"Now, Jimmy, tell the officer what would ye dae in case of fire?"
"Present airrms!" announces the desperate James. Or else, almost
tearfully, "I canna mind. I had it all fine just noo, but it's awa'
oot o' ma heid!"
Therefore it was with no great sense of anticipation that the orderly
officer said to Private Carmichael,--
"Now, sentry, can you repeat any of your duties?"
Peter saluted, took a full breath, closed both eyes, and replied
rapidly,--
"For tae tak' chairge of all Government property within sicht of
this guairdhoose tae turrn out the guaird for all arrmed pairties
approaching also the commanding officer once a day tae salute all
officers tae challenge all pairsons approaching this post tae--"
His recital was interrupted by a fit of coughing.
"Thank you," said the officer hastily; "that will do. Good night!"
Peter, not sure whether it would be correct to say "good night" too,
saluted again, and returned to his cough.
"I say," said the officer, turning back, "you have a shocking cold."
"Och, never heed it, sirr," gasped Peter politely.
"Call the sergeant," said the officer.
The fat sergeant came out of the guardhouse again, buttoning his
tunic.
"Sirr?"
"Take this man off sentry-duty and roast him at the guard-room fire."
"I will, sirr," replied the sergeant; and added paternally, "this man
has no right for to be here at all. He should have reported sick
when warned for guard; but he would not. He is very attentive to his
duties, sirr."
"Good boy!" said the officer to Peter. "I wish we had more like you."
Wee Pe'er blushed, his teeth momentarily ceased chattering, his heart
swelled. Appearances to the contrary, he felt warm all through. The
sergeant laid a fatherly hand upon his shoulder.
"Go you your ways intil the guard-room, boy," he commanded, "and send
oot Dunshie. He'll no hurt. Get close in ahint the stove, or you'll be
for Cambridge!"
(The last phrase carries no academic significance. It simply means
that you are likely to become an inmate of the great Cambridge
Hospital at Aldershot.)
Peter, feeling thoroughly disgraced, cast an appealing look at the
officer.
"In you go!" said that martinet.
Peter silently obeyed. It was the only time in his life that he ever
felt mutinous.
A month later Brigade Training set in with customary severity. The
life of company officers became a burden. They spent hours in thick
woods with their followers, taking cover, ostensibly from the enemy,
in reality from brigade-majors and staff officers. A subaltern never
tied his platoon in a knot but a general came trotting round the
corner. The wet weather had ceased, and a biting east wind reigned in
its stead.
On one occasion an elaborate night operation was arranged. Four
battalions were to assemble at a given point five miles from camp, and
then advance in column across country by the light of the stars to
a position indicated on the map, where they were to deploy and dig
themselves in! It sounded simple enough in operation orders; but when
you try to move four thousand troops--even well-trained troops--across
three miles of broken country on a pitch-dark night, there is always
a possibility that some one will get mislaid. On this particular
occasion a whole battalion lost itself without any delay or difficulty
whatsoever. The other three were compelled to wait for two hours and
a half, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers, while
overheated staff officers scoured the country for the truants. They
were discovered at last waiting virtuously at the wrong rendezvous,
three-quarters of a mile away. The brazen-hatted strategist who drew
up the operation orders had given the point of assembly for the
brigade as: ... _the field_ S.W. _of_ WELLINGTON WOOD _and due_ E.
_of_ HANGMAN'S COPSE, _immediately below the first_ O _in_ GHOSTLY
BOTTOM,--but omitted to underline the O indicated. The result was that
three battalion commanders assembled at the O in "ghostly," while the
fourth, ignoring the adjective in favour of the noun, took up his
station at the first O in "bottom."
The operations had been somewhat optimistically timed to end at 11
P.M., but by the time that the four battalions had effected a most
unloverly tryst, it was close on ten, and beginning to rain. The
consequence was that the men got home to bed, soaked to the skin, and
asking the Powers Above rhetorical questions, at three o'clock in the
morning.
Next day Brigade Orders announced that the movement would be continued
at nightfall, by the occupation of the hastily-dug trenches, followed
by a night attack upon the hill in front. The captured position would
then be retrenched.
When the tidings went round, fourteen of the more quick-witted spirits
of "A" Company hurriedly paraded before the Medical Officer and
announced that they were "sick in the stomach." Seven more discovered
abrasions upon their feet, and proffered their sores for inspection,
after the manner of Oriental mendicants. One skrimshanker, despairing
of producing any bodily ailment, rather ingeniously assaulted a
comrade-in-arms, and was led away, deeply grateful, to the guard-room.
Wee Peter, who in the course of last night's operations had stumbled
into an old trench half-filled with ice-cold water, and whose
temperature to-day, had he known it, was a hundred and two, paraded
with his company at the appointed time. The company, he reflected,
would get a bad name if too many men reported sick at once.
Next day he was absent from parade. He was "for Cambridge" at last.
Before he died, he sent for the officer who had befriended him, and
supplemented, or rather corrected, some of the information contained
in his attestation paper.
He lived in Dumbarton, not Renfrewshire. He was just sixteen. He was
not--this confession cost him a great effort--a full-blown "holder-on"
at all; only an apprentice. His father was "weel kent" in the town
of Dumbarton, being a chief engineer, employed by a great firm of
shipbuilders to extend new machinery on trial trips.
Needless to say, he made a great fight. But though his heart was
big enough, his body was too frail. As they say on the sea, he was
over-engined for his beam.
And so, three days later, the simple soul of Twenty-seven fifty-four
Carmichael, "A" Company, was transferred, on promotion, to another
company--the great Company of Happy Warriors who walk the Elysian
Fields.