‘DOUBLEWORKS.’

A STORY OF ATHLONE.

Who has not heard of the old historic town on the Shannon called Athlone, believed by its inhabitants to be the exact centre of Ireland; celebrated at one time—for it has been now some years removed—for the old bridge built in the reign of Queen Bess, whose arms and monogram, E. R., were engraved on a stone built into a kind of monument on the parapet. Celebrated also for its old church bell, bearing in relief the inscription—THIS: FOR: ST: MARY’S: CHVRCH: IN: ATHLONE: 1683—this being the identical bell which, at six o’clock in the afternoon of the 30th of June 1691, clanged the signal for the attack on the forces of King James, commanded by the French general, St Ruth, and holding the castle, &c., by the troops of the Prince of Orange under Ginkell. The old house occupied by him as headquarters during the siege is still in existence, having the date of its erection, 1626, carved on the doorway. We might go on detailing many other things for which the old town is celebrated, but cui bono? Enough that it is celebrated in song as the residence of ‘The Widow Malone, Ochone!’

Often as we have been reminded of the existence of Athlone by hearing the above-mentioned humorous ditty trolled forth at mess by one of Ours, who, being a genuine son of the soil, was fully qualified to do it ample justice, it had never been our good fortune to cast eyes upon it until some forty years ago, when, one fine afternoon, we found ourselves, with some thousand or so other candidates for martial glory, marching gaily through the by no means sweet-smelling town, over the beautiful new bridge which spans the river, and under the walls of the ancient castle, to the merry strains of the Lass o’ Gowrie. These forty years are a long time to look back upon; many a long march under foreign suns have we made with the old regiment, and in many a stirring scene and hard-fought field have we accompanied it since then; but somehow our memory recalls few things more vividly than the appearance of that long column of dusty, travel-stained men, who were finishing their hot day’s march that summer afternoon, tramping along briskly and cheerily to the old familiar air of the regimental quick step.

We quickly settled down in our new quarters, and before long, had formed many pleasant acquaintances, all only too delighted to show us every civility in their power; and jolly nights at mess followed fishing and boating parties during the summer, while, as the days began to shorten, there was good hunting and shooting; and dinner-parties and dances were by no means unfrequent.

In most garrison towns in which we have been quartered in Ireland, there were generally one or two peculiar hangers-on loafing about the barracks, queer nondescript bipeds, ever ready to run messages all over the country, or carry a fishing-basket or a game-bag, who eked out a precarious existence by tips from the officers and others who employed them, and picking up odd meals at the different barrack-rooms of the men. Athlone was not singular in this respect; and you constantly met, shambling across the barrack square, at a kind of half-trot, or lurking in rear of the officers’ quarters, an odd, half-witted, but quite harmless creature, who went by the curious appellation of ‘Doubleworks.’ Who gave him that name, or whence it was derived, we are unable to say; we only know that he answered to it, and we had it from the regiment in whose place we had come. There was a kind of sporting air about this poor creature; he always wore an old hunting-cap and a shooting-suit, evidently the gift of some former patron of far burlier proportions than the poor attenuated frame which they now enveloped; and an ancient pair of Wellington boots, much down at heel, into which the ends of the trousers were shoved, completed the costume, which, however, was varied on hunting-days, when the hounds met in the square or neighbourhood of the barracks, when, in honour of the occasion, an aged and much stained, once scarlet hunting-coat took the place of the shooting-jacket.

Like the other hangers-on of the Athlone barracks, poor Doubleworks subsisted, as we have said, upon the benevolence of his military patrons and friends; but, unlike the others, he was possessed of an accomplishment, not an elegant one, perhaps, or suitable for very refined society, but nevertheless one that brought him by its performance many an odd sixpence or shilling—he could hunt the badger! or was supposed to give a truthful representation of the ‘drawing’ of the above-named quadruped by a canine foe. This performance was vocal, and commenced by a series of whines, growls, and impatient barkings, mingled with grunts and low savage yelps, which we believe were meant for cries of rage and defiance from the badger; these, after lasting with variations for some time, gradually increased in intensity, at length culminating in an unearthly din, perfectly indescribable, but which was stated by the ‘fancy’ and capable authorities to be quite true to nature. For ourselves, not having had experience in such matters, we are unable to offer a personal opinion, and can only observe that the din was marvellous as the production of a single pair of human lungs, and once heard was not likely to be ever forgotten.

