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diff --git a/old/53507-0.txt b/old/53507-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b8f921c..0000000 --- a/old/53507-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2006 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Army in Training, by Rudyard Kipling - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The New Army in Training - -Author: Rudyard Kipling - -Release Date: November 12, 2016 [EBook #53507] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING - - - BY - - RUDYARD KIPLING - - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON - 1915 - -PRICE SIXPENCE NET - - - - - I - - THE MEN AT WORK - - The ore, the furnace and the hammer are all that is needed for a - sword.—_Native proverb._ - - -This was a cantonment one had never seen before, and the grey-haired -military policeman could give no help. - -‘My experience,’ he spoke detachedly, ‘is that you’ll find everything -everywhere. Is it any particular corps you’re looking for?’ - -‘Not in the least,’ I said. - -‘Then you’re all right. You can’t miss getting something.’ He pointed -generally to the North Camp. ‘It’s like floods in a town, isn’t it?’ - -He had hit the just word. All known marks in the place were submerged by -troops. Parade-grounds to their utmost limits were crowded with them; -rises and sky-lines were furred with them, and the length of the roads -heaved and rippled like bicycle-chains with blocks of men on the move. - -The voice of a sergeant in the torment reserved for sergeants at -roll-call boomed across a bunker. He was calling over recruits to a -specialist corps. - -‘But I’ve called you once!’ he snapped at a man in leggings. - -‘But I’m Clarke Two,’ was the virtuous reply. - -‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He pencilled the correction with a scornful -mouth, out of one corner of which he added, ‘“Sloppy” Clarke! You’re all -Clarkes or Watsons to-day. You don’t know your own names. You don’t know -what corps you’re in. (This was bitterly unjust, for they were squinting -up at a biplane.) You don’t know anything.’ - -‘Mm!’ said the military policeman. ‘The more a man has in his head, the -harder it is for him to manage his carcass—at first. I’m glad I never -was a sergeant. Listen to the instructors! Like rooks, ain’t it?’ - -There was a mile of sergeants and instructors, varied by company -officers, all at work on the ready material under their hands. They -grunted, barked, yapped, expostulated, and, in rare cases, purred, as -the lines broke and formed and wheeled over the vast maidan. When -companies numbered off one could hear the tone and accent of every walk -in life, and maybe half the counties of England, from the deep-throated -‘Woon’ of the north to the sharp, half-whistled Devonshire ‘Tu.’ And as -the instructors laboured, so did the men, with a passion to learn as -passionately as they were taught. - -Presently, in the drift of the foot-traffic down the road, there came -another grey-haired man, one foot in a bright slipper, which showed he -was an old soldier cherishing a sore toe. He drew alongside and -considered these zealous myriads. - -‘Good?’ said I, deferentially. - -‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very good’—then, half to himself: ‘Quite different, -though.’ A pivot-man near us had shifted a little, instead of marking -time, on the wheel. His face clouded, his lips moved. Obviously he was -cursing his own clumsiness. - -‘That’s what I meant,’ said the veteran. ‘Innocent! Innocent! Mark you, -they ain’t doin’ it to be done with it and get off. They’re doin’ it -because—because they want to do it.’ - -‘Wake up! Wake _up_ there, Isherwood!’ This was a young subaltern’s -reminder flung at a back which straightened itself. That one human name -coming up out of all that maze of impersonal manœuvring stuck in the -memory like wreckage on the ocean. - -‘An’ it wasn’t ‘ardly even necessary to caution Mister Isherwood,’ my -companion commented. ‘Prob’ly he’s bitterly ashamed of ‘imself.’ - -I asked a leading question because the old soldier told me that when his -toe was sound, he, too, was a military policeman. - -‘Crime? Crime?’ said he. ‘They don’t know what crime is—that lot -don’t—none of ‘em!’ He mourned over them like a benevolent old Satan -looking into a busy Eden, and his last word was ‘Innocent!’ - -The car worked her way through miles of men—men route-marching, going to -dig or build bridges, or wrestle with stores and transport—four or five -miles of men, and every man with eager eyes. There was no music—not even -drums and fifes. I heard nothing but a distant skirl of the pipes. Trust -a Scot to get his national weapon as long as there is a chief in the -North! Admitting that war is a serious business, specially to the man -who is being fought for, and that it may be right to carry a long face -and contribute to relief funds which should be laid on the National -Debt, it surely could do no harm to cheer the men with a few bands. Half -the money that has been spent in treating, for example.... - - - THE NORTH IN BLUE - -There was a moor among woods with a pond in a hollow, the centre of a -world of tents whose population was North-Country. One heard it from far -off. - -‘Yo’ mun trail t’ pick an’ t’ rifle at t’ same time. Try again,’ said -the instructor. - -An isolated company tried again with set seriousness, and yet again. -They were used to the pick—won their living by it, in fact—and so, -favoured it more than the rifle; but miners don’t carry picks at the -trail by instinct, though they can twiddle their rifles as one twiddles -walking-sticks. - -They were clad in a blue garb that disguised all contours; yet their -shoulders, backs, and loins could not altogether be disguised, and these -were excellent. Another company, at physical drill in shirt and -trousers, showed what superb material had offered itself to be worked -upon, and how much poise and directed strength had been added to that -material in the past few months. When the New Army gets all its new -uniform, it will gaze at itself like a new Narcissus. But the present -kit is indescribable. That is why, English fashion, it has been made -honourable by its wearers; and our world in the years to come will look -back with reverence as well as affection on those blue slops and that -epileptic cap. One farseeing commandant who had special facilities has -possessed himself of brass buttons, thousands of ‘em, which he has added -to his men’s outfit for the moral effect of (_a_) having something to -clean, and (_b_) of keeping it so. It has paid. The smartest regiment in -the Service could not do itself justice in such garments, but I managed -to get a view of a battalion, coming in from a walk, at a distance which -more or less subdued the—er—uniform, and they moved with the elastic -swing and little quick ripple that means so much. A miner is not -supposed to be as good a marcher as a townsman, but when he gets set to -time and pace and learns due economy of effort, his developed back and -shoulder muscles take him along very handsomely. Another battalion fell -in for parade while I watched, again at a distance. They came to hand -quietly and collectedly enough, and with only that amount of pressing -which is caused by fear of being late. A platoon—or whatever they call -it—was giving the whole of its attention to its signalling instructors, -with the air of men resolved on getting the last flicker of the last -cinema-film for their money. Crime in the military sense they do not -know any more than their fellow-innocents up the road. It is hopeless to -pretend to be other than what one is, because one’s soul in this life is -as exposed as one’s body. It is futile to tell civilian lies—there are -no civilians to listen—and they have not yet learned to tell Service -ones without being detected. It is useless to sulk at any external -condition of affairs, because the rest of the world with which a man is -concerned is facing those identical conditions. There is neither poverty -nor riches, nor any possibility of pride, except in so far as one may do -one’s task a little better than one’s mate. - - - DUTIES AND DEVELOPMENTS - -In the point of food they are extremely well looked after, quality and -quantity, wet canteen and dry. Drafts come in all round the clock, and -they have to be fed; late guards and sentries want something hot at odd -times, and the big marquee-canteen is the world’s gathering-place, where -food, life’s first interest to man in hard work, is thoroughly -discussed. They can get outside of a vast o’ vittles. Thus, a contractor -who delivers ten thousand rations a day stands, by deputy at least, in -the presence of just that number of rather fit, long, deep men. They are -what is called ‘independent’—a civilian weakness which they will learn -to blush over in a few months, and to discourage among later recruits; -but they are also very quick to pick up dodges and tricks that make a -man more comfortable in camp life, and their domestic routine runs on -wheels. It must have been hard at first for civilians to see the -necessity for that continuous, apparently persnickety, house-maiding and -‘following-up’ which is vital to the comfort of large bodies of men in -confined quarters. In civil life men leave these things to their -womenfolk, but where women are not, officers, inspecting tents, feet, -and such-like, develop a she-side to their head, and evidently make -their non-commissioned officers and men develop it too. A good soldier -is always a bit of an old maid. But, as I heard a private say to a -sergeant in the matter of some kit chucked into a corner: ‘Yo’ canna -keep owt redd up ony proper gate on a sand-hill.’ To whom his superior -officer: ‘Ah know yo’ canna’, but yo’ mun try, Billy.’ - -And Heaven knows they are trying hard enough—men, n.c.o.’s, and -officers—with all the masked and undervoiced effort of our peoples when -we are really at work. They stand at the very beginning of things; -creating out of chaos, meeting emergencies as they arise; handicapped in -every direction, and overcoming every handicap by simple goodwill, -humour, self-sacrifice, common-sense, and such trumpery virtues. I -watched their faces in the camp, and at lunch looked down a line of some -twenty men in the mess-tent, wondering how many would survive to see the -full splendour and significance of the work here so nobly begun. But -they were not interested in the future beyond their next immediate job. -They ate quickly and went out to it, and by the time I drove away again -I was overtaking their battalions on the road. Not unrelated units -lugged together for foot-slogging, but real battalions, of a spirit in -themselves which defied even the blue slops—wave after wave of proper -men, with undistracted eyes, who never talked a word about any war. But -not a note of music—and they North-countrymen! - - - - - II - - IRON INTO STEEL - - _Thanda lohā garam lohe ko marta hai_ (Cold iron will cut hot - iron). - - -AT the next halt I fell into Scotland—blocks and blocks of it—a world of -precise-spoken, thin-lipped men, with keen eyes. They gave me directions -which led by friendly stages to the heart of another work of creation -and a huge drill-shed where the miniature rifles were busy. Few things -are duller than Morris-tube practice in the shed, unless it be judging -triangles of error against blank-walls. I thought of the military -policeman with the sore toe; for these ‘innocents’ were visibly enjoying -both games. They sighted over the sand-bags with the gravity of -surveyors, while the instructors hurled knowledge at them like -sling-stones. - -‘Man, d’ye see your error? Step here, man, and I’ll show ye.’ Teacher -and taught glared at each other like theologians in full debate; for -this is the Scot’s way of giving and getting knowledge. - -At the miniature targets squad after squad rose from beside their -deadly-earnest instructors, gathered up their target-cards, and -whisperingly compared them, five heads together under a window. - -‘Aye, that was where I loosed too soon.’ ‘I misdoubt I took too much o’ -the foresight.’ Not a word of hope and comfort in their achievements. -Nothing but calvinistic self-criticism. - -These men ran a little smaller than the North-country folk down the -road, but in depth of chest, girth of fore-arm, biceps, and -neck-measurement they were beautifully level and well up; and the squads -at bayonet-practice had their balance, drive, and recover already. As -the light failed one noticed the whites of their eyes turning towards -their instructors. It reminded one that there is always a touch of the -cateran in the most docile Scot, even as the wolf persists in every dog. - -‘And what about crime?’ I demanded. - -There was none. They had not joined to play the fool. Occasionally a few -unstable souls who have mistaken their vocation try to return to civil -life by way of dishonourable discharge, and think it ‘funny’ to pile up -offences. The New Army has no use for those people either, and attends -to them on what may be called ‘democratic lines,’ which is all the same -as the old barrack-room court-martial. Nor does it suffer fools gladly. -There is no time to instruct them. They go to other spheres. - -There was, or rather is, a man who intends to join a certain battalion. -He joined it once, scraped past the local doctor, and was drafted into -the corps, only to be hove out for varicose veins. He went back to his -accommodating doctor, repeated the process, and was again rejected. They -are waiting for him now in his third incarnation; both sides are equally -determined. And there was another Scot who joined, served awhile, and -left, as he might have left a pit or a factory. Somehow it occurred to -him that explanations were required, so he wrote to his commanding -officer from his home address and asked him what he recommended him to -do. The C.O., to his infinite credit, wrote back: ‘Suppose you rejoin,’ -which the man did, and no more said. His punishment, of course, will -come to him when he realises what he has done. If he does not then -perish in his self-contempt (he has a good conceit of himself) he will -make one first-rate non-commissioned officer. - - - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS - -I had the luck to meet a Sergeant-Major, who was the Sergeant-Major of -one’s dreams. He had just had sure information that the kilts for his -battalion were coming in a few days, so, after three months’ hard work, -life smiled upon him. From kilts one naturally went on to the pipes. The -battalion had its pipes—a very good set. How did it get them? Well, -there was, of course, the Duke. They began with him. And there was a -Scots lord concerned with the regiment. And there was a leddy of a -certain clan connected with the battalion. Hence the pipes. Could -anything be simpler or more logical? And when the kilts came the men -would be different creatures. Were they good men, I asked. ‘Yes. Verra -good. Wha’s to mislead ‘em?’ said he. - -‘Old soldiers,’ I suggested, meanly enough. ‘Rejoined privates of long -ago.’ - -‘Ay, there might have been a few such in the beginning, but they’d be -more useful in the Special Reserve Battalions. Our boys are good boys, -but, ye’ll understand, they’ve to be handled—just handled a little.’ -Then a subaltern came in, loaded with regimental forms, and visibly -leaning on the Sergeant-Major, who explained, clarified, and referred -them on the proper quarters. - -‘Does the work come back to you?’ I asked, for he had been long in -pleasant civil employ. - -‘Ay. It does that. It just does that.’ And he addressed the fluttering -papers, lists, and notes, with the certainty of an old golfer on a -well-known green. - -Squads were at bayonet practice in the square. (They like bayonet -practice, especially after looking at pictures in the illustrated -dailies.) A new draft was being introduced to its rifles. The rest were -getting ready for evening parade. They were all in khaki, so one could -see how they had come on in the last ten weeks. It was a result the -meekest might have been proud of, but the New Army does not cultivate -useless emotions. Their officers and their instructors worked over them -patiently and coldly and repeatedly, with their souls in the job: and -with their soul, mind, and body in the same job the men took—soaked -up—the instruction. And that seems to be the note of the New Army. - - - WHAT THE ARMY DOES AND THINKS - -They have joined for good reason. For that reason they sleep -uncomplainingly double thick on barrack floors, or lie like herrings in -the tents and sing hymns and other things when they are flooded out. -They walk and dig half the day or all the night as required; they -wear—though they will not eat—anything that is issued to them; they make -themselves an organised and kindly life out of a few acres of dirt and a -little canvas; they keep their edge and anneal their discipline under -conditions that would depress a fox-terrier and disorganise a champion -football team. They ask nothing in return save work and equipment. And -being what they are, they thoroughly and unfeignedly enjoy what they are -doing; and they purpose to do much more. - -But they also think. They think it vile that so many unmarried young men -who are not likely to be affected by Government allowances should be so -shy about sharing their life. They discuss these young men and their -womenfolk by name, and imagine rude punishments for them, suited to -their known characters. They discuss, too, their elders who in time past -warned them of the sin of soldiering. These men, who live honourably and -simply under the triple vow of Obedience, Temperance, and Poverty, -recall, not without envy, the sort of life which well-kept moralists -lead in the unpicketed, un-sentried towns; and it galls them that such -folk should continue in comfort and volubility at the expense of good -men’s lives, or should profit greasily at the end of it all. They stare -hard, even in their blue slops, at white-collared, bowler-hatted young -men, who, by the way, are just learning to drop their eyes under that -gaze. In the third-class railway carriages they hint that they would -like explanations from the casual ‘nut,’ and they explain to him wherein -his explanations are unconvincing. And when they are home on leave, the -slack-jawed son of the local shop-keeper, and the rising nephew of the -big banker, and the dumb but cunning carter’s lad receive instruction or -encouragement suited to their needs and the nation’s. The older men and -the officers will tell you that if the allowances are made more liberal -we shall get all the men we want. But the younger men of the New Army do -not worry about allowances—or, for that matter, make ‘em! - -There is a gulf already opening between those who have joined and those -who have not; but we shall not know the width and the depth of that gulf -till the war is over. The wise youth is he who jumps it now and lands in -safety among the trained and armed men. - - - - - III - - GUNS AND SUPPLY - - Under all and after all the Wheel carries everything.—_Proverb._ - - -One had known the place for years as a picturesque old house, standing -in a peaceful park; had watched the growth of certain young oaks along a -new-laid avenue, and applauded the owner’s enterprise in turning a -stretch of pasture to plough. There are scores of such estates in -England which the motorist, through passing so often, comes to look upon -almost as his own. In a single day the brackened turf between the oaks -and the iron road-fence blossomed into tents, and the drives were all -cut up with hoofs and wheels. A little later, one’s car sweeping home of -warm September nights was stopped by sentries, who asked her name and -business; for the owner of that retired house and discreetly wooded park -had gone elsewhere in haste, and his estate was taken over by the -military. - -Later still, one met men and horses arguing with each other for miles -about that countryside; or the car would be flung on her brakes by -artillery issuing from cross-lanes—clean batteries jingling off to their -work on the Downs, and hungry ones coming back to meals. Every day -brought the men and the horses and the weights behind them to a better -understanding, till in a little while the car could pass a quarter of a -mile of them without having to hoot more than once. - -‘Why are you so virtuous?’ she asked of a section encountered at a blind -and brambly corner. ‘Why do you obtrude your personality less than an -average tax-cart?’ - -‘Because,’ said a driver, his arm flung up to keep the untrimmed hedge -from sweeping his cap off, ‘because those are our blessed orders. We -don’t do it for love.’ - -No one accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his -beasts and his weapons. He hasn’t the time. He serves at least three -jealous gods—his horse and all its saddlery and harness; his gun, whose -least detail of efficiency is more important than men’s lives; and, when -these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art -commands him. - -It was a wettish, windy day when I visited the so-long-known house and -park. Cock pheasants ducked in and out of trim rhododendron clumps, neat -gates opened into sacredly preserved vegetable gardens, the -many-coloured leaves of specimen trees pasted themselves stickily -against sodden tent walls, and there was a mixture of circus smells from -the horse-lines and the faint, civilised breath of chrysanthemums in the -potting sheds. The main drive was being relaid with a foot of flint; the -other approaches were churned and pitted under the gun wheels and heavy -supply wagons. Great breadths of what had been well-kept turf between -unbrowsed trees were blanks of slippery brown wetness, dotted with -picketed horses and field-kitchens. It was a crazy mixture of stark -necessity and manicured luxury, all cheek by jowl, in the -undiscriminating rain. - - - SERVICE CONDITIONS - -The cook-houses, store-rooms, forges, and workshops were collections of -tilts, poles, rick-cloths, and odd lumber, beavered together as on -service. The officers’ mess was a thin, soaked marquee. - -Less than a hundred yards away were dozens of vacant, well-furnished -rooms in the big brick house, of which the Staff furtively occupied one -corner. There was accommodation for very many men in its stables and -out-houses alone; or the whole building might have been gutted and -rearranged for barracks twice over in the last three months. - -Scattered among the tents were rows of half-built tin sheds, the -ready-prepared lumber and the corrugated iron lying beside them, waiting -to be pieced together like children’s toys. But there were no workmen. I -was told that they had come that morning, but had knocked off because it -was wet. - -‘I see. And where are the batteries?’ I demanded. - -‘Out at work, of course. They’ve been out since seven.’ - -‘How shocking! In this dreadful weather, too!’ - -‘They took some bread and cheese with them. They’ll be back about -dinner-time if you care to wait. Here’s one of our field-kitchens.’ - -Batteries look after their own stomachs, and are not catered for by -contractors. The cook-house was a wagon-tilt. The wood, being damp, -smoked a good deal. One thought of the wide, adequate kitchen ranges and -the concrete passages of the service quarters in the big house just -behind. One even dared to think Teutonically of the perfectly good -panelling and the thick hard-wood floors that could—— - -‘Service conditions, you see,’ said my guide, as the cook inspected the -baked meats and the men inside the wagon-tilt grated the carrots and -prepared the onions. It was old work to them after all these months—done -swiftly, with the clean economy of effort that camp life teaches. - -‘What are these lads when they’re at home?’ I inquired. - -‘Londoners chiefly—all sorts and conditions.’ - -The cook in shirt sleeves made another investigation, and sniffed -judicially. He might have been cooking since the Peninsular. He looked -at his watch and across towards the park gates. He was responsible for -one hundred and sixty rations, and a battery has the habit of saying -quite all that it thinks of its food. - -‘How often do the batteries go out?’ I continued. - -‘’Bout five days a week. You see, we’re being worked up a little.’ - -‘And have they got plenty of ground to work over?’ - -‘Oh—yes-s.’ - -‘What’s the difficulty this time? Birds?’ - -‘No; but we got orders the other day not to go over a golf-course. That -rather knocks the bottom out of tactical schemes.’ - -Perfect shamelessness, like perfect virtue, is impregnable; and, after -all, the lightnings of this war, which have brought out so much resolve -and self-sacrifice, must show up equally certain souls and institutions -that are irredeemable. - -The weather took off a little before noon. The carpenters could have put -in a good half-day’s work on the sheds, and even if they had been rained -upon they had roofs with fires awaiting their return. The batteries had -none of these things. - - - THE GUNNER AT HOME - -They came in at last far down the park, heralded by that unmistakable -half-grumble, half-grunt of guns on the move. The picketed horses heard -it first, and one of them neighed long and loud, which proved that he -had abandoned civilian habits. Horses in stables and mews seldom do more -than snicker, even when they are halves of separated pairs. But these -gentlemen had a corporate life of their own now, and knew what ‘pulling -together’ means. - -When a battery comes into camp it ‘parks’ all six guns at the appointed -place, side by side in one mathematically straight line, and the -accuracy of the alignment is, like ceremonial-drill with the Foot, a -fair test of its attainments. The ground was no treat for parking. -Specimen trees and draining ditches had to be avoided and circumvented. -The gunners, their reins, the guns, the ground, were equally wet, and -the slob dropped away like gruel from the brake-shoes. And they were -Londoners—clerks, mechanics, shop assistants, and delivery men—anything -and everything that you please. But they were all home and at home in -their saddles and seats. They said nothing; their officers said little -enough to them. They came in across what had once been turf; wheeled -with tight traces; halted, unhooked; the wise teams stumped off to their -pickets, and, behold, the six guns were left precisely where they should -have been left to the fraction of an inch. You could see the wind -blowing the last few drops of wet from each leather muzzle-cover at -exactly the same angle. It was all old known evolutions, taken -unconsciously in the course of their day’s work by men well abreast of -it. - -‘Our men have one advantage,’ said a voice. ‘As Territorials they were -introduced to unmade horses once a year at training. So they’ve never -been accustomed to made horses.’ - -‘And what do the horses say about it all?’ I asked, remembering what I -had seen on the road in the early days. - -‘They said a good deal at first, but our chaps could make allowances for -‘em. They know now.’ - -Allah never intended the Gunner to talk. His own arm does that for him. -The batteries offsaddled in silence, though one noticed on all sides -little quiet caresses between man and beast—affectionate nuzzlings and -nose-slappings. Surely the Gunner’s relation to his horse is more -intimate even than the cavalryman’s; for a lost horse only turns cavalry -into infantry, but trouble in a gun team may mean death all round. And -this is the Gunner’s war. The young wet officers said so joyously as -they passed to and fro picking up scandal about breast-straps and -breechings, examining the collars of ammunition-wagon teams, and -listening to remarks on shoes. Local blacksmiths, assisted by the -battery itself, do the shoeing. There are master smiths and important -farriers, who have cheerfully thrown up good wages to help the game, and -their horses reward them by keeping fit. A fair proportion of the horses -are aged—there was never a Gunner yet satisfied with his team or its -rations till he had left the battery—but they do their work as -steadfastly and wholeheartedly as the men. I am persuaded the horses -like being in society and working out their daily problems of draught -and direction. The English, and Londoners particularly, are the kindest -and most reasonable of folk with animals. If it were not our business -strictly to underrate ourselves for the next few years, one would say -that the Territorial batteries had already done wonders. But perhaps it -is better to let it all go with the grudging admission wrung out of a -wringing wet bombardier, ‘Well, it isn’t so dam’ bad—considerin’.’ - -I left them taking their dinner in mess tins to their tents, with a -strenuous afternoon’s cleaning-up ahead of them. The big park held some -thousands of men. I had seen no more than a few hundreds, and had missed -the howitzer-batteries after all. - -A cock pheasant chaperoned me down the drive, complaining loudly that -where he was used to walk with his ladies under the beech trees, some -unsporting people had built a miniature landscape with tiny villages, -churches, and factories, and came there daily to point cannon at it. - -‘Keep away from that place,’ said I, ‘or you’ll find yourself in a -field-kitchen.’ - -‘Not me!’ he crowed. ‘I’m as sacred as golf-courses.’ - - - MECHANISM AND MECHANICS - -There was a little town a couple of miles down the road where one used -to lunch in the old days, and had the hotel to oneself. Now there are -six ever-changing officers in billet there, and the astonished houses -quiver all day to traction engines and high-piled lorries. A unit of the -Army Service Corps and some mechanical transport lived near the station, -and fed the troops for twenty miles around. - -‘Are your people easy to find?’ I asked of a wandering private, with the -hands of a sweep, the head of a Christian among lions, and suicide in -his eye. - -‘Well, the A.S.C. are in the Territorial Drill Hall for one thing; and -for another you’re likely to hear _us_! There’s some motors come in from -Bulford.’ He snorted and passed on, smelling of petrol. - -The drill-shed was peace and comfort. The A.S.C. were getting ready -there for pay-day and for a concert that evening. Outside in the wind -and the occasional rain-spurts, life was different. The Bulford motors -and some other crocks sat on a side-road between what had been the local -garage and a newly-erected workshop of creaking scaffold-poles and -bellying slatting rick-cloths, where a forge glowed and general repairs -were being effected. Beneath the motors men lay on their backs and -called their friends to pass them spanners, or, for pity’s sake, to -shove another sack under their mud-wreathed heads. - -A corporal, who had been nine years a fitter and seven in a city garage, -briefly and briskly outlined the more virulent diseases that develop in -Government rolling-stock. (I heard quite a lot about Bulford.) Hollow -voices from beneath eviscerated gear-boxes confirmed him. We withdrew to -the shelter of the rick-cloth workshop—that corporal; the sergeant who -had been a carpenter, with a business of his own, and, incidentally, had -served through the Boer War; another sergeant who was a member of the -Master Builders’ Association; and a private who had also been fitter, -chauffeur, and a few other things. The third sergeant, who kept a -poultry-farm in Surrey, had some duty elsewhere. - -A man at a carpenter’s bench was finishing a spoke for a newly-painted -cart. He squinted along it. - -‘That’s funny,’ said the master builder. ‘Of course in his own business -he’d chuck his job sooner than do wood-work. But it’s _all_ funny.’ - -‘What I grudge,’ a sergeant struck in, ‘is havin’ to put mechanics to -loading and unloading beef. That’s where modified conscription for the -beauties that won’t roll up ‘ld be useful to _us_. We want hewers of -wood, we do. And I’d hew ‘em!’ - -‘_I_ want that file.’ This was a private in a hurry, come from beneath -an unspeakable Bulford. Some one asked him musically if he ‘would tell -his wife in the morning who he was with to-night.’ - -‘You’ll find it in the tool-chest,’ said the sergeant. It was his own -sacred tool-chest which he had contributed to the common stock. - -‘And what sort of men have you got in this unit?’ I asked. - -‘Every sort you can think of. There isn’t a thing you couldn’t have made -here if you wanted to. But’—the corporal, who had been a fitter, spoke -with fervour—‘you can’t expect us to make big-ends, can you? That -five-ton Bulford lorry out there in the wet——’ - -‘And she isn’t the worst,’ said the master builder. ‘But it’s all part -of the game. _And_ so funny when you come to think of it. Me painting -carts, and certificated plumbers loading frozen beef!’ - -‘What about the discipline?’ I asked. - -The corporal turned a fitter’s eye on me. ‘The mechanism is the -discipline,’ said he, with most profound truth, ‘Jockeyin’ a sick car on -the road is discipline, too. _What_ about the discipline?’ He turned to -the sergeant with the carpenter’s chest. There was one sergeant of -Regulars, with twenty years’ service behind him and a knowledge of human -nature. He struck in. - -‘_You_ ought to know. You’ve just been made corporal,’ said that -sergeant of Regulars. - -‘Well, there’s so much which everybody knows has got to be done -that—that—why, we all turn in and do it,’ quoth the corporal, ‘_I_ don’t -have any trouble with my lot.’ - -‘Yes; that’s how the case stands,’ said the sergeant of Regulars. ‘Come -and see our stores.’ - -They were beautifully arranged in a shed which felt like a monastery -after the windy, clashing world without; and the young private who acted -as checker—he came from some railway office—had the thin, keen face of -the cleric. - -‘We’re in billets in the town,’ said the sergeant who had been a -carpenter. ‘But I’m a married man. I shouldn’t care to have men billeted -on us at home, an’ I don’t want to inconvenience other people. So I’ve -knocked up a bunk for myself on the premises. It’s handier to the -stores, too.’ - - - ‘THE HUMOUR OF IT’ - -We entered what had been the local garage. The mechanical transport were -in full possession, tinkering the gizzards of more cars. We discussed -chewed-up gears (samples to hand), and the civil population’s old-time -views of the military. The corporal told a tale of a clergyman in a -Midland town who, only a year ago, on the occasion of some manœuvres, -preached a sermon warning his flock to guard their womenfolk against the -soldiers. - -‘And when you think—when you _know_,’ said the corporal, ‘what life in -those little towns really is!’ He whistled. - -‘See that old landau,’ said he, opening the door of an ancient wreck -jammed against a wall. ‘That’s two of our chaps’ dressing-room. They -don’t care to be billeted, so they sleep ‘tween the landau and the wall. -It’s handier for their work, too. Work comes in at all hours. I wish I -was cavalry. There’s some use in cursing a horse.’ - -Truly, it’s an awful thing to belong to a service where speech brings no -alleviation. - -‘_You!_’ A private with callipers turned from the bench by the window. -‘You’d die outside of a garage. But what you said about civilians and -soldiers is all out of date now.’ - -The sergeant of Regulars permitted himself a small, hidden smile. The -private with the callipers had been some twelve weeks a soldier. - -‘I don’t say it isn’t,’ said the corporal ‘I’m saying what it used to -be.’ - -‘We-ell,’ the private screwed up the callipers, ‘didn’t you feel a -little bit that way yourself—when you were a civilian?’ - -‘I—I don’t think I did.’ The corporal was taken aback. ‘I don’t think I -ever thought about it.’ - -‘Ah! _There_ you are!’ said the private, very drily. - -Some one laughed in the shadow of the landau dressing-room. ‘Anyhow, -we’re all in it now, Private Percy,’ said a voice. - -There must be a good many thousand conversations of this kind being held -all over England nowadays. Our breed does not warble much about -patriotism or Fatherland, but it has a wonderful sense of justice, even -when its own shortcomings are concerned. - -We went over to the drill-shed to see the men paid. - -The first man I ran across there was a sergeant who had served in the -Mounted Infantry in the South African picnic that we used to call a war. -He had been a private chauffeur for some years—long enough to catch the -professional look, but was joyously reverting to service type again. - -The men lined up, were called out, saluted emphatically at the -pay-table, and fell back with their emoluments. They smiled at each -other. - -‘An’ it’s _all_ so funny,’ murmured the master builder in my ear. ‘About -a quarter—no, less than a quarter—of what one ‘ud be making on one’s -own!’ - -‘Fifty bob a week, cottage, and all found, I was. An’ only two cars to -look after,’ said a voice behind. ‘An’ if I’d been asked—simply -_asked_—to lie down in the mud all the afternoon——!’ The speaker looked -at his wages with awe. Some one wanted to know, _sotto voce_, if ‘that -was union rates,’ and the grin spread among the uniformed experts. The -joke, you will observe, lay in situations thrown up, businesses -abandoned, and pleasant prospects cut short at the nod of duty. - -‘Thank Heaven!’ said one of them at last, ‘it’s too dark to work on -those blessed Bulfords any more to-day. We’ll get ready for the -concert.’ - -But it was not too dark, half an hour later, for my car to meet a big -lorry storming back in the wind and the wet from the northern camps. She -gave me London allowance—half one inch between hub and hub—swung her -corner like a Brooklands professional, changed gear for the uphill with -a sweet click, and charged away. For aught I knew, she was driven by an -ex-‘fifty-bob-a-week-a-cottage-and-all-found-‘er, who next month might -be dodging shells with her and thinking it ‘_all_ so funny.’ - -Horse, Foot, even the Guns may sometimes get a little rest, but so long -as men eat thrice a day there is no rest for the Army Service Corps. -They carry the campaign on their all-sustaining backs. - - - - - IV - - CANADIANS IN CAMP - - Before you hit the buffalo, find out where the rest of the herd - is.—_Proverb._ - - -This particular fold of downs behind Salisbury might have been a hump of -prairie near Winnipeg. The team that came over the rise, widely spaced -between pole-bar and whiffletrees, were certainly children of the -prairie. They shied at the car. Their driver asked them dispassionately -what they thought they were doing, anyway. They put their wise heads -together, and did nothing at all. Yes. Oh, yes! said the driver. They -were Western horses. They weighed better than twelve hundred apiece. He -himself was from Edmonton way. The Camp? Why, the camp was right ahead -along up this road. No chance to miss it, and, ‘Sa-ay! Look out for our -lorries!’ - -A fleet of them hove in sight going at the rate of knots, and keeping -their left with a conscientiousness only learned when you come out of a -country where nearly all the Provinces (except British Columbia) keep to -the right. Every line of them, from steering-wheel to brake-shoes, -proclaimed their nationality. Three perfectly efficient young men who -were sprinkling a golf-green with sifted earth ceased their duties to -stare at them. Two riding-boys (also efficient) on racehorses, their -knees under their chins and their saddles between their horses’ ears, -cantered past on the turf. The rattle of the motors upset their -catsmeat, so one could compare their style of riding with that of an -officer loping along to overtake a string of buck-wagons that were -trotting towards the horizon. The riding-boys have to endure sore -hardship nowadays. One gentleman has already complained that his -‘private gallops’ are being cut up by gun-wheels and ‘irremediably -ruined.’ - -Then more lorries, contractors’ wagons, and increasing vileness of the -battered road-bed, till one slid through a rude gate into a new world, -of canvas as far as the eye could reach, and beyond that outlying clouds -of tents. It is not a contingent that Canada has sent, but an -army—horse, foot, guns, engineers, and all details, fully equipped. -Taking that army’s strength at thirty-three thousand, and the Dominion’s -population at eight million, the camp is Canada on the scale of one to -two hundred and forty—an entire nation unrolled across a few square -miles of turf and tents and huts. - -Here I could study at close hand ‘a Colony’ yearning to shake off ‘the -British yoke.’ For, beyond question, they yearned—the rank and file -unreservedly, the officers with more restraint but equal fervour—and the -things they said about the Yoke were simply lamentable. - -From Nova Scotia to Victoria, and every city, township, -distributing-centre, and divisional point between; from sub-tropical -White River and sultry Jackfish to the ultimate north that lies up -beside Alaska; from Kootenay, and Nelson of the fruit-farms, to Prince -Edward Island, where motors are not allowed; they yearned to shake it -off, with the dust of England from their feet, ‘at once and some time -before that.’ - -I had been warned that when Armageddon came the ‘Colonies’ would ‘revolt -against the Mother Country as one man’; but I had no notion I should -ever see the dread spectacle with my own eyes—or the ‘one man’ so tall! - -Joking apart, the Canadian Army wants to get to work. It admits that -London is ‘some city,’ but says it did not take the trip to visit London -only. Armageddon, which so many people in Europe knew was bound to come, -has struck Canada out of the blue, like a noonday murder in a small -town. How will they feel when they actually view some of the destruction -in France, these men who are used to making and owning their homes? And -what effect will it have on their land’s outlook and development for the -next few generations? Older countries may possibly slip back into some -sort of toleration. New peoples, in their first serious war, like girls -in their first real love-affair, neither forget nor forgive. That is why -it pays to keep friends with the young. - -And such young! They ran inches above all normal standards, not in a few -companies or battalions, but through the whole corps; and it was not -easy to pick out foolish or even dull faces among them. Details going -about their business through the camp’s much mud; defaulters on fatigue; -orderlies, foot and mounted; the procession of lorry-drivers; companies -falling in for inspection; battalions parading; brigades moving off for -manœuvres; batteries clanking in from the ranges; they were all supple, -free, and intelligent; and moved with a lift and a drive that made one -sing for joy. - - - CAMP GOSSIP - -Only a few months ago that entire collection poured into Valcartier camp -in pink shirts and straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in -time. Since then they have been taught several things. Notably, that the -more independent the individual soldier, the more does he need -forethought and endless care when he is in bulk. - -‘Just because we were all used to looking after ourselves in civil -life,’ said an officer, ‘we used to send parties out without rations. -And the parties used to go, too! And we expected the boys to look after -their own feet. But we’re wiser now.’ - -‘They’re learning the same thing in the New Army,’ I said. ‘Company -officers have to be taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary -inspectors. Where do your men come from?’ - -‘Tell me some place that they don’t come from,’ said he, and I could -not. The men had rolled up from everywhere between the Arctic circle and -the border, and I was told that those who could not get into the first -contingent were moving heaven and earth and local politicians to get -into the second. - -‘There’s some use in politics now,’ that officer reflected. ‘But it’s -going to thin the voting-lists at home.’ - -A good many of the old South African crowd (the rest are coming) were -present and awfully correct. Men last met as privates between De Aar and -Belmont were captains and majors now, while one lad who, to the best of -his ability, had painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years, was a grim -non-commissioned officer worth his disciplined weight in dollars. - -‘_I_ didn’t remind Dan of old times when he turned up at Valcartier -disguised as a respectable citizen,’ said my informant. ‘I just roped -him in for my crowd. He’s a father to ‘em. _He_ knows.’ - -‘And have you many cheery souls coming on?’ I asked. - -‘Not many; but it’s always the same with a first contingent. You take -everything that offers and weed the bravoes out later.’ - -‘_We_ don’t weed,’ said an officer of artillery. ‘Any one who has had -his passage paid for by the Canadian Government stays with us till he -eats out of our hand. _And_ he does. They make the best men in the long -run,’ he added. I thought of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two -or three ‘old soldiers’ in a Service corps of the idea that they can run -the battalion, and I laughed. The Gunner was right. ‘Old soldiers,’ -after a little loving care, become valuable and virtuous. - -A company of Foot was drawn up under the lee of a fir plantation behind -us. They were a miniature of their army as their army was of their -people, and one could feel the impact of strong personality almost like -a blow. - -‘If you’d believe it,’ said a cavalryman, ‘we’re forbidden to cut into -that little wood-lot, yonder! Not one stick of it may we have! We could -make shelters for our horses in a day out of that stuff.’ - -‘But it’s timber!’ I gasped. ‘Sacred, tame trees!’ - -‘Oh, we know what wood is! They issue it to us by the pound. Wood to -burn—by the pound! What’s wood for, anyway?’ - -‘And when do you think we shall be allowed to go?’ some one asked, not -for the first time. - -‘By and by,’ said I. ‘And then you’ll have to detail half your army to -see that your equipment isn’t stolen from you.’ - -‘What!’ cried an old Strathcona Horse. He looked anxiously towards the -horse-lines. - -‘I was thinking of your mechanical transport and your travelling -workshops and a few other things that you’ve got.’ - -I got away from those large men on their windy hill-top, and slid -through mud and past mechanical transport and troops untold towards Lark -Hill. On the way I passed three fresh-cut pine sticks, laid and notched -one atop of the other to shore up a caving bank. Trust a Canadian or a -beaver within gunshot of standing timber! - - - ENGINEERS AND APPLIANCES - -Lark Hill is where the Canadian Engineers live, in the midst of a -profligate abundance of tools and carts, pontoon wagons, field -telephones, and other mouth-watering gear. Hundreds of tin huts are -being built there, but quite leisurely, by contract. I noticed three -workmen, at eleven o’clock of that Monday forenoon, as drunk as Davy’s -sow, reeling and shouting across the landscape. So far as I could -ascertain, the workmen do not work extra shifts, nor even, but I hope -this is incorrect, on Saturday afternoons; and I think they take their -full hour at noon these short days. - -Every camp throws up men one has met at the other end of the earth; so, -of course, the Engineer C.O. was an ex-South African Canadian. - -‘Some of our boys are digging a trench over yonder,’ he said. ‘I’d like -you to look at ‘em.’ - -The boys seemed to average five feet ten inches, with thirty-seven inch -chests. The soil was unaccommodating chalk. - -‘What are you?’ I asked of the first pickaxe. - -‘Private.’ - -‘Yes, but before that?’ - -‘McGill (University understood). Nineteen twelve.’ - -‘And that boy with the shovel?’ - -‘Queen’s, I think. No; he’s Toronto.’ - -And thus the class in applied geology went on half up the trench, under -supervision of a Corporal-Bachelor-of-Science with a most scientific -biceps. They were young; they were beautifully fit, and they were all -truly thankful that they lived in these high days. - -Sappers, like sergeants, take care to make themselves comfortable. The -corps were dealing with all sorts of little domestic matters in the way -of arrangements for baths, which are cruelly needed, and an apparatus -for depopulating shirts, which is even more wanted. Healthy but unwashen -men sleeping on the ground are bound to develop certain things which at -first disgust them, but later are accepted as an unlovely part of the -game. It would be quite easy to make bakehouses and super-heated steam -fittings to deal with the trouble. The huts themselves stand on brick -piers, from one to three feet above ground. The board floors are not -grooved or tongued, so there is ample ventilation from beneath; but they -have installed decent cooking ranges and gas, and the men have already -made themselves all sorts of handy little laboursaving gadgets. They -would do this if they were in the real desert. Incidentally, I came -across a delightful bit of racial instinct. A man had been told to knock -up a desk out of broken packing-cases. There is only one type of desk in -Canada—the roller-top, with three shelves each side the knee-hole, -characteristic sloping sides, raised back, and long shelf in front of -the writer. He reproduced it faithfully, barring, of course, the -roller-top; and the thing leaped to the eye out of its English office -surroundings. The Engineers do not suffer for lack of talents. Their -senior officers appear to have been the heads, and their juniors the -assistants, in big concerns that wrestle with unharnessed nature. (There -is a tale of the building of a bridge in Valcartier Camp which is not -bad hearing.) The rank and file include miners; road, trestle, and -bridge men; iron construction men who, among other things, are -steeplejacks; whole castes of such as deal in high explosives for a -living; loco-drivers, superintendents, too, for aught I know, and a -solid packing of selected machinists, mechanics, and electricians. -Unluckily, they were all a foot or so too tall for me to tell them that, -even if their equipment escaped at the front, they would infallibly be -raided for their men. - - - AN UNRELATED DETACHMENT - -I left McGill, Queen’s, and Toronto still digging in their trench, which -another undergraduate, mounted and leading a horse, went out of his way -to jump standing. My last glimpse was of a little detachment, with five -or six South African ribbons among them, who were being looked over by -an officer. No one thought it strange that they should have embodied -themselves and crossed the salt seas independently as ‘So-and-So’s -Horse.’ (It is best to travel with a title these days.) Once arrived, -they were not at all particular, except that they meant to join the -Army, and the lonely batch was stating its qualifications as Engineers. - -‘They get over any way and every way,’ said my companion. ‘Swimming, I -believe.’ - -‘But who was the So-and-So that they were christened after?’ I asked. - -‘I guess he was the man who financed ‘em or grub-staked ‘em while they -were waiting. He may be one of ‘em in that crowd now; or he may be a -provincial magnate at home getting another bunch together.’ - - - THE VANGUARD OF A NATION - -Then I went back to the main camp for a last look at that wonderful -army, where the tin-roofed messes take French conversation lessons with -the keen-faced French-Canadian officers, and where one sees -esprit-de-corps in the making. Nowhere is local sentiment stronger than -in Canada. East and West, lake and maritime provinces, prairie and -mountain, fruit district and timber lands—they each thrill to it. The -West keeps one cold blue open-air eye on the townful East. Winnipeg sits -between, posing alternately as sophisticated metropolis and simple -prairie. Alberta, of the thousand horses, looks down from her -high-peaked saddle on all who walk on their feet; and British Columbia -thanks God for an equable climate, and that she is not like Ottawa, full -of politicians and frozen sludge. Quebec, unassailable in her years and -experience, smiles tolerantly on the Nova Scotian, for he has a history -too, and asks Montreal if any good thing can come out of Brandon, Moose -Jaw, or Regina. They discuss each other outrageously, as they know each -other intimately, over four thousand miles of longitude—their fathers, -their families, and all the connections. Which is useful when it comes -to sizing up the merits of a newly-promoted non-commissioned officer or -the capacities of a quarter-master. - -As their Army does and suffers, and its record begins to blaze, fierce -pride of regiment will be added to local love and the national pride -that backs and envelops all. But that pride is held in very severe check -now; for they are neither provinces nor tribes but a welded people -fighting in the War of Liberty. They permit themselves to hope that the -physique of their next contingent will not be worse than that of the -present. They believe that their country can send forward a certain -number of men and a certain number behind that, all equipped to a -certain scale. Of discomforts endured, of the long learning and -relearning and waiting on, they say nothing. They do not hint what they -will do when their hour strikes, though they more than hint their -longing for that hour. In all their talk I caught no phrase that could -be twisted into the shadow of a boast or any claim to superiority, even -in respect to their kit and outfit; no word or implication of -self-praise for any sacrifice made or intended. It was their rigid -humility that impressed one as most significant—and, perhaps, most -menacing for such as may have to deal with this vanguard of an armed -Nation. - - - - - V - - INDIAN TROOPS - - _Larai meṅ laddu nahiṅ batte_ (War is not sugar-plums).—_Hindi - Proverb._ - - -Working from the East to the West of England, through a countryside -alive with troops of all arms, the car came at dusk into a cathedral -town entirely inhabited by one type of regiment. The telegraph-office -was an orderly jam of solid, large, made men, with years of discipline -behind them and the tan of Indian suns on their faces—Englishmen still -so fresh from the troopships that one of them asked me, ‘What’s the day -o’ the month?’ They were advising friends of their arrival in England, -or when they might be expected on short leave at the week’s end; and the -fresh-faced telegraph girls behind the grilles worked with six pairs of -hands apiece and all the goodwill and patience in the world to back -them. That same young woman who, with nothing to do, makes you wait ten -minutes for a penny stamp while she finishes a talk with a lady-friend, -will, at a crisis, go on till she drops, and keep her temper throughout. -‘Well, _if_ that’s her village,’ I heard one of the girls say to an -anxious soul, ‘I tell _you_ that that will be her telegraph-office. You -leave it to me. _She’ll_ get it all right.’ - -He backed out, and a dozen more quietly took his place. Their regiments -hailed from all the old known stations of the East and beyond that into -the Far East again. They cursed their cool barrack accommodation; they -rejoiced in the keen autumn smells, and paraded the long street all -filled with ‘Europe shops’; while their officers and their officers’ -wives, and, I think, mothers who had come down to snatch a glimpse of -their boys, crowded the hotels, and the little unastonished Anglo-Indian -children circulated round the knees of big friends they had made -aboard-ship and asked, ‘Where are you going now?’ - -One caught scraps of our old gipsy talk—names of boarding-houses, -agents’ addresses: ‘Milly stays with mother, of course.’ ‘I’m taking -Jack down to school to-morrow. It’s past half-term, but that doesn’t -matter nowadays’; and cheery farewells between men and calm-eyed women. -Except for the frocks, it might have been an evening assembly at any -station bandstand in India. - -Outside, on the surging pavements, a small boy cried: ‘Paper! Evenin’ -paper!’ Then seductively: _’Kargus!_’ - -‘What?’ I said, thinking my ears had cheated me. - -‘_Dekko! Kargus!_’ said he. (’Look here! Paper!’) - -‘Why on earth d’you say that?’ - -‘Because the men like it,’ he replied, and slapped an evening paper (no -change for a penny) into the hand of a man in a helmet. - -Who shall say that the English are not adaptable? - -The car swam bonnet-deep through a mile of troops; and a mile up the -road one could hear the deep hum of all those crowded streets that the -cathedral bells were chiming over. It was only one small block of -Anglo-India getting ready to take its place in the all-devouring Line. - - - SCREW-GUNS - -An hour later at —— (Shall we ever be able to name people and places -outright again?) the wind brought up one whiff—one unmistakable whiff—of -_ghi_. Somewhere among the English pines that, for the moment, pretended -to be the lower slopes of the Dun, there were native troops. A mule -squealed in the dark and set off half-a-dozen others. It was -screw-guns—batteries of them, waiting their turn also at the game. -Morning showed them in their immaculate lines as though they had just -marched in from Jutogh—little, low guns with their ammunition; very big -English gunners in disengaged attitudes which, nevertheless, did not -encourage stray civilians to poke and peer into things; and the native -drivers all busied over their charges. True, the wind was bitter, and -many of the drivers had tied up their heads, but so one does at Quetta -in the cold weather—not to mention Peshawur—and, said a naik of drivers: -‘It is not the cold for which we have no liking. It is the wet. The -English air is good, but water falls at all seasons. Yet -notwithstanding, we of this battery (and, oh, the pride men can throw -into a mere number!) have not lost one mule. Neither at sea nor on land -have we _one_ lost. That can be shown, sahib.’ - -Then one heard the deep racking tobacco-cough in the lee of a tent where -four or five men—Kangra folk by the look of them—were drinking tobacco -out of a cow’s horn. Their own country’s tobacco, be sure, for English -tobacco.... But there was no need to explain. Who would have dreamed to -smell bazar-tobacco on a south country golf links? - -A large proportion of the men are, of course, Sikhs, to whom tobacco is -forbidden; the Havildar Major himself was a Sikh of the Sikhs. He spoke, -of all things in this strange world, of the late Mr. M. McAuliffe’s -monumental book on the Sikh religion, saying, not without warrant, that -McAuliffe Sahib had translated into English much of the Holy Book—the -great Grunth Sahib that lives at Amritzar. He enlarged, too, on the -ancient prophecy among the Sikhs—that a hatted race should some day come -out of the sea and lead them to victory all the earth over. So spoke Bir -Singh, erect and enormous beneath the grey English skies. He hailed from -a certain place called Banalu, near Patiala, where many years ago two -Sikh soldiers executed a striking but perfectly just vengeance on -certain villagers who had oppressed their young brother, a cultivator. -They had gone to the extreme limits of abasement and conciliation. This -failing, they took leave for a week-end and slew the whole tribe of -their enemies. The story is buried in old Government reports, but when -Bir Singh implied that he and his folk were orthodox I had no doubt of -it. And behind him stood another giant, who knew, for his village was -but a few miles up the Shalimar road, every foot of Lahore city. He -brought word that there had been great floods at home, so that the risen -Ravi river had touched the very walls of Runjit Singh’s Fort. And that -was only last rains—and, behold!—here he was now in England waiting -orders to go to this fight which, he understood, was not at all a small -fight, but a fight of fights, in which all the world and ‘our Raj’ was -engaged. The trouble in India was that all the young men—the mere -_jiwans_—wanted to come out at once, which, he said, was manifestly -unjust to older men, who had waited so long. However, merit and patience -had secured their reward, and the battery was here, and it would do the -hot _jiwans_ no harm to stay at home, and be zealous at drill until -orders came for them in their turn. ‘Young men think that everything -good in this world is theirs by right, sahib.’ - -Then came the big, still English gunners, who are trained to play with -the little guns. They took one such gun and melted it into trifling -pieces of not more than a hundred and fifty pounds each, and reassembled -it, and explained its innermost heart till even a layman could -understand. There is a lot to understand about screw-guns—specially the -new kind. But the gunner of to-day, like his ancestor, does not talk -much, except in his own time and place, when he is as multitudinously -amazing as the Blue Marine. - - - THE MULE LINES - -We went over to see the mule lines. I detest the whole generation of -these parrot-mouthed hybrids, American, Egyptian, Andalusian, or -up-country: so it gave me particular pleasure to hear a Pathan telling -one chestnut beast who objected to having its mane hogged any more, what -sort of lady-horse his mamma had been. But _qua_ animals, they were a -lovely lot, and had long since given up blowing and finicking over -English fodder. - -‘Is there any sickness? Why is yonder mule lying down?’ I demanded, as -though all the lines could not see I was a shuddering amateur. - -‘There is no sickness, sahib. That mule lies down for his own pleasure. -Also, to get out of the wind. He is very clever. He is from Hindustan,’ -said the man with the horse-clippers. - -‘And thou?’ - -‘_I_ am a Pathan,’ said he with impudent grin and true border cock of -the turban, and he did me the honour to let me infer. - -The lines were full of talk as the men went over their animals. They -were not worrying themselves over this new country of Belait. It was the -regular gossip of food and water and firewood, and where So-and-So had -hid the curry-comb. - -Talking of cookery, the orthodox men have been rather put out by English -visitors who come to the cook-houses and stare directly _at_ the food -while it is being prepared. Sensible men do not object to this, because -they know that these Englishmen have no evil intention nor any evil eye; -but sometimes a narrow-souled purist (toothache or liver makes a man -painfully religious) will ‘spy strangers,’ and insist on the strict -letter of the law, and then every one who wishes to be orthodox must -agree with him—on an empty stomach, too—and wait till a fresh mess has -been cooked. This is _taklif_—a burden—for where the intention is good -and war is afoot much can and should be overlooked. Moreover, this war -is not like any other war. It is a war of _our_ Raj—‘everybody’s war,’ -as they say in the bazaars. And that is another reason why it does not -matter if an Englishman stares at one’s food. This I gathered in small -pieces after watering time when the mules had filed up to the troughs in -the twilight, hundreds of them, and the drivers grew discursive on the -way to the lines. - -The last I saw of them was in the early cold morning, all in marching -order, jinking and jingling down a road through woods. - -‘Where are you going?’ - -‘God knows!’ - - - THE INN OF GOOD-BYES - -It might have been for exercise merely, or it might be down to the sea -and away to the front for the battle of ‘Our Raj.’ The quiet hotel where -people sit together and talk in earnest strained pairs is well used to -such departures. The officers of a whole Division—the raw cuts of their -tent-circles lie still unhealed on the links—dined there by scores; -mothers and relatives came down from the uttermost parts of Scotland for -a last look at their boys, and found beds goodness knows where: very -quiet little weddings, too, set out from its doors to the church -opposite. The Division went away a century of weeks ago by the road that -the mule-battery took. Many of the civilians who pocketed the wills -signed and witnessed in the smoking-room are full-blown executors now; -some of the brides are widows. - -And it is not nice to remember that when the hotel was so filled that -not even another pleading mother could be given a place in which to lie -down and have her cry out—not at all nice to remember that it never -occurred to any of the comfortable people in the large but sparsely -inhabited houses around that they might have offered a night’s lodging, -even to an unintroduced stranger. - - - GREATHEART AND CHRISTIANA - -There were hospitals up the road preparing and being prepared for the -Indian wounded. In one of these lay a man of, say, a Biluch regiment, -sorely hit. Word had come from his colonel in France to the colonel’s -wife in England that she should seek till she found that very man and -got news from his very mouth—news to send to his family and village. She -found him at last, and he was very bewildered to see her there, because -he had left her and her child on the verandah of the bungalow, long and -long ago, when he and his colonel and the regiment went down to take -ship for the war. How had she come? Who had guarded her during her -train-journey of so many days? And, above all, how had the baba endured -that sea which caused strong men to collapse? Not till all these matters -had been cleared up in fullest detail did Greatheart on his cot permit -his colonel’s wife to waste one word on his own insignificant concerns. -And that she should have wept filled him with real trouble. Truly, this -is the war of ‘Our Raj!’ - - - - - VI - - TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS - - To excuse oneself to oneself is human: but to excuse oneself to - one’s children is Hell.—_Arabic Proverb._ - - -Billeted troops are difficult to get at. There are thousands of them in -a little old town by the side of an even older park up the London Road, -but to find a particular battalion is like ferreting unstopped burrows. - -‘The Umpty-Umpth, were you looking for?’ said a private in charge of a -side-car. ‘We’re the Eenty-Eenth. ‘Only came in last week. I’ve never -seen this place before. It’s pretty. Hold on! There’s a postman. He’ll -know.’ - -He, too, was in khaki, bowed between mailbags, and his accent was of a -far and coaly county. - -‘I’m none too sure,’ said he, ‘but I think I saw——’ - -Here a third man cut in. - -‘Yon’s t’ battalion, marchin’ into t’ park now. Roon! Happen tha’ll -catch ‘em.’ - -They turned out to be Territorials with a history behind them; but that -I didn’t know till later; and their band and cyclists. Very polite were -those rear-rank cyclists—who pushed their loaded machines with one vast -hand apiece. - -They were strangers, they said. They had only come here a few days ago. -But they knew the South well. They had been in Gloucestershire, which -was a very nice southern place. - -Then their battalion, I hazarded, was of northern extraction? - -They admitted that I might go as far as that; their speech betraying -their native town at every rich word. - -‘Huddersfield, of course?’ I said, to make them out with it. - -‘Bolton,’ said one at last. Being in uniform the pitman could not -destroy the impertinent civilian. - -‘Ah, Bolton!’ I returned. ‘_All_ cotton, aren’t you?’ - -‘Some coal,’ he answered gravely. There is notorious rivalry ‘twixt coal -and cotton in Bolton, but I wanted to see him practise the self-control -that the Army is always teaching. - -As I have said, he and his companion were most polite, but the total of -their information, boiled and peeled, was that they had just come from -Bolton way; might at any moment be sent somewhere else, and they liked -Gloucestershire in the south. A spy could not have learned much less. - -The battalion halted, and moved off by companies for further evolutions. -One could see they were more than used to drill and arms; a hardened, -thick-necked, thin-flanked, deep-chested lot, dealt with quite -faithfully by their sergeants, and altogether abreast of their work. -Why, then, this reticence? What had they to be ashamed of, these big -Bolton folk without an address? Where was their orderly-room? - -There were many orderly-rooms in the little old town, most of them in -bye-lanes less than one car wide. I found what I wanted, and—this was -north-country all over—a private who volunteered to steer me to -headquarters through the tricky southern streets. He was communicative, -and told me a good deal about typhoid-inoculation and musketry practice, -which accounted for only six companies being on parade. But surely they -could not have been ashamed of _that_. - - - GUARDING A RAILWAY - -I unearthed their skeleton at last in a peaceful, gracious -five-hundred-year-old house that looked on to lawns and cut hedges -bounded by age-old red brick walls—such a perfumed and dreaming place as -one would choose for the setting of some even-pulsed English love-tale -of the days before the war. - -Officers were billeted in the low-ceiled, shiny-floored rooms full of -books and flowers. - -‘And now,’ I asked, when I had told the tale of the uncommunicative -cyclist, ‘what _is_ the matter with your battalion?’ - -They laughed cruelly at me. ‘Matter!’ said they. ‘We’re just off three -months of guarding railways. After _that_ a man wouldn’t trust his own -mother. You don’t mean to say our cyclists let you know where we’ve come -from last?’ - -‘No, they didn’t,’ I replied. ‘That was what worried me. I assumed you’d -all committed murders, and had been sent here to live it down.’ - -Then they told me what guarding a line really means. How men wake and -walk, with only express troop-trains to keep them company, all the night -long on windy embankments or under still more windy bridges; how they -sleep behind three sleepers up-ended or a bit of tin, or, if they are -lucky, in a platelayer’s hut; how their food comes to them slopping -across the square-headed ties that lie in wait to twist a man’s ankle -after dark; how they stand in blown coal-dust of goods-yards trying to -watch five lines of trucks at once; how fools of all classes pester the -lonely pickets, whose orders are to hold up motors for inquiry, and then -write silly letters to the War Office about it. How nothing ever happens -through the long weeks but infallibly would if the patrols were taken -off. And they had one refreshing story of a workman who at six in the -morning, which is no auspicious hour to jest with Lancashire, took a -short cut to his work by ducking under some goods-wagons, and when -challenged by the sentry replied, posturing on all fours, ‘Boo, I’m a -German!’ Whereat the upright sentry fired, unfortunately missed him, and -then gave him the butt across his ass’s head, so that his humour, and -very nearly his life, terminated. - -After which the sentry was seldom seen to smile, but frequently heard to -murmur, ‘Ah should hev slipped t’ baggonet into him.’ - - - PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - -‘So you see,’ said the officers in conclusion, ‘you mustn’t be surprised -that our men wouldn’t tell you much.’ - -‘I begin to see,’ I said. ‘How many of you are coal and how many -cotton?’ - -‘Two-thirds coal and one-third cotton, roughly. It keeps the men deadly -keen. An operative isn’t going to give up while a pitman goes on; and -very much _vice versâ_.’ - -‘That’s class-prejudice,’ said I. - -‘It’s most useful,’ said they. The officers themselves seemed to be -interested in coal or cotton, and had known their men intimately on the -civil side. If your orderly-room sergeant, or your quarter-master has -been your trusted head clerk or foreman for ten or twelve years, and if -eight out of a dozen sergeants have controlled pitmen and machinists, -above and below ground, and eighty per cent of these pitmen and -machinists are privates in the companies, your regiment works with -something of the precision of a big business. - -It was all new talk to me, for I had not yet met a Northern Territorial -battalion with the strong pride of its strong town behind it. Where were -they when the war came? How had they equipped themselves? I wanted to -hear the tale. It was worth listening to as told with North-Country joy -of life and the doing of things in that soft down-country house of the -untroubled centuries. Like every one else, they were expecting anything -but war. ‘Hadn’t even begun their annual camp. Then the thing came, and -Bolton rose as one man and woman to fit out its battalion. There was a -lady who wanted a fairly large sum of money for the men’s extra -footgear. She set aside a morning to collect it, and inside the hour -came home with nearly twice her needs, and spent the rest of the time -trying to make people take back fivers, at least, out of tenners. And -the big hauling firms flung horses and transport at them and at the -Government, often refusing any price, or, when it was paid, turning it -into the war funds. What the battalion wanted it had but to ask for. -Once it was short of, say, towels. An officer approached the head of a -big firm, with no particular idea he would get more than a few dozen -from that quarter. - -‘And how many towels d’you want?’ said the head of the firm. The officer -suggested a globular thousand. - -‘I think you’ll do better with twelve hundred,’ was the curt answer. -‘They’re ready out yonder. Get ‘em.’ - -And in this style Bolton turned out her battalion. Then the authorities -took it and strung it by threes and fives along several score miles of -railway track: and it had only just been reassembled, and it had been -inoculated for typhoid. Consequently, they said (but all officers are -like mothers and motor-car owners), it wasn’t up to what it would be in -a little time. In spite of the cyclist, I had had a good look at the -deep-chested battalion in the park, and after getting their musketry -figures,[1] it seemed to me that very soon it might be worth looking at -by more prejudiced persons than myself. - -Footnote 1: - - Thanks to the miniature rifle clubs fostered by Lord Roberts a certain - number of recruits in all the armies come to their regiments with a - certain knowledge of sighting, rifle-handling, and the general details - of good shooting, especially at snap and disappearing work. - -The next day I read that this battalion’s regular battalion in the field -had distinguished itself by a piece of work which, in other wars, would -have been judged heroic. Bolton will read it, not without remarks, and -other towns who love Bolton, more or less, will say that if all the -truth could come out their regiments had done as well. Anyway, the -result will be more men—pitmen, mill-hands, clerks, checkers, weighers, -winders, and hundreds of those sleek, well-groomed business-chaps whom -one used to meet in the big Midland hotels, protesting that war was out -of date. These latter develop surprisingly in the camp atmosphere. I -recall one raging in his army shirt-sleeves at a comrade who had derided -his principles. ‘I _am_ a blanky pacificist,’ he hissed, ‘and I’m proud -of it, and—and I’m going to make _you_ one before I’ve finished with -you!’ - - - THE SECRET OF THE SERVICES - -Pride of city, calling, class, and creed imposes standards and -obligations which hold men above themselves at a pinch, and steady them -through long strain. One meets it in the New Army at every turn, from -the picked Territorials who slipped across Channel last night to the -six-week-old Service battalion maturing itself in mud. It is balanced by -the ineradicable English instinct to understate, detract, and decry—to -mask the thing done by loudly drawing attention to the things undone. -The more one sees of the camps the more one is filled with facts and -figures of joyous significance, which will become clearer as the days -lengthen; and the less one hears of the endurance, decency, -self-sacrifice, and utter devotion which have made, and are hourly -making, this wonderful new world. The camps take this for granted—else -why should any man be there at all? He might have gone on with his -business, or—watched ‘soccer.’ But having chosen to do his bit, he does -it, and talks as much about his motives as he would of his religion or -his love-affairs. He is eloquent over the shortcomings of the -authorities, more pessimistic as to the future of his next neighbour -battalion than would be safe to print, and lyric on his personal -needs—baths and drying-rooms for choice. But when the grousing gets -beyond a certain point—say at three a.m., in steady wet, with the -tent-pegs drawing like false teeth—the nephew of the insurance-agent -asks the cousin of the baronet to inquire of the son of the fried-fish -vendor what the stevedore’s brother and the tutor of the public school -joined the Army _for_. Then they sing ‘Somewhere the Sun is Shining’ -till the Sergeant Ironmonger’s assistant cautions them to drown in -silence or the Lieutenant Telephone-appliances-manufacturer will speak -to them in the morning. - -The New armies have not yet evolved their typical private, n.c.o., and -officer, though one can see them shaping. They are humorous because, for -all our long faces, we are the only genuinely humorous race on earth; -but they all know for true that there are no excuses in the Service. ‘If -there _were_,’ said a three-month-old under-gardener-private to me, -‘what ‘ud become of Discipline?’ - -They are already setting standards for the coming millions, and have -sown little sprouts of regimental tradition which may grow into age-old -trees. In one corps, for example, though no dubbin is issued a man loses -his name for parading with dirty boots. He looks down scornfully on the -next battalion where they are not expected to achieve the impossible. In -another—an ex-Guards sergeant brought ‘em up by hand—the drill is rather -high-class. In a third they fuss about records for route-marching, and -men who fall out have to explain themselves to their sweating -companions. This is entirely right. They are all now in the Year One, -and the meanest of them may be an ancestor of whom regimental posterity -will say: ‘There were giants in those days!’ - - - THE REAL QUESTION - -This much we can realise, even though we are so close to it. The old -safe instinct saves us from triumph and exultation. But what will be the -position in years to come of the young man who has deliberately elected -to outcaste himself from this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his -family, and, above all, what of his descendants, when the books have -been closed and the last balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every -hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, province, and -Dominion throughout the Empire? - - - _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE - - SERVICE KIPLING - - - _In 26 vols._ _16 mo._ _2s. 6d. net each_ - -The volumes are bound in blue cloth, and printed in an old-style type -designed after an old Venetian model and known as the Dolphin Type. - - Plain Tales from the Hills. 2 Vols. - Soldiers Three. 2. Vols. - Wee Willie Winkie. 2 Vols. - From Sea to Sea. 4 Vols. - Life’s Handicap. 2 Vols. - The Light that Failed. 2 Vols. - ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────── - The Naulahka. 2 Vols. │1915 - Many Inventions. 2 Vols. │_February_ - ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────── - The Day’s Work. 2 Vols. │_March_ - Kim. 2 Vols. │ - ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────── - Traffics and Discoveries. 2 Vols. │_April_ - Actions and Reactions. 2 Vols. │ - - LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors. - 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The New Army in Training, by Rudyard Kipling - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING *** - -***** This file should be named 53507-0.txt or 53507-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/5/0/53507/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The New Army in Training - -Author: Rudyard Kipling - -Release Date: November 12, 2016 [EBook #53507] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='tnotes covernote'> - -<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p> - -<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div> - <h1 class='c001'><span class='color_red'>THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='color_red'>BY</span></div> - <div class='c003'><span class='color_red'><span class='xlarge'>RUDYARD KIPLING</span></span></div> - <div class='c002'><span class='color_red'><span class='large'>MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED</span></span></div> - <div><span class='color_red'><span class='large'>ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON</span></span></div> - <div><span class='color_red'><span class='large'>1915</span></span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'><span class='color_red'>PRICE SIXPENCE NET</span></p> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='CONTENTS' class='c004'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> -<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>I</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#WORK'>THE MEN AT WORK</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#BLUE'>THE NORTH IN BLUE</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#DEVELOPMENTS'>DUTIES AND DEVELOPMENTS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>II</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#STEEL'>IRON INTO STEEL</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#ILLUSTRATIONS'>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#THINKS'>WHAT THE ARMY DOES AND THINKS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>III</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#SUPPLY'>GUNS AND SUPPLY</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#CONDITIONS'>SERVICE CONDITIONS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#HOME'>THE GUNNER AT HOME</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#MECHANICS'>MECHANISM AND MECHANICS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#IT'>‘THE HUMOUR OF IT’</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>IV</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#CAMP'>CANADIANS IN CAMP</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#GOSSIP'>CAMP GOSSIP</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#APPLIANCES'>ENGINEERS AND APPLIANCES</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#DETACHMENT'>AN UNRELATED DETACHMENT</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#NATION'>THE VANGUARD OF A NATION</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>V</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#TROOPS'>INDIAN TROOPS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#GUNS'>SCREW-GUNS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#LINES'>THE MULE LINES</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#BYES'>THE INN OF GOOD-BYES</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#CHRISTIANA'>GREATHEART AND CHRISTIANA</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'>VI</td> - <td class='c006' colspan='2'><a href='#BATTALIONS'>TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#RAILWAY'>GUARDING A RAILWAY</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#PREJUDICE'>PRIDE AND PREJUDICE</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#SERVICES'>THE SECRET OF THE SERVICES</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c005'> </td> - <td class='c007'> </td> - <td class='c006'><a href='#QUESTION'>THE REAL QUESTION</a></td> - </tr> -</table> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> - <h2 id='WORK' class='c004'>I<br /> <br /> THE MEN AT WORK</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The ore, the furnace and the hammer are all that is needed -for a sword.—<em>Native proverb.</em></p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>This was a cantonment one had never seen -before, and the grey-haired military policeman -could give no help.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘My experience,’ he spoke detachedly, ‘is that -you’ll find everything everywhere. Is it any -particular corps you’re looking for?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Not in the least,’ I said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Then you’re all right. You can’t miss getting -something.’ He pointed generally to the North -Camp. ‘It’s like floods in a town, isn’t it?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>He had hit the just word. All known marks -in the place were submerged by troops. Parade-grounds -to their utmost limits were crowded with -them; rises and sky-lines were furred with them, -and the length of the roads heaved and rippled -like bicycle-chains with blocks of men on the move.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The voice of a sergeant in the torment reserved -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>for sergeants at roll-call boomed across a bunker. -He was calling over recruits to a specialist corps.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘But I’ve called you once!’ he snapped at a -man in leggings.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘But I’m Clarke Two,’ was the virtuous reply.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He pencilled the -correction with a scornful mouth, out of one -corner of which he added, ‘“Sloppy” Clarke! -You’re all Clarkes or Watsons to-day. You don’t -know your own names. You don’t know what -corps you’re in. (This was bitterly unjust, for -they were squinting up at a biplane.) You don’t -know anything.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Mm!’ said the military policeman. ‘The -more a man has in his head, the harder it is for -him to manage his carcass—at first. I’m glad I -never was a sergeant. Listen to the instructors! -Like rooks, ain’t it?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>There was a mile of sergeants and instructors, -varied by company officers, all at work on the -ready material under their hands. They grunted, -barked, yapped, expostulated, and, in rare cases, -purred, as the lines broke and formed and wheeled -over the vast maidan. When companies numbered -off one could hear the tone and accent of every -walk in life, and maybe half the counties of -England, from the deep-throated ‘Woon’ of the -north to the sharp, half-whistled Devonshire ‘Tu.’ -And as the instructors laboured, so did the men, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>with a passion to learn as passionately as they -were taught.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Presently, in the drift of the foot-traffic down -the road, there came another grey-haired man, one -foot in a bright slipper, which showed he was an -old soldier cherishing a sore toe. He drew alongside -and considered these zealous myriads.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Good?’ said I, deferentially.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very good’—then, half to -himself: ‘Quite different, though.’ A pivot-man -near us had shifted a little, instead of marking time, -on the wheel. His face clouded, his lips moved. -Obviously he was cursing his own clumsiness.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘That’s what I meant,’ said the veteran. -‘Innocent! Innocent! Mark you, they ain’t doin’ -it to be done with it and get off. They’re doin’ it -because—because they want to do it.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Wake up! Wake <em>up</em> there, Isherwood!’ This -was a young subaltern’s reminder flung at a back -which straightened itself. That one human name -coming up out of all that maze of impersonal -manœuvring stuck in the memory like wreckage -on the ocean.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘An’ it wasn’t ‘ardly even necessary to caution -Mister Isherwood,’ my companion commented. -‘Prob’ly he’s bitterly ashamed of ‘imself.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>I asked a leading question because the old -soldier told me that when his toe was sound, he, -too, was a military policeman.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>‘Crime? Crime?’ said he. ‘They don’t know -what crime is—that lot don’t—none of ‘em!’ He -mourned over them like a benevolent old Satan -looking into a busy Eden, and his last word was -‘Innocent!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>The car worked her way through miles of -men—men route-marching, going to dig or build -bridges, or wrestle with stores and transport—four -or five miles of men, and every man with eager -eyes. There was no music—not even drums and -fifes. I heard nothing but a distant skirl of the -pipes. Trust a Scot to get his national weapon as -long as there is a chief in the North! Admitting -that war is a serious business, specially to the man -who is being fought for, and that it may be right -to carry a long face and contribute to relief funds -which should be laid on the National Debt, it -surely could do no harm to cheer the men with a -few bands. Half the money that has been spent -in treating, for example....</p> - -<h3 id='BLUE' class='c010'>THE NORTH IN BLUE</h3> - -<p class='c011'>There was a moor among woods with a pond -in a hollow, the centre of a world of tents whose -population was North-Country. One heard it -from far off.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Yo’ mun trail t’ pick an’ t’ rifle at t’ same -time. Try again,’ said the instructor.