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The First Hundred Thousand: Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K(1)"

by Ian Hay · English · Gutenberg #12877 · 441,459 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The First Hundred Thousand: Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K(1)"

Author: Ian Hay


        
Release date: July 10, 2004 [eBook #12877]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND: BEING THE UNOFFICIAL CHRONICLE OF A UNIT OF "K(1)" ***

THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND

Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K(1)"

BY

IAN HAY







[Illustration: CAPTAIN IAN HAY BEITH]



By Ian Hay

PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH.
GETTING TOGETHER.
THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND.
SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN. With Frontispiece.
A KNIGHT ON WHEELS.
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock.
A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece.
A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece.
THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.



TO MY WIFE




PUBLISHERS' NOTE


The "Junior Sub," who writes the following account of the experiences
of some of the first hundred thousand of Kitchener's army, is, as the
title-page of the volume now reveals, Ian Hay Beith, author of those
deservedly popular novels, _The Right Stuff, A Man's Man, A Safety
Match_, and _Happy-Go-Lucky_.

Captain Beith, who was born in 1876 and therefore narrowly came within
the age limit for military service, enlisted at the first outbreak of
hostilities in the summer of 1914, and was made a sub-lieutenant in
the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. After training throughout the
fall and winter at Aldershot, he accompanied his regiment to the front
in April, and, as his narrative discloses, immediately saw some
very active service and rapidly rose to the rank of captain. In the
offensive of September, Captain Beith's division was badly cut up and
seriously reduced in numbers. He has lately been transferred to
a machine-gun division, and "for some mysterious reason"--as he
characteristically puts it in a letter to his publishers,--has been
recommended for the military cross.

The story of _The First Hundred Thousand_ was originally contributed
in the form of an anonymous narrative to _Blackwood's Magazine_.
Writing to his publishers, last May, Captain Beith describes the
circumstances under which it was written:--

"I write this from the stone floor of an outhouse, where the pig meal
is first accumulated and then boiled up at a particularly smelly
French farm, which is saying a good deal. It is a most interesting
life, and if I come through the present unpleasantness I shall
have enough copy to last me twenty years. Meanwhile, I am using
_Blackwood's Magazine_ as a safety-valve under a pseudonym."

It is these "safety-valve" papers that are here offered to the
American public in their completeness,--a picture of the great
struggle uniquely rich in graphic human detail.

4 PARK STREET




CONTENTS

BOOK ONE
BLANK CARTRIDGES

    I. AB OVO
   II. THE DAILY GRIND
  III. GROWING PAINS
   IV. THE CONVERSION OF PRIVATE M'SLATTERY
    V. "CRIME"
   VI. THE LAWS OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS
  VII. SHOOTING STRAIGHT
 VIII. BILLETS
   IX. MID-CHANNEL
    X. DEEDS OF DARKNESS
   XI. OLYMPUS
  XII. ... AND SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE
 XIII. CONCERT PITCH

BOOK TWO
LIVE ROUNDS

  XIV. THE BACK OF THE FRONT
   XV. IN THE TRENCHES--AN OFF-DAY
  XVI. "DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS TO-NIGHT"
 XVII. THE NEW WARFARE
XVIII. THE FRONT OF THE FRONT
  XIX. THE TRIVIAL ROUND
   XX. THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES
  XXI. THE BATTLE OF THE SLAG-HEAPS




"K(1)"

  _We do not deem ourselves A 1,
  We have no past: we cut no dash:
  Nor hope, when launched against the Hun,
  To raise a more than moderate splash.

  But yesterday, we said farewell
  To plough; to pit; to dock; to mill.
  For glory_? Drop it! _Why? Oh, well--
  To have a slap at Kaiser Bill.

  And now to-day has come along.
  With rifle, haversack, and pack,
  We're off, a hundred thousand strong.
  And--some of us will not come back.

  But all we ask, if that befall,
  Is this. Within your hearts be writ
  This single-line memorial_:--
  He did his duty--and his bit!




NOTE


The reader is hereby cautioned against regarding this narrative as an
official history of the Great War.

The following pages are merely a record of some of the personal
adventures of a typical regiment of Kitchener's Army.

The chapters were written from day to day, and published from month to
month. Consequently, prophecy is occasionally falsified, and opinions
moderated, in subsequent pages.

The characters are entirely fictitious, but the incidents described
all actually occurred.




BOOK ONE

BLANK CARTRIDGES




The First Hundred Thousand

I

AB OVO


"Squoad--'_Shun!_ Move to the right in fours. Forrm--_fourrrs!_"

The audience addressed looks up with languid curiosity, but makes no
attempt to comply with the speaker's request.

"Come away now, come away!" urges the instructor, mopping his brow.
"Mind me: on the command 'form fours,' odd numbers will stand fast;
even numbers tak' a shairp pace to the rear and anither to the right.
Now--forrm _fourrs!_"

The squad stands fast, to a man. Apparently--nay, verily--they are all
odd numbers.

The instructor addresses a gentleman in a decayed Homburg hat, who is
chewing tobacco in the front rank.

"Yous, what's your number?"

The ruminant ponders.

"Seeven fower ought seeven seeven," he announces, after a prolonged
mental effort.

The instructor raises clenched hands to heaven.

"Man, I'm no askin' you your regimental number! Never heed that. It's
your number in the squad I'm seeking. You numbered off frae the right
five minutes syne."

Ultimately it transpires that the culprit's number is ten. He is
pushed into his place, in company with the other even numbers, and the
squad finds itself approximately in fours.

"Forrm--two _deep!_" barks the instructor.

The fours disentangle themselves reluctantly, Number Ten being the
last to forsake his post.

"Now we'll dae it jist yince more, and have it right," announces the
instructor, with quite unjustifiable optimism. "Forrm--_fourrs!_"

This time the result is better, but there is confusion on the left
flank.

"Yon man, oot there on the left," shouts the instructor, "what's your
number?"

Private Mucklewame, whose mind is slow but tenacious, answers--not
without pride at knowing--

"Nineteen!"

(Thank goodness, he reflects, odd numbers stand fast upon all
occasions.)

"Weel, mind this," says the sergeant--"Left files is always even
numbers, even though they are odd numbers."

This revelation naturally clouds Private Mucklewame's intellect for
the afternoon; and he wonders dimly, not for the first time, why he
ever abandoned his well-paid and well-fed job as a butcher's assistant
in distant Wishaw ten long days ago.

And so the drill goes on. All over the drab, dusty, gritty
parade-ground, under the warm September sun, similar squads are being
pounded into shape. They have no uniforms yet: even their instructors
wear bowler hats or cloth caps. Some of the faces under the brims of
these hats are not too prosperous. The junior officers are drilling
squads too. They are a little shaky in what an actor would call their
"patter," and they are inclined to lay stress on the wrong syllables;
but they move their squads about somehow. Their seniors are dotted
about the square, vigilant and helpful--here prompting a rusty
sergeant instructor, there unravelling a squad which, in a spirited
but misguided endeavour to obey an impossible order from Second
Lieutenant Bobby Little, has wound itself up into a formation closely
resembling the third figure of the Lancers.

Over there, by the officers' mess, stands the Colonel. He is in
uniform, with a streak of parti-coloured ribbon running across
above his left-hand breast-pocket. He is pleased to call himself a
"dug-out." A fortnight ago he was fishing in the Garry, his fighting
days avowedly behind him, and only the Special Reserve between him and
_embonpoint_. Now he finds himself pitchforked back into the Active
List, at the head of a battalion eleven hundred strong.

He surveys the scene. Well, his officers are all right. The Second
in Command has seen almost as much service as himself. Of the four
company commanders, two have been commandeered while home on leave
from India, and the other two have practised the art of war in company
with brother Boer. Of the rest, there are three subalterns from the
Second Battalion--left behind, to their unspeakable woe--and four from
the O.T.C. The juniors are very junior, but keen as mustard.

But the men! Is it possible? Can that awkward, shy, self-conscious
mob, with scarcely an old soldier in their ranks, be pounded, within
the space of a few months, into the Seventh (Service) Battalion of the
Bruce and Wallace Highlanders--one of the most famous regiments in the
British Army?

The Colonel's boyish figure stiffens.

"They're a rough crowd," he murmurs, "and a tough crowd: but they're
a stout crowd. By gad! we'll make them a credit to the Old Regiment
yet!"




II

THE DAILY GRIND


We have been in existence for more than three weeks now, and
occasionally we are conscious of a throb of real life. Squad drill is
almost a thing of the past, and we work by platoons of over fifty men.
To-day our platoon once marched, in perfect step, for seven
complete and giddy paces, before disintegrating into its usual
formation--namely, an advance in irregular _échelon_, by individuals.

Four platoons form a company, and each platoon is (or should be) led
by a subaltern, acting under his company commander. But we are very
short of subalterns at present. (We are equally short of N.C.O.'s;
but then you can always take a man out of the ranks and christen him
sergeant, whereas there is no available source of Second Lieutenants
save capricious Whitehall.) Consequently, three platoons out of four
in our company are at present commanded by N.C.O.'s, two of whom
appear to have retired from active service about the time that bows
and arrows began to yield place to the arquebus, while the third has
been picked out of the ranks simply because he possesses a loud voice
and a cake of soap. None of them has yet mastered the new drill--it
was all changed at the beginning of this year--and the majority of the
officers are in no position to correct their anachronisms.

Still, we are getting on. Number Three Platoon (which boasts a
subaltern) has just marched right round the barrack square, without--

(1) Marching through another platoon.

(2) Losing any part or parts of itself.

(3) Adopting a formation which brings it face to face with a blank
wall, or piles it up in a tidal wave upon the verandah, of the married
quarters.

They could not have done that a week ago.

But stay, what is this disturbance on the extreme left? The command
"Right form" has been given, but six files on the outside flank have
ignored the suggestion, and are now advancing (in skirmishing order)
straight for the ashbin outside the cookhouse door, looking piteously
round over their shoulders for some responsible person to give them
an order which will turn them about and bring them back to the fold.
Finally they are rounded up by the platoon sergeant, and restored to
the strength.

"What went wrong, Sergeant?" inquires Second Lieutenant Bobby Little.
He is a fresh-faced youth, with an engaging smile. Three months ago he
was keeping wicket for his school eleven.

The sergeant comes briskly to attention.

"The order was not distinctly heard by the men, sir," he explains,
"owing to the corporal that passed it on wanting a tooth. Corporal
Blain, three paces forward--march!"

Corporal Blain steps forward, and after remembering to slap the small
of his butt with his right hand, takes up his parable--

"I was sittin' doon tae ma dinner on Sabbath, sir, when my front teeth
met upon a small piece bone that was stickit' in--"

Further details of this gastronomic tragedy are cut short by the blast
of a whistle. The Colonel, at the other side of the square, has given
the signal for the end of parade. Simultaneously a bugle rings out
cheerfully from the direction of the orderly-room. Breakfast, blessed
breakfast, is in sight. It is nearly eight, and we have been as busy
as bees since six.

At a quarter to nine the battalion parades for a route-march. This,
strange as it may appear, is a comparative rest. Once you have got
your company safely decanted from column of platoons into column of
route, your labours are at an end. All you have to do is to march; and
that is no great hardship when you are as hard as nails, as we are
fast becoming. On the march the mental gymnastics involved by the
formation of an advanced guard or the disposition of a piquet line
are removed to a safe distance. There is no need to wonder guiltily
whether you have sent out a connecting-file between the vanguard and
the main-guard, or if you remembered to instruct your sentry groups as
to the position of the enemy and the extent of their own front.

Second Lieutenant Little heaves a contented sigh, and steps out
manfully along the dusty road. Behind him tramp his men. We have no
pipers as yet, but melody is supplied by "Tipperary," sung in ragged
chorus, varied by martial interludes upon the mouth-organ. Despise not
the mouth-organ. Ours has been a constant boon. It has kept sixty men
in step for miles on end.

Fortunately the weather is glorious. Day after day, after a sharp and
frosty dawn, the sun swings up into a cloudless sky; and the hundred
thousand troops that swarm like ants upon, the undulating plains of
Hampshire can march, sit, lie, or sleep on hard, sun-baked earth. A
wet autumn would have thrown our training back months. The men, as
yet, possess nothing but the fatigue uniforms they stand up in, so it
is imperative to keep them dry.

Tramp, tramp, tramp. "Tipperary" has died away. The owner of the
mouth-organ is temporarily deflated. Here is an opportunity for
individual enterprise. It is soon seized. A husky soloist breaks
into one of the deathless ditties of the new Scottish Laureate; his
comrades take up the air with ready response; and presently we are all
swinging along to the strains of "I Love a Lassie,"--"Roaming in
the Gloaming" and "It's Just Like Being at Hame" being rendered as
encores.

Then presently come snatches of a humorously amorous nature--"Hallo,
Hallo, Who's Your Lady Friend?"; "You're my Baby"; and the
ungrammatical "Who Were You With Last Night?" Another great favourite
is an involved composition which always appears to begin in the
middle. It deals severely with the precocity of a youthful lover who
has been detected wooing his lady in the Park. Each verse ends, with
enormous gusto--

  "Hold your haand _oot_, you naughty boy!"

Tramp, tramp, tramp. Now we are passing through a village. The
inhabitants line the pavement and smile cheerfully upon us--they are
always kindly disposed toward "Scotchies"--but the united gaze of the
rank and file wanders instinctively from the pavement towards upper
windows and kitchen entrances, where the domestic staff may be
discerned, bunched together and giggling. Now we are out on the
road again, silent and dusty. Suddenly, far in the rear, a voice of
singular sweetness strikes up "The Banks of Loch Lomond." Man after
man joins in, until the swelling chorus runs from end to end of the
long column. Half the battalion hail from the Loch Lomond district,
and of the rest there is hardly a man who has not indulged, during
some Trades' Holiday or other, in "a pleesure trup" upon its historic
but inexpensive waters.

  "You'll tak' the high road and I'll tak' the low
  road--"

On we swing, full-throated. An English battalion, halted at a
cross-road to let us go by, gazes curiously upon us. "Tipperary" they
know, Harry Lauder they have heard of; but this song has no meaning
for them. It is ours, ours, ours. So we march on. The feet of Bobby
Little, as he tramps at the head of his platoon, hardly touch the
ground. His head is in the air. One day, he feels instinctively, he
will hear that song again, amid sterner surroundings. When that day
comes, the song, please God, for all its sorrowful wording, will
reflect no sorrow from the hearts of those who sing it--only courage,
and the joy of battle, and the knowledge of victory.

  "--And I'll be in Scotland before ye.
  But me and my true love will never meet again
  On the bonny, bonny _baanks_--"

A shrill whistle sounds far ahead. It means "March at Attention."
"Loch Lomond" dies away with uncanny suddenness--discipline is waxing
stronger every day--and tunics are buttoned and rifles unslung. Three
minutes later we swing demurely on to the barrack-square, across
which a pleasant aroma of stewed onions is wafting, and deploy with
creditable precision into the formation known as "mass." Then comes
much dressing of ranks and adjusting of distances. The Colonel is very
particular about a clean finish to any piece of work.

Presently the four companies are aligned: the N.C.O.'s retire to the
supernumerary ranks. The battalion stands rigid, facing a motionless
figure upon horseback. The figure stirs.

"Fall out, the officers!"

They come trooping, stand fast, and salute--very smartly. We must set
an example to the men. Besides, we are hungry too.

"Battalion, slope _arms!_ Dis-_miss!_"

Every man, with one or two incurable exceptions, turns sharply to his
right and cheerfully smacks the butt of his rifle with his disengaged
hand. The Colonel gravely returns the salute; and we stream away, all
the thousand of us, in the direction of the savoury smell. Two o'clock
will come round all too soon, and with it company drill and tiresome
musketry exercises; but by that time we shall have _dined_, and Fate
cannot touch us for another twenty-four hours.




III

GROWING PAINS


We have our little worries, of course.

Last week we were all vaccinated, and we did not like it. Most of
us have "taken" very severely, which is a sign that we badly needed
vaccinating, but makes the discomfort no easier to endure. It is
no joke handling a rifle when your left arm is swelled to the full
compass of your sleeve; and the personal contact of your neighbour in
the ranks is sheer agony. However, officers are considerate, and the
work is made as light as possible. The faint-hearted report themselves
sick; but the Medical Officer, an unsentimental man of coarse mental
fibre, who was on a panel before he heard his country calling, merely
recommends them to get well as soon as possible, as they are going to
be inoculated for enteric next week. So we grouse--and bear it.

There are other rifts within the military lute. At home we are persons
of some consequence, with very definite notions about the dignity of
labour. We have employers who tremble at our frown; we have Trades
Union officials who are at constant pains to impress upon us our own
omnipotence in the industrial world in which we live. We have at our
beck and call a Radical M.P. who, in return for our vote and suffrage,
informs us that we are the backbone of the nation, and that we must
on no account permit ourselves to be trampled upon by the effete
and tyrannical upper classes. Finally, we are Scotsmen, with all a
Scotsman's curious reserve and contempt for social airs and graces.

But in the Army we appear to be nobody. We are expected to stand
stiffly at attention when addressed by an officer; even to call him
"sir"--an honour to which our previous employer has been a stranger.
At home, if we happened to meet the head of the firm in the street,
and none of our colleagues was looking, we touched a cap, furtively.
Now, we have no option in the matter. We are expected to degrade
ourselves by meaningless and humiliating gestures. The N.C.O.'s are
almost as bad. If you answer a sergeant as you would a foreman, you
are impertinent; if you argue with him, as all good Scotsmen must, you
are insubordinate; if you endeavour to drive a collective bargain with
him, you are mutinous; and you are reminded that upon active service
mutiny is punishable by death. It is all very unusual and upsetting.

You may not spit; neither may you smoke a cigarette in the ranks, nor
keep the residue thereof behind your ear. You may not take beer to
bed with you. You may not postpone your shave till Saturday: you must
shave every day. You must keep your buttons, accoutrements, and rifle
speckless, and have your hair cut in a style which is not becoming to
your particular type of beauty. Even your feet are not your own. Every
Sunday morning a young officer, whose leave has been specially stopped
for the purpose, comes round the barrack-rooms after church and
inspects your extremities, revelling in blackened nails and gloating
over hammer-toes. For all practical purposes, decides Private
Mucklewame, you might as well be in Siberia.

Still, one can get used to anything. Our lot is mitigated, too, by the
knowledge that we are all in the same boat. The most olympian N.C.O.
stands like a ramrod when addressing an officer, while lieutenants
make obeisance to a company commander as humbly as any private. Even
the Colonel was seen one day to salute an old gentleman who rode on to
the parade-ground during morning drill, wearing a red band round his
hat. Noting this, we realise that the Army is not, after all, as we
first suspected, divided into two classes--oppressors and oppressed.
We all have to "go through it."

Presently fresh air, hard training, and clean living begin to
weave their spell. Incredulous at first, we find ourselves slowly
recognising the fact that it is possible to treat an officer
deferentially, or carry out an order smartly, without losing one's
self-respect as a man and a Trades Unionist. The insidious habit of
cleanliness, once acquired, takes despotic possession of its victims:
we find ourselves looking askance at room-mates who have not yet
yielded to such predilections. The swimming-bath, where once we
flapped unwillingly and ingloriously at the shallow end, becomes quite
a desirable resort, and we look forward to our weekly visit with
something approaching eagerness. We begin, too, to take our profession
seriously. Formerly we regarded outpost exercises, advanced guards,
and the like, as a rather fatuous form of play-acting, designed to
amuse those officers who carry maps and notebooks. Now we begin to
consider these diversions on their merits, and seriously criticise
Second Lieutenant Little for having last night posted one of his
sentry groups upon the skyline. Thus is the soul of a soldier born.

We are getting less individualistic, too. We are beginning to think
more of our regiment and less of ourselves. At first this loyalty
takes the form of criticising other regiments, because their marching
is slovenly, or their accoutrements dirty, or--most significant sign
of all--their discipline is bad. We are especially critical of our own
Eighth Battalion, which is fully three weeks younger than we are, and
is not in the First Hundred Thousand at all. In their presence we are
war-worn veterans. We express it as our opinion that the officers of
some of these battalions must be a poor lot. From this it suddenly
comes home to us that our officers are a good lot, and we find
ourselves taking a queer pride in our company commander's homely
strictures and severe sentences the morning after pay-night. Here is
another step in the quickening life of the regiment. _Esprit de
corps_ is raising its head, class prejudice and dour "independence"
notwithstanding.

Again, a timely hint dropped by the Colonel on battalion parade this
morning has set us thinking. We begin to wonder how we shall compare
with the first-line regiments when we find ourselves "oot there."
Silently we resolve that when we, the first of the Service Battalions,
take our place in trench or firing line alongside the Old Regiment, no
one shall be found to draw unfavourable comparisons between parent and
offspring. We intend to show ourselves chips of the old block. No
one who knows the Old Regiment can ask more of a young battalion than
_that_.




IV

THE CONVERSION OF PRIVATE M'SLATTERY


One evening a rumour ran round the barracks. Most barrack rumours die
a natural death, but this one was confirmed by the fact that next
morning the whole battalion, instead of performing the usual platoon
exercises, was told off for instruction in the art of presenting arms.
"A" Company discussed the portent at breakfast.

