The First Hundred Thousand E-Book

Ian Hay

• Herausgeber: World War Classics
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The First Hundred Thousand tells the story in novel form of an infantry unit of Kitchener's volunteer army from its formation in August 1914 to its recovery after its first great battle - Loos in September 1915. Told by Ian Hay Beith in a style of humour that rings strange to the modern civilian ear, it is perfectly in tune with that mood that British soldiers from Hastings to Basra have relied upon for support when only humour is left to counter the absurdities of military service. It could be the Catch-22 of World War 1.The unit, in fact the 10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, formed part of the 9th (Scottish) Division which proved itself to be one of the toughest and most reliable Divisions in the Army on the Western Front. The author not only captures the mood of the times but also the character of the unit and of its officers and men. It is easily recognisable by anyone who has served in a Scottish Regiment of the British Army. The book stands with other prose descriptions of the conflict, in contrast to much of the poetry, as a tribute to the cause, the fight to prevent German hegemony in Europe, and the men that served Britain in arguably her darkest hour. Well worth reading for a flavour of how the war was perceived at the time by some of the less sensitive souls caught up in it.

Leseprobe

THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND

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Ian Hay

WORLD WAR CLASSICS

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This book is a work of fiction; its contents are wholly imagined.

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Copyright © 2018 www.deaddodopublishing.co.uk

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK ONE: BLANK CARTRIDGES

I. AB OVO

II. THE DAILY GRIND

III. GROWING PAINS

IV. THE CONVERSION OF PRIVATE M’SLATTERY

V. “CRIME”

VI. THE LAWS OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS

VII. SHOOTING STRAIGHT

VIII. BILLETS

IX. MID-CHANNEL

X. DEEDS OF DARKNESS

XI. OLYMPUS

XII. AND SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE

XIII. CONCERT PITCH

BOOK TWO: LIVE ROUNDS

XIV. THE BACK OF THE FRONT

XV. IN THE TRENCHES—AN OFF-DAY

XVI. “DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS TO-NIGHT”

XVII. THE NEW WARFARE

XVIII. THE FRONT OF THE FRONT

XIX. THE TRIVIAL ROUND

XX. THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES

XXI. THE BATTLE OF THE SLAG-HEAPS

BOOK ONE: BLANK CARTRIDGES

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I. AB OVO

“Squoad—’Shun! Move to the right in fours. Forrm—fourrrs!“

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

“Come away now, come away!” urges the instructor, mopping his brow.

“Mind me: on the command ‘form fours,’ odd numbers will stand fast;

even numbers tak’ a shairp pace to the rear and anither to the right.

Now—forrm fourrs!“

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

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

“Yous, what’s your number?”

The ruminant ponders.

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

The instructor raises clenched hands to heaven.

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

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

“Forrm—two deep!“ barks the instructor.

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

“Now we’ll dae it jist yince more, and have it right,” announces the instructor, with quite unjustifiable optimism. “Forrm—fourrs!“

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

“Yon man, oot there on the left,” shouts the instructor, “what’s your number?”

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

“Nineteen!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Colonel’s boyish figure stiffens.

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

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II. THE DAILY GRIND

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

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

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

(1) Marching through another platoon.

(2) Losing any part or parts of itself.

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

They could not have done that a week ago.

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

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

The sergeant comes briskly to attention.

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

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

“I was sittin’ doon tae ma dinner on Sabbath, sir, when my front teeth met upon a small piece bone that was stickit’ in—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold your haand oot, you naughty boy!”

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

“You’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road—”

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

“—And I’ll be in Scotland before ye.

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonny, bonny baanks—”

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

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

“Fall out, the officers!”

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

“Battalion, slope arms! Dis-miss!“

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

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III. GROWING PAINS

We have our little worries, of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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IV. THE CONVERSION OF PRIVATE M’SLATTERY

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

“What kin’ o’ a thing is a Review?” inquired Private M’Slattery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(5) Striking a Non-Commissioned Officer.

(6) Attempting to escape from his escort.

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

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

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

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

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

“Wull we be gettin’ hame to our dinners now?” he inquired gruffly of his neighbour.

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

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

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

“No talking in the ranks there!” he said. “Sergeant, take that man’s name.”

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

Then the miracle happened.

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

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

Private M’Slattery gave a contemptuous sniff.

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

Suddenly a strangled voice was uplifted—"In God’s name, what for can they no come tae us? Never heed the others!”

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

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

Then a voice said, apparently in M’Slattery’s ear—

“A magnificent body of men, Colonel. I congratulate you.”

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

“Highlanders, three cheers for His Majesty the King!”

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

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

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

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

“Yin mair, chaps,” he shouted—"for the young leddy!”

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

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V. “CRIME”

“Bring in Private Dunshie, Sergeant-Major,” says the Company

Commander.

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

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

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

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

“What is this man’s crime, Sergeant-Major?” inquires the Captain.

“On this sheet, sir,” replies the Sergeant-Major….

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

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

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

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

“Private Dunshie. While on active service, refusing to obey an order. Lance-Corporal Ness!”

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

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

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

“Corporal Mackay!”

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

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

The Captain turns to the prisoner.

“What have you to say, Private Dunshie?”

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

“I jined the Airmy for tae fight they Germans, and no for tae be learned tae scrub floors—”

“Sirr!” suggests the Sergeant-Major in his ear.

“Sirr,” amends Private Dunshie reluctantly. “I was no in the habit of scrubbin’ the floor mysel’ where I stay in Glesca’; and ma wife would be affronted—”

But the Captain looks up. He has heard enough.

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

“Yes—sirr,” replies Private Dunshie, with less truculence.

The Captain glances down at the paper before him.

“First time you have come before me. Admonished!”

“Right turn! Quick march!” thunders the Sergeant-Major.

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

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

“Sirr?”

“Private McNulty!”

After the usual formalities, enter Private McNulty and escort. Private

McNulty is a small scared-looking man with a dirty face.

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

Captain Blaikie addresses the shivering culprit—

“Private McNulty; charged with destroying Government property. Corporal Mather!”

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

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

“What did you do?”

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

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

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

“Private McNulty?” queries the Captain.

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

“Sirr, I plead guilty!”

“Guilty—eh? You did it, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

This is what Private McNulty is waiting for.