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>An isolated company tried again with set -seriousness, and yet again. They were used to -the pick—won their living by it, in fact—and so, -favoured it more than the rifle; but miners don’t -carry picks at the trail by instinct, though they can -twiddle their rifles as one twiddles walking-sticks.</p> - -<p class='c000'>They were clad in a blue garb that disguised -all contours; yet their shoulders, backs, and loins -could not altogether be disguised, and these were -excellent. Another company, at physical drill in -shirt and trousers, showed what superb material -had offered itself to be worked upon, and how -much poise and directed strength had been added -to that material in the past few months. When -the New Army gets all its new uniform, it will -gaze at itself like a new Narcissus. But the -present kit is indescribable. That is why, English -fashion, it has been made honourable by its -wearers; and our world in the years to come will -look back with reverence as well as affection on -those blue slops and that epileptic cap. One farseeing -commandant who had special facilities has -possessed himself of brass buttons, thousands of -‘em, which he has added to his men’s outfit for -the moral effect of (<em>a</em>) having something to clean, -and (<em>b</em>) of keeping it so. It has paid. The -smartest regiment in the Service could not do -itself justice in such garments, but I managed to -get a view of a battalion, coming in from a walk, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>at a distance which more or less subdued the—er—uniform, -and they moved with the elastic swing -and little quick ripple that means so much. A -miner is not supposed to be as good a marcher as -a townsman, but when he gets set to time and -pace and learns due economy of effort, his -developed back and shoulder muscles take him -along very handsomely. Another battalion fell -in for parade while I watched, again at a distance. -They came to hand quietly and collectedly enough, -and with only that amount of pressing which is -caused by fear of being late. A platoon—or -whatever they call it—was giving the whole of its -attention to its signalling instructors, with the air -of men resolved on getting the last flicker of the -last cinema-film for their money. Crime in the -military sense they do not know any more than -their fellow-innocents up the road. It is hopeless -to pretend to be other than what one is, because -one’s soul in this life is as exposed as one’s body. -It is futile to tell civilian lies—there are no civilians -to listen—and they have not yet learned to tell -Service ones without being detected. It is useless -to sulk at any external condition of affairs, because -the rest of the world with which a man is concerned -is facing those identical conditions. There is neither -poverty nor riches, nor any possibility of pride, -except in so far as one may do one’s task a little -better than one’s mate.</p> - -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span> - <h3 id='DEVELOPMENTS' class='c010'>DUTIES AND DEVELOPMENTS</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>In the point of food they are extremely well -looked after, quality and quantity, wet canteen and -dry. Drafts come in all round the clock, and they -have to be fed; late guards and sentries want -something hot at odd times, and the big marquee-canteen -is the world’s gathering-place, where food, -life’s first interest to man in hard work, is thoroughly -discussed. They can get outside of a vast o’ vittles. -Thus, a contractor who delivers ten thousand -rations a day stands, by deputy at least, in the -presence of just that number of rather fit, long, deep -men. They are what is called ‘independent’—a -civilian weakness which they will learn to blush -over in a few months, and to discourage among -later recruits; but they are also very quick to pick -up dodges and tricks that make a man more comfortable -in camp life, and their domestic routine -runs on wheels. It must have been hard at first -for civilians to see the necessity for that continuous, -apparently persnickety, house-maiding and ‘following-up’ -which is vital to the comfort of large bodies -of men in confined quarters. In civil life men leave -these things to their womenfolk, but where women -are not, officers, inspecting tents, feet, and such-like, -develop a she-side to their head, and evidently -make their non-commissioned officers and men -develop it too. A good soldier is always a bit of an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>old maid. But, as I heard a private say to a -sergeant in the matter of some kit chucked into a -corner: ‘Yo’ canna keep owt redd up ony proper -gate on a sand-hill.’ To whom his superior -officer: ‘Ah know yo’ canna’, but yo’ mun try, -Billy.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>And Heaven knows they are trying hard enough—men, -n.c.o.’s, and officers—with all the masked -and undervoiced effort of our peoples when we -are really at work. They stand at the very beginning -of things; creating out of chaos, meeting -emergencies as they arise; handicapped in every -direction, and overcoming every handicap by simple -goodwill, humour, self-sacrifice, common-sense, -and such trumpery virtues. I watched their faces -in the camp, and at lunch looked down a line of -some twenty men in the mess-tent, wondering how -many would survive to see the full splendour and -significance of the work here so nobly begun. But -they were not interested in the future beyond their -next immediate job. They ate quickly and went -out to it, and by the time I drove away again I was -overtaking their battalions on the road. Not unrelated -units lugged together for foot-slogging, but -real battalions, of a spirit in themselves which -defied even the blue slops—wave after wave of -proper men, with undistracted eyes, who never -talked a word about any war. But not a note of -music—and they North-countrymen!</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span> - <h2 id='STEEL' class='c004'>II<br /> <br /> IRON INTO STEEL</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><em>Thanda lohā garam lohe ko marta hai</em> (Cold iron will cut -hot iron).</p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>AT the next halt I fell into Scotland—blocks -and blocks of it—a world of precise-spoken, -thin-lipped men, with keen eyes. They -gave me directions which led by friendly stages to -the heart of another work of creation and a huge -drill-shed where the miniature rifles were busy. -Few things are duller than Morris-tube practice in -the shed, unless it be judging triangles of error -against blank-walls. I thought of the military -policeman with the sore toe; for these ‘innocents’ -were visibly enjoying both games. They sighted -over the sand-bags with the gravity of surveyors, -while the instructors hurled knowledge at them like -sling-stones.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Man, d’ye see your error? Step here, man, -and I’ll show ye.’ Teacher and taught glared at -each other like theologians in full debate; for this -is the Scot’s way of giving and getting knowledge.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>At the miniature targets squad after squad rose -from beside their deadly-earnest instructors, gathered -up their target-cards, and whisperingly compared -them, five heads together under a window.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Aye, that was where I loosed too soon.’ ‘I -misdoubt I took too much o’ the foresight.’ Not -a word of hope and comfort in their achievements. -Nothing but calvinistic self-criticism.</p> - -<p class='c000'>These men ran a little smaller than the North-country -folk down the road, but in depth of chest, -girth of fore-arm, biceps, and neck-measurement -they were beautifully level and well up; and the -squads at bayonet-practice had their balance, drive, -and recover already. As the light failed one noticed -the whites of their eyes turning towards their -instructors. It reminded one that there is always -a touch of the cateran in the most docile Scot, even -as the wolf persists in every dog.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And what about crime?’ I demanded.</p> - -<p class='c000'>There was none. They had not joined to play -the fool. Occasionally a few unstable souls who -have mistaken their vocation try to return to civil -life by way of dishonourable discharge, and think -it ‘funny’ to pile up offences. The New Army -has no use for those people either, and attends to -them on what may be called ‘democratic lines,’ -which is all the same as the old barrack-room court-martial. -Nor does it suffer fools gladly. There is no -time to instruct them. They go to other spheres.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>There was, or rather is, a man who intends to -join a certain battalion. He joined it once, scraped -past the local doctor, and was drafted into the -corps, only to be hove out for varicose veins. He -went back to his accommodating doctor, repeated -the process, and was again rejected. They are -waiting for him now in his third incarnation; both -sides are equally determined. And there was -another Scot who joined, served awhile, and left, -as he might have left a pit or a factory. Somehow -it occurred to him that explanations were required, -so he wrote to his commanding officer from his -home address and asked him what he recommended -him to do. The C.O., to his infinite credit, wrote -back: ‘Suppose you rejoin,’ which the man did, -and no more said. His punishment, of course, -will come to him when he realises what he has -done. If he does not then perish in his self-contempt -(he has a good conceit of himself) he will make -one first-rate non-commissioned officer.</p> - -<h3 id='ILLUSTRATIONS' class='c010'>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> - -<p class='c011'>I had the luck to meet a Sergeant-Major, who -was the Sergeant-Major of one’s dreams. He had -just had sure information that the kilts for his -battalion were coming in a few days, so, after -three months’ hard work, life smiled upon him. -From kilts one naturally went on to the pipes. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>The battalion had its pipes—a very good set. -How did it get them? Well, there was, of course, -the Duke. They began with him. And there -was a Scots lord concerned with the regiment. -And there was a leddy of a certain clan connected -with the battalion. Hence the pipes. Could anything -be simpler or more logical? And when the -kilts came the men would be different creatures. -Were they good men, I asked. ‘Yes. Verra good. -Wha’s to mislead ‘em?’ said he.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Old soldiers,’ I suggested, meanly enough. -‘Rejoined privates of long ago.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Ay, there might have been a few such in the -beginning, but they’d be more useful in the Special -Reserve Battalions. Our boys are good boys, -but, ye’ll understand, they’ve to be handled—just -handled a little.’ Then a subaltern came in, loaded -with regimental forms, and visibly leaning on the -Sergeant-Major, who explained, clarified, and -referred them on the proper quarters.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Does the work come back to you?’ I asked, -for he had been long in pleasant civil employ.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Ay. It does that. It just does that.’ And he -addressed the fluttering papers, lists, and notes, -with the certainty of an old golfer on a well-known -green.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Squads were at bayonet practice in the square. -(They like bayonet practice, especially after looking -at pictures in the illustrated dailies.) A new draft -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>was being introduced to its rifles. The rest were -getting ready for evening parade. They were all -in khaki, so one could see how they had come on -in the last ten weeks. It was a result the meekest -might have been proud of, but the New Army -does not cultivate useless emotions. Their officers -and their instructors worked over them patiently -and coldly and repeatedly, with their souls in the -job: and with their soul, mind, and body in the -same job the men took—soaked up—the instruction. -And that seems to be the note of the New Army.</p> - -<h3 id='THINKS' class='c010'>WHAT THE ARMY DOES AND THINKS</h3> - -<p class='c011'>They have joined for good reason. For that -reason they sleep uncomplainingly double thick on -barrack floors, or lie like herrings in the tents and -sing hymns and other things when they are flooded -out. They walk and dig half the day or all the -night as required; they wear—though they will -not eat—anything that is issued to them; they -make themselves an organised and kindly life out -of a few acres of dirt and a little canvas; they keep -their edge and anneal their discipline under conditions -that would depress a fox-terrier and -disorganise a champion football team. They -ask nothing in return save work and equipment. -And being what they are, they thoroughly and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>unfeignedly enjoy what they are doing; and they -purpose to do much more.</p> - -<p class='c000'>But they also think. They think it vile that so -many unmarried young men who are not likely -to be affected by Government allowances should -be so shy about sharing their life. They discuss -these young men and their womenfolk by name, -and imagine rude punishments for them, suited to -their known characters. They discuss, too, their -elders who in time past warned them of the sin of -soldiering. These men, who live honourably and -simply under the triple vow of Obedience, Temperance, -and Poverty, recall, not without envy, the -sort of life which well-kept moralists lead in the -unpicketed, un-sentried towns; and it galls them -that such folk should continue in comfort and -volubility at the expense of good men’s lives, or -should profit greasily at the end of it all. They -stare hard, even in their blue slops, at white-collared, -bowler-hatted young men, who, by the way, are -just learning to drop their eyes under that gaze. -In the third-class railway carriages they hint that -they would like explanations from the casual ‘nut,’ -and they explain to him wherein his explanations -are unconvincing. And when they are home on -leave, the slack-jawed son of the local shop-keeper, -and the rising nephew of the big banker, and the -dumb but cunning carter’s lad receive instruction -or encouragement suited to their needs and the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>nation’s. The older men and the officers will tell -you that if the allowances are made more liberal we -shall get all the men we want. But the younger -men of the New Army do not worry about allowances—or, -for that matter, make ‘em!</p> - -<p class='c000'>There is a gulf already opening between those -who have joined and those who have not; but we -shall not know the width and the depth of that -gulf till the war is over. The wise youth is he -who jumps it now and lands in safety among the -trained and armed men.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span> - <h2 id='SUPPLY' class='c004'>III<br /> <br /> GUNS AND SUPPLY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Under all and after all the Wheel carries everything.—<em>Proverb.</em></p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>One had known the place for years as a -picturesque old house, standing in a peaceful -park; had watched the growth of -certain young oaks along a new-laid avenue, and -applauded the owner’s enterprise in turning a -stretch of pasture to plough. There are scores of -such estates in England which the motorist, through -passing so often, comes to look upon almost as his -own. In a single day the brackened turf between -the oaks and the iron road-fence blossomed into -tents, and the drives were all cut up with hoofs -and wheels. A little later, one’s car sweeping -home of warm September nights was stopped by -sentries, who asked her name and business; for -the owner of that retired house and discreetly -wooded park had gone elsewhere in haste, and -his estate was taken over by the military.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Later still, one met men and horses arguing with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>each other for miles about that countryside; or the -car would be flung on her brakes by artillery -issuing from cross-lanes—clean batteries jingling -off to their work on the Downs, and hungry ones -coming back to meals. Every day brought the -men and the horses and the weights behind them -to a better understanding, till in a little while the -car could pass a quarter of a mile of them without -having to hoot more than once.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Why are you so virtuous?’ she asked of a -section encountered at a blind and brambly corner. -‘Why do you obtrude your personality less than -an average tax-cart?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Because,’ said a driver, his arm flung up to -keep the untrimmed hedge from sweeping his cap -off, ‘because those are our blessed orders. We -don’t do it for love.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>No one accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection -for anything except his beasts and his weapons. -He hasn’t the time. He serves at least three -jealous gods—his horse and all its saddlery and -harness; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is -more important than men’s lives; and, when these -have been attended to, the never-ending mystery -of his art commands him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was a wettish, windy day when I visited the -so-long-known house and park. Cock pheasants -ducked in and out of trim rhododendron clumps, -neat gates opened into sacredly preserved vegetable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>gardens, the many-coloured leaves of specimen -trees pasted themselves stickily against sodden tent -walls, and there was a mixture of circus smells -from the horse-lines and the faint, civilised breath -of chrysanthemums in the potting sheds. The -main drive was being relaid with a foot of flint; -the other approaches were churned and pitted under -the gun wheels and heavy supply wagons. Great -breadths of what had been well-kept turf between -unbrowsed trees were blanks of slippery brown -wetness, dotted with picketed horses and field-kitchens. -It was a crazy mixture of stark necessity -and manicured luxury, all cheek by jowl, in the -undiscriminating rain.</p> - -<h3 id='CONDITIONS' class='c010'>SERVICE CONDITIONS</h3> - -<p class='c011'>The cook-houses, store-rooms, forges, and workshops -were collections of tilts, poles, rick-cloths, and -odd lumber, beavered together as on service. The -officers’ mess was a thin, soaked marquee.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Less than a hundred yards away were dozens of -vacant, well-furnished rooms in the big brick house, -of which the Staff furtively occupied one corner. -There was accommodation for very many men in -its stables and out-houses alone; or the whole -building might have been gutted and rearranged for -barracks twice over in the last three months.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Scattered among the tents were rows of half-built -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>tin sheds, the ready-prepared lumber and the -corrugated iron lying beside them, waiting to be -pieced together like children’s toys. But there -were no workmen. I was told that they had come -that morning, but had knocked off because it was -wet.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I see. And where are the batteries?’ I demanded.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Out at work, of course. They’ve been out -since seven.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘How shocking! In this dreadful weather, too!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘They took some bread and cheese with them. -They’ll be back about dinner-time if you care to -wait. Here’s one of our field-kitchens.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Batteries look after their own stomachs, and are -not catered for by contractors. The cook-house -was a wagon-tilt. The wood, being damp, smoked -a good deal. One thought of the wide, adequate -kitchen ranges and the concrete passages of the -service quarters in the big house just behind. One -even dared to think Teutonically of the perfectly -good panelling and the thick hard-wood floors that -could——</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Service conditions, you see,’ said my guide, as -the cook inspected the baked meats and the men -inside the wagon-tilt grated the carrots and prepared -the onions. It was old work to them after all -these months—done swiftly, with the clean economy -of effort that camp life teaches.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>‘What are these lads when they’re at home?’ -I inquired.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Londoners chiefly—all sorts and conditions.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>The cook in shirt sleeves made another investigation, -and sniffed judicially. He might have -been cooking since the Peninsular. He looked at -his watch and across towards the park gates. He -was responsible for one hundred and sixty rations, -and a battery has the habit of saying quite all that -it thinks of its food.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘How often do the batteries go out?’ I continued.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘’Bout five days a week. You see, we’re being -worked up a little.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And have they got plenty of ground to work -over?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Oh—yes-s.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘What’s the difficulty this time? Birds?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘No; but we got orders the other day not to -go over a golf-course. That rather knocks the -bottom out of tactical schemes.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Perfect shamelessness, like perfect virtue, is -impregnable; and, after all, the lightnings of this -war, which have brought out so much resolve and -self-sacrifice, must show up equally certain souls -and institutions that are irredeemable.