"What kin' o' a thing is a Review?" inquired Private M'Slattery.

Private Mucklewame explained. Private M'Slattery was not impressed,
and said so quite frankly. In the lower walks of the industrial world
Royalty is too often a mere name. Personal enthusiasm for a Sovereign
whom they have never seen, and who in their minds is inextricably
mixed up with the House of Lords, and capitalism, and the police, is
impossible to individuals of the stamp of Private M'Slattery. To such,
Royalty is simply the head and corner-stone of a legal system which
officiously prevents a man from being drunk and disorderly, and the
British Empire an expensive luxury for which the working man pays
while the idle rich draw the profits.

If M'Slattery's opinion of the Civil Code was low, his opinion of
Military Law was at zero. In his previous existence in his native
Clydebank, when weary of rivet-heating and desirous of change and
rest, he had been accustomed to take a day off and become pleasantly
intoxicated, being comfortably able to afford the loss of pay involved
by his absence. On these occasions he was accustomed to sleep off his
potations in some public place--usually upon the pavement outside
his last house of call--and it was his boast that so long as nobody
interfered with him he interfered with nobody. To this attitude the
tolerant police force of Clydebank assented, having their hands full
enough, as a rule, in dealing with more militant forms of alcoholism.
But Private M'Slattery, No. 3891, soon realised that he and Mr.
Matthew M'Slattery, rivet-heater and respected citizen of Clydebank,
had nothing in common. Only last week, feeling pleasantly fatigued
after five days of arduous military training, he had followed the
invariable practice of his civil life, and taken a day off. The result
had fairly staggered him. In the orderly-room upon Monday morning he
was charged with--

(1) Being absent from Parade at 9 A.M. on Saturday.

(2) Being absent from Parade at 2 P.M. on Saturday.

(3) Being absent from Tattoo at 9.30 P.M. on Saturday.

(4) Being drunk in High Street about 9.40 P.M. on Saturday.

(5) Striking a Non-Commissioned Officer.

(6) Attempting to escape from his escort.

(7) Destroying Government property. (Three panes of glass in the
guard-room.)

Private M'Slattery, asked for an explanation, had pointed out that if
he had been treated as per his working arrangement with the police at
Clydebank, there would have been no trouble whatever. As for his day
off, he was willing to forgo his day's pay and call the thing square.
However, a hidebound C.O. had fined him five shillings and sentenced
him to seven days' C.B. Consequently he was in no mood for Royal
Reviews. He stated his opinions upon the subject in a loud voice
and at some length. No one contradicted him, for he possessed
the straightest left in the company; and no dog barked even when
M'Slattery said that black was white.

"I wunner ye jined the Airmy at all, M'Slattery," observed one bold
spirit, when the orator paused for breath.

"I wunner myself," said M'Slattery simply. "If I had kent all aboot
this 'attention,' and 'stan'-at-ease,' and needin' tae luft your hand
tae your bunnet whenever you saw yin o' they gentry-pups of officers
goin' by,--dagont if I'd hae done it, Germans or no! (But I had a dram
in me at the time.) I'm weel kent in Clydebank, and they'll tell you
there that I'm no the man to be wastin' my time presenting airms tae
kings or any other bodies."

However, at the appointed hour M'Slattery, in the front rank of A
Company, stood to attention because he had to, and presented arms very
creditably. He now cherished a fresh grievance, for he objected upon
principle to have to present arms to a motor-car standing two hundred
yards away upon his right front.

"Wull we be gettin' hame to our dinners now?" he inquired gruffly of
his neighbour.

"Maybe he'll tak' a closer look at us," suggested an optimist in the
rear rank. "He micht walk doon the line."

"Walk? No him!" replied Private M'Slattery. "He'll be awa' hame in the
motor. Hae ony o' you billies gotten a fag?"

There was a smothered laugh. The officers of the battalion were
standing rigidly at attention in front of A Company. One of these
turned his head sharply.

"No talking in the ranks there!" he said. "Sergeant, take that man's
name."

Private M'Slattery, rumbling mutiny, subsided, and devoted his
attention to the movements of the Royal motor-car.

Then the miracle happened.

The great car rolled smoothly from the saluting-base, over the
undulating turf, and came to a standstill on the extreme right of the
line, half a mile away. There descended a slight figure in khaki. It
was the King--the King whom Private M'Slattery had never seen. Another
figure followed, and another.

"Herself iss there too!" whinnied an excited Highlander on
M'Slattery's right. "And the young leddy! Pless me, they are all for
walking town the line on their feet. And the sun so hot in the sky! We
shall see them close!"

Private M'Slattery gave a contemptuous sniff.

The excited battalion was called to a sense of duty by the voice of
authority. Once more the long lines stood stiff and rigid--waiting,
waiting, for their brief glimpse. It was a long time coming, for they
were posted on the extreme left.

Suddenly a strangled voice was uplifted--"In God's name, what for can
they no come tae _us_? Never heed the others!"

Yet Private M'Slattery was quite unaware that he had spoken.

At last the little procession arrived. There was a handshake for the
Colonel, and a word with two or three of the officers; then a quick
scrutiny of the rank and file. For a moment--yea, more than a
moment--keen Royal eyes rested upon Private M'Slattery, standing like
a graven image, with his great chest straining the buttons of his
tunic.

Then a voice said, apparently in M'Slattery's ear--

"A magnificent body of men, Colonel. I congratulate you."

A minute later M'Slattery was aroused from his trance by the sound of
the Colonel's ringing voice--

"Highlanders, three cheers for His Majesty the King!"

M'Slattery led the whole Battalion, his glengarry high in the air.

Suddenly his eye fell upon Private Mucklewame, blindly and woodenly
yelling himself hoarse.

In three strides M'Slattery was standing face to face with the
unconscious criminal.

"Yous low, lousy puddock," he roared--"tak' off your bonnet!" He saved
Mucklewame the trouble of complying, and strode back to his place in
the ranks.

"Yin mair, chaps," he shouted--"for the young leddy!"

And yet there are people who tell us that the formula, O.H.M.S., is a
mere relic of antiquity.




V

"CRIME"


"Bring in Private Dunshie, Sergeant-Major," says the Company
Commander.

The Sergeant-Major throws open the door, and barks--"Private Dunshie's
escort!"

The order is repeated _fortissimo_ by some one outside. There is a
clatter of ammunition boots getting into step, and a solemn procession
of four files into the room. The leader thereof is a stumpy but
enormously important-looking private. He is the escort. Number two is
the prisoner. Numbers three and four are the accuser--counsel for the
Crown, as it were--and a witness. The procession reaches the table at
which the Captain is sitting. Beside him is a young officer, one Bobby
Little, who is present for "instructional" purposes.

"Mark time!" commands the Sergeant-Major. "Halt! Right turn!"

This evolution brings the accused face to face with his judge. He
has been deprived of his cap, and of everything else "which may be
employed as, or contain, a missile." (They think of everything in the
King's Regulations.)

"What is this man's crime, Sergeant-Major?" inquires the Captain.

"On this sheet, sir," replies the Sergeant-Major....

By a "crime" the ordinary civilian means something worth recording in
a special edition of the evening papers--something with a meat-chopper
in it. Others, more catholic in their views, will tell you that it
is a crime to inflict corporal punishment on any human being; or to
permit performing animals to appear upon the stage; or to subsist upon
any food but nuts. Others, of still finer clay, will classify such
things as Futurism, The Tango, Dickeys, and the Albert Memorial as
crimes. The point to note is, that in the eyes of all these persons
each of these things is a sin of the worst possible degree. That being
so, they designate it a "crime." It is the strongest term they can
employ.

But in the Army, "crime" is capable of infinite shades of intensity.
It simply means "misdemeanour," and may range from being unshaven on
parade, or making a frivolous complaint about the potatoes at dinner,
to irrevocably perforating your rival in love with a bayonet. So let
party politicians, when they discourse vaguely to their constituents
about "the prevalence of crime in the Army under the present effete
and undemocratic system," walk warily.

Every private in the Army possesses what is called a conduct-sheet,
and upon this his crimes are recorded. To be precise, he has two such
sheets. One is called his Company sheet, and the other his Regimental
sheet. His Company sheet contains a record of every misdeed for which
he has been brought before his Company Commander. His Regimental sheet
is a more select document, and contains only the more noteworthy
of his achievements--crimes so interesting that they have to be
communicated to the Commanding Officer.

However, this morning we are concerned only with Company
conduct-sheets. It is 7.30 A.M., and the Company Commander is sitting
in judgment, with a little pile of yellow Army forms before him. He
picks up the first of these, and reads--

"_Private Dunshie. While on active service, refusing to obey an
order_. Lance-Corporal Ness!"

The figure upon the prisoner's right suddenly becomes animated.
Lance-Corporal Ness, taking a deep breath, and fixing his eyes
resolutely on the whitewashed wall above the Captain's head, recites--

"Sirr, at four P.M. on the fufth unst. I was in charge of a party told
off for tae scrub the floor of Room Nummer Seeventeen. I ordered the
prisoner tae scrub. He refused. I warned him. He again refused."

Click! Lance-Corporal Ness has run down. He has just managed the
sentence in a breath.

"Corporal Mackay!"

The figure upon Lance-Corporal Ness's right stiffens, and inflates
itself.

"Sirr, on the fufth unst. I was Orderly Sergeant. At aboot
four-thirrty P.M., Lance-Corporal Ness reported this man tae me for
refusing for tae obey an order. I confined him."

The Captain turns to the prisoner.

"What have you to say, Private Dunshie?"

Private Dunshie, it appears, has a good deal to say.

"I jined the Airmy for tae fight they Germans, and no for tae be
learned tae scrub floors--"

"Sirr!" suggests the Sergeant-Major in his ear.

"Sirr," amends Private Dunshie reluctantly. "I was no in the habit of
scrubbin' the floor mysel' where I stay in Glesca'; and ma wife would
be affronted--"

But the Captain looks up. He has heard enough.

"Look here, Dunshie," he says. "Glad to hear you want to fight the
Germans. So do I. So do we all. All the same, we've got a lot of dull
jobs to do first." (Captain Blaikie has the reputation of being the
most monosyllabic man in the British Army.) "Coals, and floors, and
fatigues like that: they are your job. I have mine too. Kept me up
till two this morning. But the point is this. You have refused to obey
an order. Very serious, that. Most serious crime a soldier can commit.
If you start arguing now about small things, where will you be when
the big orders come along--eh? Must learn to obey. Soldier now,
whatever you were a month ago. So obey all orders like a shot. Watch
me next time I get one. No disgrace, you know! Ought to be a soldier's
pride, and all that. See?"

"Yes--sirr," replies Private Dunshie, with less truculence.

The Captain glances down at the paper before him.

"First time you have come before me. Admonished!"

"Right turn! Quick march!" thunders the Sergeant-Major.

The procession clumps out of the room. The Captain turns to his
disciple.

"That's my homely and paternal tap," he observes. "For first offenders
only. That chap's all right. Soon find out it's no good fussing
about your rights as a true-born British elector in the Army.
Sergeant-Major!"

"Sirr?"

"Private McNulty!"

After the usual formalities, enter Private McNulty and escort. Private
McNulty is a small scared-looking man with a dirty face.

"Private McNulty, sirr!" announces the Sergeant-Major to the Company
Commander, with the air of a popular lecturer on entomology placing a
fresh insect under the microscope.

Captain Blaikie addresses the shivering culprit--

"_Private McNulty; charged with destroying Government property_.
Corporal Mather!"

Corporal Mather clears his throat, and assuming the wooden expression
and fish-like gaze common to all public speakers who have learned
their oration by heart, begins--

"Sirr, on the night of the sixth inst. I was Orderly Sergeant. Going
round the prisoner's room about the hour of nine-thirty I noticed that
his three biscuits had been cut and slashed, appariently with a knife
or other instrument."

"What did you do?"

"Sirr, I inquired of the men in the room who was it had gone for to do
this. Sirr, they said it was the prisoner."

Two witnesses are called. Both, certify, casting grieved and virtuous
glances at the prisoner, that this outrage upon the property of His
Majesty was the work of Private McNulty.

To the unsophisticated Bobby Little this charge appears rather a
frivolous one. If you may not cut or slash a biscuit, what _are_ you
to do with it? Swallow it whole?

"Private McNulty?" queries the Captain.

Private McNulty, in a voice which is shrill with righteous
indignation, gives the somewhat unexpected answer--

"Sirr, I plead guilty!"

"Guilty--eh? You did it, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

This is what Private McNulty is waiting for.

"The men in that room, sirr," he announces indignantly, "appear tae
look on me as a sort of body that can be treated onyways. They go for
tae aggravate me. I was sittin' on my bed, with my knife in my hand,
cutting a piece bacca and interfering with naebody, when they all
commenced tae fling biscuits at me. I was keepin' them off as weel as
I could; but havin' a knife in my hand, I'll no deny but what I gave
twa three of them a bit cut."

"Is this true?" asks the Captain of the first witness, curtly.

"Yes, sir."

"You saw the men throwing biscuits at the prisoner?"

"Yes, sir."

"He was daen' it himsel'!" proclaims Private McNulty.

"This true?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain addresses the other witness.

"You doing it too?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain turns again to the prisoner.

"Why didn't you lodge a complaint?" (The schoolboy code does not
obtain in the Army.)

"I did, sir. I tellt"--indicating Corporal Mather with an elbow--"this
genelman here."

Corporal Mather cannot help it. He swells perceptibly. But swift
puncture awaits him.

"Corporal Mather, why didn't you mention this?"

"I didna think it affected the crime, sir."

"Not your business to think. Only to make a straightforward charge. Be
very careful in future. You other two"--the witnesses come guiltily to
attention--"I shall talk to your platoon sergeant about you. Not going
to have Government property knocked about!"

Bobby Little's eyebrows, willy-nilly, have been steadily rising during
the last five minutes. He knows the meaning of red tape now!

Then comes sentence.

"Private McNulty, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of destroying
Government property, so you go before the Commanding Officer. Don't
suppose you'll be punished, beyond paying for the damage."

"Right turn! Quick march!" chants the Sergeant-Major.

The downtrodden McNulty disappears, with his traducers. But Bobby
Little's eyebrows have not been altogether thrown away upon his
Company Commander.

"Got the biscuits here, Sergeant-Major?"

"Yes, sirr."

"Show them."

The Sergeant-Major dives into a pile of brown blankets, and presently
extracts three small brown mattresses, each two feet square. These
appear to have been stabbed in several places with a knife.

Captain Blaikie's eyes twinkle, and he chuckles to his now
scarlet-faced junior--

"More biscuits in heaven and earth than ever came out of Huntley and
Palmer's, my son! Private Robb!"

Presently Private Robb stands at the table. He is a fresh-faced,
well-set-up youth, with a slightly receding chin and a most dejected
manner.

"_Private Robb_," reads the Captain. "_While on active service, drunk
and singing in Wellington Street about nine p.m. on Saturday, the
sixth_. Sergeant Garrett!"

The proceedings follow their usual course, except that in this case
some of the evidence is "documentary"--put in in the form of a report
from the sergeant of the Military Police who escorted the melodious
Robb home to bed.

The Captain addresses the prisoner.

"Private Robb, this is the second time. Sorry--very sorry. In all
other ways you are doing well. Very keen and promising soldier. Why is
it--eh?"

The contrite Robb hangs his head. His judge continues--

"I'll tell you. You haven't found out yet how much you can hold. That
it?"

The prisoner nods assent.

"Well--find out! See? It's one of the first things a young man ought
to learn. Very valuable piece of information. I know myself, so I'm
safe. Want you to do the same. Every man has a different limit. What
did you have on Saturday?"

Private Robb reflects.

"Five pints, sirr," he announces.

"Well, next time try three, and then you won't go serenading
policemen. As it is, you will have to go before the Commanding Officer
and get punished. Want to go to the front, don't you?"

"Yes, sirr." Private Robb's dismal features flush.

"Well, mind this. We all want to go, but we can't go till every man in
the battalion is efficient. You want to be the man who kept the rest
from going to the front--eh?"

"No, sirr, I do not."

"All right, then. Next Saturday night say to yourself: 'Another pint,
and I keep the Battalion back!' If you do that, you'll come back to
barracks sober, like a decent chap. That'll do. Don't salute with your
cap off. Next man, Sergeant-Major!"

"Good boy, that," remarks the Captain to Bobby Little, as the contrite
Robb is removed. "Keen as mustard. But his high-water mark for beer is
somewhere in his boots. All right, now I've scared him."

"Last prisoner, sirr," announces the Sergeant-Major.

"Glad to hear it. H'm! Private M'Queen again!"

Private M'Queen is an unpleasant-looking creature, with a drooping red
moustache and a cheese-coloured complexion. His misdeeds are recited.
Having been punished for misconduct early in the week, he has piled
Pelion on Ossa by appearing fighting drunk at defaulters' parade.
From all accounts he has livened up that usually decorous assemblage
considerably.

After the corroborative evidence, the Captain asks his usual question
of the prisoner--

"Anything to say?"

"No," growls Private M'Queen.

The Captain takes up the prisoner's conduct-sheet, reads it through,
and folds it up deliberately.

"I am going to ask the Commanding Officer to discharge you," he says;
and there is nothing homely or paternal in his speech now. "Can't make
out why men like you join the Army--especially _this_ Army. Been a
nuisance ever since you came here. Drunk--beastly drunk--four times in
three weeks. Always dirty and insubordinate. Always trying to stir up
trouble among the young soldiers. Been in the army before, haven't
you?"

"No."

"That's not true. Can always tell an old soldier on parade. Fact is,
you have either deserted or been discharged as incorrigible. Going to
be discharged as incorrigible again. Keeping the regiment back, that's
why: that's a real crime. Go home, and explain that you were turned
out of the King's Army because you weren't worthy of the honour of
staying in. When decent men see that people like you have no place in
this regiment, perhaps they will see that this regiment is just the
place for them. Take him away."

Private M'Queen shambles out of the room for the last time in
his life. Captain Blaikie, a little exhausted by his own unusual
loquacity, turns to Bobby Little with a contented sigh.

"That's the last of the shysters," he says. "Been weeding them out for
six weeks. Now I have got rid of that nobleman I can look the rest of
the Company in the face. Come to breakfast!"




VI

THE LAWS OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS


One's first days as a newly-joined subaltern are very like one's
first days at school. The feeling is just the same. There is the same
natural shyness, the same reverence for people who afterwards turn out
to be of no consequence whatsoever, and the same fear of transgressing
the Laws of the Medes and Persians--regimental traditions and
conventions--which alter not.

Dress, for instance. "Does one wear a sword on parade?" asks the tyro
of himself his first morning. "I'll put it on, and chance it." He
invests himself in a monstrous claymore and steps on to the barrack
square. Not an officer in sight is carrying anything more lethal than
a light cane. There is just time to scuttle back to quarters and
disarm.

Again, where should one sit at meal-times? We had supposed that the
C.O. would be enthroned at the head of the table, with a major sitting
on his right and left, like Cherubim and Seraphim; while the rest
disposed themselves in a descending scale of greatness until it came
down to persons like ourselves at the very foot. But the C.O. has a
disconcerting habit of sitting absolutely anywhere. He appears to be
just as happy between two Second Lieutenants as between Cherubim and
Seraphim. Again, we note that at breakfast each officer upon entering
sits down and shouts loudly, to a being concealed behind a screen, for
food, which is speedily forthcoming. Are we entitled to clamour in
this peremptory fashion too? Or should we creep round behind the
screen and take what we can get? Or should we sit still, and wait till
we are served? We try the last expedient first, and get nothing. Then
we try the second, and are speedily convinced, by the demeanour of the
gentleman behind the screen, that we have committed the worst error of
which we have yet been guilty.

There are other problems--saluting, for instance. On the parade ground
this is a simple matter enough; for there the golden rule appears
to be--When in doubt, salute! The Colonel calls up his four Company
Commanders. They salute. He instructs them to carry on this morning
with coal fatigues and floor-scrubbing. The Company Commanders salute,
and retire to their Companies, and call up their subalterns, who
salute. They instruct these to carry on this morning with coal
fatigues and floor-scrubbing. The sixteen subalterns salute, and
retire to their platoons. Here they call up their Platoon Sergeants,
who salute. They instruct these to carry on this morning with coal
fatigues and floor-scrubbing. The Platoon Sergeants salute, and
issue commands to the rank and file. The rank and file, having no
instructions to salute sergeants, are compelled, as a last resort, to
carry on with the coal fatigues and floor-scrubbing themselves. You
see, on parade saluting is simplicity itself.

But we are not always on parade; and then more subtle problems arise.
Some of those were discussed one day by four junior officers, who sat
upon a damp and slippery bank by a muddy roadside during a "fall-out"
in a route-march. The four ("reading from left to right," as they say
in high journalistic society) were Second Lieutenant Little, Second
Lieutenant Waddell, Second Lieutenant Cockerell, and Lieutenant
Struthers, surnamed "Highbrow." Bobby we know. Waddell was a
slow-moving but pertinacious student of the science of war from the
kingdom of Fife. Cockerell came straight from a crack public-school
corps, where he had been a cadet officer; so nothing in the heaven
above or the earth beneath was hid from him. Struthers owed his
superior rank to the fact that in the far back ages, before the days
of the O.T.C., he had held a commission in a University Corps. He was
a scholar of his College, and was an expert in the art of accumulating
masses of knowledge in quick time for examination purposes. He knew
all the little red manuals by heart, was an infallible authority on
buttons and badges, and would dip into the King's Regulations or the
Field Service Pocket-book as another man might dip into the "Sporting
Times." Strange to say, he was not very good at drilling a platoon. We
all know him.

