Professional education included requirements for diplomas, and in addition, special subjects relating to military medicine, surgery, and management of troops. Nominations for appointments were given by old officers or other men whose social position was a guarantee in regard to character and fitness of their nominees for the position sought by them; certificates by professors and teachers under whom they studied were submitted to the responsible authority[1] at the War Office, with whom rested their selection. Thus in effect a combined system of patronage and competition was in force.
With anxious interest a small group of expectants awaited the arrival of the coach by which in those days afternoon letters and evening papers from the metropolis were conveyed. Eagerly was _The Gazette_ scanned when, close upon the hour of midnight, the papers were delivered. Great was the pride and rejoicing with which some of our number read the announcement relating to them; great the disappointment of those who were not so included. The regiment to which I had the honour of being appointed was the 3rd, or “Buffs,” the depot of which formed part of the Provisional Battalion then occupying Forton Barracks.[2]
The duties assigned to young medical officers were unimportant--initiatory rather than definite in kind. Careful watch and superintendence on the part of official seniors gave us an opportunity of learning various points relative to practice, as well as to routine and discipline, to be turned to account--or otherwise--in the career upon which we were entering. But the process of “breaking in” was not without its disagreeables. Courtesy towards young officers on the part of their seniors, military or medical, was a quality rare at Chatham, but where met with in isolated instances was the more appreciated, and remembered in subsequent years. The “system” of training in force tended rather to break than bend the sapling.
Thus did three months pass away. Then came an order of readiness to embark with the detachment of recruits next to sail. Although about to proceed with those pertaining to what was now “my own regiment,” official regulations required that my appointment to charge of them should have the authority of “The Honourable Court of Directors,” and that to obtain it, personal application must be made at their old historical house in Leadenhall Street--a formality which was gone through with ease and success. This is what the appointment in question implied:--Not only did I receive the free passage to which I was entitled, my daily rate of pay[3] running on the while, minus £5 deducted “for messing,” but was privileged to occupy the second best cabin on board, and at the end of the voyage to receive in rupees a sum equivalent to fifteen shillings per head for officers and soldiers landed, and half a guinea for each woman and child. In those “golden days” the sterling value of the rupee was at par.