His performance was not confined to any particular part of the barracks; it might be heard at any hour of the day in the artillery square, the cavalry square, the infantry square, or amongst the barracks occupied by the scientific arm of the service, the Royal Engineers; but it took place most frequently at the officer’s guardroom; for in those days there used to be an officer’s guardroom and an officer in it at the main barrack gate, which led directly from the infantry square into the market-place of the town. This guardroom was in the centre of a small block of buildings to the left of the gate as you went out, having on its right the regimental orderly-room, where the colonel administered justice every morning, and where the orderly-room clerks smoked strong tobacco, and filled in forms and sketched caricatures of regimental and other authorities every day. The men’s guardroom adjoined that occupied by the officer, from which it, as well as the orderly-room, was separated by a partition wall, the end wall of the men’s guardroom being next the street. In front of these rooms was a small veranda, and beyond this the guardroom sentry paced his ‘lonely round.’ We are thus particular in describing the locality, as it pleases us to recall it after so many years, because it will give our readers a better idea of what is to follow.

The guardroom—we mean the officer’s—was in those days a kind of club or place of call for all officers going out of or coming in to barracks. It was considered incumbent on every passer-by to drop in on the officer of the guard and help him to while away the tedium of his confinement by retailing any news there might be going; while he on his part provided alleviation for any thirst accruing from dry narration. By night, the guardroom was generally pretty full until a late hour. A recent order of the Duke of Wellington, then commander-in-chief, and which procured for him the cognomen of ‘the Tobacco-stopper,’ prohibited the use of tobacco in the precincts of the mess; and though this order was afterwards so far modified as to permit smoking in the anteroom, it was confined to cigars; so those who preferred the luxury of a pipe had either to indulge the propensity in their own rooms or seek the shelter of the guardroom. Needless to say, the latter alternative was the one most generally followed, and the hospitality of the subaltern on guard was accepted as freely as it was offered. Altogether, the main-guard was not a disagreeable place to spend twenty-four hours, especially if it rained, which it can do in those parts, and we ourselves preferred it to the duties of regimental orderly-officer.

One day in the mid-winter of 1846, it came to my turn to mount this guard. The weather had been unusually severe—it had been snowing for a day or two, and the ground was covered to the depth of several inches, while a smart frost had served to make the snow hard as a brick; so that, as I marched my guard across the square to where the old guard was drawn up, waiting our arrival, the men’s tread made no more track than if we had been marching on the surface of the square itself. The preliminaries of relieving guard having been got over as quickly as possible, we paid the parting compliment to the old guard of presenting arms, as it moved off in slow time; and then dismissing our own, we visited the sentries, to ascertain if they had the orders of their respective posts correctly, and then gladly dived into our own den, and doffing our cloak, proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable in front of a huge peat-fire as it was possible to be, braced up in a high stiff stock and tightly fitting coatee and epaulets, as was then the regulation.

The day passed like most others on guard; but, owing to the weather, the passers-by were fewer, and our after-mess visitors didn’t stay so late as usual; by eleven or half-past, all had taken their departure for their respective quarters; and about midnight we proceeded to go round the sentries. There was a bright moon, with a clear star-studded sky. It was not unpleasant walking over the hard frozen snow, and we were not long reaching the farthest-off and last of the sentries, who was posted at the hospital gate. Besides the usual orders, he had special directions to look after the dead-house, a small building situated close inside the hospital gate, to which the bodies of deceased men were conveyed until interment, and to allow no one to enter it unless passed in by the hospital-sergeant. The sentry, when giving up his orders, added that a man had died in the hospital late that evening, and that his corpse was now lying on the table in the dead-house. Accompanied by the corporal of the escort, we walked over to the window, and by the bright moonlight could see something extended on the table, as the man had said, covered with a sheet. After this, we came back across the square to the guardroom, and lighting a pipe, were soon deeply interested in a book that we were reading. Gradually we began to nod, and the book to slip from our hand, and the grand-rounds having already visited the guard, and there being but little danger of having to turn it out again before the morning’s reveille, we were about to go to sleep in earnest on the guardroom sofa, when we were startled from our semi-somnolent condition by hearing the loud challenge, ‘Who goes there?’ from the sentry who had been pacing up and down in front of the veranda. We could hear the rattle of his arms as he threw his firelock to the ‘port,’ and the rapid tread of some one running towards the guardroom and crunching the frozen snow. Presently the challenge was repeated in a quick peremptory tone, but, as in the former case, without obtaining any response; and then there came a kind of half-articulate gurgling cry, followed by the sound of a heavy fall, and the crash of arms and accoutrements, and the shout of, ‘Sergeant of the Guard!’