"What do you do when you are leading a party along a road and meet a
Staff Officer?" asked Bobby Little.

"Make a point," replied Cockerell patronisingly, "of saluting all
persons wearing red bands round their hats. They may not be entitled
to it, but it tickles their ribs and gets you the reputation, of being
an intelligent young officer."

"But I say," announced Waddell plaintively, "_I_ saluted a man with a
red hat the other day, and he turned out to be a Military Policeman!"

"As a matter of fact," announced the pundit Struthers, after the
laughter had subsided, "you need not salute anybody. No compliments
are paid on active service, and we are on active service now."

"Yes, but suppose some one salutes _you_?" objected the conscientious
Bobby Little. "You must salute back again, and sometimes you don't
know how to do it. The other day I was bringing the company back
from the ranges and we met a company from another battalion--the Mid
Mudshires, I think. Before I knew where I was the fellow in charge
called them to attention and then gave 'Eyes right!'"

"What did you do?" asked Struthers anxiously.

"I hadn't time to do anything except grin, and say, 'Good morning!'"
confessed Bobby Little.

"You were perfectly right," announced Struthers, and Cockerell
murmured assent.

"Are you sure?" persisted Bobby Little. "As I passed the tail of their
company one of their subs turned to another and said quite loud, 'My
God, what swine!'"

"Showed his rotten ignorance," commented Cockerell.

At this moment Mr. Waddell, whose thoughts were never disturbed by
conversation around him, broke in with a question.

"What does a Tommy do," he inquired, "if he meets an officer wheeling
a wheelbarrow?"

"Who is wheeling the barrow," inquired the meticulous Struthers--"the
officer or the Tommy?"

"The Tommy, of course!" replied Waddell in quite a shocked voice.
"What is he to do? If he tries to salute he will upset the barrow, you
know."

"He turns his head sharply towards the officer for six paces,"
explained the ever-ready Struthers. "When a soldier is not in a
position to salute in the ordinary way--"

"I say," inquired Bobby Little rather shyly, "do you ever look the
other way when you meet a Tommy?"

"How do you mean?" asked everybody.

"Well, the other day I met one walking out with his girl along the
road, and I felt so blooming _de trop_ that--"

Here the "fall-in" sounded, and this delicate problem was left
unsolved. But Mr. Waddell, who liked to get to the bottom of things,
continued to ponder these matters as he marched. He mistrusted the
omniscience of Struthers and the superficial infallibility of the
self-satisfied Cockerell. Accordingly, after consultation with that
eager searcher after knowledge, Second Lieutenant Little, he took the
laudable but fatal step of carrying his difficulties to one Captain
Wagstaffe, the humorist of the Battalion.

Wagstaffe listened with an appearance of absorbed interest. Finally he
said--

"These are very important questions, Mr. Waddell, and you acted quite
rightly in laying them before me. I will consult the Deputy Assistant
Instructor in Military Etiquette, and will obtain a written answer to
your inquiries."

"Oh, thanks awfully, sir!" exclaimed Waddell.

The result of Captain Wagstaffe's application to the mysterious
official just designated was forthcoming next day in the form of a
neatly typed document. It was posted in the Ante-room (the C.O. being
out at dinner), and ran as follows:--


SALUTES

YOUNG OFFICERS, HINTS FOR THE GUIDANCE OF

The following is the correct procedure for a young officer in charge
of an armed party upon meeting--

(a) A Staff Officer riding a bicycle.

_Correct Procedure_.--If marching at attention, order your men to
march at ease and to light cigarettes and eat bananas. Then, having
fixed bayonets, give the order: _Across the road--straggle!_

(b) A funeral.

_Correct Procedure_.--Strike up _Tipperary_, and look the other way.

(c) A General Officer, who strolls across your Barrack Square
precisely at the moment when you and your Platoon have got into mutual
difficulties.

_Correct Procedure_.--Lie down flat upon your face (directing your
platoon to do the same), cover your head with gravel, and pretend you
are not there.


SPECIAL CASES

(a) A soldier, wheeling a wheelbarrow and balancing a swill-tub on his
head, meets an officer walking out in review dress.

_Correct Procedure_.--The soldier will immediately cant the swill-tub
to an angle of forty-five degrees at a distance of one and a half
inches above his right eyebrow. (In the case of Rifle Regiments the
soldier will balance the swill-tub on his nose.) He will then invite
the officer, by a smart movement of the left ear, to seat himself on
the wheelbarrow.

_Correct Acknowledgment_.--The officer will comply, placing his feet
upon the right and left hubs of the wheel respectively, with the
ball of the toe in each case at a distance of one inch (when serving
abroad, 2-1/2 centimetres) from the centre of gravity of the
wheelbarrow. (In the case of Rifle Regiments the officer will tie his
feet in a knot at the back of his neck.) The soldier will then advance
six paces, after which the officer will dismount and go home and have
a bath.

(b) A soldier, with his arm round a lady's waist in the gloaming,
encounters an officer.

_Correct Procedure_.--The soldier will salute with his disengaged arm.
The lady will administer a sharp tap with the end of her umbrella to
the officer's tunic, at point one inch above the lowest button.

_Correct Acknowledgment_.--The officer will take the end of the
umbrella firmly in his right hand, and will require the soldier to
introduce him to the lady. He will then direct the soldier to double
back to barracks.

(c) A party of soldiers, seated upon the top of a transport waggon,
see an officer passing at the side of the road.

_Correct Procedure_.--The senior N.C.O. (or if no N.C.O. be present,
the oldest soldier) will call the men to attention, and the party,
taking their time from the right, will spit upon the officer's head in
a soldier-like manner.

_Correct Acknowledgment_.--The officer will break into a smart trot.

(d) A soldier, driving an officer's motor-car without the knowledge of
the officer, encounters the officer in a narrow country lane.

_Correct Procedure_.--The soldier will open the throttle to its full
extent and run the officer over.

_Correct Acknowledgment_.--No acknowledgment is required.

NOTE.--_None of the above compliments will be paid upon active
service_.

Unfortunately the Colonel came home from dining out sooner than
was expected, and found this outrageous document still upon the
notice-board. But he was a good Colonel. He merely remarked
approvingly--

"H'm. Quite so! _Non semper arcum tendit Apollo_. It's just as well to
keep smiling these days."

Nevertheless, Mr. Waddell made a point in future, when in need of
information, of seeking the same from a less inspired source than
Captain Wagstaffe.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was another Law of the Medes and Persians with which our four
friends soon became familiar--that which governs the relations of the
various ranks to one another. Great Britain is essentially the home of
the chaperon. We pride ourselves, as a nation, upon the extreme
care with which we protect our young gentlewomen from contaminating
influences. But the fastidious attention which we bestow upon our
national maidenhood is as nothing in comparison with the protective
commotion with which we surround that shrinking sensitive plant, Mr.
Thomas Atkins.

Take etiquette and deportment. If a soldier wishes to speak to an
officer, an introduction must be effected by a sergeant. Let us
suppose that Private M'Splae, in the course of a route-march, develops
a blister upon his great toe. He begins by intimating the fact to
the nearest lance-corporal. The lance-corporal takes the news to the
platoon sergeant, who informs the platoon commander, who may or may
not decide to take the opinion of his company commander in the matter.
Anyhow, when the hobbling warrior finally obtains permission to fall
out and alleviate his distress, a corporal goes with him, for fear he
should lose himself, or his boot--it is wonderful what Thomas _can_
lose when he sets his mind to it--or, worst crime of all, his rifle.

Again, if two privates are detailed to empty the regimental ashbin,
a junior N.C.O. ranges them in line, calls them to attention, and
marches them off to the scene of their labours, decently and in order.
If a soldier obtains leave to go home on furlough for the week-end, he
is collected into a party, and, after being inspected to see that
his buttons are clean, his hair properly cut, and his nose correctly
blown, is marched off to the station, where a ticket is provided
for him, and he and his fellow-wayfarers are safely tucked into a
third-smoker labelled "Military Party." (No wonder he sometimes gets
lost on arriving at Waterloo!) In short, if there is a job to be done,
the senior soldier present chaperons somebody else while he does it.

This system has been attacked on the ground that it breeds loss of
self-reliance and initiative. As a matter of fact, the result is
almost exactly the opposite. Under its operation a soldier rapidly
acquires the art of placing himself under the command of his nearest
superior in rank; but at the same time he learns with equal rapidity
to take command himself if no superior be present--no bad thing in
times of battle and sudden death, when shrapnel is whistling, and
promotion is taking place with grim and unceasing automaticity.

This principle is extended, too, to the enforcement of law and order.
If Private M'Sumph is insubordinate or riotous, there is never any
question of informal correction or summary justice. News of the
incident wends its way upward, by a series of properly regulated
channels, to the officer in command. Presently, by the same route, an
order comes back, and in a twinkling the offender finds himself taken
under arrest and marched off to the guard-room by two of his own
immediate associates. (One of them may be his own rear-rank man.) But
no officer or non-commissioned officer ever lays a finger on him. The
penalty for striking a superior officer is so severe that the law
decrees, very wisely, that a soldier must on no account ever be
arrested by any save men of his own rank. If Private M'Sumph, while
being removed in custody, strikes Private Tosh upon the nose and kicks
Private Cosh upon the shin, to the effusion of blood, no great harm is
done--except to the lacerated Cosh and Tosh; but if he had smitten an
intruding officer in the eye, his punishment would have been dire and
grim. So, though we may call military law cumbrous and grandmotherly,
there is sound sense and real mercy at the root of it.

       *       *       *       *       *

But there is one Law of the Medes and Persians which is sensibly
relaxed these days. We, the newly joined, have always been given to
understand that whatever else you do, you must never, never betray any
interest in your profession--in short, talk shop--at Mess. But in our
Mess no one ever talks anything else. At luncheon, we relate droll
anecdotes concerning our infant platoons; at tea, we explain, to any
one who will listen, exactly how we placed our sentry line in last
night's operations; at dinner, we brag about our Company musketry
returns, and quote untruthful extracts from our butt registers. At
breakfast, every one has a newspaper, which he props before him and
reads, generally aloud. We exchange observations upon the war news. We
criticise von Kluck, and speak kindly of Joffre. We note, daily, that
there is nothing to report on the Allies' right, and wonder regularly
how the Russians are really getting on in the Eastern theatre.

Then, after observing that the only sportsman in the combined forces
of the German Empire is--or was--the captain of the _Emden_, we come
to the casualty lists--and there is silence.

Englishmen are fond of saying, with the satisfied air of men letting
off a really excellent joke, that every one in Scotland knows every
one else. As we study the morning's Roll of Honour, we realise that
never was a more truthful jest uttered. There is not a name in the
list of those who have died for Scotland which is not familiar to us.
If we did not know the man--too often the boy--himself, we knew his
people, or at least where his home was. In England, if you live in
Kent, and you read that the Northumberland Fusiliers have been cut
up or the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry badly knocked about, you
merely sigh that so many more good men should have fallen. Their names
are glorious names, but they are only names. But never a Scottish
regiment comes under fire but the whole of Scotland feels it. Scotland
is small enough to know all her sons by heart. You may live in
Berwickshire, and the man who has died may have come from Skye; but
his name is quite familiar to you. Big England's sorrow is national;
little Scotland's is personal.

Then we pass on to our letters. Many of us--particularly the senior
officers--have news direct from the trenches--scribbled scraps torn
out of field-message books. We get constant tidings of the Old
Regiment. They marched thirty-five miles on such a day; they captured
a position after being under continuous shell fire for eight hours on
another; they were personally thanked by the Field-Marshal on another.
Oh, we shall have to work hard to get up to that standard!

"They want more officers," announces the Colonel. "Naturally, after
the time they've been having! But they must go to the Third Battalion
for them: that's the proper place. I will not have them coming here:
I've told them so at Headquarters. The Service Battalions simply
_must_ be led by the officers who have trained them if they are to
have a Chinaman's chance when we go out. I shall threaten to resign if
they try any more of their tricks. That'll frighten 'em! Even dug-outs
like me are rare and valuable objects at present."

The Company Commanders murmur assent--on the whole sympathetically.
Anxious though they are to get upon business terms with the Kaiser,
they are loath to abandon the unkempt but sturdy companies over which
they have toiled so hard, and which now, though destitute of blossom,
are rich in promise of fruit. But the senior subalterns look up
hopefully. Their lot is hard. Some of them have been in the Service
for ten years, yet they have been left behind. They command no
companies. "Here," their faces say, "we are merely marking time while
others learn. Send _us_!"

       *       *       *       *       *

However, though they have taken no officers yet, signs are not wanting
that they will take some soon. To-day each of us was presented with a
small metal disc.

Bobby Little examined his curiously. Upon the face thereof was
stamped, in ragged, irregular capitals--

[Illustration: LITTLE, R., 2ND LT.,
B. & W. HIGHRS.
C. OF E.]

"What is this for?" he asked.

Captain Wagstaffe answered.

"You wear it round your neck," he said.

Our four friends, once bitten, regarded the humorist suspiciously.

"Are you rotting us?" asked Waddell cautiously.

"No, my son," replied Wagstaffe, "I am not."

"What is it for, then?"

"It's called an Identity Disc. Every soldier on active service wears
one."

"Why should the idiots put one's religion on the thing?" inquired
Master Cockerell, scornfully regarding the letters "C. of E." upon his
disc.

Wagstaffe regarded him curiously.

"Think it over," he suggested.




VII

SHOOTING STRAIGHT


"What for is the wee felly gaun' tae show us puctures?"

Second Lieutenant Bobby Little, assisted by a sergeant and two unhandy
privates, is engaged in propping a large and highly-coloured work of
art, mounted on a rough wooden frame and supported on two unsteady
legs, against the wall of the barrack square. A half-platoon of A
Company, seated upon an adjacent bank, chewing grass and enjoying the
mellow autumn sunshine, regard the swaying masterpiece with frank
curiosity. For the last fortnight they have been engaged in imbibing
the science of musketry. They have learned to hold their rifles
correctly, sitting, kneeling, standing, or lying; to bring their
backsights and foresights into an undeviating straight line with the
base of the bull's-eye; and to press the trigger in the manner laid
down in the Musketry Regulations--without wriggling the body or
"pulling-off."

They have also learned to adjust their sights, to perform the loading
motions rapidly and correctly, and to obey such simple commands as--

"_At them two, weemen_"--officers' wives, probably--"_proceeding from
left tae right across the square, at five hundred yairds_"

--they are really about fifteen yards away, covered with
confusion--"_five roonds, fire!_"

But as yet they have discharged no shots from their rifles. It has all
been make-believe, with dummy cartridges, and fictitious ranges, and
snapping triggers. To be quite frank, they are getting just a little
tired of musketry training--forgetting for the moment that a soldier
who cannot use his rifle is merely an expense to his country and a
free gift to the enemy. But the sight of Bobby Little's art gallery
cheers them up. They contemplate the picture with childlike interest.
It resembles nothing so much as one of those pleasing but imaginative
posters by the display of which our Railway Companies seek to attract
the tourist to the less remunerative portions of their systems.

"What for is the wee felly gaun' tae show us puctures?"

Thus Private Mucklewame. A pundit in the rear rank answers him.

"Yon's Gairmany."

"Gairmany ma auntie!" retorts Mucklewame. "There's no chumney-stalks
in Gairmany."

"Maybe no; but there's wundmulls. See the wundmull there--on yon wee
knowe!"

"There a pit-held!" exclaims another voice. This homely spectacle is
received with an affectionate sigh. Until two months ago more than
half the platoon had never been out of sight of at least half a dozen.

"See the kirk, in ablow the brae!" says some one else, in a pleased
voice. "It has a nock in the steeple."

"I hear they Gairmans send signals wi' their kirk-nocks," remarks
Private M'Micking, who, as one of the Battalion signallers--or
"buzzers," as the vernacular has it, in imitation of the buzzing
of the Morse instrument--regards himself as a sort of junior Staff
Officer. "They jist semaphore with the haunds of the nock--"

"I wonder," remarks the dreamy voice of Private M'Leary, the humorist
of the platoon, "did ever a Gairman buzzer pit the ba' through his ain
goal in a fitba' match?"

This irrelevant reference to a regrettable incident of the previous
Saturday afternoon is greeted with so much laughter that Bobby Little,
who has at length fixed his picture in position, whips round.

"Less talking there!" he announces severely, "or I shall have to stand
you all at attention!"

There is immediate silence--there is nothing the matter with Bobby's
discipline--and the outraged M'Micking has to content himself with
a homicidal glare in the direction of M'Leary, who is now hanging
virtuously upon his officer's lips.

"This," proceeds Bobby Little, "is what is known as a landscape
target."

He indicates the picture, which, apparently overcome by so much public
notice, promptly falls flat upon its face. A fatigue party under the
sergeant hurries to its assistance.

"It is intended," resumes Bobby presently, "to teach you--us--to
become familiar with various kinds of country, and to get into the
habit of picking out conspicuous features of the landscape, and
getting them by heart, and--er--so on. I want you all to study this
picture for three minutes. Then I shall face you about and ask you to
describe it to me."

After three minutes of puckered brows and hard breathing the squad is
turned to its rear and the examination proceeds.

"Lance-Corporal Ness, what did you notice in the foreground of the
picture?"

Lance-Corporal Ness gazes fiercely before him. He has noticed a good
deal, but can remember nothing. Moreover, he has no very clear idea
what a foreground may be.

"Private Mucklewame?"

Again silence, while the rotund Mucklewame perspires in the throes of
mental exertion.

"Private Wemyss?"

No answer.

"Private M'Micking!"

The "buzzer" smiles feebly, but says nothing.

"Well,"--desperately--"Sergeant Angus! Tell them what you noticed in
the foreground."

Sergeant Angus _(floruit_ A.D. 1895) springs smartly to attention, and
replies, with the instant obedience of the old soldier--

"The sky, sirr."

"Not in the foreground, as a rule," replies Bobby Little gently.
"About turn again, all of you, and we'll have another try."

In his next attempt Bobby abandons individual catechism.

"Now," he begins, "what conspicuous objects do we notice on this
target? In the foreground I can see a low knoll. To the left I see a
windmill. In the distance is a tall chimney. Half-right is a church.
How would that church be marked on a map?"

No reply.

"Well," explains Bobby, anxious to parade a piece of knowledge which
he only acquired himself a day or two ago, "churches are denoted in
maps by a cross, mounted on a square or circle, according as the
church has a square tower or a steeple. What has this church got?"

"A nock!" bellow the platoon, with stunning enthusiasm. (All but
Private M'Micking, that is.)

"A clock, sir," translates the sergeant, _sotto voce_.

"A clock? All right: but what I wanted was a steeple. Then, farther
away, we can see a mine, a winding brook, and a house, with a wall in
front of it. Who can see them?"

To judge by the collective expression of the audience, no one does.
Bobby ploughs on.

"Upon the skyline we notice--Squad, '_shun!_"

Captain Wagstaffe has strolled up. He is second in command of A
Company. Bobby explains to him modestly what he has been trying to do.

"Yes, I heard you," says Wagstaffe. "You take a breather, while I
carry on for a bit. Squad, stand easy, and tell me what you can see on
that target. Lance-Corporal Ness, show me a pit-head."

Lance-Corporal Ness steps briskly forward and lays a grubby forefinger
on Bobby's "mine."

"Private Mucklewame, show me a burn."

The brook is at once identified.

"Private M'Leary, shut your eyes and tell me what there is just to the
right of the windmill."

"A wee knowe, sirr," replies M'Leary at once. Bobby recognises his
"low knoll"--also the fact that it is no use endeavouring to instruct
the unlettered until you have learned their language.

"Very good!" says Captain Wagstaffe. "Now we will go on to what is
known as Description and Recognition of Targets. Supposing I had sent
one of you forward into that landscape as a scout.--By the way, what
is a scout?"

Dead silence, as usual.

"Come along! Tell me, somebody! Private Mucklewame?"

"They gang oot in a procession on Setter-day efternoons, sirr, in
short breeks," replies Mucklewame promptly.

"A procession is the very last thing a scout goes out in!" raps
Wagstaffe. (It is plain to Mucklewame that the Captain has never been
in Wishaw, but he does not argue the point.) "Private M'Micking, what
is a scout?"

"A spy, sirr," replies the omniscient one.

"Well, that's better; but there's a big difference between the two.
What is it?"

This is a poser. Several men know the difference, but feel quite
incapable of explaining it. The question runs down the front rank.
Finally it is held up and disposed of by one Mearns (from Aberdeen).

"A spy, sirr, gets mair money than a scout."

"Does he?" asks Captain Wagstaffe, smiling. "Well, I am not in a
position to say. But if he does, he earns it! Why?"

"Because if he gets catched he gets shot," volunteers a rear-rank man.

"Right. Why is he shot?"

This conundrum is too deep for the squad. The Captain has to answer it
himself.

