Chatham Barracks, 1773

"Straighten up, damn you! Handsomely now, like a proper soldier!"

The serjeant's eyes bulge, bloodshot red, as he berates you. You expected something of a rough life, but not this.

"Damn my soul that I should be cursed with bastards such as you!"

You fight the urge to reach up the neckstock around your collar, tightly fastened to encourage a soldierly posture, for fear of receiving yet another insult.

Like many of the recruits around you, you're a former weaver. The burdgeoning industrial revolution has made your occupation irrelevant and redundant. Swathes of men like you take to the army for some semblance of stability.

Wandering from town to town, you sought work as an itinerant laborer. Here and there you'd find some menial task to put a few shillings in your pocket, but lacking any marketable skill, you seemed doomed to wander in pursuit of a reassuring regularity that you would never find. Then, to the sound of a martial drum, you were enthralled by the booming voice and impressive uniforms of a recruiting party.

Often you'd heard the stories of men kidnapped away into service, but found yourself surprised at the casual and confident assurances of the recruiting serjeant. A young man had joined at the same time as you, but was removed from the rolls when his father arrived to retrieve him. This was hardly the harsh and brutal push that you'd expected.

With pay, meals, and shelter, it was only logical that you turn to the army.

"I said 'Shoulder your firelocks,' you bloody fools! Bring your right hand strong upon the butt! You're not caressing some poxy harlot!"

The serjeant's anger brings you back to the moment, as you slap your hand in time with all the others. An impressive harmony of flesh on metal and wood echoes across the parade ground.

Surrounding your are recruits, but facing you is a veteran. The older serjeant is known to have served in the West Indes during the last war. In hushed tones your fellow recruits gossiped about his bravery, and all agreed he was likely to receive a pension.

On being discharged, soldiers are far more likely to receive a pension than they had been but a few decades before. Hospitals were established to care for the infirm, and regular payment, slight though it may be, was certainly an incentive to sign up.

The food may be awful, but it's consistent. Hard biscuits, dried peas, beef, pork, butter, bread, and cheese. It's not a king's feast, but it suits you just fine. You've heard tell of exotic foods on foreign station. Some of the veterans in neighboring barrack buildings have even boasted of eating corn or sugar cane straight from the ground.

It may not be the best life, but it suits you just fine.

For more on the daily lives, motivations, and post-service expectations of soldiers in the army of King George III before and during the American Revolutionary War, I recommend reading British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution by Don N. Hagist and The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period by Sylvia R. Frey. For the totality of George III's reign, Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket by Richard Holmes is a good source. For the orders I used in the serjeant's dialogue, check out the original 1764 Manual Exercise. A humorous primary source take on the behavior of British soldiers of all ranks can be found in Advice to the Officers of the British Army: With the Addition of Some Hints to the Drummer and Private Soldier.