No, he does not appear in the _Gazette_. War establishments know him
not and his appointment throws no additional labour upon the staff of
Messrs. COX AND CO. Unofficially he is known as O.C. Split Infinitives.
His duties are to see that the standard of literary excellence, which
makes the correspondence of the Corps a pleasure to receive, is
maintained at the high level set by the Corps Commander himself. Indeed
the velvety quality of our prose is the envy of all other formations.
Apart from duties wholly literary, he is also O.C. Code Names. The
stock-in-trade for this skilled labour is an H.B. pencil and a Webster
Dictionary. The routine is simplicity itself. As soon as anybody informs
him of a new arrival in the area he fishes out the dictionary, plays
Tit-Tat-Toe with the H.B., writes out the word that it lands upon at the
end of his rhyme, and, hey presto! there is another day's work done.
But one day, for the sake of greater secrecy, it became necessary to
rename all the units of the area, and the Literary Adviser suddenly
found himself put to it to provide about three hundred new Code Names at
once. Heroically he set to work with his dictionary, his H.B. pencil,
and his little rhyme. For two days the Resplendent Ones in the General
Staff Office bore patiently with the muttering madman in the corner.
For two days he fluttered the leaves of his dictionary and
whispered hoarsely to himself, "Tit-tat-toe, my-first-go,
three-jolly-nigger-boys-all-in-a-_row_," picking out word after word
with unerring accuracy until the dictionary was a waste of punctures and
three generations of H.B.'s had passed away. Before the second day was
out the jingle had done its dreadful work. It was as much as the clerks
could do to avoid keeping step with it. The climax came when the Senior
Resplendent One, looking down at the telegram he was writing, found to
his horror that he had written, "Situation quiet Tit-Tat-Toe. Hostile
artillery activity normal Tit-Tat-Toe," and so on, substituting this
abomination in place of the official stop, ("Ack-Ack-Ack") throughout.
It was enough. Still gibbering, the Literary Adviser was hurled forth
from the office and told to work his witchcraft in solitude.
Paler, thinner and older by years he emerged from his retirement
triumphant, and the new code names went forth to a flourish of trumpets
or rather of the hooters of the despatch-riders.
Then it began. For days he was subjected to rigorous criticisms of his
selection. "Signals" tripped him up first by pointing out two units with
the same name, and they also went on to point out that the word was
spelt "cable" in the first instance and "cabal" in the second. The
gunners, working in groups, complained bitterly that a babel had arisen
through the similarity of the words allotted to their groups. One
infuriated battery commander said it was as much as he could do to get
anyone else on the telephone but himself.
Touched to the quick by criticism (when was it ever otherwise amongst
his kind?) the Adviser set aside his real work (he was, of course,
writing a book about the War) and applied himself to, the task of
straightening the tangle. Obviously the ideal combination would be for
each unit to have a code name that nobody could mistake no matter how
badly it was pronounced. And to this ideal he applied himself. Often, on
fine afternoons, the serenity of the country-side was disturbed by the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Soap--Silk--Salvage--Sympathy,"
to see if any dangerous similarity existed. At dinner a glaze would
suddenly come over his eyes, his lips would move involuntarily and
mutter, as he gazed into vacancy, "Mustard--Mutton--Meat--Muffin."
Histrionic effort played no small part in these attempts and
led to a good deal of misunderstanding, for he felt it incumbent
on him to try his codes in every possible dialect. Instead of
the usual cheery "Good morning," a major of a famous Highland
regiment was scandalised by an elderly subaltern blethering out,
"Cannibal--Custard--Claymore--Caramel," in an abominable Scotch accent.
Another day (on receipt of written orders) he was compelled to visit the
line to see if things had been built as reported, or, if it was just
optimism again. Half-an-hour later a sentry brought him down the trench
at the point of the bayonet for muttering as he rounded the traverse,
"Galoot--Gunning--Grumble--Grumpy," in pseudo-Wessex. Naturally, to
Native Yorkshire this sounded like pure Bosch.
Ah! but he won through in the end. The man who has stood five years of
unsuccessful story-writing for magazines is not the kind to let himself
be beaten easily. There could be no doubt of the final result. When the
revised list was issued the response to the inquiry, "Hullo, is that
Sink?" was met by a "No, this is Smack," that crashed through the
thickest intellect.
But vaulting ambition had o'erleapt itself. As a covering note to the
new issue he had put up the following letter:--
"Ref. G K etc., etc., of 10th inst. On November 3rd all previous issues
of Code Names will be cancelled in favour of the more euphonious
nomenclature which is forwarded herewith."
A shriek of joy echoed through the corps. "Euphonious!" What a word!
What a discovery in a foreign country! The joy of the signal operators,
on whom something of the spirit of the old-time bus-drivers has
descended, was indescribable. You had only to pick up the receiver at
any time and the still small voices of the busy signal world could be
heard chortling, "Hullo-oo? Hullo, Euphonious! How's your father?
Yes, give me Crump." Or, "No, I can't get the General; he's left his
euphonious receiver off."
Poor Euphonious (he has never been called by anything else since)--they
have threatened to make him O.C. Recreations for Troops.
* * * * *
[Illustration: BIRDS OF ILL OMEN.