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The weather took off a little before noon. The -carpenters could have put in a good half-day’s -work on the sheds, and even if they had been -rained upon they had roofs with fires awaiting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>their return. The batteries had none of these -things.</p> - -<h3 id='HOME' class='c010'>THE GUNNER AT HOME</h3> - -<p class='c011'>They came in at last far down the park, heralded -by that unmistakable half-grumble, half-grunt of -guns on the move. The picketed horses heard it -first, and one of them neighed long and loud, which -proved that he had abandoned civilian habits. -Horses in stables and mews seldom do more than -snicker, even when they are halves of separated -pairs. But these gentlemen had a corporate life of -their own now, and knew what ‘pulling together’ -means.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When a battery comes into camp it ‘parks’ all -six guns at the appointed place, side by side in one -mathematically straight line, and the accuracy of -the alignment is, like ceremonial-drill with the Foot, -a fair test of its attainments. The ground was no -treat for parking. Specimen trees and draining -ditches had to be avoided and circumvented. The -gunners, their reins, the guns, the ground, were -equally wet, and the slob dropped away like gruel -from the brake-shoes. And they were Londoners—clerks, -mechanics, shop assistants, and delivery -men—anything and everything that you please. -But they were all home and at home in their -saddles and seats. They said nothing; their -officers said little enough to them. They came in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>across what had once been turf; wheeled with -tight traces; halted, unhooked; the wise teams -stumped off to their pickets, and, behold, the six -guns were left precisely where they should have -been left to the fraction of an inch. You could -see the wind blowing the last few drops of wet -from each leather muzzle-cover at exactly the same -angle. It was all old known evolutions, taken -unconsciously in the course of their day’s work by -men well abreast of it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Our men have one advantage,’ said a voice. -‘As Territorials they were introduced to unmade -horses once a year at training. So they’ve never -been accustomed to made horses.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And what do the horses say about it all?’ I -asked, remembering what I had seen on the road -in the early days.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘They said a good deal at first, but our chaps -could make allowances for ‘em. They know now.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Allah never intended the Gunner to talk. His -own arm does that for him. The batteries offsaddled -in silence, though one noticed on all sides -little quiet caresses between man and beast—affectionate -nuzzlings and nose-slappings. Surely -the Gunner’s relation to his horse is more intimate -even than the cavalryman’s; for a lost horse only -turns cavalry into infantry, but trouble in a gun -team may mean death all round. And this is the -Gunner’s war. The young wet officers said so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>joyously as they passed to and fro picking up -scandal about breast-straps and breechings, examining -the collars of ammunition-wagon teams, and -listening to remarks on shoes. Local blacksmiths, -assisted by the battery itself, do the shoeing. -There are master smiths and important farriers, -who have cheerfully thrown up good wages to -help the game, and their horses reward them by -keeping fit. A fair proportion of the horses are -aged—there was never a Gunner yet satisfied with -his team or its rations till he had left the battery—but -they do their work as steadfastly and wholeheartedly -as the men. I am persuaded the horses -like being in society and working out their daily -problems of draught and direction. The English, -and Londoners particularly, are the kindest and -most reasonable of folk with animals. If it were -not our business strictly to underrate ourselves for -the next few years, one would say that the Territorial -batteries had already done wonders. But perhaps -it is better to let it all go with the grudging admission -wrung out of a wringing wet bombardier, -‘Well, it isn’t so dam’ bad—considerin’.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>I left them taking their dinner in mess tins to their -tents, with a strenuous afternoon’s cleaning-up -ahead of them. The big park held some thousands -of men. I had seen no more than a few hundreds, -and had missed the howitzer-batteries after all.</p> - -<p class='c000'>A cock pheasant chaperoned me down the drive, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>complaining loudly that where he was used to walk -with his ladies under the beech trees, some unsporting -people had built a miniature landscape with -tiny villages, churches, and factories, and came -there daily to point cannon at it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Keep away from that place,’ said I, ‘or you’ll -find yourself in a field-kitchen.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Not me!’ he crowed. ‘I’m as sacred as golf-courses.’</p> - -<h3 id='MECHANICS' class='c010'>MECHANISM AND MECHANICS</h3> - -<p class='c011'>There was a little town a couple of miles down -the road where one used to lunch in the old days, -and had the hotel to oneself. Now there are six -ever-changing officers in billet there, and the -astonished houses quiver all day to traction engines -and high-piled lorries. A unit of the Army Service -Corps and some mechanical transport lived near -the station, and fed the troops for twenty miles -around.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Are your people easy to find?’ I asked of a -wandering private, with the hands of a sweep, the -head of a Christian among lions, and suicide in -his eye.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Well, the A.S.C. are in the Territorial Drill -Hall for one thing; and for another you’re likely -to hear <em>us</em>! There’s some motors come in from -Bulford.’ He snorted and passed on, smelling of -petrol.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>The drill-shed was peace and comfort. The -A.S.C. were getting ready there for pay-day and -for a concert that evening. Outside in the wind -and the occasional rain-spurts, life was different. -The Bulford motors and some other crocks sat on -a side-road between what had been the local -garage and a newly-erected workshop of creaking -scaffold-poles and bellying slatting rick-cloths, -where a forge glowed and general repairs were -being effected. Beneath the motors men lay on -their backs and called their friends to pass them -spanners, or, for pity’s sake, to shove another -sack under their mud-wreathed heads.</p> - -<p class='c000'>A corporal, who had been nine years a fitter -and seven in a city garage, briefly and briskly -outlined the more virulent diseases that develop -in Government rolling-stock. (I heard quite a lot -about Bulford.) Hollow voices from beneath -eviscerated gear-boxes confirmed him. We withdrew -to the shelter of the rick-cloth workshop—that -corporal; the sergeant who had been a -carpenter, with a business of his own, and, -incidentally, had served through the Boer War; -another sergeant who was a member of the Master -Builders’ Association; and a private who had -also been fitter, chauffeur, and a few other things. -The third sergeant, who kept a poultry-farm in -Surrey, had some duty elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c000'>A man at a carpenter’s bench was finishing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>a spoke for a newly-painted cart. He squinted -along it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘That’s funny,’ said the master builder. ‘Of -course in his own business he’d chuck his job -sooner than do wood-work. But it’s <em>all</em> funny.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘What I grudge,’ a sergeant struck in, ‘is havin’ -to put mechanics to loading and unloading beef. -That’s where modified conscription for the beauties -that won’t roll up ‘ld be useful to <em>us</em>. We want -hewers of wood, we do. And I’d hew ‘em!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>I</em> want that file.’ This was a private in a -hurry, come from beneath an unspeakable Bulford. -Some one asked him musically if he ‘would tell -his wife in the morning who he was with to-night.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘You’ll find it in the tool-chest,’ said the sergeant. -It was his own sacred tool-chest which he had -contributed to the common stock.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And what sort of men have you got in this -unit?’ I asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Every sort you can think of. There isn’t -a thing you couldn’t have made here if you wanted -to. But’—the corporal, who had been a fitter, -spoke with fervour—‘you can’t expect us to make -big-ends, can you? That five-ton Bulford lorry -out there in the wet——’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And she isn’t the worst,’ said the master -builder. ‘But it’s all part of the game. <em>And</em> so -funny when you come to think of it. Me painting -carts, and certificated plumbers loading frozen beef!’</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>‘What about the discipline?’ I asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The corporal turned a fitter’s eye on me. ‘The -mechanism is the discipline,’ said he, with most -profound truth, ‘Jockeyin’ a sick car on the road -is discipline, too. <em>What</em> about the discipline?’ He -turned to the sergeant with the carpenter’s chest. -There was one sergeant of Regulars, with twenty -years’ service behind him and a knowledge of -human nature. He struck in.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>You</em> ought to know. You’ve just been made -corporal,’ said that sergeant of Regulars.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Well, there’s so much which everybody knows -has got to be done that—that—why, we all turn -in and do it,’ quoth the corporal, ‘<em>I</em> don’t have -any trouble with my lot.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Yes; that’s how the case stands,’ said the -sergeant of Regulars. ‘Come and see our stores.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>They were beautifully arranged in a shed which -felt like a monastery after the windy, clashing -world without; and the young private who acted -as checker—he came from some railway office—had -the thin, keen face of the cleric.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘We’re in billets in the town,’ said the sergeant -who had been a carpenter. ‘But I’m a married -man. I shouldn’t care to have men billeted on us -at home, an’ I don’t want to inconvenience other -people. So I’ve knocked up a bunk for myself on -the premises. It’s handier to the stores, too.’</p> - -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span> - <h3 id='IT' class='c010'>‘THE HUMOUR OF IT’</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>We entered what had been the local garage. -The mechanical transport were in full possession, -tinkering the gizzards of more cars. We discussed -chewed-up gears (samples to hand), and the civil -population’s old-time views of the military. The -corporal told a tale of a clergyman in a Midland -town who, only a year ago, on the occasion of -some manœuvres, preached a sermon warning his -flock to guard their womenfolk against the soldiers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And when you think—when you <em>know</em>,’ said -the corporal, ‘what life in those little towns really -is!’ He whistled.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘See that old landau,’ said he, opening the -door of an ancient wreck jammed against a wall. -‘That’s two of our chaps’ dressing-room. They -don’t care to be billeted, so they sleep ‘tween the -landau and the wall. It’s handier for their work, -too. Work comes in at all hours. I wish I was -cavalry. There’s some use in cursing a horse.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Truly, it’s an awful thing to belong to a service -where speech brings no alleviation.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>You!</em>’ A private with callipers turned from -the bench by the window. ‘You’d die outside of a -garage. But what you said about civilians and -soldiers is all out of date now.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>The sergeant of Regulars permitted himself a -small, hidden smile. The private with the callipers -had been some twelve weeks a soldier.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>‘I don’t say it isn’t,’ said the corporal ‘I’m -saying what it used to be.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘We-ell,’ the private screwed up the callipers, -‘didn’t you feel a little bit that way yourself—when -you were a civilian?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I—I don’t think I did.’ The corporal was taken -aback. ‘I don’t think I ever thought about it.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Ah! <em>There</em> you are!’ said the private, very drily.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Some one laughed in the shadow of the landau -dressing-room. ‘Anyhow, we’re all in it now, -Private Percy,’ said a voice.</p> - -<p class='c000'>There must be a good many thousand conversations -of this kind being held all over England nowadays. -Our breed does not warble much about -patriotism or Fatherland, but it has a wonderful -sense of justice, even when its own shortcomings -are concerned.</p> - -<p class='c000'>We went over to the drill-shed to see the men paid.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The first man I ran across there was a sergeant -who had served in the Mounted Infantry in the -South African picnic that we used to call a war. -He had been a private chauffeur for some years—long -enough to catch the professional look, but -was joyously reverting to service type again.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The men lined up, were called out, saluted -emphatically at the pay-table, and fell back with -their emoluments. They smiled at each other.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘An’ it’s <em>all</em> so funny,’ murmured the master -builder in my ear. ‘About a quarter—no, less -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>than a quarter—of what one ‘ud be making on -one’s own!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Fifty bob a week, cottage, and all found, I was. -An’ only two cars to look after,’ said a voice -behind. ‘An’ if I’d been asked—simply <em>asked</em>—to -lie down in the mud all the afternoon——!’ -The speaker looked at his wages with awe. Some -one wanted to know, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</span></i>, if ‘that was union -rates,’ and the grin spread among the uniformed -experts. The joke, you will observe, lay in -situations thrown up, businesses abandoned, and -pleasant prospects cut short at the nod of duty.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Thank Heaven!’ said one of them at last, ‘it’s -too dark to work on those blessed Bulfords any -more to-day. We’ll get ready for the concert.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>But it was not too dark, half an hour later, for -my car to meet a big lorry storming back in the -wind and the wet from the northern camps. She -gave me London allowance—half one inch between -hub and hub—swung her corner like a Brooklands -professional, changed gear for the uphill with a sweet -click, and charged away. For aught I knew, she was -driven by an ex-‘fifty-bob-a-week-a-cottage-and-all-found-‘er, -who next month might be dodging -shells with her and thinking it ‘<em>all</em> so funny.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Horse, Foot, even the Guns may sometimes get -a little rest, but so long as men eat thrice a day -there is no rest for the Army Service Corps. They -carry the campaign on their all-sustaining backs.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span> - <h2 id='CAMP' class='c004'>IV<br /> <br /> CANADIANS IN CAMP</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Before you hit the buffalo, find out where the rest of the herd -is.—<em>Proverb.</em></p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>This particular fold of downs behind Salisbury -might have been a hump of prairie -near Winnipeg. The team that came over -the rise, widely spaced between pole-bar and whiffletrees, -were certainly children of the prairie. They -shied at the car. Their driver asked them dispassionately -what they thought they were doing, -anyway. They put their wise heads together, and -did nothing at all. Yes. Oh, yes! said the driver. -They were Western horses. They weighed better -than twelve hundred apiece. He himself was from -Edmonton way. The Camp? Why, the camp -was right ahead along up this road. No chance -to miss it, and, ‘Sa-ay! Look out for our lorries!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>A fleet of them hove in sight going at the rate of -knots, and keeping their left with a conscientiousness -only learned when you come out of a country where -nearly all the Provinces (except British Columbia) -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>keep to the right. Every line of them, from steering-wheel -to brake-shoes, proclaimed their nationality. -Three perfectly efficient young men who were -sprinkling a golf-green with sifted earth ceased their -duties to stare at them. Two riding-boys (also -efficient) on racehorses, their knees under their chins -and their saddles between their horses’ ears, cantered -past on the turf. The rattle of the motors upset -their catsmeat, so one could compare their style of -riding with that of an officer loping along to overtake -a string of buck-wagons that were trotting -towards the horizon. The riding-boys have to -endure sore hardship nowadays. One gentleman -has already complained that his ‘private gallops’ -are being cut up by gun-wheels and ‘irremediably -ruined.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then more lorries, contractors’ wagons, and increasing -vileness of the battered road-bed, till one -slid through a rude gate into a new world, of -canvas as far as the eye could reach, and beyond -that outlying clouds of tents. It is not a contingent -that Canada has sent, but an army—horse, foot, -guns, engineers, and all details, fully equipped. -Taking that army’s strength at thirty-three thousand, -and the Dominion’s population at eight -million, the camp is Canada on the scale of one -to two hundred and forty—an entire nation unrolled -across a few square miles of turf and tents and huts.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Here I could study at close hand ‘a Colony’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>yearning to shake off ‘the British yoke.’ For, -beyond question, they yearned—the rank and file -unreservedly, the officers with more restraint but -equal fervour—and the things they said about the -Yoke were simply lamentable.</p> - -<p class='c000'>From Nova Scotia to Victoria, and every city, -township, distributing-centre, and divisional point -between; from sub-tropical White River and sultry -Jackfish to the ultimate north that lies up beside -Alaska; from Kootenay, and Nelson of the fruit-farms, -to Prince Edward Island, where motors are -not allowed; they yearned to shake it off, with -the dust of England from their feet, ‘at once and -some time before that.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>I had been warned that when Armageddon came -the ‘Colonies’ would ‘revolt against the Mother -Country as one man’; but I had no notion I -should ever see the dread spectacle with my own -eyes—or the ‘one man’ so tall!</p> - -<p class='c000'>Joking apart, the Canadian Army wants to get -to work. It admits that London is ‘some city,’ -but says it did not take the trip to visit London -only. Armageddon, which so many people in -Europe knew was bound to come, has struck -Canada out of the blue, like a noonday murder -in a small town. How will they feel when they -actually view some of the destruction in France, -these men who are used to making and owning -their homes? And what effect will it have on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>their land’s outlook and development for the next -few generations? Older countries may possibly slip -back into some sort of toleration. New peoples, -in their first serious war, like girls in their first real -love-affair, neither forget nor forgive. That is why -it pays to keep friends with the young.</p> - -<p class='c000'>And such young! They ran inches above all -normal standards, not in a few companies or -battalions, but through the whole corps; and it -was not easy to pick out foolish or even dull faces -among them. Details going about their business -through the camp’s much mud; defaulters on -fatigue; orderlies, foot and mounted; the procession -of lorry-drivers; companies falling in for -inspection; battalions parading; brigades moving -off for manœuvres; batteries clanking in from the -ranges; they were all supple, free, and intelligent; -and moved with a lift and a drive that made one -sing for joy.</p> - -<h3 id='GOSSIP' class='c010'>CAMP GOSSIP</h3> - -<p class='c011'>Only a few months ago that entire collection -poured into Valcartier camp in pink shirts and -straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in -time. Since then they have been taught several -things. Notably, that the more independent the -individual soldier, the more does he need forethought -and endless care when he is in bulk.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>‘Just because we were all used to looking after -ourselves in civil life,’ said an officer, ‘we used to -send parties out without rations. And the parties -used to go, too! And we expected the boys to -look after their own feet. But we’re wiser -now.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘They’re learning the same thing in the New -Army,’ I said. ‘Company officers have to be -taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary -inspectors. Where do your men come from?