Milli mála - 05.07.2016, Page 48
PHILIP V. ALLINGHAM
Milli mála 7/2015
52
the reader of the two-chapter version of the story may well
have expected to encounter a subservient Christian George
King and two common soldiers of the Royal Marines, Pri-
vate Gil Davis and Corporal Harry Charker; however, des-
pite the illustrator’s accuracy in delineating the officers’ uni-
forms for the period in which the story is set (the 1740s),
both Dalziel and Dickens have failed to note that a refer-
ence to the Royal Marines in 1744 is an anachronism in that
the service was not constituted until 1755, although the ma-
rine infantry for the Royal Navy may be traced back to the
formation of “the Duke of York and Albany’s maritime
regiment of Foot” in 1664. However, the nineteenth-century
reader would probably not have noticed the error in giving
the private and the corporal officer’s dress, and might even
have expected to see the two soldiers in full-dress uniform,
including powdered wigs, sabres, and top-boots – even
though the action is set on an island off the coast of South
America, surely a tropical rather than a temperate climate
(as implied by the palm trees in the background) unsuited
to such heavy woolen clothing. Perhaps the picture’s elevat-
ing the status of the common soldiers Davis and Charker is
an aspect of Dalziel’s intentionally exaggerating the discre-
pancy between the Royal Marines (their regimentals imply-
ing order, discipline, and European civilization) and the
“Sambo,” who is semi-clothed, dark-skinned, and (in con-
trast to the Englishmen’s wigs) dark-haired. Whereas they
stand at ease, their hands on their weapons, curiously in-
terrogating him, King lies casually on the sand, sourly re-
garding those above him. The picture therefore redefines
Davis as a noble European of aristocratic bearing unbowed
by the climate and not actuated by class and racial biases,
and Christian George King as the “other”: a native of mixed
racial origins, grudgingly subservient, scantily dressed (but
appropriate to the climate), a Caliban rolling on his back in
the sand like a dog as two enlightened European soldiers
regard him with genial curiosity rather than contempt. The
discrepancy between the common soldiers and the mulatto