Robert Michael Ballantyne - In the Track of the Troops

The remarkable—I might even say amazing—personal adventures which I am about to relate occurred quite recently.

They are so full of interest to myself and to my old mother, that I hasten to write them down while yet vivid and fresh in my memory, in the hope that they may prove interesting,—to say nothing of elevating and instructive—to the English-speaking portions of the human race throughout the world.

The dear old lady to whom I have just referred—my mother—is one of the gentlest, meekest, tenderest beings of my acquaintance. Her regard for me is almost idolatrous. My feelings towards her are tinged with adoration.

From my earliest years I have been addicted to analysis.

Some of my younger readers may not perhaps know that by analysis is meant the reduction of compound things to their elements—the turning of things, as it were, inside out and tearing them to pieces. All the complex toys of infancy I was wont to reduce to their elements; I turned them inside out to see what they were made of, and how they worked. A doll, not my own, but my sister Bella’s, which had moveable eyelids and a musical stomach, was treated by me in this manner, the result being that I learned little, while my poor sister suffered much. Everything in my father’s house suffered more or less from this inquiring tendency of my mind.

Time, however, while it did not abate my thirst for knowledge, developed my constructive powers. I became a mechanician and an inventor. Perpetual motion was my first hobby. Six times during the course of boyhood did I burst into my mother’s presence with the astounding news that I had “discovered it at last!” The mild and trustful being believed me. Six times also was I compelled to acknowledge to her that I had been mistaken, and again she believed me, more thoroughly, perhaps, than at first. No one, I think, can form the least idea of the delight with which I pursued this mechanical will-o’-the-wisp.

Growing older, I took to chemistry, and here my love for research and analysis found ample scope, while the sufferings of my father’s household were intensified. I am not naturally cruel—far from it. They little knew how much pain their sufferings caused me; how earnestly I endeavoured to lessen or neutralise the nuisances which the pursuit of science entailed. But I could not consume my own smoke, or prevent explosions, or convert bad and suffocating odours into sweet smells.

Settling down to this new pursuit with intense enthusiasm, I soon began to flow in my natural course, and sought to extend the bounds of chemical knowledge. I could not help it. The particular direction in which my interest ultimately became concentrated was that of explosives.

After becoming acquainted with gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, lithofracteur, and other combinations of powerfully-explosive agents, I took to searching for and inventing methods by which these might be utilised. To turn everything to good account, is a desire which I cannot resist.

Explosives naturally drew my attention to mines—tin-mines, coal-mines, and other commercial enterprises. They also suggested war and torpedoes.

At that time I had not reflected on the nature of war. I merely knew it to be a science, cultivated chiefly by the human race, and that in its practice explosives are largely used. To “blow-up” effectively, whether in a literal or figurative sense, is difficult. To improve this power in war, and in the literal sense, I set myself to work. I invented a torpedo, which seemed to me better than any that had yet been brought out. To test its powers, I made a miniature fortification, and blew it up. I also blew up our groom, Jacob Lancey.

It happened thus:—

The miniature fortress, which was made of cardboard, earth, and bricks, was erected in a yard near our stables. Under its walls the torpedo was placed, and the match lighted.

It was night and very dark. I had selected the hour as being that most suitable to the destruction of an enemy’s stronghold. The match was very slow in burning. Matches invariably are so in the circumstances. Suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps. Next moment, before I had time to give warning, Jacob Lancey came round the corner of the stables with a pitchfork on his shoulder, and walked right into the fortress. He set his foot on the principal gateway, tripped over the ramparts, and falling headlong into the citadel, laid its banner in the dust. At the same instant there came a terrific flash and crash, and from the midst of smoke and flames, the groom appeared to shoot into the air!

With feelings of horror I sprang to the rescue and dragged the poor fellow from the smoking débris. He was stunned at first, but soon recovered, and then it was found that one of the fingers of his left hand had been completely blown off. Words cannot describe my feelings. I felt as if I had become next thing to a murderer. Lancey was a tall powerful man of about thirty, and not easily killed. He had received no other injury worth mentioning. Although the most faithful of servants, he was irascible, and I anticipated an explosion of temper when he recovered sufficiently to understand the nature of his injury, but I was mistaken. The blowing-up seemed to have quite cured his temper—at least as regarded myself, for when I afterwards went to see him, with a very penitent face, he took my hand and said—

“Don’t take on so, Master Jeffry. You didn’t do it a purpus, you know, and, after all, it’s on’y the little finger o’ the left hand. It’ll be rather hout o’ the way than otherwise. Moreover, I was used to make a baccy stopper o’ that finger, an’ it strikes me that the stump’ll fit the pipe better than the pint did, besides bein’ less sensitive to fire, who knows? Any’ow, Master Jeffry, you’ve got no occasion to grieve over it so.”

I felt a little comforted when the good fellow spoke thus, but I could not forgive myself. For some time after that I quite gave up my chemical and other experiments, and when I did ultimately resume them, I went to work with extreme caution.

Not long after this event I went to college, and studied medicine. My course was nearly completed when my dear father died. He had earnestly desired that I should enter the medical profession. I therefore resolved to finish my course, although, being left in possession of a small estate named Fagend, in Devonshire, and an ample income, it was not requisite that I should practise for a livelihood.

One morning, a considerable time after my studies were completed, I sat at breakfast with my mother.

“Jeff,” she said (my name is Jeffry Childers); “Jeff, what do you think of doing now? Being twenty-four, you ought, you know, to have some fixed idea as to the future, for, of course, though independent, you don’t intend to be idle.”

“Right, mother, right,” I replied, “I don’t mean to be an idler, nevertheless I don’t mean to be a doctor. I shall turn my mind to chemistry, and talking of that, I expect to test the powers of a particular compound today.”

“And what,” said my mother, with a peculiar smile, “is the nature of this compound?”

“Violently explosive,” said I.

“Ah, of course, I might have guessed that, Jeff, for most of your compounds are either violently explosive or offensive—sometimes both; but what is the name of this one?”

“Before answering that,” said I, pulling out my watch, “allow me to ask at what hour you expect Bella home to-day.”

“She half promised to be over to breakfast, if cousin Kate would let her away. It is probable that she may arrive in less than an hour.”