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Updated: June 19, 2025
On Midsummer Day there was a Triumph on the river at Westminster, with a sham-fight and a great shooting of guns and hurling of balls of wild-fire. The Queen was there, and the ambassadors of France and Venice, with the Duke of Lennox and the Earls of Arundel and Southampton. Master Carew took a wherry to Whitehall, and from the green there they watched the show.
We had a good morning drill over what is perfect artillery country, with just the right amount of excitement in the shape of ditches to jump, and anthills, which are legion, and holes to avoid. I am delighted with my pair, which are both very fit now; and our waggon team has been going very well. "June 4. Riding exercise and sham-fight; an enemy supposed to be attacking a convoy.
There is a sham-fight air about them a good many of the players cannot work themselves up to the full fury of real combat; they are affected by the fact that the affair is not exactly genuine. One can even imagine that some of them say to themselves, "It will be all right on the night," and justice is by no means restored even if the critic afterwards sees the first public performance.
On going out, I found the most tumultuous sham-fight proceeding in total darkness, two companies playing like boys, beating tin cups for drums. When some of them saw me they seemed a little dismayed, and came and said, beseechingly, "Gunnel, Sah, you hab no objection to we playin', Sah?" which objection I disclaimed; but soon they all subsided, rather to my regret, and scattered merrily.
Would it be wise to invite these two Eastern princes to come here in force and well-armed, so that they could combine and try to sweep us out of existence?" "What! when our men are hot with excitement and ready to smell mischief in a good sham-fight? I should just like to see them try eh, Maine?" "Yes, sir," said Archie, with his eyes twinkling. "I think they would make a mistake."
The troops, from twelve to fifteen thousand, now fell into marching order, and went to attack a wood, where we were to suppose the enemy to be stationed. The sham-fight seemed to me rather clumsily managed, and without any striking incident or result. The officers had prophesied, the night before, that General K , commanding in the camp, would make a muddle of it; and probably he did.
On an open field, outside the town, Count Bossu had arranged a review of troops, concluding with a sham-fight, which, in the words of a classical contemporary, seemed as "bloody a rencontre as that between Duke Miltiades of Athens and King Darius upon the plains of Attics." The procession entered the Louvain gate, through a splendid triumphal arch, filled with a band of invisible musicians.
Hence these "general quarters," which is a mustering of all hands to their stations at the guns on the several decks, and a sort of sham-fight with an imaginary foe. The summons is given by the ship's drummer, who strikes a peculiar beat short, broken, rolling, shuffling like the sound made by the march into battle of iron-heeled grenadiers.
"I'd finish off with that, sir," said Archie; "but I'd have every man out, and get up a thoroughly good sham-fight, burn plenty of powder, make everything as real as could be, and after plenty of firing and evolution, form in line and deliver a regular good charge." "Yes," said the Major, "there's something in that. But what's the good of doing it with only the people of the campong to look on?"
"Here, who's afraid?" said the lad, mastering the oppression and panting from which he suffered, as he picked up a fourth banana. "He means friends, and I'm blessed if I don't believe it's the same one as I tackled at the sham-fight, I wish I knew.
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