"Because he is not in uniform, and cannot therefore be treated as an
ordinary prisoner of war. So never go scouting in your nightshirt,
Mucklewame!"

The respectable Mucklewame blushes deeply at this outrageous
suggestion, but Wagstaffe proceeds--

"Now, supposing I sent you out scouting, and you discovered that over
there--somewhere in the middle of this field"--he lays a finger on the
field in question--"there was a fold in the ground where a machine-gun
section was concealed: what would you do when you got back?"

"I would tell you, sirr," replied Private M'Micking politely.

"Tell me what?"

"That they was there, sirr."

"Where?"

"In yon place."

"How would you indicate the position of the place?"

"I would pint it oot with ma finger, sirr."

"Invisible objects half a mile away are not easily pointed out with
the finger," Captain Wagstaffe mentions. "Lance-Corporal Ness, how
would you describe it?"

"I would tak' you there, sirr."

"Thanks! But I doubt if either of us would come back! Private Wemyss?"

"I would say, sirr, that the place was west of the mansion-hoose."

"There's a good deal of land west of that mansion-house, you know,"
expostulates the Captain gently; "but we are getting on. Thompson?"

"I would say, sir," replies Thompson, puckering his brow, "that it was
in ablow they trees."

"It would be hard to indicate the exact trees you meant. Trees are too
common. You try, Corporal King."

But Corporal King, who earned his stripes by reason of physical rather
than intellectual attributes, can only contribute a lame reference
to "a bit hedge by yon dyke, where there's a kin' o' hole in the
tairget." Wagstaffe breaks in--

"Now, everybody, take some conspicuous and unmistakable object about
the middle of that landscape--something which no one can mistake. The
mansion-house will do--the near end. Now then--_mansion-house, near
end_! Got that?"

There is a general chorus of assent.

"Very well. I want you to imagine that the base of the mansion-house
is the centre of a great clock-face. Where would twelve o'clock be?"

The platoon are plainly tickled by this new round-game. They reply--

"Straught up!"

"Right. Where is nine o'clock?"

"Over tae the left."

"Very good. And so on with all the other hours. Now, supposing I were
to say, _End of mansion-house_--_six o'clock_--_white gate_--you would
carry your eye straight _downward_, through the garden, until it
encountered the gate. I would thus have enabled you to recognise a
very small object in a wide landscape in the quickest possible time.
See the idea?"

"Yes, sirr."

"All right. Now for our fold in the ground. _End of
mansion-house_--_eight o'clock_--got that?"

There is an interested murmur of assent.

"That gives you the direction from the house. Now for the distance!
_End of mansion-house_--_eight o 'clock_--_two finger-breadths_--what
does that give you, Lance-Corporal Ness?"

"The corrner of a field, sirr."

"Right. This is _our_ field. We have picked it correctly out of about
twenty fields, you see. _Corner of field. In the middle of the field,
a fold in the ground. At nine hundred--at the fold in the ground--five
rounds--fire_! You see the idea now?"

"Yes, sirr."

"Very good. Let the platoon practise describing targets to one
another, Mr. Little. Don't be too elaborate. Never employ either the
clock or finger method if you can describe your target without. For
instance: _Left of windmill_--_triangular cornfield. At the_ _nearest
corner_--_six hundred_--_rapid fire!_ is all you want. Carry on, Mr.
Little."

And leaving Bobby and his infant class to practise this new and
amusing pastime, Captain Wagstaffe strolls away across the square to
where the painstaking Waddell is contending with another squad.

They, too, have a landscape target--a different one. Before it half a
dozen rifles stand, set in rests. Waddell has given the order: _Four
hundred_--_at the road, where it passes under the viaduct_--_fire!_
and six privates have laid the six rifles upon the point indicated.
Waddell and Captain Wagstaffe walk down the line, peering along the
sights of the rifles. Five are correctly aligned: the sixth points to
the spacious firmament above the viaduct.

"Hallo!" observes Wagstaffe.

"This is the man's third try, sir," explains the harassed Waddell. "He
doesn't seem to be able to distinguish anything at all."

"Eyesight wrong?"

"So he says, sir."

"Been a long time finding out, hasn't he?"

"The sergeant told me, sir," confides Waddell, "that in his opinion
the man is 'working for his ticket.'"

"Umph!"

"I did not quite understand the expression, sir," continues the honest
youth, "so I thought I would consult you."

"It means that he is trying to get his discharge. Bring him along:
I'll soon find out whether he is skrim-shanking or not."

Private M'Sweir is introduced, and led off to the lair of that
hardened cynic, the Medical Officer. Here he is put through some
simple visual tests. He soon finds himself out of his depth. It
is extremely difficult to feign either myopia, hypermetria, or
astigmatism if you are not acquainted with the necessary symptoms, and
have not decided beforehand which (if any) of these diseases you are
suffering from. In five minutes the afflicted M'Sweir is informed,
to his unutterable indignation, that he has passed a severe ocular
examination with flying colours, and is forthwith marched back to his
squad, with instructions to recognise all targets in future, under
pain of special instruction in the laws of optics during his leisure
hours. Verily, in K (1)--that is the tabloid title of the First
Hundred Thousand--the way of the malingerer is hard.

Still, the seed does not always fall upon stony ground. On his way to
inspect a third platoon Captain Wagstaffe passes Bobby Little and his
merry men. They are in pairs, indicating targets to one another.

Says Private Walker (oblivious of Captain Wagstaffe's proximity) to
his friend, Private M'Leary--in an affected parody of his instructor's
staccato utterance--

"_At yon three Gairman spies, gaun' up a close for tae despatch some
wireless telegraphy_--_fufty roonds_--_fire_!"

To which Private M'Leary, not to be outdone, responds--

"_Public hoose_--_in the baur_--_back o' seeven o'clock_--_twa
drams_--_fower fingers_--_rapid!"_


II

From this it is a mere step to--

"Butt Pairty, '_shun!_ Forrm fourrs! Right! By your left, quick
_marrch_!"

--on a bleak and cheerless morning in late October. It is not yet
light; but a depressed party of about twenty-five are falling into
line at the acrid invitation of two sergeants, who have apparently
decided that the pen is mightier than the Lee-Enfield rifle; for each
wears one stuck in his glengarry like an eagle's feather, and carries
a rabbinical-looking inkhorn slung to his bosom. This literary pose is
due to the fact that records are about to be taken of the performances
of the Company on the shooting-range.

A half-awakened subaltern, who breakfasted at the grisly hour of a
quarter-to-six, takes command, and the dolorous procession disappears
into the gloom.

Half an hour later the Battalion parades, and sets off, to the sound
of music, in pursuit. (It is perhaps needless to state that although
we are deficient in rifles, possess neither belts, pouches, nor
greatcoats, and are compelled to attach, our scanty accoutrements to
our persons with ingenious contrivances of string, we boast a fully
equipped and highly efficient pipe band, complete with pipers, big
drummer, side drummers, and corybantic drum-major.)

By eight o'clock, after a muddy tramp of four miles, we are assembled
at the two-hundred-yards firing point upon Number Three Range. The
range itself is little more than a drive cut through, a pine-wood.
It is nearly half a mile long. Across the far end runs a high
sandy embankment, decorated just below the ridge with, a row of
number-boards--one for each target. Of the targets themselves nothing
as yet is to be seen.

"Now then, let's get a move on!" suggests the Senior Captain briskly.
"Cockerell, ring up the butts, and ask Captain Wagstaffe to put up the
targets."

The alert Mr. Cockerell hurries to the telephone, which lives in a
small white-painted structure like a gramophone-stand. (It has been
left at the firing-point by the all-providing butt-party.) He turns
the call-handle smartly, takes the receiver out of the box, and
begins....

There is no need to describe the performance which ensues. All
telephone-users are familiar with it. It consists entirely of the
word "Hallo!" repeated _crescendo_ and _furioso_ until exhaustion
supervenes.

Presently Mr. Cockerell reports to the Captain--

"Telephone out of order, sir."

"I never knew a range telephone that wasn't," replies the Captain,
inspecting the instrument. "Still, you might give this one a sporting
chance, anyhow. It isn't a _wireless_ telephone, you know! Corporal
Kemp, connect that telephone for Mr. Cockerell."

A marble-faced N.C.O. kneels solemnly upon the turf and raises a
small iron trapdoor--hitherto overlooked by the omniscient
Cockerell--revealing a cavity some six inches deep, containing an
electric plug-hole. Into this he thrusts the terminal of the telephone
wire. Cockerell, scarlet in the face, watches him indignantly.

Telephonic communication between firing-point and butts is now
established. That is to say, whenever Mr. Cockerell rings the bell
some one in the butts courteously rings back. Overtures of a more
intimate nature are greeted either with stony silence or another
fantasia on the bell.

Meanwhile the captain is superintending firing arrangements.

"Are the first details ready to begin?" he shouts.

"Quite ready, sir," runs the reply down the firing line.

The Captain now comes to the telephone himself. He takes the receiver
from Cockerell with masterful assurance.

"Hallo, there!" he calls. "I want to speak to Captain Wagstaffe."

"Honkle yang-yang?" inquires a ghostly voice.

"Captain Wagstaffe! Hurry up!"

Presently the bell rings, and the Captain gets to business.

"That you, Wagstaffe?" he inquires cheerily. "Look here, we're going
to fire Practice Seven, Table B,--snap-shooting. I want you to raise
all the targets for six seconds, just for sighting purposes. Do you
understand?"

Here the bell rings continuously for ten seconds. Nothing daunted, the
Captain tries again.

"That you, Wagstaffe? Practice Seven, Table B!"

"T'chk, t'chk!" replies Captain Wagstaffe.

"Begin by raising all the targets for six seconds. Then raise them six
times for five seconds each.--no, as you were! Raise them five times
for six seconds each. Got that? I say, are you _there_? What's that?"

"_Przemysl_" replies the telephone--or something to that effect.
"_Czestochowa! Krsyszkowice! Plock_!"

The Captain, now on his mettle, continues:--

"I want you to signal the results on the rear targets as the front
ones go down. After that we will fire--oh, _curse_ the thing!"

He hastily removes the receiver, which is emitting sounds suggestive
of the buckling of biscuit-tins, from his ear, and lays it on its
rest. The bell promptly begins to ring again.

"Mr. Cockerell," he says resignedly, "double up to the butts and ask
Captain Wagstaffe--"

"I'm here, old son," replies a gentle voice, as Captain Wagstaffe
touches him upon the shoulder. "Been here some time!"

After mutual asperities, it is decided by the two Captains to dispense
with the aid of the telephone proper, and communicate by bell alone.
Captain Wagstaffe's tall figure strides back across the heather; the
red flag on the butts flutters down; and we get to work.

Upon a long row of waterproof sheets--some thirty in all--lie the
firers. Beside each is extended the form of a sergeant or officer,
tickling his charge's ear with incoherent counsel, and imploring him,
almost tearfully, not to get excited.

Suddenly thirty targets spring out of the earth in front of us, only
to disappear again just as we have got over our surprise. They are not
of the usual bull's-eye pattern, but are what is known as "figure"
targets. The lower half is sea-green, the upper, white. In the centre,
half on the green and half on the white, is a curious brown smudge.
It might be anything, from a splash of mud to one of those mysterious
brown-paper patterns which fall out of ladies' papers, but it really
is intended to represent the head and shoulders of a man in khaki
lying on grass and aiming at us. However, the British private, with
his usual genius for misapprehension, has christened this effigy "the
beggar in the boat."

With equal suddenness the targets swing up again. Crack! An
uncontrolled spirit has loosed off his rifle before it has reached
his shoulder. Blistering reproof follows. Then, after three or four
seconds, comes a perfect salvo all down the line. The conscientious
Mucklewame, slowly raising his foresight as he has been taught to do,
from the base of the target to the centre, has just covered the beggar
in the boat between wind and water, and is lingering lovingly over
the second pull, when the inconsiderate beggar (and his boat) sink
unostentatiously into the abyss, leaving the open-mouthed marksman
with his finger on the trigger and an unfired cartridge still in the
chamber. At the dentist's Time crawls; in snap-shooting contests he
sprints.

Another set of targets slide up as the first go down, and upon these
the hits are recorded by a forest of black or white discs, waving
vigorously in the air. Here and there a red-and-white flag flaps
derisively. Mucklewame gets one of these.

The marking-targets go down to half-mast again, and then comes another
tense pause. Then, as the firing-targets reappear, there is another
volley. This time Private Mucklewame leads the field, and decapitates
a dandelion. The third time he has learned wisdom, and the beggar in
the boat gets the bullet where all mocking foes should get it--in the
neck!

Snap-shooting over, the combatants retire to the five-hundred-yards
firing-point, taking with them that modern hair-shirt, the telephone.

Presently a fresh set of targets swing up--of the bull's-eye variety
this time--and the markers are busy once more.


III

The interior of the butts is an unexpectedly spacious place. From the
nearest firing-point you would not suspect their existence, except
when the targets are up. Imagine a sort of miniature railway
station--or rather, half a railway station--sunk into the ground, with
a very long platform and a very low roof--eight feet high at the most.
Upon the opposite side of this station, instead of the other platform,
rises the sandy ridge previously mentioned--the stop-butt--crowned
with its row of number-boards. Along the permanent way, in place of
sleepers and metals, runs a long and narrow trough, in which, instead
of railway carriages, some thirty great iron frames are standing side
by side. These frames are double, and hold the targets. They are so
arranged that if one is pushed up the other comes down. The markers
stand along the platform, like railway porters.

There are two markers to each target. They, stand with their backs to
the firers, comfortably conscious of several feet of earth and a stout
brick wall, between them and low shooters. Number one squats down,
paste-pot in hand, and repairs the bullet-holes in the unemployed
target with patches of black or white paper. Number two, brandishing a
pole to which is attached a disc, black on one side and white on the
other, is acquiring a permanent crick in the neck through gaping
upwards at the target in search of hits. He has to be sharp-eyed, for
the bullet-hole is a small one, and springs into existence without any
other intimation than a spirt of sand on the bank twenty yards
behind. He must be alert, too, and signal the shots as they are made;
otherwise the telephone will begin to interest itself on his behalf.
The bell will ring, and a sarcastic voice will intimate--assuming that
you can hear what it says--that C Company are sending a wreath and
message of condolence as their contribution to the funeral of the
marker at Number Seven target, who appears to have died at his post
within the last ten minutes; coupled with a polite request that his
successor may be appointed as rapidly as possible, as the war is not
likely to last more than three years. To this the butt-officer replies
that C Company had better come a bit closer to the target and try, try
again.

There are practically no restrictions as to the length to which one
may go in insulting butt-markers. The Geneva Convention is silent upon
the subject, partly because it is almost impossible to say anything
which can really hurt a marker's feelings, and partly because the
butt-officer always has the last word in any unpleasantness which may
arise. That is to say, when defeated over the telephone, he can
always lower his targets, and with his myrmidons feign abstraction or
insensibility until an overheated subaltern arrives at the double from
the five-hundred-yards firing-point, conveying news of surrender.

Captain Wagstaffe was an admitted master of this game. He was a
difficult subject to handle, for he was accustomed to return an eye
for an eye when repartees were being exchanged; and when overborne
by heavier metal--say, a peripatetic "brass-hat" from Hythe--he was
accustomed to haul up the red butt-flag (which automatically brings
all firing to a standstill), and stroll down the range to refute the
intruder at close quarters. We must add that he was a most efficient
butt-officer. When he was on duty, markers were most assiduous in
their attention to theirs, which is not always the case.

Thomas Atkins rather enjoys marking. For one thing, he is permitted
to remove as much clothing as he pleases, and to cover himself with
stickiness and grime to his heart's content--always a highly prized
privilege. He is also allowed to smoke, to exchange full-flavoured
persiflage with his neighbours, and to refresh himself from time
to time with mysterious items of provender wrapped in scraps of
newspaper. Given an easy-going butt-officer and some timid subalterns,
he can spend a very agreeable morning. Even when discipline is strict,
marking is preferable to most other fatigues.

Crack! Crack! Crack! The fusilade has begun. Privates Ogg and Hogg are
in charge of Number Thirteen target. They are beguiling the tedium
of their task by a friendly gamble with the markers on Number
Fourteen--Privates Cosh and Tosh. The rules of the game are simplicity
itself. After each detail has fired, the target with the higher score
receives the sum of one penny from its opponents. At the present
moment, after a long run of adversity, Privates Cosh and Tosh are one
penny to the good. Once again fortune smiles upon them. The first two
shots go right through the bull--eight points straight away. The third
is an inner; the fourth another bull; the fifth just grazes the line
separating inners from outers. Private Tosh, who is scoring, promptly
signals an inner. Meanwhile, target Number Thirteen is also being
liberally marked--but by nothing of a remunerative nature. The
gentleman at the firing-point is taking what is known as "a fine
sight"--so fine, indeed, that each successive bullet either buries
itself in the turf fifty yards short, or ricochets joyously from
off the bank in front, hurling itself sideways through the target,
accompanied by a storm of gravel, and tearing holes therein which even
the biassed Ogg cannot class as clean hits.

"We hae gotten eighteen that time," announces Mr. Tosh to his rival,
swinging his disc and inwardly blessing his unknown benefactor. (For
obvious reasons the firer is known only to the marker by a number.)
"Hoo's a' wi' you, Jock?"

"There's a [adjective] body here," replies Ogg, with gloomy sarcasm,
"flingin' bricks through this yin!" He picks up the red-and-white flag
for the fourth time, and unfurls it indignantly to the breeze.

"Here the officer!" says the warning voice of Hogg. "I doot he'll no
allow your last yin, Peter."

He is right. The subaltern in charge of targets Thirteen to Sixteen,
after a pained glance at the battered countenance of Number Thirteen,
pauses before Fourteen, and jots down a figure on his butt-register.

"Fower, fower, fower, three, three, sirr," announces Tosh politely.

"Three bulls, one inner, and an ahter, sir," proclaims the Cockney
sergeant simultaneously.

"Now, suppose _I_ try," suggests the subaltern gently.

He examines the target, promptly disallows Tosh's last inner, and
passes on.

"Seventeen _only!_" remarks Private Ogg severely. "I thocht sae!"

Private Cosh speaks--for the first time--removing a paste-brush, and
some patching-paper from his mouth--

"Still, it's better nor a wash-oot! And onyway, you're due us tippence
the noo!"

By way of contrast to the frivolous game of chance in the butts, the
proceedings at the firing-point resolve themselves into a desperately
earnest test of skill. The fortnight's range-practice is drawing to a
close. Each evening registers have been made up, and firing averages
adjusted, with the result that A and D Companies are found to have
entirely outdistanced B and C, and to be running neck and neck for the
championship of the battalion. Up till this morning D's average worked
out at something under fifteen (out of a possible twenty), and A's at
something over fourteen points. Both are quite amazing and incredible
averages for a recruits' course; but then nearly everything about
"K(1)" is amazing and incredible. Up till half an hour ago D had, if
anything, increased their lead: then dire calamity overtook them.

One Pumpherston, Sergeant-Major and crack shot of the Company,
solemnly blows down the barrel of his rifle and prostrates himself
majestically upon his more than considerable stomach, for the purpose
of firing his five rounds at five hundred yards. His average score
so far has been one under "possible." Three officers and a couple of
stray corporals gather behind him in eulogistic attitudes.

"How are the Company doing generally, Sergeant-Major?" inquires the
Captain of D Company.

"Very well, sirr, except for some carelessness," replies the great
man impressively. "That man there"--he indicates a shrinking figure
hurrying rearwards--"has just spoilt his own score and another man's
by putting two shots on the wrong target."

There is a horrified hum at this, for to fire upon some one else's
target is the gravest crime in musketry. In the first place, it counts
a miss for yourself. In the second, it may do a grievous wrong to your
neighbour; for the law ordains that, in the event of more than five
shots being found upon any target, only the worst five shall count.
Therefore, if your unsolicited contribution takes the form of an
outer, it must be counted, to the exclusion, possibly, of a bull. The
culprit broke into a double.

Having delivered himself, Sergeant-Major Pumpherston graciously
accepted the charger of cartridges which an obsequious acolyte was
proffering, rammed it into the magazine, adjusted the sights, spread
out his legs to an obtuse angle, and fired his first shot.

All eyes were turned upon target Number Seven. But there was no
signal. All the other markers were busy flourishing discs or flags;
only Number Seven remained cold and aloof.

The Captain of D Company laughed satirically.

"Number Seven gone to have his hair cut!" he observed.

"Third time this morning, sir," added a sycophantic subaltern.

The sergeant-major smiled indulgently,

"I can do without signals, sir," he said "I know where the shot went
all right. I must get the next a _little_ more to the left. That last
one was a bit too near to three o'clock to be a certainty."

He fired again--with precisely the same result.

Every one was quite apologetic to the sergeant-major this time.

"This must be stopped," announced the Captain. "Mr. Simson, ring up
Captain Wagstaffe on the telephone."

But the sergeant-major would not hear of this.

"The butt-registers are good enough for me, sir," he said with a
paternal smile. He fired again. Once more the target stared back,
blank and unresponsive.

This time the audience were too disgusted to speak. They merely
shrugged their shoulders and glanced at one another with sarcastic
smiles. The Captain, who had suffered a heavy reverse at the hands
of Captain Wagstaffe earlier in the morning, began to rehearse the
wording of his address over the telephone.

