The account of the doings of the XVIIIth at the front must now be broken by Lord Wolseley’s description of his first meeting with the regiment of which he is now the honoured Colonel-in-Chief. As a callow subaltern in the 80th, quite new to the practical side of war, he found himself at Rangoon in charge of a piquet, composed in part of very young soldiers of the XVIIIth, who had been left at the base under command of Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Grattan. These youngsters were not yet disciplined; they had been greatly amused at the young officer’s attempts to march his detachment to its post, and three of them, carried away by their high spirits, took liberties and refused to number off in the way he ordered. Wolseley promptly made prisoners of the culprits, and next morning
“had to appear at the Orderly Room of the Royal Irish detachment. It was a little room in a small teak-built hut, and there Colonel Grattan, C.B., of that historic regiment, daily dispensed justice to his young recruits. He was an old and amusing Irishman, full of quaint stories, and a very pleasant companion. Taken prisoner in the China War, he had been carried about in a cage as a show for the amusement of millions who had never before seen a European. His smiling face and grotesque grimaces always obtained for him a favourable reception. He greeted me pleasantly when I entered the orderly room, where--I may explain for Civilian readers--the Commanding Officer of every regiment and battalion in the Army holds a daily court to administer justice all round. Three prisoners from Tipperary were marched in bare-headed, and were drawn up facing the Colonel, who sat, pen in hand, behind a little table which separated them from him. A Corporal and a file of the guard, with drawn bayonets, stood beside the culprits, an acting Sergeant-Major, standing as all the others were, at ‘Attention’, made up the stage. A solemn silence that somewhat awed me pervaded the scene, and my shyness became greater when the funny-looking colonel addressing me, asked me sternly what complaint I had to make against the prisoners. I told my story as best I could, being extremely impressed by what I believed to be the gravity of the offence. My military reading and study of the Mutiny Act and Articles of War had led me to believe that, next to striking an officer or running away in battle, these prisoners had committed the most heinous offence in absolutely refusing to obey a lawful command when on outpost duty before the enemy. I expected they would be at once sent to trial before a general court martial, and either sentenced to death, or if their lives were spared in consideration of their youth and entire ignorance of a soldier’s duty, they would at least be transported.