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Dr.
John H. Watson, late of Her Majesty’s Army Medical Department and chief
chronicler of the dramatic career of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was not unfamiliar
with drink.
In 1881 Dr. Watson was recuperating
from wounds incurred during the Second Afghan War. Watson had gone out to India in 1878,
attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon ( A STUDY
IN SCARLET). For an officer, army life
revolved around the regimental mess. It
was much like a private club and was often the center of an officer’s social
activities. Captain R.W. Campbell
observed, “the mess is the school for courage, honour, and truth. In the British officer’s anteroom you will
find the foundations of that splendid chivalry which has given us fame.”
Watson would have quickly learned the
customs of the mess, particularly the drinking customs. These customs were extremely important, since
wine drinking at table was not simply an accompaniment to the food, but part of
the ceremony of dining.
In most regiments, the first toast of
the evening after dinner was the sovereign’s health (e.g. “Gentlemen, The
Queen”.) This toast, the so-called
“loyal toast”, was an invention of the Hanoverian dynasty. The toast to the sovereign’s health began
with an order from King George II in 1745, after the suppression of the Stuart
uprising led by “Bonnie Prince Charlie”.
The toast was meant as a pledge of an officer’s loyalty to the
Hanoverian dynasty. Those loyal to the
Stuarts circumvented the pledge by passing their glasses over their finger
bowels, the toast becoming for them: “To
the king across the water” (i.e. the exiled Stuart claimant).
In every regiment there was what was
called the “Regent’s allowance.” This
allowance consisted of two bottles of wine, usually one of Port and one of
Madeira, one of which was served each night through the generosity of the
sovereign. The custom began when the
Prince Regent (later King George IV) noticed that a few officers did not drink
the loyal toast (the threat of the Stuarts now being a distant memory, the
loyalty of these officers was not in
question). When told that the
unfortunate officers could not afford wine, the Prince thought this such a
shame that he pledged himself to provide each regiment’s mess with two bottles
to be used in drinking the King’s health.
Every sovereign after George IV continued the custom. By 1900, however, the bottles had been
converted into a cash equivalent and added to the general mess fund.
After the obligatory toasts to
Royalty, many regiments followed the routine laid down by the Duke of
Wellington:
Monday, “Our Men”; Tuesday, “Our
Women”; Wednesday, “Our Swords”; Thursday, “Ourselves”; Friday, “Our religion”;
Saturday, “To Sweethearts and Wives” (waggish Colonels followed with, “May they
never meet”); Sunday, “To absent friends”.
Dr. Watson would also have learned
something of whisky while in India. The
“whisky-peg” (SIGN OF FOUR) was most popular.
This was Anglo-Indian slang for whisky with soda. The usual explanation for the name is that
the whisky was so bad, that each drink you took was a peg in your coffin.
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