So much for the effect of its training upon the regiment as a whole.
But when you come to individuals, certain of whom we have encountered
and studied in this rambling narrative, you find it impossible to
generalise. Your one unshakable conclusion is that it takes all sorts
to make a type.
There are happy, careless souls like McLeary and Hogg. There are
conscientious but slow-moving worthies like Mucklewame and Budge.
There are drunken wasters like--well, we need name no names. We have
got rid of most of these, thank heaven! There are simple-minded
enthusiasts of the breed of Wee Pe'er, for whom the sheer joy of
"sojering" still invests dull routine and hard work with a glamour of
their own. There are the old hands, versed in every labour-saving
(and duty-shirking) device. There are the feckless and muddle-headed,
making heavy weather of the simplest tasks. There is another class,
which divides its time between rising to the position of sergeant and
being reduced to the ranks, for causes which need not be specified.
There is yet another, which knows its drill-book backwards, and can
grasp the details of a tactical scheme as quickly as a seasoned
officer, but remains in the ruck because it has not sufficient force
of character to handle so much as a sentry-group. There are men,
again, with initiative but no endurance, and others with endurance but
no initiative. Lastly, there are men, and a great many of them, who
appear to be quite incapable of coherent thought, yet can handle
machinery or any mechanical device to a marvel. Yes, we are a motley
organisation.
But the great sifting and sorting machine into which we have been cast
is shaking us all out into our appointed places. The efficient and
authoritative rise to non-commissioned rank. The quick-witted and
well-educated find employment on the Orderly Room staff, or among the
scouts and signallers. The handy are absorbed into the transport, or
become machine-gunners. The sedentary take post as cooks, or tailors,
or officers' servants. The waster hews wood and draws water and
empties swill-tubs. The great, mediocre, undistinguished majority
merely go to stiffen the rank and file, and right nobly they do it.
Each has his niche.
To take a few examples, we may begin with a typical member of the
undistinguished majority. Such an one is that esteemed citizen of
Wishaw, John Mucklewame. He is a rank-and-file man by training and
instinct, but he forms a rare backbone for K(1). There are others, of
more parts--Killick, for instance. Not long ago he was living softly,
and driving a Rolls-Royce for a Duke. He is now a machine-gun
sergeant, and a very good one. There is Dobie. He is a good mechanic,
but short-legged and shorter-winded. He makes an excellent armourer.
Then there is Private Mellish. In his company roll he is described
as "an actor." But his orbit in the theatrical firmament has never
carried him outside his native Dunoon, where he follows the blameless
but monotonous calling of a cinematograph operator. On enlistment he
invited the attention of his platoon, from the start by referring
to his rear-rank man as "this young gentleman"; and despite all the
dissuading influences of barrack-room society, his manners never fell
below this standard. In a company where practically every man is
addressed either as "Jock" or "Jimmy," he created a profound and
lasting sensation one day, by saying in a winning voice to Private
Ogg,--
"Do not stand on ceremony with me, Mr. Ogg. Call me Cyril!"
For such an exotic there could only be one destination, and in due
course Cyril became an officer's servant. He now polishes the buttons
and washes the hose-tops of Captain Wagstaffe; and his elegant
extracts amuse that student of human nature exceedingly.
Then comes a dour, silent, earnest specimen, whose name, incredible
as it may appear, is M'Ostrich. He keeps himself to himself. He never
smiles. He is not an old soldier, yet he performed like a veteran the
very first day he appeared on parade. He carries out all orders with
solemn thoroughness. He does not drink; he does not swear. His
nearest approach to animation comes at church, where he sings the
hymns--especially _O God, our help in ages past!_--as if he were
author and composer combined. His harsh, rasping accent is certainly
not that of a Highlander, nor does it smack altogether of the
Clydeside. As a matter of fact he is not a Scotsman at all, though
five out of six of us would put him down as such. Altogether he is a
man of mystery; but the regiment could do with many more such.
Once, and only once, did he give us a peep behind the scenes. Private
Burke, of D Company, a cheery soul, who possesses the entirely
Hibernian faculty of being able to combine a most fanatical and
seditious brand of Nationalism with a genuine and ardent enthusiasm
for the British Empire, one day made a contemptuous and ribald
reference to the Ulster Volunteers and their leader. M'Ostrich, who
was sitting on his bedding at the other side of the hut, promptly rose
to his feet, crossed the floor in three strides, and silently felled
the humorist to the earth. Plainly, if M'Ostrich comes safe through
the war, he is prepared for another and grimmer campaign.
