.
But Phil and Tony were blissfully ignorant of these facetious remarks, and in a few minutes had reached the room in which they were to sleep, and had taken possession of their cots.
The following day they were once more inspected by the adjutant, and under his eye the regimental tailor chalk-marked their clothing where alterations were to be made.
In due time both settled down to their new duties and began to learn their drill on the parade-ground. A few days, and they lost all the slovenliness of recruits and held themselves erect. Soon they were as smart as any, and an old friend of Phil’s, looking at him now, with his forage-cap jauntily set over his ear, his tight-fitting tunic and belt, and the swagger-cane beneath his arm, would scarcely have recognised him, so much had he altered. But had he only asked Tony, he would quickly have learnt the truth.
“Yus, that’s Phil Western, you bet!” the latter would exclaim; “and I tell yer what it is, that young chap is downright the smartest lad in this lot of recruits, and that’s saying a deal, as you’ll agree if you’ll only take a look at ’em.”
So thought Joe Sweetman too, when he visited London on one occasion and looked his young friend up. “He’s every inch a soldier,” he exclaimed admiringly to Mr Western, on his return to Riddington. “As smart and good-looking a fellow as ever I saw; and that lad means to get on and do well. Mark my words! That’s what he means, and he’ll do it too, or I’m a donkey.”
Chapter Five.
A Step in Rank
Whether or not