The sergeant-major fired his last two shots with impressive
aplomb--only to be absolutely ignored twice more by Number Seven. Then
he rose to his feet and saluted with ostentatious respectfulness.

"Four bulls and one inner, I _think_, sir. I'm afraid I pulled that
last one off a bit."


The Captain is already at the telephone. For the moment this most
feminine of instruments is found to be in an accommodating frame of
mind. Captain Wagstaffe's voice is quickly heard.

"That you, Wagstaffe?" inquires the Captain. "I'm so sorry to bother
you, but could you make inquiries and ascertain when the marker on
Number Seven is likely to come out of the chloroform?"

"He has been sitting up and taking nourishment for some hours,"
replies the voice of Wagstaffe. "What message can I deliver to him?"

"None in particular, except that he has not signalled a single one of
Sergeant-Major Pumpherston's shots!" replies the Captain of D, with
crushing simplicity.

"Half a mo'!" replies Wagstaffe.... Then, presently--

"Hallo! Are you there, Whitson?"

"Yes. We are still here," Captain Whitson assures him frigidly.

"Right. Well, I have examined Number Seven target, and there are no
shots on it of any kind whatever. But there are ten shots on Number
Eight, if that's any help. Buck up with the next lot, will you? We are
getting rather bored here. So long!"


There was nothing in it now. D Company had finished. The last two
representatives of A were firing, and subalterns with note-books were
performing prodigies of arithmetic. Bobby Little calculated that if
these two scored eighteen points each they would pull the Company's
total average up to fifteen precisely, beating D by a decimal.

The two slender threads upon which the success of this enterprise hung
were named Lindsay and Budge. Lindsay was a phlegmatic youth with
watery eyes. Nothing disturbed him, which was fortunate, for the
commotion which surrounded him was considerable. A stout sergeant
lay beside him on a waterproof sheet, whispering excited counsels of
perfection, while Bobby Little danced in the rear, beseeching him to
fire upon the proper target.

"Now, Lindsay," said Captain Whitson, in a trembling voice, "you are
going to get into a good comfortable position, take your time, and
score five bulls."

The amazing part of it all was that Lindsay very nearly did score five
bulls. He actually got four, and would have had a fifth had not the
stout sergeant, in excess of solicitude, tenderly wiped his watery eye
for him with a grubby handkerchief just as he took the first pull for
his third shot.

Altogether he scored nineteen; and the gallery, full of
congratulations, moved on to inspect the performance of Private Budge,
an extremely nervous subject: who, thanks to the fact that public
attention had been concentrated so far upon Lindsay, and that his
ministering sergeant was a matter-of-fact individual of few words, had
put on two bulls--eight points. He now required to score only nine
points in three shots.

Suddenly the hapless youth became aware of the breathless group in his
rear. He promptly pulled his trigger, and just nicked the outside edge
of the target--two points.

"I doot I'm gettin' a thing nairvous," he muttered apologetically to
the sergeant.

"Havers! Shut your held and give the bull a bash!" responded that
admirable person.

The twitching Budge, bracing himself, scored an inner--three points.

"A bull, and we do it!" murmured Bobby Little. Fortunately Budge did
not hear.

"Ye're no daen badly," admitted the sergeant grudgingly.

Budge, a little piqued, determined to do better. He raised his
foresight slowly; took the first pull; touched "six o'clock" on the
distant bull--luckily the light was perfect--and took the second pull
for the last time.

Next moment a white disc rose slowly out of the earth and covered the
bull's-eye.

So Bobby Little was able next morning to congratulate his disciples
upon being "the best-shooting platoon in the best-shooting Company in
the best-shooting Battalion in the Brigade."

Not less than fifty other subalterns within a radius of five miles
were saying the same thing to their platoons. It is right to foster a
spirit of emulation in young troops.




VIII

BILLETS

_Scene, a village street, deserted. Rain falls_. (It has been falling
for about three weeks.) _A tucket sounds. Enter, reluctantly,
soldiery. They grouse. There appear severally, in doorways, children.
They stare. And at chamber-windows, serving-maids. They make eyes. The
soldiery make friendly signs_.


Such is the stage setting for our daily morning parade. We have been
here for some weeks now, and the populace is getting used to us. But
when we first burst upon this peaceful township I think we may say,
without undue egoism, that we created a profound sensation. In this
sleepy corner of Hampshire His Majesty's uniform, enclosing a casual
soldier or sailor on furlough, is a common enough sight, but a whole
regiment on the march is the rarest of spectacles. As for this
tatterdemalion northern horde, which swept down the street a few
Sundays ago, with kilts swinging, bonnets cocked, and Pipes skirling,
as if they were actually returning from a triumphant campaign instead
of only rehearsing for one--well, as I say, the inhabitants had never
seen anything like us in the world before. We achieved a _succès fou_.
In fact, we were quite embarrassed by the attention bestowed upon us.
During our first few parades the audience could with difficulty be
kept off the stage. It was impossible to get the children into school,
or the maids to come in and make the beds. Whenever a small boy spied
an officer, he stood in his way and saluted him. Dogs enlisted in
large numbers, sitting down with an air of pleased expectancy in the
supernumerary rank, and waiting for this new and delightful pastime to
take a fresh turn. When we marched out to our training area, later in
the day, infant schools were decanted on to the road under a beaming
vicar, to utter what we took to be patriotic sounds and wave
handkerchiefs.

Off duty, we fraternised with the inhabitants. The language was a
difficulty, of course; but a great deal can be done by mutual goodwill
and a few gestures. It would have warmed the heart of a philologist to
note the success with which a couple of kilted heroes from the banks
of Loch Lomond would sidle up to two giggling damosels of Hampshire at
the corner of the High Street, by the post office, and invite them
to come for a walk. Though it was obvious that neither party could
understand a single word that the other was saying, they never failed
to arrive at an understanding; and the quartette, having formed
two-deep, would disappear into a gloaming as black as ink, to inhale
the evening air and take sweet counsel together--at a temperature of
about twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

You ought to see us change guard. A similar ceremony takes place,
we believe, outside Buckingham Palace every morning, and draws a
considerable crowd; but you simply cannot compare it with ours. How
often does the guard at Buckingham Palace fix bayonets? Once! and
the thing is over. It is hardly worth while turning out to see. _We_
sometimes do it as much as seven or eight times before we get it
right, and even then we only stop because the sergeant-in-charge
is threatened with clergyman's sore throat. The morning Private
Mucklewame fixed his bayonet for the first time, two small boys stayed
away from school all day in order to see him unfix it when he came
off guard in the afternoon. Has any one ever done that at Buckingham
Palace?

However, as I say, they have got used to us now. We fall in for our
diurnal labours in comparative solitude, usually in heavy rain and
without pomp. We are fairly into the collar by this time. We have been
worked desperately hard for more than four months; we are grunting
doggedly away at our job, not because we like it, but because we know
it is the only thing to do. To march, to dig, to extend, to close; to
practise advance-guards and rear-guards, and pickets, in fair weather
or foul, often with empty stomachs--that is our daily and sometimes
our nightly programme. We are growing more and more efficient, and
our powers of endurance are increasing. But, as already stated, we no
longer go about our task like singing birds.

It is a quarter to nine in the morning. All down the street doors are
opening, and men appear, tugging at their equipment. (Yes, we are
partially equipped now.) Most of B Company live in this street. They
are fortunate, for only two or three are billeted in each little
house, where they are quite domestic pets by this time. Their
billeting includes "subsistence," which means that they are catered
for by an experienced female instead of a male cooking-class still in
the elementary stages of its art.

"A" are not so fortunate. They are living in barns or hay-lofts,
sleeping on the floor, eating on the floor, existing on the floor
generally. Their food is cooked (by the earnest band of students
aforementioned) in open-air camp-kitchens; and in this weather it is
sometimes difficult to keep the fires alight, and not always possible
to kindle them.

"D" are a shade better off. They occupy a large empty mansion at the
end of the street. It does not contain a stick of furniture; but there
are fireplaces (with Adam mantelpieces), and the one thing of which
the War Office never seems to stint us is coal. So "D" are warm,
anyhow. Thirty men live in the drawing-room. Its late tenant would
probably be impressed with its new scheme of upholstery. On the floor,
straw palliasses and gravy. On the walls, "cigarette photties"--by the
way, the children down here call them "fag picters." Across the room
run clothes-lines, bearing steaming garments (and tell it not in
Gath!) an occasional hare skin.

"C" are billeted in a village two miles away, and we see them but
rarely.

The rain has ceased for a brief space--it always does about parade
time--and we accordingly fall in. The men are carrying picks and
shovels, and make no attempt to look pleased at the circumstance. They
realise that they are in for a morning's hard digging, and very likely
for an evening's field operations as well. When we began, company
training a few weeks ago, entrenching was rather popular. More than
half of us are miners or tillers of the soil, and the pick and shovel
gave us a home-like sensation. Here was a chance, too, of showing
regular soldiers how a job should be properly accomplished. So we dug
with great enthusiasm.

But A Company have got over that now. They have developed into
sufficiently old soldiers to have acquired the correct military
attitude towards manual labour. Trench-digging is a "fatigue," to
be classed with, coal-carrying, floor-scrubbing, and other civilian
pursuits. The word "fatigue" is a shibboleth with, the British
private. Persuade him that a task is part of his duty as a soldier,
and he will perform it with tolerable cheerfulness; but once allow
him to regard that task as a "fatigue," and he will shirk it whenever
possible, and regard himself as a deeply injured individual when
called upon to undertake it. Our battalion has now reached a
sufficient state of maturity to be constantly on the _qui vive_ for
cunningly disguised fatigues. The other day, when kilts were issued
for the first time, Private Tosh, gloomily surveying his newly
unveiled extremities, was heard to remark with a sigh--

"Anither fatigue! Knees tae wash, noo!"

Presently Captain Blaikie arrives upon the scene; the senior subaltern
reports all present, and we tramp off through the mud to our training
area.

We are more or less in possession of our proper equipment now. That
is to say, our wearing apparel and the appurtenances thereof are no
longer held in position with string. The men have belts, pouches, and
slings in which to carry their greatcoats. The greatcoats were the
last to materialise. Since their arrival we have lost in decorative
effect what we have gained in martial appearance. For a month or two
each man wore over his uniform during wet weather--in other words,
all day--a garment which the Army Ordnance Department described
as--"Greatcoat, Civilian, one." An Old Testament writer would have
termed it "a coat of many colours." A tailor would have said that it
was a "superb vicuna raglan sack." You and I would have called it,
quite simply, a reach-me-down. Anyhow, the combined effect was unique.
As we plodded patiently along the road in our tarnished finery, with
our eye-arresting checks and imitation velvet collars, caked with mud
and wrinkled with rain, we looked like nothing so much on earth as
a gang of weighers returning from an unsuccessful day at a suburban
race-meeting.

But now the khaki-mills have ground out another million yards or
so, and we have regulation greatcoats. Water-bottles, haversacks,
mess-tins, and waterproof sheets have been slowly filtering into our
possession; and whenever we "mobilise," which we do as a rule about
once a fortnight--whether owing to invasion scares or as a test of
efficiency we do not know--we fall in on our alarm-posts in something
distinctly resembling 'the full "Christmas-tree" rig. Sam Browne belts
have been wisely discarded by the officers in favour of web-equipment;
and although Bobby Little's shoulders ache with the weight of his
pack, he is comfortably conscious of two things--firstly, that even
when separated from his baggage he can still subsist in fair
comfort on what he carries upon his person; and secondly, that his
"expectation of life," as the insurance offices say, has increased
about a hundred per cent. now that the German sharpshooters will no
longer be able to pick him out from his men.

Presently we approach the scene of our day's work, Area Number
Fourteen. We are now far advanced in company training. The barrack
square is a thing of the past. Commands are no longer preceded by
cautions and explanations. A note on a whistle, followed by a brusque
word or gesture, is sufficient to set us smartly on the move.

Suddenly we are called upon to give a test of our quality. A rotund
figure upon horseback appears at a bend in the road. Captain Blaikie
recognises General Freeman.

(We may note that the General's name is not really Freeman. We are
much harried by generals at present. They roam about the country on
horseback, and ask company commanders what they are doing; and no
company commander has ever yet succeeded in framing an answer which
sounds in the least degree credible. There are three generals; we call
them Freeman, Hardy, and Willis, because we suspect that they
are all--to judge from their fondness for keeping us on the
run--financially interested in the consumption of shoe-leather.
In other respects they differ, and a wise company commander will
carefully bear their idiosyncrasies in mind and act accordingly, if he
wishes to be regarded as an intelligent officer.)

Freeman is a man of action. He likes to see people running about. When
he appears upon the horizon whole battalions break into a double.

Hardy is one of the old school: he likes things done decently and in
order. He worships bright buttons, and exact words of command, and a
perfectly wheeling line. He mistrusts unconventional movements and
individual tactics. "No use trying to run," he says, "before you can
walk." When we see him, we dress the company and advance in review
order.

Willis gives little trouble. He seldom criticises, but when he does
his criticism is always of a valuable nature; and he is particularly
courteous and helpful to young officers. But, like lesser men, he has
his fads. These are two--feet and cookery. He has been known to call a
private out of the ranks on a route-march and request him to take his
boots off for purposes of public display. "A soldier marches on two
things," he announces--"his feet and his stomach." Then he calls up
another man and asks him if he knows how to make a sea-pie. The man
never does know, which is fortunate, for otherwise General Willis
would not be able to tell him. After that he trots happily away, to
ask some one else.

However, here we are face to face with General Freeman. Immediate
action is called for. Captain Blaikie flings an order over his
shoulder to the subaltern in command of the leading platoon--

"Pass back word that this road is under shell fire. Move!"

--and rides forward to meet the General.

In ten seconds the road behind him is absolutely clear, and the men
are streaming out to right and left in half-platoons. Waddell's
platoon has the hardest time, for they were passing a quickset hedge
when the order came. However, they hurl themselves blasphemously
through, and double on, scratched and panting.

"Good morning, sir!" says Captain Blaikie, saluting.

"Good morning!" says General Freeman. "What was that last movement?"

"The men are taking 'artillery' formation, sir. I have just passed the
word down that the road is under shell fire."

"Quite so. But don't you think you ought to keep some of your company
in rear, as a supporting line? I see you have got them all up on one
front."

By this time A Company is advancing in its original direction, but
split up into eight half-platoons in single file--four on each side of
the road, at intervals of thirty yards. The movement has been quite
smartly carried out. Still, a critic must criticise or go out of
business. However, Captain Blaikie is an old hand.

"I was assuming that my company formed part of a battalion, sir," he
explained. "There are supposed to be three other companies in rear of
mine."

"I see. Still, tell two of your sections to fall back and form a
supporting line."

Captain Blaikie, remembering that generals have little time for study
of such works as the new drill-book, and that when General Freeman
says "section" he probably means "platoon," orders Numbers Two and
Four to fall back. This manoeuvre is safely accomplished.

"Now, let me see them close on the road."

Captain Blaikie blows a whistle, and slaps himself on the top of the
head. In three minutes the long-suffering platoons are back on the
road, extracting thorns from their flesh and assuaging the agony of
their abrasions by clandestine massage.

General Freeman rides away, and the column moves on. Two minutes later
Captain Wagstaffe doubles up from the rear to announce that General
Hardy is only two hundred yards behind.

"Pass back word to the men," groans Captain Blaikie, "to march at
attention, put their caps straight, and slope their shovels properly.
And send an orderly to that hilltop to look out for General Willis.
Tell him to unlace his boots when he gets there, and on no account to
admit that he knows how to make a sea-pie!"




IX

MID-CHANNEL


The Great War has been terribly hard on the text-books.

When we began to dig trenches, many weeks ago, we always selected a
site with a good field of fire.

"No good putting your trenches," said the text-book, "where you can't
see the enemy."

This seemed only common-sense; so we dug our trenches in open plains,
or on the forward slope of a hill, where we could command the enemy's
movements up to two thousand yards.

Another maxim which we were urged to take to heart was--When not
entrenched, always take advantage of _natural_ cover of any kind; such
as farm buildings, plantations, and railway embankments.

We were also given practice in describing and recognising
inconspicuous targets at long range, in order to be able to harass the
enemy the moment he showed himself.

Well, recently generals and staff officers have been coming home
from the front and giving us lectures. We regard most lectures as
a "fatigue"--but not these. We have learned more from these
quiet-mannered, tired-looking men in a brief hour than from all the
manuals that ever came out of Gale and Poldens'. We have heard the
history of the War from the inside. We know why our Army retreated
from Mons; we know what prevented the relief of Antwerp. But above
all, we have learned to revise some of our most cherished theories.

Briefly, the amended version of the law and the prophets comes to
this:--

Never, under any circumstances, place your trenches where you can see
the enemy a long way off. If you do, he will inevitably see you too,
and will shell you out of them in no time. You need not be afraid
of being rushed; a field of fire of two hundred yards or so will be
sufficient to wipe him off the face of the earth.

Never, under any circumstances, take cover in farm buildings, or
plantations, or behind railway embankments, or in any place likely to
be marked on a large-scale map. Their position and range are known to
a yard. Your safest place is the middle of an open plain or ploughed
field. There it will be more difficult for the enemy's range-takers to
gauge your exact distance.

In musketry, concentrate all your energies on taking care of your
rifle and practising "rapid." You will seldom have to fire over a
greater distance than two hundred yards; and at that range British
rapid fire is the most dreadful medium of destruction yet devised in
warfare.

All this scraps a good deal of laboriously acquired learning, but
it rings true. So we site our trenches now according to the lessons
taught us by the bitter experience of others.

Having arrived at our allotted area, we get to work. The firing-trench
proper is outlined on the turf a hundred yards or so down the reverse
slope of a low hill. When it is finished it will be a mere crack in
the ground, with no front cover to speak of; for that would make it
conspicuous. Number One Platoon gets to work on this. To Number Two
is assigned a more subtle task--namely, the construction of a dummy
trench a comfortable distance ahead, dug out to the depth of a few
inches, to delude inquisitive aeroplanes, and rendered easily visible
to the enemy's observing stations by a parapet of newly-turned earth.
Numbers Three and Four concentrate their energies upon the supporting
trench and its approaches.

The firing-trench is our place of business--our office in the city, so
to speak. The supporting trench is our suburban residence, whither the
weary toiler may betake himself periodically (or, more correctly, in
relays) for purposes of refreshment and repose. The firing-trench,
like most business premises, is severe in design and destitute of
ornament. But the suburban trench lends itself to more imaginative
treatment. An auctioneer's catalogue would describe it as _A
commodious bijou residence, on_ (or of) _chalky soil; three feet wide
and six feet deep; in the style of the best troglodyte period. Thirty
seconds brisk crawl (or per stretcher) from the firing line. Gas laid
on_--

But only once, in a field near Aldershot, where Private Mucklewame
first laid bare, and then perforated, the town main with his pick.

--_With own water supply_--ankle-deep at times--_telephone, and the
usual offices_.

We may note that the telephone communicates with the
observing-station, lying well forward, in line with the dummy trench.
The most important of the usual offices is the hospital--a cavern
excavated at the back of the trench, and roofed over with hurdles,
earth, and turf.

It is hardly necessary to add that we do not possess a real
field-telephone. But when you have spent four months in firing dummy
cartridges, performing bayonet exercises without bayonets, taking
hasty cover from non-existent shell fire, capturing positions held
by no enemy, and enacting the part of a "casualty" without having
received a scratch, telephoning without a telephone is a comparatively
simple operation. All you require is a ball of string and no sense of
humour. Second Lieutenant Waddell manages our telephone.

Meanwhile we possess our souls in patience. We know that the factories
are humming night and day on our behalf; and that if, upon a certain
day in a certain month, the contractors do not deliver our equipment
down to the last water-bottle cork, "K" will want to know the reason
why; and we cannot imagine any contractor being so foolhardy as to
provoke that terrible man into an inquiring attitude of mind.

Now we are at work. We almost wish that Freeman, Hardy, and Willis
could see us. Our buttons may occasionally lack lustre; we may cherish
unorthodox notions as to the correct method of presenting arms; we
may not always present an unbroken front on the parade-ground--but we
_can_ dig! Even the fact that we do not want to, cannot altogether
eradicate a truly human desire to "show off." "Each man to his art,"
we say. We are quite content to excel in ours, the oldest in the
world. We know enough now about the conditions of the present war to
be aware that when we go out on service only three things will really
count--to march; to dig; and to fire, upon occasion, fifteen rounds
a minute. Our rapid fire is already fair; we can march more than a
little; and if men who have been excavating the bowels of the earth
for eight hours a day ever since they were old enough to swing a pick
cannot make short work of a Hampshire chalk down, they are no true
members of their Trades Union or the First Hundred Thousand.

We have stuck to the phraseology of our old calling.

"Whaur's ma drawer?" inquires Private Hogg, a thick-set young man with
bandy legs, wiping his countenance with a much-tattooed arm. He
has just completed five strenuous minutes with a pick. "Come away,
Geordie, wi' yon shovel!"

The shovel is preceded by an adjective. It is the only adjective that
A Company knows. (No, not that one. The second on the list!)

