True Soldier Gentlemen (Napoleonic War 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

slightest of winces at an especially loud burst of giggling, which could have only one source. At forty-seven he was comfortably old enough to be the father of most of the officers in the regiment, let alone the local pink-bonnets. Still, he would be happier once the company set out and lost its audience, but it was important not to rush the preliminaries. Sergeant Darrowfield’s barked command brought the company into open order.
    ‘Pre-sent . . . arms!’ Even after thirty years in the army the sheer power of most NCOs’ voices still amazed MacAndrews. It was a mystery how such confident, capable men kept on emerging from the handless raw recruits who took the King’s shilling.
    The elderly Scottish captain was content with the drill of his men, and they went through the three movements neatly. MacAndrews only just restrained a nod of approval, helped by the fact that there was some frenzied clapping from one of the observers and a cry of ‘Oh, Jane, you are such an enthusiast!’ in soprano, followed by bass and baritone voices laughing and calling bravo. For a moment there was a pang, for his daughter’s name was Jane, and MacAndrews had not seen her or his wife for two years. It was the briefest of thoughts, and he was already beginning his inspection as he felt the thrill of knowing that they would soon be with him.
    He hoped that he was not smiling, although in fact duty was by now so much a part of him – had always been – that none of the company would have guessed that his attention had strayed even a fraction beyond the details of their turnout. The cost of that duty had been terrible, the little graves dotted in garrison cemeteries around the world, and he wondered whether he would have chosen as he had chosen if he had known the price. Yet it was hard to imagine ever having been anything other than a soldier.
    MacAndrews missed nothing as he passed steadily along the front rank. Things were as they should be, for the sergeants had done their job well. Yes, he was content. When he was young he might have been tempted to imagine some minor flaw and reprimand the man just to show the company that they could not take his approval for granted. He had learned sense quickly, for the Highlanders he had led in America readily smoked out a fraud and as readily showed their opinion of an officer, stopping just short of punishable insubordination.
    A man never forgot his first company – the faces, names, some of the jokes which had been repeated so often at the time. Since then there had been other men, other companies, and the faces changed even if the basic worf leading them did not. These were nearly all new men, and quite a few were shorter than was ideal for grenadiers. Normal practice tucked such men away in the centre of the second rank, so that from the front theimpression was of a line of big men. MacAndrews knew that some of the recruits were barely over five foot six and in normal times would not have been accepted. Perhaps they would grow, given regular meals in the army. At the moment the shoulder wings on their jacket made these youngsters look small and squat.
    MacAndrews reached the end of the front rank and passed the reassuringly battered face of Dobson, one of the few old hands and every inch a grenadier. When the 106th had been posted to the West Indies the Grenadier Company had listed three sergeants, two corporals and eighty-three privates on its books. That had been 1804. When they came back from Jamaica three years later MacAndrews had led just nine men off the ship. The regiment had never once seen an enemy during the entire posting, had not suffered from fire or shipwreck. The men had simply died, and the battalion been consumed as so many other British regiments had been consumed in postings to the Fever Islands. Even without battles the army lost more than twenty thousand men every year.
    On the return to England it had been almost like raising a regiment from scratch, and it was