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Tell me some place that they don’t come from,’ -said he, and I could not. The men had rolled up -from everywhere between the Arctic circle and the -border, and I was told that those who could not -get into the first contingent were moving heaven and -earth and local politicians to get into the second.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘There’s some use in politics now,’ that officer -reflected. ‘But it’s going to thin the voting-lists -at home.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>A good many of the old South African crowd -(the rest are coming) were present and awfully -correct. Men last met as privates between De -Aar and Belmont were captains and majors now, -while one lad who, to the best of his ability, had -painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years, -was a grim non-commissioned officer worth his -disciplined weight in dollars.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>I</em> didn’t remind Dan of old times when he -turned up at Valcartier disguised as a respectable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>citizen,’ said my informant. ‘I just roped him in -for my crowd. He’s a father to ‘em. <em>He</em> knows.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And have you many cheery souls coming on?’ -I asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Not many; but it’s always the same with a -first contingent. You take everything that offers -and weed the bravoes out later.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>We</em> don’t weed,’ said an officer of artillery. -‘Any one who has had his passage paid for by -the Canadian Government stays with us till he -eats out of our hand. <em>And</em> he does. They make -the best men in the long run,’ he added. I thought -of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two or -three ‘old soldiers’ in a Service corps of the idea -that they can run the battalion, and I laughed. -The Gunner was right. ‘Old soldiers,’ after a -little loving care, become valuable and virtuous.</p> - -<p class='c000'>A company of Foot was drawn up under the -lee of a fir plantation behind us. They were a -miniature of their army as their army was of their -people, and one could feel the impact of strong -personality almost like a blow.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘If you’d believe it,’ said a cavalryman, ‘we’re -forbidden to cut into that little wood-lot, yonder! -Not one stick of it may we have! We could -make shelters for our horses in a day out of that -stuff.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘But it’s timber!’ I gasped. ‘Sacred, tame trees!’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Oh, we know what wood is! They issue it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>to us by the pound. Wood to burn—by the -pound! What’s wood for, anyway?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And when do you think we shall be allowed -to go?’ some one asked, not for the first time.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘By and by,’ said I. ‘And then you’ll have to -detail half your army to see that your equipment -isn’t stolen from you.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘What!’ cried an old Strathcona Horse. He -looked anxiously towards the horse-lines.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I was thinking of your mechanical transport -and your travelling workshops and a few other -things that you’ve got.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>I got away from those large men on their windy -hill-top, and slid through mud and past mechanical -transport and troops untold towards Lark Hill. -On the way I passed three fresh-cut pine sticks, -laid and notched one atop of the other to shore up -a caving bank. Trust a Canadian or a beaver -within gunshot of standing timber!</p> - -<h3 id='APPLIANCES' class='c010'>ENGINEERS AND APPLIANCES</h3> - -<p class='c011'>Lark Hill is where the Canadian Engineers live, -in the midst of a profligate abundance of tools and -carts, pontoon wagons, field telephones, and other -mouth-watering gear. Hundreds of tin huts are -being built there, but quite leisurely, by contract. -I noticed three workmen, at eleven o’clock of that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>Monday forenoon, as drunk as Davy’s sow, reeling -and shouting across the landscape. So far as -I could ascertain, the workmen do not work extra -shifts, nor even, but I hope this is incorrect, on -Saturday afternoons; and I think they take their -full hour at noon these short days.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Every camp throws up men one has met at the -other end of the earth; so, of course, the Engineer -C.O. was an ex-South African Canadian.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Some of our boys are digging a trench over -yonder,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to look at ‘em.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>The boys seemed to average five feet ten inches, -with thirty-seven inch chests. The soil was unaccommodating -chalk.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘What are you?’ I asked of the first pickaxe.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Private.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Yes, but before that?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘McGill (University understood). Nineteen -twelve.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And that boy with the shovel?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Queen’s, I think. No; he’s Toronto.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>And thus the class in applied geology went on -half up the trench, under supervision of a Corporal-Bachelor-of-Science -with a most scientific biceps. -They were young; they were beautifully fit, and -they were all truly thankful that they lived in these -high days.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Sappers, like sergeants, take care to make themselves -comfortable. The corps were dealing with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>all sorts of little domestic matters in the way of -arrangements for baths, which are cruelly needed, -and an apparatus for depopulating shirts, which is -even more wanted. Healthy but unwashen men -sleeping on the ground are bound to develop -certain things which at first disgust them, but -later are accepted as an unlovely part of the game. -It would be quite easy to make bakehouses and -super-heated steam fittings to deal with the trouble. -The huts themselves stand on brick piers, from one -to three feet above ground. The board floors are -not grooved or tongued, so there is ample ventilation -from beneath; but they have installed decent -cooking ranges and gas, and the men have already -made themselves all sorts of handy little laboursaving -gadgets. They would do this if they were -in the real desert. Incidentally, I came across a -delightful bit of racial instinct. A man had been -told to knock up a desk out of broken packing-cases. -There is only one type of desk in Canada—the -roller-top, with three shelves each side the -knee-hole, characteristic sloping sides, raised back, -and long shelf in front of the writer. He reproduced -it faithfully, barring, of course, the roller-top; -and the thing leaped to the eye out of its -English office surroundings. The Engineers do -not suffer for lack of talents. Their senior officers -appear to have been the heads, and their juniors -the assistants, in big concerns that wrestle with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>unharnessed nature. (There is a tale of the building -of a bridge in Valcartier Camp which is not -bad hearing.) The rank and file include miners; -road, trestle, and bridge men; iron construction -men who, among other things, are steeplejacks; -whole castes of such as deal in high explosives for -a living; loco-drivers, superintendents, too, for -aught I know, and a solid packing of selected -machinists, mechanics, and electricians. Unluckily, -they were all a foot or so too tall for me to tell -them that, even if their equipment escaped at the -front, they would infallibly be raided for their men.</p> - -<h3 id='DETACHMENT' class='c010'>AN UNRELATED DETACHMENT</h3> - -<p class='c011'>I left McGill, Queen’s, and Toronto still digging -in their trench, which another undergraduate, -mounted and leading a horse, went out of his way -to jump standing. My last glimpse was of a little -detachment, with five or six South African ribbons -among them, who were being looked over by an -officer. No one thought it strange that they should -have embodied themselves and crossed the salt -seas independently as ‘So-and-So’s Horse.’ (It is -best to travel with a title these days.) Once arrived, -they were not at all particular, except that they -meant to join the Army, and the lonely batch was -stating its qualifications as Engineers.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>‘They get over any way and every way,’ said -my companion. ‘Swimming, I believe.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘But who was the So-and-So that they were -christened after?’ I asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I guess he was the man who financed ‘em or -grub-staked ‘em while they were waiting. He -may be one of ‘em in that crowd now; or he may -be a provincial magnate at home getting another -bunch together.’</p> - -<h3 id='NATION' class='c010'>THE VANGUARD OF A NATION</h3> - -<p class='c011'>Then I went back to the main camp for a last -look at that wonderful army, where the tin-roofed -messes take French conversation lessons with the -keen-faced French-Canadian officers, and where -one sees esprit-de-corps in the making. Nowhere -is local sentiment stronger than in Canada. East -and West, lake and maritime provinces, prairie and -mountain, fruit district and timber lands—they each -thrill to it. The West keeps one cold blue open-air -eye on the townful East. Winnipeg sits -between, posing alternately as sophisticated metropolis -and simple prairie. Alberta, of the thousand -horses, looks down from her high-peaked saddle -on all who walk on their feet; and British -Columbia thanks God for an equable climate, and -that she is not like Ottawa, full of politicians and -frozen sludge. Quebec, unassailable in her years -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>and experience, smiles tolerantly on the Nova -Scotian, for he has a history too, and asks Montreal -if any good thing can come out of Brandon, Moose -Jaw, or Regina. They discuss each other outrageously, -as they know each other intimately, -over four thousand miles of longitude—their fathers, -their families, and all the connections. Which is -useful when it comes to sizing up the merits of a -newly-promoted non-commissioned officer or the -capacities of a quarter-master.</p> - -<p class='c000'>As their Army does and suffers, and its record -begins to blaze, fierce pride of regiment will be -added to local love and the national pride that -backs and envelops all. But that pride is held in -very severe check now; for they are neither -provinces nor tribes but a welded people fighting -in the War of Liberty. They permit themselves -to hope that the physique of their next contingent -will not be worse than that of the present. They -believe that their country can send forward a certain -number of men and a certain number behind that, -all equipped to a certain scale. Of discomforts -endured, of the long learning and relearning and -waiting on, they say nothing. They do not hint -what they will do when their hour strikes, though -they more than hint their longing for that hour. -In all their talk I caught no phrase that could be -twisted into the shadow of a boast or any claim -to superiority, even in respect to their kit and outfit; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>no word or implication of self-praise for any sacrifice -made or intended. It was their rigid humility that -impressed one as most significant—and, perhaps, -most menacing for such as may have to deal with -this vanguard of an armed Nation.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span> - <h2 id='TROOPS' class='c004'>V<br /> <br /> INDIAN TROOPS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><em>Larai meṅ laddu nahiṅ batte</em> (War is not sugar-plums).—<em>Hindi -Proverb.</em></p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>Working from the East to the West of -England, through a countryside alive -with troops of all arms, the car came at -dusk into a cathedral town entirely inhabited by -one type of regiment. The telegraph-office was -an orderly jam of solid, large, made men, with -years of discipline behind them and the tan of -Indian suns on their faces—Englishmen still so -fresh from the troopships that one of them asked -me, ‘What’s the day o’ the month?’ They were -advising friends of their arrival in England, or -when they might be expected on short leave at -the week’s end; and the fresh-faced telegraph girls -behind the grilles worked with six pairs of hands -apiece and all the goodwill and patience in the -world to back them. That same young woman -who, with nothing to do, makes you wait ten -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>minutes for a penny stamp while she finishes a -talk with a lady-friend, will, at a crisis, go on till -she drops, and keep her temper throughout. ‘Well, -<em>if</em> that’s her village,’ I heard one of the girls say -to an anxious soul, ‘I tell <em>you</em> that that will be her -telegraph-office. You leave it to me. <em>She’ll</em> get -it all right.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>He backed out, and a dozen more quietly took -his place. Their regiments hailed from all the old -known stations of the East and beyond that into -the Far East again. They cursed their cool barrack -accommodation; they rejoiced in the keen autumn -smells, and paraded the long street all filled with -‘Europe shops’; while their officers and their -officers’ wives, and, I think, mothers who had -come down to snatch a glimpse of their boys, -crowded the hotels, and the little unastonished -Anglo-Indian children circulated round the knees -of big friends they had made aboard-ship and -asked, ‘Where are you going now?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>One caught scraps of our old gipsy talk—names -of boarding-houses, agents’ addresses: ‘Milly stays -with mother, of course.’ ‘I’m taking Jack down -to school to-morrow. It’s past half-term, but that -doesn’t matter nowadays’; and cheery farewells -between men and calm-eyed women. Except for -the frocks, it might have been an evening assembly -at any station bandstand in India.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Outside, on the surging pavements, a small boy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>cried: ‘Paper! Evenin’ paper!’ Then seductively: -<em>’Kargus!</em>’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘What?’ I said, thinking my ears had cheated -me.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>Dekko! Kargus!</em>’ said he. (’Look here! -Paper!’)</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Why on earth d’you say that?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Because the men like it,’ he replied, and slapped -an evening paper (no change for a penny) into the -hand of a man in a helmet.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Who shall say that the English are not -adaptable?</p> - -<p class='c000'>The car swam bonnet-deep through a mile of -troops; and a mile up the road one could hear -the deep hum of all those crowded streets that the -cathedral bells were chiming over. It was only -one small block of Anglo-India getting ready to -take its place in the all-devouring Line.</p> - -<h3 id='GUNS' class='c010'>SCREW-GUNS</h3> - -<p class='c011'>An hour later at —— (Shall we ever be able to -name people and places outright again?) the wind -brought up one whiff—one unmistakable whiff—of -<em>ghi</em>. Somewhere among the English pines -that, for the moment, pretended to be the lower -slopes of the Dun, there were native troops. A -mule squealed in the dark and set off half-a-dozen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>others. It was screw-guns—batteries of them, -waiting their turn also at the game. Morning -showed them in their immaculate lines as though -they had just marched in from Jutogh—little, low -guns with their ammunition; very big English -gunners in disengaged attitudes which, nevertheless, -did not encourage stray civilians to poke and peer -into things; and the native drivers all busied over -their charges. True, the wind was bitter, and -many of the drivers had tied up their heads, but -so one does at Quetta in the cold weather—not -to mention Peshawur—and, said a naik of drivers: -‘It is not the cold for which we have no liking. -It is the wet. The English air is good, but water -falls at all seasons. Yet notwithstanding, we of -this battery (and, oh, the pride men can throw into -a mere number!) have not lost one mule. Neither -at sea nor on land have we <em>one</em> lost. That can be -shown, sahib.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then one heard the deep racking tobacco-cough -in the lee of a tent where four or five men—Kangra -folk by the look of them—were drinking -tobacco out of a cow’s horn. Their own country’s -tobacco, be sure, for English tobacco.... But -there was no need to explain. Who would have -dreamed to smell bazar-tobacco on a south country -golf links?</p> - -<p class='c000'>A large proportion of the men are, of course, -Sikhs, to whom tobacco is forbidden; the Havildar -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>Major himself was a Sikh of the Sikhs. He spoke, -of all things in this strange world, of the late Mr. -M. McAuliffe’s monumental book on the Sikh -religion, saying, not without warrant, that McAuliffe -Sahib had translated into English much of the -Holy Book—the great Grunth Sahib that lives -at Amritzar. He enlarged, too, on the ancient -prophecy among the Sikhs—that a hatted race -should some day come out of the sea and lead -them to victory all the earth over. So spoke Bir -Singh, erect and enormous beneath the grey -English skies. He hailed from a certain place called -Banalu, near Patiala, where many years ago two -Sikh soldiers executed a striking but perfectly just -vengeance on certain villagers who had oppressed -their young brother, a cultivator. They had gone -to the extreme limits of abasement and conciliation. -This failing, they took leave for a week-end and -slew the whole tribe of their enemies. The story -is buried in old Government reports, but when Bir -Singh implied that he and his folk were orthodox -I had no doubt of it. And behind him stood -another giant, who knew, for his village was but a -few miles up the Shalimar road, every foot of -Lahore city. He brought word that there had been -great floods at home, so that the risen Ravi river -had touched the very walls of Runjit Singh’s Fort. -And that was only last rains—and, behold!—here -he was now in England waiting orders to go to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>this fight which, he understood, was not at all a -small fight, but a fight of fights, in which all the -world and ‘our Raj’ was engaged. The trouble in -India was that all the young men—the mere <em>jiwans</em>—wanted -to come out at once, which, he said, was -manifestly unjust to older men, who had waited -so long. However, merit and patience had secured -their reward, and the battery was here, and it would -do the hot <em>jiwans</em> no harm to stay at home, and be -zealous at drill until orders came for them in their -turn. ‘Young men think that everything good in -this world is theirs by right, sahib.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then came the big, still English gunners, who -are trained to play with the little guns. They took -one such gun and melted it into trifling pieces of -not more than a hundred and fifty pounds each, -and reassembled it, and explained its innermost -heart till even a layman could understand. There -is a lot to understand about screw-guns—specially -the new kind. But the gunner of to-day, like his -ancestor, does not talk much, except in his own -time and place, when he is as multitudinously -amazing as the Blue Marine.</p> - -<h3 id='LINES' class='c010'>THE MULE LINES</h3> - -<p class='c011'>We went over to see the mule lines. I detest the -whole generation of these parrot-mouthed hybrids, -American, Egyptian, Andalusian, or up-country: -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>so it gave me particular pleasure to hear a Pathan -telling one chestnut beast who objected to having -its mane hogged any more, what sort of lady-horse -his mamma had been. But <em>qua</em> animals, they were -a lovely lot, and had long since given up blowing -and finicking over English fodder.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Is there any sickness? Why is yonder mule -lying down?’ I demanded, as though all the lines -could not see I was a shuddering amateur.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘There is no sickness, sahib. That mule lies -down for his own pleasure. Also, to get out of -the wind. He is very clever. He is from Hindustan,’ -said the man with the horse-clippers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And thou?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘<em>I</em> am a Pathan,’ said he with impudent grin and -true border cock of the turban, and he did me the -honour to let me infer.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The lines were full of talk as the men went over -their animals. They were not worrying themselves -over this new country of Belait. It was the -regular gossip of food and water and firewood, and -where So-and-So had hid the curry-comb.