Fearing that something bad had happened, we jumped up and dashed out of the guardroom, and saw lying on the snow, close to the sentry, who was standing at the ‘charge,’ the figure of a soldier clad in his greatcoat and fully accoutred, and a little way from him his firelock with fixed bayonet lying on the snow, as it had escaped from his grasp in falling. The sergeant and all the men of the guard had rushed out at the same time as we had, and were now engaged lifting the prostrate figure, who at the moment we feared had been run through by the sentry for not replying to the challenge, and trying to run past him. Such, however, happily was not the case; the sentry hadn’t touched him, and said that the man had come rushing towards him from the far angle of the square, and instead of answering the challenge, had continued to approach, making the queer gurgling sound which we had heard, and falling as if shot when he came to where he now lay.

The sergeant of the guard now reported to me that the man was alive, though quite insensible and making a moaning noise, as if in a fit. He further stated that he was the sentry who had been posted at the gate of the hospital. We at once sent a man of the guard for one of the assistant-surgeons of the regiment whose quarters were close at hand, and had the insensible man carried into the guardroom and laid on the guard-bed, his stiff leather stock removed, coat, &c. unbuttoned, and water sprinkled on his face; but all, seemingly, to no purpose: he remained unconscious, and kept up the moaning noise, while now and then struggling hard with those about him. At last the doctor arrived; and having administered some restoratives, after a while the poor fellow became sensible, and sufficiently calm to inform us why he had committed the serious offence of deserting his post. He stated that he had continued to walk about on his beat at the hospital gate for some time after we had visited him, and that all was quiet, when suddenly sounds as if of chairs being upset and knocked about appeared to come from the dead-house; that he had gone up to the window, as we had a short time before, and looked in, and that he saw the corpse off the table, and standing up close inside the window, and that it, as he said, ‘jeered’ at him; that this fearful sight had so unmanned him, that without more ado he had taken to his heels, and had no recollection of anything else that happened until he returned to consciousness on the guard-bed. He was evidently suffering from a terrible shock to his nervous system; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that, mingled with heavy sobs and shudderings, we could manage to get the poor fellow to speak: he was driven nearly demented by the ghastly sight which he was persuaded that he had witnessed.

As soon as he could be left with safety to the care of the guard, who were directed not to pester him with questions, the surgeon and I with a corporal and file of men set off for the hospital; and as we crossed the square, strange noises began to reach us, the growling, snarling, and other sounds of canine conflict mingling with the unmistakable howls with which Doubleworks interlarded his performance.

‘Hillo!’ we said to the doctor; ‘do you hear that? What an hour for Doubleworks to be hunting the badger; we thought he was never allowed in barracks after tattoo.’

As we neared the hospital, the badger hunt, which had ceased for a few moments, broke out afresh, this time mingled with shouts of wild unearthly laughter, and proceeding unmistakably from the dead-house, in which the corpse of the dead soldier had been deposited. We roused up the hospital sergeant, who, good quiet man, snored serenely through it all, and got from him the key and a lantern, and opening the door, found that with the dead man the wretched Doubleworks had been locked up. How he got there unnoticed, no one could tell; he had not been observed by any one about the place; and the only conclusion that we could arrive at was, that he had slipped in when the body was being placed on the table, and had ensconced himself behind the door until it was pulled to and locked upon him.

However true this theory might have been, there was no means of verifying now, for, from whatever cause arising, it was but too evident that poor Doubleworks had become quite insane. He had removed the sheet from the body of the dead man, which lay there in its solemn stiffness before us, in strange contrast to the mad pranks of the lunatic, who, having, no doubt, wrapped himself in the sheet, had presented himself so disguised to the sentry, when he looked in at the window, thereby almost driving him as mad as he was himself.

Why he didn’t favour us with a similar exhibition when we went to look in at the window, we can’t imagine; perhaps he may have objected to the presence of more than one spectator, for he must have heard the steps of the corporal and file of men who were with us when going our rounds. At anyrate, he made no objection to leaving the dead-house now, though he seemed in no way in dread of the other occupant of it. He was next day made over to the civil authorities, and was afterwards transferred, we heard, to the district lunatic asylum; and what was his subsequent fate, we do not know. The sentry he had so horribly frightened, after several weeks in hospital, returned to his duty; but we don’t think he ever quite got over the shock, and he was discharged from the service within a twelvemonth after. Perhaps he may be still alive, and if so, we will bet a trifle he has not forgotten Doubleworks.