ABSTRACT
Perhaps because it was published in Quebec, relatively little attention has been paid to this book. Its nature is also somewhat puzzling. While the title clearly indicates it is a military memoir and much within it would indicate this, the excerpt below is clearly fictionalised. In it, Walker rehearses many of the gender assumptions of the period, especially with respect to Mary. His portrayal of the two soldiers, however, operates against the grain of received assumptions: Thorburn and Wilson do not conform to the stereotype of the soldier as irresponsible and hard living and drinking. Even more than the decency and respectability they encompass, both are sensitive and deep feeling. Holly Furneaux has pointed out that the reputation of the soldier was shifting by mid-century in part due to the privations so stoically endured in the Crimea: he was coming to be seen as a man of feeling, who, while undoubtedly brave on the battlefield, also exhibited compassion, generosity and kindness. In short, he was the ‘gentle’ soldier, as she puts it. 2 The unstated objective of this story, written in 1859 but set in the 1840s, was to retrieve the character of the common soldier and to show that he was capable of deep love both in terms of friendship and romance.