Mr. George Ogg steps down into the breach, and sets to work. He is a
small man, strongly resembling the Emperor of China in a third-rate
provincial pantomime. His weapon is the spade. In civil life he would
have shovelled the broken coal into a "hutch," and "hurled" it away to
the shaft. That was why Private Hogg referred to him as a "drawer." In
his military capacity he now removes the chalky soil from the trench
with great dexterity, and builds it up into a neat parapet behind, as
a precaution against the back-blast of a "Black Maria."

There are not enough, picks and shovels to go round--_cela va sans
dire_. However, Private Mucklewame and others, who are not of the
delving persuasion, exhibit no resentment. Digging is not their
department. If you hand them a pick and shovel and invite them to
set to work, they lay the pick upon the ground beside the trench and
proceed to shovel earth over it until they have lost it. At a later
stage in this great war-game they will fight for these picks and
shovels like wild beasts. Shrapnel is a sure solvent of professional
etiquette.

However, to-day the pickless squad are lined up a short distance away
by the relentless Captain Wagstaffe, and informed--

"You are under fire from that wood. Dig yourselves in!"

Digging oneself in is another highly unpopular fatigue. First of
all you produce your portable entrenching-tool--it looks like a
combination of a modern tack-hammer and a medieval back-scratcher--and
fit it to its haft. Then you lie flat upon your face on the wet grass,
and having scratched up some small lumps of turf, proceed to build
these into a parapet. Into the hole formed by the excavation of the
turf you then put your head, and in this ostrich-like posture await
further instructions. Private Mucklewame is of opinion that it would
be equally effective, and infinitely less fatiguing, simply to lie
down prone and close the eyes.

After Captain Wagstaffe has criticised the preliminary parapets--most
of them are condemned as not being bullet-proof--the work is
continued. It is not easy, and never comfortable, to dig lying down;
but we must all learn to do it; so we proceed painfully to construct a
shallow trough for our bodies and an annexe for our boots. Gradually
we sink out of sight, and Captain Wagstaffe, standing fifty yards to
our front, is able to assure us that he can now see nothing--except
Private Mucklewame's lower dorsal curve.

By this time the rain has returned for good, and the short winter day
is drawing to a gloomy close. It is after three, and we have been
working, with one brief interval, for nearly five hours. The signal is
given to take shelter. We huddle together under the leafless trees,
and get wetter.

Next comes the order to unroll greatcoats. Five minutes later comes
another--to fall in. Tools are counted; there is the usual maddening
wait while search is made for a missing pick. But at last the final
word of command rings out, and the sodden, leaden-footed procession
sets out on its four-mile tramp home.

We are not in good spirits. One's frame of mind at all times depends
largely upon what the immediate future has to offer; and, frankly,
we have little to inspire us in that direction at present. When we
joined, four long months ago, there loomed largely and splendidly
before our eyes only two alternatives--victory in battle or death with
honour. We might live, or we might die; but life, while it lasted,
would not lack great moments. In our haste we had overlooked the
long dreary waste which lay--which always lies--between dream and
fulfilment. The glorious splash of patriotic fervour which launched us
on our way has subsided; we have reached mid-channel; and the haven
where we would be is still afar off. The brave future of which we
dreamed in our dour and uncommunicative souls seems as remote as ever,
and the present has settled down into a permanency.

To-day, for instance, we have tramped a certain number of miles; we
have worked for a certain number of hours; and we have got wet through
for the hundredth time. We are now tramping home to a dinner which
will probably not be ready, because, as yesterday, it has been cooked
in the open air under weeping skies. While waiting for it, we shall
clean the same old rifle. When night falls, we shall sleep uneasily
upon a comfortless floor, in an atmosphere of stale food and damp
humanity. In the morning we shall rise up reluctantly, and go forth,
probably in heavy rain, to our labour until the evening--the same
labour and the same evening. We admit that it can't be helped: the
officers and the authorities do their best for us under discouraging
circumstances: but there it is. Out at the front, we hear, men
actually get as much as three days off at a time--three days of hot
baths and abundant food and dry beds. To us, in our present frame of
mind, that seems worth any number of bullets and frost-bites.

And--bitterest thought of all--New Year's Day, with all its convivial
associations, is only a few weeks away. When it comes, the folk at
home will celebrate it, doubtless with many a kindly toast to the lads
"oot there," and the lads "doon there." But what will that profit us?
In this barbarous country we understand that they take no notice of
the sacred festival at all. There will probably be a route-march, to
keep us out of the public-houses.

_Et patiti, et patita_. Are we fed up? YES!

As we swing down the village street, slightly cheered by a faint aroma
of Irish stew--the cooks have got the fires alight after all--the
adjutant rides up, and reins in his horse beside our company
commander.

Battalion orders of some kind! Probably a full-dress parade, to trace
a missing bayonet!

Presently he rides away; and Captain Blaikie, instead of halting and
dismissing us in the street as usual, leads us down an alley into the
backyard which serves as our apology for a parade-ground. We form
close column of platoons, stand at ease, and wait resignedly.

Then Captain Blaikie's voice falls upon our ears.

"A Company, I have an announcement to make to you. His Majesty the
King--"

So that is it. Another Royal Review! Well, it will be a break in the
general monotony.

"--who has noted your hard work, good discipline, and steady progress
with the keenest satisfaction and pride--"

We are not utterly forgotten, then.

"--has commanded that every man in the battalion is to have seven
days' full leave of absence."

"A-a-ah!" We strain our tingling ears.

"We are to go by companies, a week at a time. 'C' will go first."

"C" indeed! Who are "C," to--?

"A Company's leave--_our_ leave--will begin on the twenty-eighth of
December, and extend to the third of January."

The staccato words sink slowly in, and then thoughts come tumbling.

"Free--free on New Year's Day! Almichty! Free to gang hame! Free
tae--"

Then comes an icy chill upon our hearts. How are we to get home?
Scotland is hundreds of miles away. The fare, even on a "soldier's"
ticket--

But the Captain has not quite finished.

"Every man will receive a week's pay in advance; and his fare, home
and back, will be paid by Government. That is all."

And quite enough too! We rock upon our squelching feet. But the
Captain adds, without any suspicion of his parade-ground manner--

"If I may say so, I think that if ever men deserved a good holiday,
you do. Company, slope arms! Dis-_miss_!"

       *       *       *       *       *

We do not cheer: we are not built that way. But as we stream off to
our Irish stew, the dourest of us says in his heart--

"God Save the King!"




X

DEEDS OF DARKNESS


A moonlit, wintry night. Four hundred men are clumping along the
frost-bound road, under the pleasing illusion that because they are
neither whistling nor talking they are making no noise.

At the head of the column march Captains Mackintosh and Shand, the
respective commanders of C and D Companies. Occasionally Mackintosh,
the senior, interpolates a remark of a casual or professional nature.
To all these his colleague replies in a low and reproachful whisper.
The pair represent two schools of military thought--a fact of which
their respective subalterns are well aware,--and act accordingly.

"In preparing troops for active service, you must make the conditions
as _real_ as possible from the very outset," postulates Shand.
"Perform all your exercises just as you would in war. When you dig
trenches, let every man work with his weather-eye open and his rifle
handy, in case of sudden attack. If you go out on night operations
don't advertise your position by stopping to give your men a
recitation. No talking--no smoking--no unnecessary delay or exposure!
Just go straight to your point of deployment, and do what you came out
to do."

To this Mackintosh replies,--

"That's all right for trained troops. But ours aren't half-trained
yet; all our work just now is purely educational. It's no use
expecting a gang of rivet-heaters from Clydebank to form an elaborate
outpost line, just because you whispered a few sweet nothings in the
dark to your leading section of fours! You simply _must_ explain every
step you take, at present."

But Shand shakes his head.

"It's not soldierly," he sighs.

Hence the present one-sided--or apparently one-sided--dialogue. To the
men marching immediately behind, it sounds like something between a
soliloquy and a chat over the telephone.

Presently Captain Mackintosh announces,--

"We might send the scouts ahead now I think."

Shand gives an inaudible assent. The column is halted, and the scouts
called up. A brief command, and they disappear into the darkness, at
the double. C and D Companies give them five minutes start, and move
on. The road at this point runs past a low mossy wall, surmounted by a
venerable yew hedge, clipped at intervals into the semblance of some
heraldic monster. Beyond the hedge, in the middle distance, looms a
square and stately Georgian mansion, whose lights twinkle hospitably.

"I think, Shand," suggests Mackintosh with more formality, now that
he is approaching the scene of action, "that we might attack at two
different points, each of us with his own company. What is your
opinion?"

The officer addressed makes no immediate reply. His gaze is fixed upon
the yew hedge, as if searching for gun positions or vulnerable points.
Presently, however, he turns away, and coming close to Captain
Mackintosh, puts his lips to his left ear. Mackintosh prepares his
intellect for the reception of a pearl of strategy.

But Captain Shand merely announces, in his regulation whisper,--

"Dam pretty girl lives in that house, old man!"


II

Private Peter Dunshie, scout, groping painfully and profanely through
a close-growing wood, paused to unwind a clinging tendril from his
bare knees. As he bent down, his face came into sudden contact with
a cold, wet, prickly bramble-bush, which promptly drew a loving but
excoriating finger across his right cheek.

He started back, with a muffled exclamation. Instantly there arose at
his very feet the sound as of a motor-engine being wound up, and a
flustered and protesting cock-pheasant hoisted itself tumultuously
clear of the undergrowth and sailed away, shrieking, over the trees.

Finally, a hare, which had sat cowering in the bracken, hare-like,
when it might have loped away, selected this, the one moment when it
ought to have sat still, to bolt frantically between Peter's bandy
legs and speed away down a long moon-dappled avenue.

Private Dunshie, a prey to nervous shock, said what naturally rose
to his lips. To be frank, he said it several times. He had spent the
greater part of his life selling evening papers in the streets of
Glasgow: and the profession of journalism, though it breeds many
virtues in its votaries, is entirely useless as a preparation for
conditions either of silence or solitude. Private Dunshie had no
experience of either of these things, and consequently feared them
both. He was acutely afraid. What he understood and appreciated was
Argyle Street on a Saturday night. That was life! That was light! That
was civilisation! As for creeping about in this uncanny wood, filled
with noxious animals and adhesive vegetation--well, Dunshie was
heartily sorry that he had ever volunteered for service as a scout. He
had only done so, of course, because the post seemed to offer certain
relaxations from the austerity of company routine--a little more
freedom of movement, a little less trench-digging, and a minimum of
supervision. He would have been thankful for a supervisor now!

That evening, when the scouts doubled ahead, Lieutenant Simson had
halted them upon the skirts of a dark, dreich plantation, and said--

"A and B Companies represent the enemy. They are beyond that crest,
finishing the trenches which were begun the other day. They intend
to hold these against our attack. Our only chance is to take them by
surprise. As they will probably have thrown out a line of outposts,
you scouts will now scatter and endeavour to get through that line, or
at least obtain exact knowledge of its composition. My belief is that
the enemy will content themselves with placing a piquet on each of the
two roads which run through their position; but it is possible that
they will also post sentry-groups in the wood which lies between.
However, that is what you have to find out. Don't go and get captured.
Move!"

The scouts silently scattered, and each man set out to pierce his
allotted section of the enemy's position. Private Dunshie, who had
hoped for a road, or at least a cart-track, to follow, found himself,
by the worst of luck, assigned to a portion of the thick belt of wood
which stretched between the two roads. Nature had not intended him
for a pioneer: he was essentially a city man. However, he toiled on,
rending the undergrowth, putting up game, falling over tree-roots, and
generally acting as advertising agent for the approaching attack.

By way of contrast, two hundred yards to his right, picking his way
with cat-like care and rare enjoyment, was Private M'Snape. He was of
the true scout breed. In the dim and distant days before the call of
the blood had swept him into "K(1)," he had been a Boy Scout of no
mean repute. He was clean in person and courteous in manner. He could
be trusted to deliver a message promptly. He could light a fire in a
high wind with two matches, and provide himself with a meal of sorts
where another would have starved. He could distinguish an oak from an
elm, and was sufficiently familiar with the movements of the heavenly
bodies to be able to find his way across country by night. He was
truthful, and amenable to discipline. In short, he was the embodiment
of a system which in times of peace had served as a text for
innumerable well-meaning but muddle-headed politicians of a certain
type, who made a specialty of keeping the nation upon the alert
against the insidious encroachments of--Heaven help us!--Militarism!

To-night all M'Snape's soul was set on getting through the enemy's
outpost line, and discovering a way of ingress for the host behind
him. He had no map, but he had the Plough and a fitful moon to guide
him, and he held a clear notion of the disposition of the trenches in
his retentive brain. On his left he could hear the distressing sounds
of Dunshie's dolorous progress; but these were growing fainter. The
reason was that Dunshie, like most persons who follow the line of
least resistance, was walking in a circle. In fact, a few minutes
later his circuitous path brought him out upon the long straight road
which ran up over the hill towards the trenches.

With a sigh of relief Dunshie stepped out upon the good hard macadam,
and proceeded with the merest show of stealth up the gentle gradient.
But he was not yet at ease. The over-arching trees formed a tunnel in
which his footsteps reverberated uncomfortably. The moon had retired
behind a cloud. Dunshie, gregarious and urban, quaked anew. Reflecting
longingly upon his bright and cosy billet, with the "subsistence"
which was doubtless being prepared against his return, he saw no
occasion to reconsider his opinion that in the country no decent body
should over be called up to go out after dark unaccompanied. At that
moment Dunshie would have bartered his soul for the sight of an
electric tram.

The darkness grew more intense. Something stirred in the wood beside
him, and his skin tingled. An owl hooted suddenly, and he jumped.
Next, the gross darkness was illuminated by a pale and ghostly
radiance, coming up from behind; and something brushed past
him--something which squeaked and panted. His hair rose upon his
scalp. A friendly "Good-night!" uttered in a strong Hampshire accent
into his left ear, accentuated rather than soothed his terrors. He sat
down suddenly upon a bank by the roadside, and feebly mopped his moist
brow.

The bicycle, having passed him, wobbled on up the hill, shedding a
fitful ray upon alternate sides of the road. Suddenly--raucous and
stunning, but oh, how sweet!--rang out the voice of Dunshie's lifelong
friend, Private Mucklewame.

"Halt! Wha goes there!"

The cyclist made no reply, but kept his devious course. Private
Mucklewame, who liked to do things decently and in order, stepped
heavily out of the hedge into the middle of the road, and repeated his
question in a reproving voice. There was no answer.

This was most irregular. According to the text of the spirited little
dialogue in which Mucklewame had been recently rehearsed by his piquet
commander, the man on the bicycle ought to have said "Friend!" This
cue received, Mucklewame was prepared to continue. Without it he was
gravelled. He tried once more.

"Halt! Wha goes--"

"On His Majesty's Service, my lad!" responded a hearty voice; and the
postman, supplementing this information with a friendly good-night,
wobbled up the hill and disappeared from sight.

The punctilious Mucklewame was still glaring severely after this
unseemly "gagger," when he became aware of footsteps upon the road.
A pedestrian was plodding up the hill in the wake of the postman. He
would stand no nonsense this time.

"Halt!" he commanded. "Wha goes there?"

"Hey, Jock," inquired a husky voice, "is that you?"

This was another most irregular answer. Declining to be drawn into
impromptu irrelevancies, Mucklewame stuck to his text.

"Advance yin," he continued, "and give the coontersign, if any!"

Private Dunshie drew nearer.

"Jock," he inquired wistfully, "hae ye gotten a fag?"

"Aye," replied Mucklewame, friendship getting the better of
conscience.

"Wull ye give a body yin?"

"Aye. But ye canna smoke on ootpost duty," explained Mucklewame
sternly. "Forbye, the officer has no been roond yet," he added.

"Onyway," urged Dunshie eagerly, "let nae be your prisoner! Let me
bide with the other boys in here ahint the dyke!"

The hospitable Mucklewame agreed, and Scout Dunshie, overjoyed at the
prospect of human companionship, promptly climbed over the low wall
and attached himself, in the _rôle_ of languishing captive, to Number
Two Sentry-Group of Number Three Piquet.


III

Meanwhile M'Snape had reached the forward edge of the wood, and was
cautiously reconnoitring the open ground in front of him. The moon
had disappeared altogether now, but M'Snape was able to calculate, by
reason of the misdirected exuberance of the vigilant Mucklewame, the
exact position of the sentry-group on the left-hand road. About the
road on his right he was not so certain; so he set out cautiously
towards it, keeping to the edge of the wood, and pausing every few
yards to listen. There must be a sentry-group somewhere here, he
calculated--say midway between the roads. He must walk warily.

Easier said than done. At this very moment a twig snapped beneath his
foot with a noise like a pistol-shot, and a covey of partridges, lying
out upon the stubble beside him, made an indignant evacuation of their
bedroom. The mishap seemed fatal: M'Snape stood like a stone. But no
alarm followed, and presently all was still again--so still, indeed,
that presently, out on the right, two hundred yards away, M'Snape
heard a man cough and then spit. Another sentry was located!

Having decided that there was no sentry-group between the two roads,
M'Snape turned his back upon the wood and proceeded cautiously
forward. He was not quite satisfied in his mind about things. He knew
that Captain Wagstaffe was in command of this section of the defence.
He cherished a wholesome respect for that efficient officer, and
doubted very much if he would really leave so much of his front
entirely unguarded.

Next moment the solution of the puzzle was in his very hand--in the
form of a stout cord stretching from right to left. He was just in
time to avoid tripping over it. It was suspended about six inches
above the ground.

You cannot follow a clue in two directions at once; so after a little
consideration M'Snape turned and crawled along to his right, being
careful to avoid touching the cord. Presently a black mass loomed
before him, acting apparently as terminus to the cord. Lying flat on
his stomach, in order to get as much as possible of this obstacle
between his eyes and the sky, M'Snape was presently able to descry,
plainly silhouetted against the starry landscape, the profile of one
Bain, a scout of A Company, leaning comfortably against a small bush,
and presumably holding the end of the cord in his hand.

M'Snape wriggled silently away, and paused to reflect. Then he began
to creep forward once more.

Having covered fifty yards, he turned to his right again, and
presently found himself exactly between Bain and the trenches. As he
expected, his hand now descended upon another cord, lying loosely on
the ground, and running at right angles to the first. Plainly Bain
was holding one end of this, and some one in the trenches--Captain
Wagstaffe himself, as like as not--was holding the other. If an enemy
stumbled over the trip-cord, Bain would warn the defence by twitching
the alarm-cord.

Five minutes later M'Snape was back at the rendezvous, describing to
Simson what he had seen. That wise subaltern promptly conducted him to
Captain Mackintosh, who was waiting with his Company for something
to go upon. Shand had departed with his own following to make an
independent attack on the right flank. Seven of the twelve scouts were
there. Of the missing, Dunshie, as we know, was sunning his lonely
soul in the society of his foes; two had lost themselves, and the
remaining two had been captured by a reconnoitring patrol. Of the
seven which strayed not, four had discovered the trip-cord; so it was
evident that that ingenious contrivance extended along the whole line.
Only M'Snape, however, had penetrated farther. The general report was
that the position was closely guarded from end to end.

"You say you found a cord running back from Bain to the trenches,
M'Snape," asked Captain Mackintosh, "and a sentry holding on to it?"

"Yess, sirr," replied the scout, standing stiffly to attention in the
dark.

"If we could creep out of the wood and rush _him_, we might be able to
slip our attack in at that point," said the Captain. "You say there is
cover to within twenty yards of where he is sitting?"

"Yes, sirr."

"Still, I'm afraid he'll pull that cord a bit too soon for us."

"He'll no, sirr," remarked M'Snape confidently.

"Why not?" asked the Captain.

M'Snape told him.

Captain Mackintosh surveyed the small wizened figure before him almost
affectionately.

"M'Snape," he said, "to-morrow I shall send in your name for
lance-corporal!"


IV

The defenders were ready. The trenches were finished: "A" and "B" had
adjusted their elbow-rests to their liking, and blank ammunition had
been served out. Orders upon the subject of firing were strict.

"We won't loose off a single shot until we actually _see_ you,"
Captain Blaikie had said to Captain Mackintosh. "That will teach your
men to crawl upon their little tummies, and ours to keep their eyes
skinned."

(Captain Wagstaffe's string alarm had been an afterthought. At least,
it was not mentioned to the commander of the attack.)

Orders were given that the men were to take things easily for half an
hour or so, as the attack could not possibly be developed within that
time. The officers established themselves in a splinter-proof shelter
at the back of the supporting trench, and partook of provender from
their haversacks.

"I don't suppose they'll attack much before nine," said the voice of
a stout major named Kemp. "My word, it is dark in here! _And_ dull!
Curse the Kaiser!"

"I don't know," said Wagstaffe thoughtfully. "War is hell, and all
that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the
small nuisances of peace-time."

"Such as--!"

"Well, Suffragettes, and Futurism, and--and--"

"Bernard Shaw," suggested another voice. "Hall Caine--"

"Yes, and the Tango, and party politics, and golf-maniacs. Life and
Death, and the things that really are big, get viewed in their proper
perspective for once in a way."

"And look how the War has bucked up the nation," said Bobby Little,
all on fire at once. "Look at the way girls have given up fussing over
clothes and things, and taken to nursing."

