The scum of the earth. Is that really you, William? One of England’s greatest heroes will say that about men like you. This hero, this legendary figure, is Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, the man who will finally end Napoleon’s dreams of conquering Europe. There, at the battle of Waterloo, as the squat Frenchman squirms in his saddle unable to keep his mind on the battlefield because of the pain shooting up his backside from his ever present haemorrhoids, Wellesley will take charge and lead his alliance with Prussia to victory, a triumph that will end the First French Empire, the Napoleonic Wars and the rule of Napoleon himself.
Wellesley might come from Irish aristocratic stock but he’s not that different to you. He’s a late bloomer. He might have gone to Eton but he was no scholar. His newly widowed mother would often complain about his inability to concentrate or focus, saying once: ‘I don’t know what I shall do with my awkward son Arthur’. Well, she needn’t have worried. Arthur becomes a hero of the Empire and will go on to serve twice as Prime Minister.
The Duke will offer up more than his share of sanguine quotes to history. When the Battle of Waterloo begins he will turn to his troops and say, ‘Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let’s see who pounds the longest.’ Of course, the Duke is also a bit of a pounder himself, a notorious womaniser who will confront a publisher threatening to reveal one of his affairs with the words: ‘Publish and be damned!’
But ‘scum of the earth’? Wellesley is talking in 1813, not long after his forces have routed the French during a crucial battle and, instead of pursuing the retreating rabble, stop to loot the enemy’s convoy of wagons.
‘The scum of the earth – the mere scum of the earth,’ snorts the Duke about England’s finest. It’s easy to picture him, the corners of his mouth drawn tightly in disgust, peering down over his large Roman nose, that very same beak kind artists will always try to disguise in portraits by painting him head-on. Won’t fool the common folk, though. They will celebrate Old Nosey in ballads for years to come.
But as for the scum, ‘It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much of them afterwards. The English soldiers are fellows who have all enlisted for drink – that is the plain fact – they have all enlisted for drink.
‘People talk of their enlisting from their fine military feeling – all stuff – no such thing. Some of our men enlist from having got bastard children – some for minor offences – many more for drink.’
It’s not drink that has lured you to enlist, although by your own account it may contribute to many of your problems in a few years’ time. But signing up with the Cheshire militia – an 18th century version of the army reserve – means an escape from the monotony of bricklaying and all of Master Wyatt’s rules and discipline. And that bounty of 10 guineas – have you ever seen a fortune like it? You’ve never had money like this and you must think it will last forever. But it’s all gone within a year and so you take another bounty by signing with the 4th or King’s Own Regiment of Foot. Easy decision. Guaranteed salary and a promise of a great adventure, travelling the world and fighting for your country.
Problem is, the public mood has soured by the 1790s when it comes to all of Mad George’s warmongering. Decades of it have taken their toll. When deserters from the army flee into the countryside mobs often assault and even stab the officers trying to apprehend the runaways. There’s a growing suspicion that the desire of the King and his parliament to boost army numbers has less to do with enemies from other shores and more to do with maintaining domestic peace and keeping an eye on possible traitors like Marcus Despard.
And let’s face it. The Duke isn’t wrong when he laments the lack of quality men at his service. The Secretary of War will stand up in the House of Commons in 1795 and admit that the process of recruiting has lured ‘men of very low description’. But you would hardly call it a process. More like a circus. That same year in St George’s Field more than a dozen men are found shackled in a cellar awaiting sale to the army recruiters, victims of a local agent who has plied them with rum and perhaps a little coin too, and then obtained their drunken signatures in order to earn his commission. Those men wake the next morning with a headache and the knowledge they have signed on for life – for the King’s shilling.
The small towns and rural areas are prime hunting ground for the army’s recruiters. Perhaps that is how they found you there in Marton, not far from the old oak, the arrival of the regiment heralded by drums and trumpets. Some of them seem to have studied the promotional techniques of Philip Astley, the father of the modern circus who becomes the first to use clowns and acrobats in his amphitheatre between acts. One regiment employs the 42-inch ‘Yorkshire Dwarf’ John Heyes, who carries out a sword drill in town squares to lure the crowds. Or how about the battalion whose recruiting campaign centres on Sergeant Samuel Macdonald? Big Sam – now here’s a man who makes William Buckley look … almost normal. He’s six foot 10 inches and his legend is well known. He was the soldier ordered one night to act as sentry over a large cannon. Tired of standing guard in the bitter cold he slung the huge weapon over his shoulder and carried it into the warmth of a nearby guardhouse.
There is little they won’t try in the quest to provide fodder for the slaughterhouses of Europe. In 1794 the Marquess of Huntly begins assembling what will become known as the 100th Foot. He uses his mother, the Duchess, a woman known as ‘Bonnie Jean’ for her ravishing looks, to ride the countryside, visiting farms and hamlets with a shilling on her lips, transferring it with a kiss to any man who signs up.
Well, many of them can’t actually sign their names but then, the men recruiting them are hardly better educated. One soldier who joins the ranks, Tubal Cain, will find himself forever designated in the books as ‘Two Ball Cain’.
But you have your shilling. And they have issued you the famous red waistcoat, a pair of breeches and two pairs of shoes, although God knows how they managed to find the right size. You will have to take that long hair of yours and form it into a ‘club’. That takes some doing, doesn’t it? You’ll have to plaster it with grease, thicken it with flour and then use a small bag of sand to roll it into place at the back of your head. That can take more than an hour and if it falls out of place you have to go through the same routine again.
Little wonder John Gaspard Le Merchant, a cavalry commander during the Napoleonic Wars, will never forget that evening when he arrives in a Flemish barn where his troops are spending the night. ‘They were … lying on the hay. But to preserve the form of their clubs for the next day, they were all prone on their faces, trying to sleep in that pleasant posture.’ One man always had to act as sentry, though. That heavy dusting of flour on each club often drew rats.
But you will have plenty of time to get your club in place each day. Life in the barracks in England is monotonous. Best to avoid indoors during the day. Squalid and cramped, beds are often shared and that bucket of stale piss in the corner of your room should be cleared more often than it is. First morning parade in summer is just after four in the morning. Then breakfast. Then the sergeant’s daily sobriety check. The Duke isn’t wrong. Alcohol has become a peculiar British disease, cheap gin distilled from the remnants of corn crops is everywhere and the nation’s thousands of illegal gin houses barely cope with demand. An average soldier will receive up to a pint of rum or wine with their regular issue of bread or biscuit and beef. The wounded are regularly plied with booze before surgery. Why, its restorative qualities are endless – a surgeon with the 71st Foot will insist it helps even more in defeat: ‘The exhilarating and beneficial effect of liqueur in distressing circumstances is also well known, and often exemplified on the retreat.’
Problem is, they encourage you to drink, to down as much grog as you like. Then they call you the scum of the earth, don’t they?