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Talking of cookery, the orthodox men have -been rather put out by English visitors who come -to the cook-houses and stare directly <em>at</em> the food -while it is being prepared. Sensible men do not -object to this, because they know that these -Englishmen have no evil intention nor any evil eye; -but sometimes a narrow-souled purist (toothache -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>or liver makes a man painfully religious) will ‘spy -strangers,’ and insist on the strict letter of the law, -and then every one who wishes to be orthodox -must agree with him—on an empty stomach, too—and -wait till a fresh mess has been cooked. -This is <em>taklif</em>—a burden—for where the intention -is good and war is afoot much can and should be -overlooked. Moreover, this war is not like any -other war. It is a war of <em>our</em> Raj—‘everybody’s -war,’ as they say in the bazaars. And that is -another reason why it does not matter if an -Englishman stares at one’s food. This I gathered -in small pieces after watering time when the mules -had filed up to the troughs in the twilight, hundreds -of them, and the drivers grew discursive on the -way to the lines.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The last I saw of them was in the early cold -morning, all in marching order, jinking and jingling -down a road through woods.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Where are you going?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘God knows!’</p> - -<h3 id='BYES' class='c010'>THE INN OF GOOD-BYES</h3> - -<p class='c011'>It might have been for exercise merely, or it -might be down to the sea and away to the front -for the battle of ‘Our Raj.’ The quiet hotel where -people sit together and talk in earnest strained pairs -is well used to such departures. The officers of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>a whole Division—the raw cuts of their tent-circles -lie still unhealed on the links—dined there by -scores; mothers and relatives came down from the -uttermost parts of Scotland for a last look at their -boys, and found beds goodness knows where: -very quiet little weddings, too, set out from its -doors to the church opposite. The Division went -away a century of weeks ago by the road that the -mule-battery took. Many of the civilians who -pocketed the wills signed and witnessed in the -smoking-room are full-blown executors now; some -of the brides are widows.</p> - -<p class='c000'>And it is not nice to remember that when the -hotel was so filled that not even another pleading -mother could be given a place in which to lie down -and have her cry out—not at all nice to remember -that it never occurred to any of the comfortable -people in the large but sparsely inhabited houses -around that they might have offered a night’s -lodging, even to an unintroduced stranger.</p> - -<h3 id='CHRISTIANA' class='c010'>GREATHEART AND CHRISTIANA</h3> - -<p class='c011'>There were hospitals up the road preparing and -being prepared for the Indian wounded. In one of -these lay a man of, say, a Biluch regiment, sorely -hit. Word had come from his colonel in France to -the colonel’s wife in England that she should seek -till she found that very man and got news from his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>very mouth—news to send to his family and -village. She found him at last, and he was very -bewildered to see her there, because he had left her -and her child on the verandah of the bungalow, -long and long ago, when he and his colonel and the -regiment went down to take ship for the war. -How had she come? Who had guarded her -during her train-journey of so many days? And, -above all, how had the baba endured that sea -which caused strong men to collapse? Not till all -these matters had been cleared up in fullest detail -did Greatheart on his cot permit his colonel’s wife -to waste one word on his own insignificant -concerns. And that she should have wept filled -him with real trouble. Truly, this is the war of -‘Our Raj!’</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span> - <h2 id='BATTALIONS' class='c004'>VI<br /> <br /> TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>To excuse oneself to oneself is human: but to excuse -oneself to one’s children is Hell.—<em>Arabic Proverb.</em></p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_0_4 c009'>Billeted troops are difficult to get at. -There are thousands of them in a little old -town by the side of an even older park up -the London Road, but to find a particular battalion -is like ferreting unstopped burrows.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘The Umpty-Umpth, were you looking for?’ -said a private in charge of a side-car. ‘We’re the -Eenty-Eenth. ‘Only came in last week. I’ve -never seen this place before. It’s pretty. Hold -on! There’s a postman. He’ll know.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>He, too, was in khaki, bowed between mailbags, -and his accent was of a far and coaly -county.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I’m none too sure,’ said he, ‘but I think I -saw——’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Here a third man cut in.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Yon’s t’ battalion, marchin’ into t’ park now. -Roon! Happen tha’ll catch ‘em.’</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>They turned out to be Territorials with a history -behind them; but that I didn’t know till later; -and their band and cyclists. Very polite were -those rear-rank cyclists—who pushed their loaded -machines with one vast hand apiece.</p> - -<p class='c000'>They were strangers, they said. They had only -come here a few days ago. But they knew the -South well. They had been in Gloucestershire, -which was a very nice southern place.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then their battalion, I hazarded, was of -northern extraction?</p> - -<p class='c000'>They admitted that I might go as far as that; -their speech betraying their native town at every -rich word.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Huddersfield, of course?’ I said, to make -them out with it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Bolton,’ said one at last. Being in uniform -the pitman could not destroy the impertinent -civilian.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Ah, Bolton!’ I returned. ‘<em>All</em> cotton, aren’t -you?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Some coal,’ he answered gravely. There is -notorious rivalry ‘twixt coal and cotton in Bolton, -but I wanted to see him practise the self-control -that the Army is always teaching.</p> - -<p class='c000'>As I have said, he and his companion were -most polite, but the total of their information, -boiled and peeled, was that they had just come -from Bolton way; might at any moment be sent -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>somewhere else, and they liked Gloucestershire in -the south. A spy could not have learned much -less.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The battalion halted, and moved off by companies -for further evolutions. One could see they -were more than used to drill and arms; a hardened, -thick-necked, thin-flanked, deep-chested lot, dealt -with quite faithfully by their sergeants, and altogether -abreast of their work. Why, then, this -reticence? What had they to be ashamed of, these -big Bolton folk without an address? Where was -their orderly-room?</p> - -<p class='c000'>There were many orderly-rooms in the little old -town, most of them in bye-lanes less than one car -wide. I found what I wanted, and—this was north-country -all over—a private who volunteered to -steer me to headquarters through the tricky southern -streets. He was communicative, and told me a -good deal about typhoid-inoculation and musketry -practice, which accounted for only six companies -being on parade. But surely they could not have -been ashamed of <em>that</em>.</p> - -<h3 id='RAILWAY' class='c010'>GUARDING A RAILWAY</h3> - -<p class='c011'>I unearthed their skeleton at last in a peaceful, -gracious five-hundred-year-old house that looked -on to lawns and cut hedges bounded by age-old -red brick walls—such a perfumed and dreaming -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>place as one would choose for the setting of some -even-pulsed English love-tale of the days before -the war.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Officers were billeted in the low-ceiled, shiny-floored -rooms full of books and flowers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And now,’ I asked, when I had told the tale of -the uncommunicative cyclist, ‘what <em>is</em> the matter -with your battalion?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>They laughed cruelly at me. ‘Matter!’ said -they. ‘We’re just off three months of guarding -railways. After <em>that</em> a man wouldn’t trust his own -mother. You don’t mean to say our cyclists let -you know where we’ve come from last?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘No, they didn’t,’ I replied. ‘That was what -worried me. I assumed you’d all committed -murders, and had been sent here to live it down.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then they told me what guarding a line really -means. How men wake and walk, with only -express troop-trains to keep them company, all the -night long on windy embankments or under still -more windy bridges; how they sleep behind three -sleepers up-ended or a bit of tin, or, if they are -lucky, in a platelayer’s hut; how their food comes -to them slopping across the square-headed ties that -lie in wait to twist a man’s ankle after dark; how -they stand in blown coal-dust of goods-yards trying -to watch five lines of trucks at once; how fools of -all classes pester the lonely pickets, whose orders -are to hold up motors for inquiry, and then write -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>silly letters to the War Office about it. How -nothing ever happens through the long weeks but -infallibly would if the patrols were taken off. And -they had one refreshing story of a workman who -at six in the morning, which is no auspicious hour -to jest with Lancashire, took a short cut to his -work by ducking under some goods-wagons, and -when challenged by the sentry replied, posturing -on all fours, ‘Boo, I’m a German!’ Whereat the -upright sentry fired, unfortunately missed him, and -then gave him the butt across his ass’s head, so -that his humour, and very nearly his life, terminated.</p> - -<p class='c000'>After which the sentry was seldom seen to smile, -but frequently heard to murmur, ‘Ah should hev -slipped t’ baggonet into him.’</p> - -<h3 id='PREJUDICE' class='c010'>PRIDE AND PREJUDICE</h3> - -<p class='c011'>‘So you see,’ said the officers in conclusion, -‘you mustn’t be surprised that our men wouldn’t -tell you much.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I begin to see,’ I said. ‘How many of you are -coal and how many cotton?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘Two-thirds coal and one-third cotton, roughly. -It keeps the men deadly keen. An operative isn’t -going to give up while a pitman goes on; and very -much <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versâ</span></i>.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘That’s class-prejudice,’ said I.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘It’s most useful,’ said they. The officers themselves -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>seemed to be interested in coal or cotton, and -had known their men intimately on the civil side. -If your orderly-room sergeant, or your quarter-master -has been your trusted head clerk or foreman -for ten or twelve years, and if eight out of a dozen -sergeants have controlled pitmen and machinists, -above and below ground, and eighty per cent of -these pitmen and machinists are privates in the -companies, your regiment works with something -of the precision of a big business.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was all new talk to me, for I had not yet met -a Northern Territorial battalion with the strong -pride of its strong town behind it. Where were -they when the war came? How had they equipped -themselves? I wanted to hear the tale. It was -worth listening to as told with North-Country joy -of life and the doing of things in that soft down-country -house of the untroubled centuries. Like -every one else, they were expecting anything but -war. ‘Hadn’t even begun their annual camp. -Then the thing came, and Bolton rose as one man -and woman to fit out its battalion. There was a -lady who wanted a fairly large sum of money for -the men’s extra footgear. She set aside a morning -to collect it, and inside the hour came home with -nearly twice her needs, and spent the rest of the -time trying to make people take back fivers, at least, -out of tenners. And the big hauling firms flung -horses and transport at them and at the Government, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>often refusing any price, or, when it was -paid, turning it into the war funds. What the -battalion wanted it had but to ask for. Once it -was short of, say, towels. An officer approached -the head of a big firm, with no particular idea he -would get more than a few dozen from that quarter.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘And how many towels d’you want?’ said the -head of the firm. The officer suggested a globular -thousand.</p> - -<p class='c000'>‘I think you’ll do better with twelve hundred,’ -was the curt answer. ‘They’re ready out yonder. -Get ‘em.’</p> - -<p class='c000'>And in this style Bolton turned out her battalion. -Then the authorities took it and strung it by threes -and fives along several score miles of railway track: -and it had only just been reassembled, and it had -been inoculated for typhoid. Consequently, they -said (but all officers are like mothers and motor-car -owners), it wasn’t up to what it would be in a -little time. In spite of the cyclist, I had had a -good look at the deep-chested battalion in the -park, and after getting their musketry figures,<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c012'><sup>[1]</sup></a> it -seemed to me that very soon it might be worth -looking at by more prejudiced persons than myself.</p> - -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c000'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>Thanks to the miniature rifle clubs fostered by Lord -Roberts a certain number of recruits in all the armies come to -their regiments with a certain knowledge of sighting, rifle-handling, -and the general details of good shooting, especially -at snap and disappearing work.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>The next day I read that this battalion’s regular -battalion in the field had distinguished itself by -a piece of work which, in other wars, would have -been judged heroic. Bolton will read it, not -without remarks, and other towns who love -Bolton, more or less, will say that if all the truth -could come out their regiments had done as well. -Anyway, the result will be more men—pitmen, -mill-hands, clerks, checkers, weighers, winders, and -hundreds of those sleek, well-groomed business-chaps -whom one used to meet in the big Midland -hotels, protesting that war was out of date. These -latter develop surprisingly in the camp atmosphere. -I recall one raging in his army shirt-sleeves at -a comrade who had derided his principles. ‘I <em>am</em> -a blanky pacificist,’ he hissed, ‘and I’m proud of -it, and—and I’m going to make <em>you</em> one before -I’ve finished with you!’</p> - -<h3 id='SERVICES' class='c010'>THE SECRET OF THE SERVICES</h3> - -<p class='c011'>Pride of city, calling, class, and creed imposes -standards and obligations which hold men above -themselves at a pinch, and steady them through -long strain. One meets it in the New Army at -every turn, from the picked Territorials who slipped -across Channel last night to the six-week-old -Service battalion maturing itself in mud. It is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>balanced by the ineradicable English instinct to -understate, detract, and decry—to mask the thing -done by loudly drawing attention to the things -undone. The more one sees of the camps the -more one is filled with facts and figures of joyous -significance, which will become clearer as the days -lengthen; and the less one hears of the endurance, -decency, self-sacrifice, and utter devotion which -have made, and are hourly making, this wonderful -new world. The camps take this for granted—else -why should any man be there at all? He -might have gone on with his business, or—watched -‘soccer.’ But having chosen to do his bit, he -does it, and talks as much about his motives as -he would of his religion or his love-affairs. He -is eloquent over the shortcomings of the authorities, -more pessimistic as to the future of his next -neighbour battalion than would be safe to print, -and lyric on his personal needs—baths and drying-rooms -for choice. But when the grousing gets -beyond a certain point—say at three <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">a.m.</span>, in -steady wet, with the tent-pegs drawing like false -teeth—the nephew of the insurance-agent asks the -cousin of the baronet to inquire of the son of the -fried-fish vendor what the stevedore’s brother and -the tutor of the public school joined the Army -<em>for</em>. Then they sing ‘Somewhere the Sun is -Shining’ till the Sergeant Ironmonger’s assistant -cautions them to drown in silence or the Lieutenant -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Telephone-appliances-manufacturer will speak to -them in the morning.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The New armies have not yet evolved their -typical private, n.c.o., and officer, though one -can see them shaping. They are humorous -because, for all our long faces, we are the only -genuinely humorous race on earth; but they all -know for true that there are no excuses in the -Service. ‘If there <em>were</em>,’ said a three-month-old -under-gardener-private to me, ‘what ‘ud -become of Discipline?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>They are already setting standards for the -coming millions, and have sown little sprouts of -regimental tradition which may grow into age-old -trees. In one corps, for example, though no -dubbin is issued a man loses his name for parading -with dirty boots. He looks down scornfully -on the next battalion where they are not expected -to achieve the impossible. In another—an ex-Guards -sergeant brought ‘em up by hand—the drill -is rather high-class. In a third they fuss about -records for route-marching, and men who fall out -have to explain themselves to their sweating companions. -This is entirely right. They are all -now in the Year One, and the meanest of them -may be an ancestor of whom regimental posterity -will say: ‘There were giants in those days!’</p> - -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span> - <h3 id='QUESTION' class='c010'>THE REAL QUESTION</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>This much we can realise, even though we are -so close to it. The old safe instinct saves us from -triumph and exultation. But what will be the -position in years to come of the young man who -has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from -this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his -family, and, above all, what of his descendants, -when the books have been closed and the last -balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every -hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, -province, and Dominion throughout the Empire?</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><em>Printed by</em> <span class='sc'>R. & R. Clark, Limited</span>, <em>Edinburgh</em>.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> - -<div class='ph2'> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c013'> - <div>THE</div> - <div class='c003'>SERVICE KIPLING</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<table class='table1' summary='SERVICE KIPLING'> - <tr> - <td class='c007'><em>In 26 vols.</em></td> - <td class='c014'><em>16 mo.</em></td> - <td class='c015'><em>2s. 6d. net each</em></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c000'>The volumes are bound in blue cloth, -and printed in an old-style type designed -after an old Venetian model and known as -the Dolphin Type.</p> - -<table class='table2' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c016' colspan='2'>Plain Tales from the Hills. 2 Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016' colspan='2'>Soldiers Three. 2. Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016' colspan='2'>Wee Willie Winkie. 2 Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016' colspan='2'>From Sea to Sea. 4 Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016' colspan='2'>Life’s Handicap. 2 Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='bbt c016' colspan='2'>The Light that Failed. 2 Vols.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016'>The Naulahka. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='blt c016'>1915</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='bbt c016'>Many Inventions. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='bbt blt c016'><em>February</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016'>The Day’s Work. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='blt c016'><em>March</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='bbt c016'>Kim. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='bbt blt c016'> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016'>Traffics and Discoveries. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='blt c016'><em>April</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c016'>Actions and Reactions. 2 Vols.</td> - <td class='blt c016'> </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class='sc'>Ltd.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</h2> -</div> - <ol class='ol_1 c002'> - <li>Added <a href='#CONTENTS'>Table of Contents</a>. - - </li> - <li>Silently corrected typographical errors. - - </li> - <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. - </li> - </ol> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The New Army in Training, by Rudyard Kipling - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING *** - -***** This file should be named 53507-h.htm or 53507-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/5/0/53507/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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