"My poor young friend," said the voice of the middle-aged Kemp, "tell
me honestly, would you like to be attended to by some of the young
women who have recently taken up the nursing profession?"

"Rather!" said Bobby, with thoughtless fervour.

"I didn't say _one_," Kemp pointed out, amid laughter, "but _some_.
Of course we all know of one. Even I do. It's the rule, not the
exception, that we are dealing with just now."

Bobby, realising that he had been unfairly surprised in a secret, felt
glad that the darkness covered his blushes.

"Well, take my tip," continued Kemp, "and avoid amateur ministering
angels, my son. I studied the species in South Africa. For twenty-four
hours they nurse you to death, and after that they leave you to perish
of starvation. Women in war-time are best left at home."

A youthful paladin in the gloom timidly mentioned the name of Florence
Nightingale.

"One Nightingale doesn't make a base hospital," replied Kemp. "I
take off my hat--we all do--to women who are willing to undergo the
drudgery and discomfort which hospital training involves. But I'm
not talking about Florence Nightingales. The young person whom I am
referring to is just intelligent enough to understand that the only
possible thing to do this season is to nurse. She qualifies herself
for her new profession by dressing up like one of the chorus of
'The Quaker Girl,' and getting her portrait, thus attired, into the
'Tatler.' Having achieved this, she has graduated. She then proceeds
to invade any hospital that is available, where she flirts with
everything in pyjamas, and freezes you with a look if you ask her to
empty a basin or change your sheets. I know her! I've had some, and I
know her! She is one of the minor horrors of war. In peace-time she
goes out on Alexandra Day, and stands on the steps of men's clubs and
pesters the members to let her put a rose in their button-holes. What
such a girl wants is a good old-fashioned mother who knows how to put
a slipper to its right use!"

"I don't think," observed Wagstaffe, since Kemp had apparently
concluded his philippic, "that young girls are the only people who
lose their heads. Consider all the poisonous young blighters that one
sees about town just now. Their uplift is enormous, and their manners
in public horrid; and they hardly know enough about their new job to
stand at attention when they hear 'God Save the King.' In fact, they
deserve to be nursed by your little friends, Bobby!"

"They are all that you say," conceded Kemp. "But after all, they do
have a fairly stiff time of it on duty, and they are going to have a
much stiffer time later on. And they are not going to back out when
the romance of the new uniform wears off, remember. Now these girls
will play the angel-of-mercy game for a week or two, and then jack up
and confine their efforts to getting hold of a wounded officer and
taking him to the theatre. It is _dernier cri_ to take a wounded
officer about with you at present. Wounded officers have quite
superseded Pekinese, I am told."

"Women certainly are the most extraordinary creatures," mused Ayling,
a platoon commander of "B." "In private life I am a beak at a public
school--"

"What school?" inquired several voices. Ayling gave the name, found
that there were two of the school's old boys present, and continued--

"Just as I was leaving to join this battalion, the Head received
a letter from a boy's mother intimating that she was obliged to
withdraw her son, as he had received a commission in the army for the
duration of the war. She wanted to know if the Head would keep her
son's place open for him until he came back! What do you think of
that?"

"Sense of proportion wasn't invented when women were made," commented
Kemp. "But we are wandering from the subject, which is: what
advantages are we, personally, deriving from the war? Wagger, what are
you getting out of it?"

"Half-a-crown a day extra pay as Assistant Adjutant," replied
Wagstaffe laconically. "Ainslie, wake up and tell us what the war
has done for you, since you abandoned the Stock Exchange and took to
foot-slogging."

"Certainly," replied Ainslie. "A year ago I spent my days trying to
digest my food, and my nights trying to sleep. I was not at all
successful in either enterprise. I can now sit down to a supper of
roast pork and bottled stout, go to bed directly afterwards, sleep all
night, and wake up in the morning without thinking unkind things
of anybody--not even my relations-in-law! Bless the Kaiser, say I!
Borrodaile, what about you? Any complaints?"

"Thank you," replied Borrodaile's dry voice; "there are no complaints.
In civil life I am what is known as a 'prospective candidate.' For
several years I have been exercising this, the only, method of
advertising permitted to a barrister, by nursing a constituency. That
is, I go down to the country once a week, and there reduce myself to
speechlessness soliciting the votes of the people who put my opponent
in twenty years ago, and will keep him in by a two thousand majority
as long as he cares to stand. I have been at it five years, but so far
the old gentleman has never so much as betrayed any knowledge of my
existence."

"That must be rather galling," said Wagstaffe.

"Ah! but listen! Of course party politics have now been merged in the
common cause--see local organs, _passim_--and both sides are working
shoulder to shoulder for the maintenance of our national existence."

"_Applause!_" murmured Kemp.

"That is to say," continued Borrodaile with calm relish, "my opponent,
whose strong suit for the last twenty years has been to cry down the
horrors of militarism, and the madness of national service, and the
unwieldy size of the British Empire, is now compelled to spend his
evenings taking the chair at mass meetings for the encouragement of
recruiting. I believe the way in which he eats up his own previous
utterances on the subject is quite superb. On these occasions I always
send him a telegram, containing a kindly pat on the back for him and
a sort of semi-official message for the audience. He has to read this
out on the platform!"

"What sort of message?" asked a delighted voice.

"Oh--_Send along some more of our boys. Lord Kitchener says there
are none to touch them. Borrodaile, Bruce and Wallace Highlanders_.
Or--_All success to the meeting, and best thanks to you personally for
carrying on in my absence. Borrodaile, Bruce and Wallace Highlanders_.
I have a lot of quiet fun," said Borrodaile meditatively, "composing
those telegrams. I rather fancy"--he examined the luminous watch on
his wrist--"it's five minutes past eight: I rather fancy the old thing
is reading one now!"

The prospective candidate leaned back against the damp wall of the
dug-out with a happy sigh. "What have you got out of the war, Ayling?"
he inquired.

"Change," said Ayling.

"For better or worse?"

"If you had spent seven years in a big public school," said Ayling,
"teaching exactly the same thing, at exactly the same hour, to exactly
the same kind of boy, for weeks on end, what sort of change would you
welcome most?"

"Death," said several voices.

"Nothing of the kind!" said Ayling warmly. "It's a great life, if you
are cut out for it. But there is no doubt that the regularity of the
hours, and the absolute certainty of the future, make a man a bit
groovy. Now in this life we are living we have to do lots of dull or
unpleasant things, but they are never quite the same things. They
are progressive, and not circular, if you know what I mean; and the
immediate future is absolutely unknown, which is an untold blessing.
What about you, Sketchley?"

A fat voice replied--

"War is good for adipose Special Reservists. I have decreased four
inches round the waist since October. Next?"

So the talk ran on. Young Lochgair, heir to untold acres in the far
north and master of unlimited pocket-money, admitted frankly that the
sum of eight-and-sixpence per day, which he was now earning by the
sweat of his brow and the expenditure of shoe-leather, was sweeter to
him than honey in the honeycomb. Hattrick, who had recently put up a
plate in Harley Street, said it was good to be earning a living wage
at last. Mr. Waddell, pressed to say a few words of encouragement of
the present campaign, delivered himself of a guarded but illuminating
eulogy of war as a cure for indecision of mind; from which, coupled
with a coy reference to "some one" in distant St. Andrews, the company
were enabled to gather that Mr. Waddell had carried a position with
his new sword which had proved impregnable to civilian assault.

Only Bobby Little was silent. In all this genial symposium there had
been no word of the spur which was inciting him--and doubtless the
others--along the present weary and monotonous path; and on the whole
he was glad that it should be so. None of us care to talk, even
privately, about the Dream of Honour and the Hope of Glory. The only
difference between Bobby and the others was that while they could
cover up their aspirations with a jest, Bobby must say all that was in
his heart, or keep silent. So he held his peace.

A tall figure loomed against the starlit sky, and Captain Wagstaffe,
who had been out in the trench, spoke quickly to Major Kemp:--

"I think we had better get to our places, sir. Some criminal has cut
my alarm-cord!"


V

Five minutes previously, Private Bain, lulled to a sense of false
security by the stillness of the night, had opened his eyes, which had
been closed for purposes of philosophic reflection, to find himself
surrounded by four ghostly figures in greatcoats. With creditable
presence of mind he jerked his alarm-cord. But, alas! the cord came
with his hand.

He was now a prisoner, and his place in the scout-line was being used
as a point of deployment for the attacking force.

"We're extended right along the line now," said Captain Mackintosh
to Simson. "I can't wait any longer for Shand: he has probably lost
himself. The sentries are all behind us. Pass the word along to crawl
forward. Every man to keep as low as he can, and dress by the right.
No one to charge unless he hears my whistle, or is fired on."

The whispered word--Captain Mackintosh knows when to whisper quite as
well as Captain Shand--runs down the line, and presently we begin to
creep forward, stooping low. Sometimes we halt; sometimes we swing
back a little; but on the whole we progress. Once there is a sudden
exclamation. A highly-strung youth, crouching in a field drain, has
laid his hand upon what looks and feels like a clammy human face,
lying recumbent and staring heavenward. Too late, he recognises a
derelict scarecrow with a turnip head. Again, there is a pause while
the extreme right of the line negotiates an unexpected barbed-wire
fence. Still, we move on, with enormous caution. We are not certain
where the trenches are, but they must be near. At any moment a
crackling volley may leap out upon us. Pulses begin to beat.

In the trench itself eyes are strained and ears cocked. It is an eerie
sensation to know that men are near you, and creeping nearer, yet
remain inaudible and invisible. It is a very dark night. The moon
appears to have gone to bed for good, and the stars are mostly
covered. Men unconsciously endeavour to fan the darkness away with
their hands, like mist. The broken ground in front, with the black
woods beyond, might be concealing an army corps for all the watchers
in the trenches can tell. Far away to the south a bright finger of
light occasionally stabs the murky heavens. It is the searchlight of
a British cruiser, keeping ceaseless vigil in the English Channel,
fifteen miles away. If she were not there we should not be
making-believe here with such comfortable deliberation. It would be
the real thing.

Bobby Little, who by this time can almost discern spiked German
helmets in the gloom, stands tingling. On either side of him are
ranged the men of his platoon--some eager, some sleepy, but all
silent. For the first time he notices that in the distant woods ahead
of him there is a small break--a mere gap--through which one or two
stars are twinkling. If only he could contrive to get a line of sight
direct to that patch of sky--

He moves a few yards along the trench, and brings his eye to the
ground-level. No good: a bush intervenes, fifteen yards away. He moves
further and tries again.

Suddenly, for a brief moment, against the dimly illuminated scrap
of horizon, he descries a human form, clad in a kilt, advancing
stealthily....

"_Number one Platoon_--_at the enemy in front_--_rapid fire_!"

He is just in time. There comes an overwrought roar of musketry all
down the line of trenches. Simultaneously, a solid wall of men rises
out of the earth not fifty yards away, and makes for the trenches with
a long-drawn battle yell.

Make-believe has its thrills as well as the genuine article.

And so home to bed. M'Snape duly became a lance-corporal, while
Dunshie resigned his post as a scout and returned to duty with the
company.




XI

OLYMPUS


Under this designation it is convenient to lump the whole heavenly
host which at present orders our goings and shapes our ends. It
includes--

(1) The War Office;

(2) The Treasury;

(3) The Army Ordnance Office;

(4) Our Divisional Office;

--and other more local and immediate homes of mystery.

The Olympus which controls the destinies of "K(1)" differs in many
respects from the Olympus of antiquity, but its celestial inhabitants
appear to have at least two points in common with the original
body--namely, a childish delight in upsetting one another's
arrangements, and an untimely sense of humour when dealing with
mortals.

So far as our researches have gone, we have been able to classify
Olympus, roughly, into three departments--

(1) Round Game Department (including Dockets, Indents, and all
official correspondence).

(2) Fairy Godmother Department.

(3) Practical Joke Department.

The outstanding feature of the Round Game Department is its craving
for irrelevant information and its passion for detail. "Open your
hearts to us," say the officials of the Department; "unburden your
souls; keep nothing from us--and you will find us most accommodating.
But stand on your dignity; decline to particularise; hold back one
irrelevant detail--and it will go hard with you! Listen, and we
will explain the rules of the game. Think of something you want
immediately--say the command of a brigade, or a couple of washers for
the lock of a machine-gun--and apply to us. The application must be
made in writing, upon the Army Form provided for the purpose, and in
triplicate. _And_--you must put in all the details you can possibly
think of."

For instance, in the case of the machine-gun washers--by the way, in
applying for them, you must call them _Gun, Machine, Light Vickers,
Washers for lock of, two_. That is the way we always talk at the
Ordnance Office. An Ordnance officer refers to his wife's mother as
_Law, Mother-in-, one_--you should state when the old washers were
lost, and by whom; also why they were lost, and where they are now.
Then write a short history of the machine-gun from which they were
lost, giving date and place of birth, together with, a statement of
the exact number of rounds which it has fired--a machine-gun fires
about five hundred rounds a minute--adding the name and military
record of the pack-animal which usually carries it. When you have
filled up this document you forward it to the proper quarter and await
results.

The game then proceeds on simple and automatic lines. If your
application is referred back to you not more than five times, and if
you get your washers within three months of the date of application,
you are the winner. If you get something else instead--say an
aeroplane, or a hundred wash-hand basins--it is a draw. But the
chances are that you lose.

Consider. By the rules of the game, if Olympus can think of a single
detail which has not been thought of by you--for instance, if you omit
to mention that the lost washers were circular in shape and had holes
through the middle--you are _ipso facto_ disqualified, under Rule
One. Rule Two, also, is liable to trip you up. Possibly you may have
written the pack-mule's name in small block capitals, instead of
ordinary italics underlined in red ink, or put the date in Roman
figures instead of Arabic numerals. If you do this, your application
is referred back to you, and you lose a life. And even if you survive
Rules One and Two, Rule Three will probably get you in the end. Under
its provision your application must be framed in such language and
addressed in such a manner that it passes through every department and
sub-department of Olympus before it reaches the right one. The rule
has its origin in the principle which governs the passing of wine at
well-regulated British dinner-tables. That is, if you wish to offer a
glass of port to your neighbour on your right, you hand the decanter
to the neighbour on your left, so that the original object of your
hospitality receives it, probably empty, only after a complete circuit
of the table. In the present instance, the gentleman upon your right
is the President of the Washer Department, situated somewhere in the
Army Ordnance Office, the remaining guests representing the other
centres of Olympian activity. For every department your
application misses, you lose a life, three lost lives amounting to
disqualification.

When the washers are issued, however, the port-wine rule is abandoned;
and the washers are despatched to you, in defiance of all the laws of
superstition and tradition, "widdershins," or counter-clockwise.
No wonder articles thus jeopardised often fail to reach their
destination!

Your last fence comes when you receive a document from Olympus
announcing that your washers are now prepared for you, and that if you
will sign and return the enclosed receipt they will be sent off upon
their last journey. You are now in the worst dilemma of all. Olympus
will not disgorge your washers until it has your receipt. On the other
hand, if you send the receipt, Olympus can always win the game by
losing the washers, and saying that _you_ have got them. In the face
of your own receipt you cannot very well deny this. So you lose
your washers, and the game, and are also made liable for the
misappropriation of two washers, for which Olympus holds your receipt.

Truly, the gods play with loaded dice.

On the whole, the simplest (and almost universal) plan is to convey a
couple of washers from some one else's gun.

The game just described is played chiefly by officers; but this is a
democratic age, and the rank and file are now occasionally permitted
to take part.

For example, boots. Private M'Splae is the possessor, we will say,
of a pair of flat feet, or arched insteps, or other military
incommodities, and his regulation boots do not fit him. More than
that, they hurt him exceedingly, and as he is compelled to wear them
through daily marches of several miles, they gradually wear a hole in
his heel, or a groove in his instep, or a gathering on his great toe.
So he makes the first move in the game, and reports sick--"sair feet."

The Medical Officer, a terribly efficient individual,
keenly--sometimes too keenly--alert for signs of malingering, takes a
cursory glance at M'Splae's feet, and directs the patient's attention
to the healing properties of soap and water. M'Splae departs,
grumbling, and reappears on sick parade a few days later, palpably
worse. This time, the M.O. being a little less pressed with
work, M'Splae is given a dressing for his feet, coupled with a
recommendation to procure a new pair of boots without delay. If
M'Splae is a novice in regimental diplomacy, he will thereupon address
himself to his platoon sergeant, who will consign him, eloquently, to
a destination where only boots with asbestos soles will be of any use.
If he is an old hand, he will simply cut his next parade, and will
thus, rather ingeniously, obtain access to his company commander,
being brought up before him at orderly-room next morning as a
defaulter. To his captain he explains, with simple dignity, that he
absented himself from parade because he found himself unable to "rise
up" from his bed. He then endeavours, by hurriedly unlacing his boots,
to produce his feet as evidence; but is frustrated, and awarded three
extra fatigues for not formally reporting himself sick to the orderly
sergeant. The real point of issue, namely, the unsuitability of
M'Splae's boots, again escapes attention.

There the matter rests until, a few days later, M'Splae falls out on
a long regimental route-march, and hobbles home, chaperoned by a not
ungrateful lance-corporal, in a state of semi-collapse. This time the
M.O. reports to the captain that Private M'Splae will be unfit for
further duty until he is provided with a proper pair of boots. Are
there no boots in the quartermaster's store?

The captain explains that there are plenty of boots, but that under
the rules of the present round game no one has any power to issue
them. (This rule was put in to prevent the game from becoming too
easy, like the spot-barred rule in billiards.) It is a fact well known
to Olympus that no regimental officer can be trusted with boots. Not
even the colonel can gain access to the regimental boot store. For all
Olympus can tell, he might draw a pair of boots and wear them himself,
or dress his children up in them, or bribe the brigadier with them,
instead of issuing them to Private M'Splae. No, Olympus thinks it
wiser not to put temptation in the way of underpaid officers. So the
boots remain locked up, and the taxpayer is protected.

But to be just, there is always a solution to an Olympian enigma, if
you have the patience to go on looking for it. In this case the proper
proceeding is for all concerned, including the prostrate M'Splae, to
wait patiently for a Board to sit. No date is assigned for this event,
but it is bound to occur sooner or later, like a railway accident or
an eclipse of the moon. So one day, out of a cloudless sky, a Board
materialises, and sits on M'Splae's boots. If M'Splae's company
commander happens to be president of the Board the boots are
condemned, and the portals of the quarter-master's store swing open
for a brief moment to emit a new pair.

When M'Splae comes out of hospital, the boots, provided no one has
appropriated them during the term, of his indisposition, are his. He
puts them on, to find that they pinch him in the same place as the old
pair.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then there is the Fairy Godmother Department, which supplies us with
unexpected treats. It is the smallest department on Olympus, and, like
most philanthropic institutions, is rather unaccountable in the manner
in which it distributes its favours. It is somewhat hampered in its
efforts, too, by the Practical Joke Department, which appears to
exercise a sort of general right of interference all over Olympus. For
instance, the Fairy Godmother Department decrees that officers from
Indian regiments, who were home on leave when the War broke out and
were commandeered for service with the Expeditionary Force, shall
continue to draw pay on the Indian scale, which is considerably higher
than that which prevails at home. So far, so good. But the Practical
Joke Department hears of this, and scents an opportunity, in the form
of "deductions." It promptly bleeds the beneficiaire of certain sums
per day, for quarters, horse allowance, forage, and the like. It is
credibly reported that one of these warriors, on emerging from a
week's purgatory in a Belgian trench, found that his accommodation
therein had been charged against him, under the head of "lodgings," at
the rate of two shillings and threepence a night!

But sometimes the Fairy Godmother Department gets a free hand. Like
a benevolent maiden aunt, she unexpectedly drops a twenty-pound note
into your account at Cox's Bank, murmuring something vague about
"additional outfit allowance"; and as Mr. Cox makes a point of backing
her up in her little secret, you receive a delightful surprise next
time you open your pass-book.

She has the family instinct for detail, too, this Fairy Godmother.
Perhaps the electric light in your bedroom fails, and for three days
you have to sit in the dark or purchase candles. An invisible but
observant little cherub notes this fact; and long afterwards a postal
order for tenpence flutters down upon you from Olympus, marked "light
allowance." Once Bobby Little received a mysterious postal order for
one-and-fivepence. It was in the early days of his novitiate, before
he had ceased to question the workings of Providence. So he made
inquiries, and after prolonged investigation discovered the source of
the windfall. On field service an officer is entitled to a certain
sum per day as "field allowance." In barracks, however, possessing a
bedroom and other indoor comforts, he receives no such gratuity. Now
Bobby had once been compelled to share his room for a few nights
with a newly-joined and homeless subaltern. He was thus temporarily
rendered the owner of only half a bedroom. Or, to put it another way,
only half of him was able to sleep in barracks. Obviously, then, the
other half was on field service, and Bobby was therefore entitled to
half field allowance. Hence the one-and-fivepence. I tell you, little
escapes them on Olympus. So does much, but that is another story.

       *       *       *       *       *

Last of all comes the Practical Joke Department. It covers practically
all of one side of Olympus--the shady side.

