At last! We are "recognised" by the War Office! Our months of toil are
not to go unrewarded. Two hours every evening at the end of an ordinary
civilian day's work, all Saturday afternoon and the whole of Sunday, we
have given these up cheerfully, supported by the hope of ultimate
recognition. And now it is come!
The terms of the War Office are generous. They are these. Provided that
we buy our own rifles and equipment and continue to pay our own training
expenses; provided that we use no military terms and make no attempt to
wear any clothing which may look to the Germans at all like a soldier's
uniform; provided that the War Office is at perfect liberty to employ
upon those of us within the age limits a conscription for whole-time
service which it has no intention of employing upon the more patriotic
man who spends his week-ends playing golf; these provisions complied
with, we--_are allowed to go on living!_
That startles you? I thought it would. You looked down upon us.
Recognition, you told yourself, would only mean that we were immediately
to be employed as waterproof sheeting for the new huts or concrete
foundations for the new guns. Aha! Now you wish you had joined us. We
are allowed to go on living!
But I was forgetting. The War Office is being even more generous than
that. In return for our not bothering them any more, it will allow us to
wear (and pay for) a small red armlet with "G.R." on it; the red colour,
I suppose, informing the Germans that we have just been vaccinated, and
the "G.R." ("got rash") warning them that the left arm is irritable.
James is annoyed about it. This is silly of him. As I point out, our
soldiers have already earned a reputation abroad for gaiety and high
spirits, and it is all to the good that the War Office should show that
it has a sense of humour equally keen. When the invasion comes, and
music-halls, cinemas and football matches are closed down, the amusement
of the country (as the War Office has foreseen) will depend entirely
upon _us_. Let us, then, obey rigidly the seven commandments of
"recognition" and see how funny we can be.