At that date steamboats and railways were unknown, and telegraphs did not exist. There was happily time, through the slowness with which affairs moved, after the note of alarm had been sounded, to make preparations. An extraordinary burst of enthusiasm throughout the whole country was the response to Napoleon's threat. Large supplies of money were freely voted and eagerly given. The regular army was increased, and the militia was called out; while a volunteer force sprang into being, with such rapidity that it soon numbered about four hundred thousand men. These "citizen-soldiers," as it was the fashion to call them, were all over the country, each place having its own corps. But the regular troops, drawn from all parts, were stationed chiefly where the danger seemed to be greatest, between London and the south coast, Sir David Dundas being in command. Along the shore were erected batteries and martello towers--the latter remaining to this day. And since Boulogne was the headquarters of the French army of invasion, an advanced corps was placed on the opposite coast, near Sandgate, under General Moore, in readiness to repel the first onslaught. There the General occupied his time in such splendid training of the regiments under his control that throughout the long years of the Peninsular War, after he himself had passed away, the stamp of his spirit rested upon them, the impress of his enthusiasm and of his magnificent discipline made them the foremost soldiers in the British Army. These were the regiments who, as the "Reserve," bore the brunt of the fighting in Moore's famous "Retreat," and who were known in Spain and at Waterloo as Wellington's unequalled and invincible "Light Brigade." Wellington used those regiments for the saving of Europe; but Moore made them what they were. To the delight of Jack an opportunity offered itself whereby he might exchange into one of the Shornecliffe regiments, and he grasped at it eagerly. He had for Moore the half-worshipping admiration which is sometimes seen in a young man towards an older man. Jack would be none the worse for his hero-worship, since happily he had fixed upon a worthy object. As yet he had seen little personally of the General, having met him but two or three times. But long before they came together, he had cherished an intense interest in the man, an interest awakened first in more boyish days by Ivor's vivid descriptions of campaigns in the West Indies and in Egypt, descriptions of which Moore was always the central figure. Jack had seized with avidity upon all such details.