The jokes usually take the form of an order, followed by a
counter-order. For example--

In his magisterial days Ayling, of whom we have previously heard, was
detailed by his Headmaster to undertake the organisation of a school
corps to serve as a unit of the Officers' Training Corps--then one of
the spoilt bantlings of the War Office. Being a vigorous and efficient
young man, Ayling devoted four weeks of his summer holiday to a course
of training with a battalion of regulars at Aldershot. During that
period, as the prospective commander of a company, he was granted the
pay and provisional rank of captain, which all will admit was handsome
enough treatment. Three months later, when after superhuman struggles
he had pounded his youthful legionaries into something like
efficiency, his appointment to a commission was duly confirmed, and he
found himself gazetted--Second Lieutenant. In addition to this, he was
required to refund to the Practical Joke Department the difference
between second lieutenant's pay and the captain's pay which he had
received during his month's training at Aldershot!

But in these strenuous days the Department has no time for baiting
individuals. It has two or three millions of men to sharpen its wit
upon. Its favourite pastime at present is a sort of giant's game of
chess, the fair face of England serving as board, and the various
units of the K. armies as pieces. The object of the players is to get
each piece through as many squares as possible in a given time, it
being clearly understood that no move shall count unless another piece
is evicted in the process. For instance, we, the _x_th Brigade of the
_y_th Division, are suddenly uprooted from billets at A and planted
down in barracks at B, displacing the _p_th Brigade of the _q_th
Division in the operation. We have barely cleaned up after the
_p_th--an Augean task--and officers have just concluded messing,
furnishing, and laundry arrangements with the local _banditti_, when
the Practical Joke Department, with its tongue in its cheek, bids us
prepare to go under canvas at C. Married officers hurriedly despatch
advance parties, composed of their wives, to secure houses or lodgings
in the bleak and inhospitable environs of their new station; while
a rapidly ageing Mess President concludes yet another demoralising
bargain with a ruthless and omnipotent caterer. Then--this is the
cream of the joke--the day before we expect to move, the Practical
Joke Department puts out a playful hand and sweeps us all into some
half-completed huts at D, somewhere at the other end of the Ordnance
map, and leaves us there, with a happy chuckle, to sink or swim in an
Atlantic of mud.

So far as one is able to follow the scoring of the game, some of
the squares in the chessboard are of higher value than others. For
instance, if you are dumped down into comparatively modern barracks
at Aldershot, which, although they contain no furniture, are at least
weatherproof and within reach of shops, the Practical Joke Department
scores one point. Barracks condemned as unsafe and insanitary before
the war, but now reckoned highly eligible, count three points;
rat-ridden billets count five. But if you can manoeuvre your helpless
pawns into Mudsplosh Camp, you receive ten whole points, with a bonus
of two points thrown in if you can effect the move without previous
notice of any kind.

We are in Mudsplosh Camp to-day. In transferring us here the
Department secured full points, including bonus.

Let it not be supposed, however, that we are decrying our present
quarters. Mudsplosh Camp is--or is going to be--a nobly planned and
admirably equipped military centre. At present it consists of some
three hundred wooden huts, in all stages of construction, covering
about twenty acres of high moorland. The huts are heated with stoves,
and will be delightfully warm when we get some coal. They are lit
by--or rather wired for--electric light. Meanwhile a candle-end does
well enough for a room only a hundred feet long. There are numerous
other adjuncts to our comfort--wash-houses, for instance. These will
be invaluable, when the water is laid on. For the present, there is a
capital standpipe not a hundred yards away; and all you have to do, if
you want an invigorating scrub, is to wait your turn for one of the
two tin basins supplied to each fifty men, and then splash to your
heart's content. There is a spacious dining-hall; and as soon as the
roof is on, our successors, or their successors, will make merry
therein. Meanwhile, there are worse places to eat one's dinner than
the floor--the mud outside, for instance.

The stables are lofty and well ventilated. At least, we are sure
they will be. Pending their completion the horses and mules are very
comfortable, picketed on the edge of the moor.... After all, there are
only sixty of them; and most of them have rugs; and it can't possibly
go on snowing for ever.

The only other architectural feature of the camp is the steriliser,
which has been working night and day ever since we arrived. No, it
does not sterilise water or milk, or anything of that kind--only
blankets. Those men standing in a _queue_ at its door are carrying
their bedding. (Yes, quite so. When blankets are passed from regiment
to regiment for months on end, in a camp where opportunities for
ablution are not lavish, these little things will happen.)

You put the blankets in at one end of the steriliser, turn the
necessary handles, and wait. In due course the blankets emerge,
steamed, dried, and thoroughly purged. At least, that is the idea. But
listen to Privates Ogg and Hogg, in one of their celebrated cross-talk
duologues.

_Ogg (examining his blanket)_. "They're a' there yet. See!"

_Hogg (an optimist)_. "Aye; but they must have gotten an awfu'
fricht!"

But then people like Ogg are never satisfied with anything.

However, _the_ feature of this camp is the mud. That is why it
counts ten points. There was no mud, of course, before the camp was
constructed--only dry turf, and wild yellow gorse, and fragrant
heather. But the Practical Joke Department were not to be discouraged
by the superficial beauties of nature. They knew that if you crowd
a large number of human dwellings close together, and refrain from
constructing any roads or drains as a preliminary, and fill these
buildings with troops in the rainy season, you will soon have as much
mud as ever you require. And they were quite right. The depth varies
from a few inches to about a foot. On the outskirts of the camp,
however, especially by the horse lines or going through a gate, you
may find yourself up to your knees. But, after all, what is mud! Most
of the officers have gum-boots, and the men will probably get used to
it. Life in K(1) is largely composed of getting used to things.

In the more exclusive and fashionable districts--round about
the Orderly-room, and the Canteen, and the Guard-room--elevated
"duck-walks" are laid down, along which we delicately pick our way.
It would warm the heart of a democrat to observe the ready--nay,
hasty--courtesy with which an officer, on meeting a private carrying
two overflowing buckets of kitchen refuse, steps down into the mud to
let his humble brother-in-arms pass. Where there are no duck-walks, we
employ planks laid across the mud. In comparatively dry weather these
planks lie some two or three inches below the mud, and much innocent
amusement may be derived from trying to locate them. In wet weather,
however, the planks float to the surface, and then of course
everything is plain sailing. When it snows, we feel for the planks
with our feet. If we find them we perform an involuntary and
unpremeditated ski-ing act: if we fail, we wade to our quarters
through a sort of neapolitan ice--snow on the top, mud underneath.

Our parade-ground is a mud-flat in front of the huts. Here we take our
stand each morning, sinking steadily deeper until the order is given
to move off. Then the battalion extricates itself with one tremendous
squelch, and we proceed to the labours of the day.

Seriously, though--supposing the commanding officer were to be delayed
one morning at orderly-room, and were to ride on to the parade-ground
twenty minutes late, what would he find? Nothing! Nothing but a great
_parterre_ of glengarries, perched upon the mud in long parallel rows,
each glengarry flanked on the left-hand side by the muzzle of a rifle
at the slope. (That detached patch over there on the left front,
surrounded by air-bubbles, is the band. That cavity like the crater
of an extinct volcano, in Number one Platoon of A Company, was once
Private Mucklewame.)

And yet people talk about the sinking of the _Birkenhead!_

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning some one in the Department has scored another ten points.
Word has just been received that we are to move again to-morrow--to a
precisely similar set of huts about a hundred yards away!

They are mad wags on Olympus.




XII

AND SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE


"_Firing parrty, revairse arrms_!"

Thus the platoon sergeant--a little anxiously; for we are new to this
feat, and only rehearsed it for a few minutes this morning.

It is a sunny afternoon in late February. The winter of our discontent
is past. (At least, we hope so.) Comfortless months of training are
safely behind us, and lo! we have grown from a fortuitous concourse of
atoms to a cohesive unit of fighting men. Spring is coming; spring is
coming; our blood runs quicker; active service is within measurable
distance; and the future beckons to us with both hands to step down
at last into the arena, and try our fortune amid the uncertain but
illimitable chances of the greatest game in the World.

To all of us, that is, save one.

The road running up the hill from the little mortuary is lined on
either side by members of our company, specklessly turned out and
standing to attention. At the foot of the slope a gun-carriage is
waiting, drawn by two great dray horses and controlled by a private of
the Royal Artillery, who looks incongruously perky and cockney amid
that silent, kilted assemblage. The firing party form a short lane
from the gun-carriage to the door of the mortuary. In response to the
sergeant's command, each man turns over his rifle, and setting the
muzzle carefully upon his right boot--after all, it argues no extra
respect to the dead to get your barrel filled with mud--rests his
hands upon the butt-plate and bows his head, as laid down in the
King's Regulations.

The bearers move slowly down the path from the mortuary, and place the
coffin upon the gun-carriage. Upon the lid lie a very dingy glengarry,
a stained leather belt, and a bayonet. They are humble trophies, but
we pay them as much reverence as we would to the _bâton_ and cocked
hat of a field-marshal, for they are the insignia of a man who has
given his life for his country.

On the hill-top above us, where the great military hospital rears its
clock-tower foursquare to the sky, a line of convalescents, in natty
blue uniforms with white facings and red ties, lean over the railings
deeply interested. Some of them are bandaged, others are in slings,
and all are more or less maimed. They follow the obsequies below
with critical approval. They have been present at enough hurried and
promiscuous interments of late--more than one of them has only just
escaped being the central figure at one of these functions--that they
are capable of appreciating a properly conducted funeral at its true
value.

"They're putting away a bloomin' Jock," remarks a gentleman with an
empty sleeve.

"And very nice, too!" responds another on crutches, as the firing
party present arms with creditable precision. "Not 'arf a bad bit of
eye-wash at all for a bandy-legged lot of coal-shovellers."

"That lot's out of K(1)," explains a well-informed invalid with his
head in bandages. "Pretty 'ot stuff they're gettin'. _Très moutarde!_
Now we're off."

The signal is passed up the road to the band, who are waiting at the
head of the procession, and the pipes break into a lament. Corporals
step forward and lay four wreaths upon the coffin--one from each
company. Not a man in the battalion has failed to contribute his penny
to those wreaths; and pennies are not too common with us, especially
on a Thursday, which comes just before payday. The British private is
commonly reputed to spend all, or most of, his pocket-money upon beer.
But I can tell you this, that if you give him his choice between
buying himself a pint of beer and subscribing to a wreath, he will
most decidedly go thirsty.

The serio-comic charioteer gives his reins a twitch, the horses wake
up, and the gun-carriage begins to move slowly along the lane of
mourners. As the dead private passes on his way the walls of the
lane melt, and his comrades fall into their usual fours behind the
gun-carriage.

So we pass up the hill towards the military cemetery, with the pipes
wailing their hearts out, and the muffled drums marking the time of
our regulation slow step. Each foot seems to hang in the air before
the drums bid us put it down.

In the very rear of the procession you may see the company commander
and three subalterns. They give no orders, and exact no attention. To
employ a colloquialism, this is not their funeral.

Just behind the gun-carriage stalks a solitary figure in civilian
clothes--the unmistakable "blacks" of an Elder of the Kirk. At
first sight, you have a feeling that some one has strayed into the
procession who has no right there. But no one has a better. The sturdy
old man behind the coffin is named Adam Carmichael, and he is here,
having travelled south from Dumbarton by the night train, to attend
the funeral of his only son.


II

Peter Carmichael was one of the first to enlist in the regiment. There
was another Carmichael in the same company, so Peter at roll-call
was usually addressed by the sergeant as "Twenty-seven fufty-fower
Carmichael," 2754 being his regimental number. The army does not
encourage Christian names. When his attestation paper was filled up,
he gave his age as nineteen; his address, vaguely, as Renfrewshire;
and his trade, not without an air, as a "holder-on." To the mystified
Bobby Little he entered upon a lengthy explanation of the term in a
language composed almost entirely of vowels, from which that
officer gathered, dimly, that holding-on had something to do with
shipbuilding.

Upon the barrack square his platoon commander's attention was again
drawn to Peter, owing to the passionate enthusiasm with which he
performed the simplest evolutions, such as forming fours and sloping
arms--military exercises which do not intrigue the average private to
any great extent. Unfortunately, desire frequently outran performance.
Peter was undersized, unmuscular, and extraordinarily clumsy. For a
long time Bobby Little thought that Peter, like one or two of
his comrades, was left-handed, so made allowances. Ultimately he
discovered that his indulgence was misplaced: Peter was equally
incompetent with either hand. He took longer in learning to fix
bayonets or present arms than any other man in the platoon. To be
fair, Nature had done little to help him. He was thirty-three inches
round the chest, five feet four in height, and weighed possibly nine
stone. His complexion was pasty, and, as Captain Wagstaffe remarked,
you could hang your hat on any bone in his body. His eyesight was not
all that the Regulations require, and on the musketry-range he
was "put back," to his deep distress, "for further instruction."
Altogether, if you had not known the doctor who passed him, you would
have said it was a mystery how he passed the doctor.

But he possessed the one essential attribute of the soldier. He had a
big heart. He was keen. He allowed nothing to come between him and
his beloved duties. ("He was aye daft for to go sogerin'," his father
explained to Captain Blaikie; "but his mother would never let him
away. He was ower wee, and ower young.") His rifle, buttons, and boots
were always without blemish. Further, he was of the opinion that a
merry heart goes all the way. He never sulked when the platoon were
kept on parade five minutes after the breakfast bugle had sounded.
He made no bones about obeying orders and saluting officers--acts
of abasement which grated sorely at times upon his colleagues, who
reverenced no one except themselves and their Union. He appeared to
revel in muddy route-marches, and invariably provoked and led the
choruses. The men called him "Wee Pe'er," and ultimately adopted him
as a sort of company mascot. Whereat Pe'er's heart glowed; for when
your associates attach a diminutive to your Christian name, you
possess something which millionaires would gladly give half their
fortune to purchase.

And certainly he required all the social success he could win, for
professionally Peter found life a rigorous affair. Sometimes, as he
staggered into barracks after a long day, carrying a rifle made of
lead and wearing a pair of boots weighing a hundredweight apiece, he
dropped dead asleep on his bedding before he could eat his dinner. But
he always hotly denied the imputation that he was "sick."

Time passed. The regiment was shaking down. Seven of Peter's
particular cronies were raised to the rank of lance-corporal--but not
Peter. He was "off the square" now--that is to say, he was done
with recruit drill for ever. He possessed a sound knowledge of
advance-guard and outpost work; his conduct-sheet was a blank page.
But he was not promoted. He was "ower wee for a stripe," he told
himself. For the present he must expect to be passed over. His chance
would come later, when he had filled out a little and got rid of his
cough.

The winter dragged on: the weather was appalling: the grousers gave
tongue with no uncertain voice, each streaming field-day. But Wee
Pe'er enjoyed it all. He did not care if it snowed ink. He was a
"sojer."

One day, to his great delight, he was "warned for guard"--a
particularly unpopular branch of a soldier's duties, for it means
sitting in the guard-room for twenty-four hours at a stretch, fully
dressed and accoutred, with intervals of sentry-go, usually in heavy
rain, by way of exercise. When Peter's turn for sentry-go came on he
splashed up and down his muddy beat--the battalion was in billets now,
and the usual sentry's verandah was lacking--as proud as a peacock,
saluting officers according to their rank, challenging stray civilians
with great severity, and turning out the guard on the slightest
provocation. He was at his post, soaked right through his greatcoat,
when the orderly officer made his night round. Peter summoned his
colleagues; the usual inspection of the guard took place; and the
sleepy men were then dismissed to their fireside. Peter remained;
the officer hesitated. He was supposed to examine the sentry in his
knowledge of his duties. It was a profitless task as a rule. The
tongue-tied youth merely gaped like a stranded fish, until the
sergeant mercifully intervened, in some such words as these--

"This man, sirr, is liable to get over-excited when addressed by an
officer."

Then, soothingly--

"Now, Jimmy, tell the officer what would ye dae in case of fire?"

"Present airrms!" announces the desperate James. Or else, almost
tearfully, "I canna mind. I had it all fine just noo, but it's awa'
oot o' ma heid!"

Therefore it was with no great sense of anticipation that the orderly
officer said to Private Carmichael,--

"Now, sentry, can you repeat any of your duties?"

Peter saluted, took a full breath, closed both eyes, and replied
rapidly,--

"For tae tak' chairge of all Government property within sicht of
this guairdhoose tae turrn out the guaird for all arrmed pairties
approaching also the commanding officer once a day tae salute all
officers tae challenge all pairsons approaching this post tae--"

His recital was interrupted by a fit of coughing.

"Thank you," said the officer hastily; "that will do. Good night!"

Peter, not sure whether it would be correct to say "good night" too,
saluted again, and returned to his cough.

"I say," said the officer, turning back, "you have a shocking cold."

"Och, never heed it, sirr," gasped Peter politely.

"Call the sergeant," said the officer.

The fat sergeant came out of the guardhouse again, buttoning his
tunic.

"Sirr?"

"Take this man off sentry-duty and roast him at the guard-room fire."

"I will, sirr," replied the sergeant; and added paternally, "this man
has no right for to be here at all. He should have reported sick
when warned for guard; but he would not. He is very attentive to his
duties, sirr."

"Good boy!" said the officer to Peter. "I wish we had more like you."

Wee Pe'er blushed, his teeth momentarily ceased chattering, his heart
swelled. Appearances to the contrary, he felt warm all through. The
sergeant laid a fatherly hand upon his shoulder.

"Go you your ways intil the guard-room, boy," he commanded, "and send
oot Dunshie. He'll no hurt. Get close in ahint the stove, or you'll be
for Cambridge!"

(The last phrase carries no academic significance. It simply means
that you are likely to become an inmate of the great Cambridge
Hospital at Aldershot.)

Peter, feeling thoroughly disgraced, cast an appealing look at the
officer.

"In you go!" said that martinet.

Peter silently obeyed. It was the only time in his life that he ever
felt mutinous.

A month later Brigade Training set in with customary severity. The
life of company officers became a burden. They spent hours in thick
woods with their followers, taking cover, ostensibly from the enemy,
in reality from brigade-majors and staff officers. A subaltern never
tied his platoon in a knot but a general came trotting round the
corner. The wet weather had ceased, and a biting east wind reigned in
its stead.

On one occasion an elaborate night operation was arranged. Four
battalions were to assemble at a given point five miles from camp, and
then advance in column across country by the light of the stars to
a position indicated on the map, where they were to deploy and dig
themselves in! It sounded simple enough in operation orders; but when
you try to move four thousand troops--even well-trained troops--across
three miles of broken country on a pitch-dark night, there is always
a possibility that some one will get mislaid. On this particular
occasion a whole battalion lost itself without any delay or difficulty
whatsoever. The other three were compelled to wait for two hours and
a half, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers, while
overheated staff officers scoured the country for the truants. They
were discovered at last waiting virtuously at the wrong rendezvous,
three-quarters of a mile away. The brazen-hatted strategist who drew
up the operation orders had given the point of assembly for the
brigade as: ... _the field_ S.W. _of_ WELLINGTON WOOD _and due_ E.
_of_ HANGMAN'S COPSE, _immediately below the first_ O _in_ GHOSTLY
BOTTOM,--but omitted to underline the O indicated. The result was that
three battalion commanders assembled at the O in "ghostly," while the
fourth, ignoring the adjective in favour of the noun, took up his
station at the first O in "bottom."

The operations had been somewhat optimistically timed to end at 11
P.M., but by the time that the four battalions had effected a most
unloverly tryst, it was close on ten, and beginning to rain. The
consequence was that the men got home to bed, soaked to the skin, and
asking the Powers Above rhetorical questions, at three o'clock in the
morning.

Next day Brigade Orders announced that the movement would be continued
at nightfall, by the occupation of the hastily-dug trenches, followed
by a night attack upon the hill in front. The captured position would
then be retrenched.

When the tidings went round, fourteen of the more quick-witted spirits
of "A" Company hurriedly paraded before the Medical Officer and
announced that they were "sick in the stomach." Seven more discovered
abrasions upon their feet, and proffered their sores for inspection,
after the manner of Oriental mendicants. One skrimshanker, despairing
of producing any bodily ailment, rather ingeniously assaulted a
comrade-in-arms, and was led away, deeply grateful, to the guard-room.
Wee Peter, who in the course of last night's operations had stumbled
into an old trench half-filled with ice-cold water, and whose
temperature to-day, had he known it, was a hundred and two, paraded
with his company at the appointed time. The company, he reflected,
would get a bad name if too many men reported sick at once.

Next day he was absent from parade. He was "for Cambridge" at last.

Before he died, he sent for the officer who had befriended him, and
supplemented, or rather corrected, some of the information contained
in his attestation paper.

He lived in Dumbarton, not Renfrewshire. He was just sixteen. He was
not--this confession cost him a great effort--a full-blown "holder-on"
at all; only an apprentice. His father was "weel kent" in the town
of Dumbarton, being a chief engineer, employed by a great firm of
shipbuilders to extend new machinery on trial trips.

Needless to say, he made a great fight. But though his heart was
big enough, his body was too frail. As they say on the sea, he was
over-engined for his beam.

And so, three days later, the simple soul of Twenty-seven fifty-four
Carmichael, "A" Company, was transferred, on promotion, to another
company--the great Company of Happy Warriors who walk the Elysian
Fields.


III

"_Firing parrty, one round blank_--_load_!"

There is a rattle of bolts, and a dozen barrels are

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