_Northern France._
As you will see from our address, here we are among the War
Correspondents. But there is a mistake somewhere; either there are not
enough Germans to go round, or else they--Headquarters, you know--simply
hate the idea of throwing the flower of the British Army into the full
glare of the shrapnel. Anyhow, we haven't actually been engaged yet,
though our Private Smithson has collected three bits of shrapnel and a
German rifle; and we have all heard artillery fire (off). Which makes us
think that these rumours of war aren't just a scare got up to help
recruiting.
Some doubt exists among us as to our precise function out here. Here we
are (as I may have mentioned) a magnificent battalion of young giants,
complete with rifles--every man has at least one and Private Smithson
has two--webbing equipment, cummerbunds, mufflers, cameras, sleeping
caps (average, six per man) and even boots; and yet they can't decide
exactly what to do with us. Mind you, we are absolute devils for a
fight; we have already been reserve troops to five different divisions
and thought nothing of it. We are not quite sure whether we get five
medals for this or one medal with five bars. Not that we really care;
such considerations do not affect us. As Edward--the mascot of the
section--observed to me the other day, "I don't care two beans about
medals; I want to go home."
But you ask what do we actually do? Let no man believe that we are out
here on a holiday. On the contrary we give ourselves over entirely to
warlike pursuits. Some days we slope arms by numbers; and other days we
clean dixies and indent for new boots. Night by night we guard our
approaches and prod the tyres of oncoming motors with fixed bayonets.
Every morning the man who held up General FRENCH tells us about it with
bated breath over our bated breakfasts. It is one of the finest
traditions of the corps that General FRENCH is held up by us every
night. We have our own sentries' word for it. This is especially
interesting in view of the persistent reports that he is in a totally
different part of France. As he gives a different name every night and
varies considerably in appearance we feel that there must be something
behind it all.
Thompson, who is no end of a fire-eater and wants to be invalided home
with a bullet in his left shoulder--he is engaged--has invented a scheme
for getting to the front by sheer initiative. Our officers have quite a
pedantic veneration for orders, field-marshals and other obsolete pink
apron-strings. We are thus thrown back on our sergeants, a fine body of
men whose one weakness is an enthusiasm for chocolate. Acting on this
knowledge certain tactful and public-spirited privates in our midst will
present the sergeants with two sticks of chocolate per sergeant on the
understanding that they thereafter form the battalion into fours and
march them circumstantially to the trenches. There are, by all accounts,
such supplies of these that a few here and there are bound to be empty.
Having occupied these we will all expose our left shoulders, and, having
gleaned a whole shrubbery of laurels, return to Divisional H.-Q. The
sergeants, such as survive, will then be court-martialled and shot at
dawn, while the rest of the regiment will be honourably exiled to
England in glorious disgrace. All that remains is for Thompson to
approach the sergeants with chocolate.
* * * * *
We notice a stray poster which advertises the thrilling romance, _I Hid
my Love_. Is the idea that he should elude conscription? or simply
Zeppelins?
* * * * *
Illustration: THE INNOCENT.