There was a separate mess for all the staff officers, and I remember a curious circumstance in connexion with that mess which, unless the exception proves the rule, is strong evidence against the superstition that thirteen is an unlucky number to sit down to dinner.  On the 1st January, 1853, thirteen of us dined together; eleven years after we were all alive, nearly the whole of the party having taken part in the suppression of the Mutiny, and five or six having been wounded.

From the time of my arrival until the autumn of 1853, nothing of much importance occurred.  I lived with my father, and acted as his Aide-de-camp, while, at the same time, I did duty with the Artillery.  The 2nd Company, 2nd Battalion, to which I belonged, was composed of a fine body of men, who had a grand reputation in the field, but, being somewhat troublesome in quarters, had acquired the nickname of ’The Devil’s Own.’  Because of the unusually good physique of the men, this company was selected for conversion into a Mountain Battery, which it was thought advisable to raise at that time.  I was the only subaltern with this battery for several months, and though my commanding officer had no objection to my acting as A.D.C. to my father, he took good care that I did my regimental duty strictly and regularly.

One very painful circumstance stamped itself on my memory.  I was obliged to be present at a flogging parade—­the only one, I am glad to say, I have ever had to attend, although the barbarous and degrading custom of flogging in the army was not done away with until nearly thirty years later.[5] A few years before I joined the service, the number of lashes which might be given was limited to fifty, but even under this restriction the sight was a horrible one to witness.  The parade to which I refer was ordered for the punishment of two men who had been sentenced to fifty lashes each for selling their kits, and to a certain term of imprisonment in addition.  They were fine, handsome young Horse Artillerymen, and it was hateful to see them thus treated.  Besides, one felt it was productive of harm rather than good, for it tended to destroy the men’s self-respect, and to make them completely reckless.  In this instance, no sooner had the two men been released from prison than they committed the same offence again.  They were a second time tried by Court-Martial, and sentenced as before.  How I longed to have the power to remit the fifty lashes, for I felt that selling their kits on this occasion was their way of showing their resentment at the ignominious treatment they had been subjected to, and of proving that flogging was powerless to prevent their repeating the offence.  A parade was ordered, as on the previous occasion.  One man was stripped to the waist, and tied to the wheel of a gun.  The finding and sentence of the Court-Martial were read out—­a trumpeter standing ready the while to inflict the punishment—­when the commanding officer, Major Robert Waller, instead