Lastly, that jack-of-all trades and master of none, Private Dunshie.
As already recorded, Dunshie's original calling had been that of a
street news-vendor. Like all literary men, he was a Bohemian at heart.
Routine wearied him; discipline galled him; the sight of work made
him feel faint. After a month or two in the ranks he seized the first
opportunity of escaping from the toils of his company, by volunteering
for service as a Scout. A single experience of night operations in
a dark wood, previously described, decided him to seek some milder
employment. Observing that the regimental cooks appeared to be
absolved, by virtue of their office, not only from all regimental
parades, but from all obligations on the subject of correct attire and
personal cleanliness, he volunteered for service in the kitchen. Here
for a space--clad in shirt, trousers, and canvas shoes, unutterably
greasy and waxing fat--he prospered exceedingly. But one sad day he
was detected by the cook-sergeant, having just finished cleaning a
flue, in the act of washing his hands in ten gallons of B Company's
soup. Once more our versatile hero found himself turned adrift with
brutal and agonising suddenness, and bidden to exercise his talents
elsewhere.
After a fortnight's uneventful dreariness with his platoon, Dunshie
joined the machine-gunners, because he had heard rumours that these
were conveyed to and from their labours in limbered waggons. But he
had been misinformed. It was the guns that were carried; the gunners
invariably walked, sometimes carrying the guns and the appurtenances
thereof. His very first day Dunshie was compelled to double across
half a mile of boggy heathland carrying two large stones, meant to
represent ammunition-boxes, from an imaginary waggon to a dummy gun.
It is true that as soon as he was out of sight of the corporal he
deposited the stones upon the ground, and ultimately proffered two
others, picked up on nearing his destination, to the sergeant in
charge of the proceedings; but even thus the work struck him as
unreasonably exacting, and he resigned, by the simple process of
cutting his next parade and being ignominiously returned to his
company.
After an unsuccessful application for employment as a "buzzer," or
signaller, Dunshie made trial of the regimental transport, where there
was a shortage of drivers. He had strong hopes that in this way he
would attain to permanent carriage exercise. But he was quickly
undeceived. Instead of being offered a seat upon the box of a G.S.
waggon, he was bidden to walk behind the same, applying the brake when
necessary, for fourteen miles. The next day he spent cleaning stables,
under a particularly officious corporal. On the third, he was
instructed in the art of grooming a mule. On the fourth, he was left
to perform this feat unaided, and the mule, acting under extreme
provocation, kicked him in the stomach. On the fifth day he was
returned to his company.
But Mecca was at hand. That very morning Dunshie's company commander
received the following ukase from headquarters:--
_Officers commanding Companies will render to the Orderly Room without
fail, by 9 A.M. to-morrow, the name of one man qualified to act as
chiropodist to the Company_.
Major Kemp scratched his nose in a dazed fashion, and looked over his
spectacles at his Quartermaster-Sergeant.
"What in thunder will they ask for next?" he growled. "Have we got any
tame chiropodists in the company, Rae?"
Quartermaster-Sergeant Rae turned over the Company roll.
"There is no--no--no man of that profession here, sirr," he reported,
after scanning the document. "But," he added optimistically, "there is
a machine-fitter and a glass-blower. Will I warn one of them?"
"I think we had better call for a volunteer first," said Major Kemp
tactfully.
Accordingly, that afternoon upon parade, Platoon commanders were
bidden to hold a witch hunt, and smell out a chiropodist. But the
enterprise terminated almost immediately; for Private Dunshie,
caressing his injured abdomen in Number Three Platoon, heard the
invitation, and quickly stepped forward.
"So you are a chiropodist as well as everything else, Dunshie!" said
Ayling incredulously.
"That's right, sirr," assented Dunshie politely.
"Are you a professional?"
"No exactly that, sirr," was the modest reply.
"You just make a hobby of it?"
"Just that, sirr."
"Have you had much experience?"
"No that much."
"But you feel capable of taking on the job?"
"I do, sirr."
"You seem quite eager about it."
"Yes, sirr," said Dunshie, with gusto.
A sudden thought occurred to Ayling.
"Do you know what a chiropodist is?" he asked.
"No, sirr," replied Dunshie, with unabated aplomb.
* * * * *
To do him justice, the revelation of the nature of his prospective
labours made no difference whatever to Dunshie's willingness to
undertake them. Now, upon Saturday mornings, when men stand stiffly
at attention beside their beds to have their feet inspected, you may
behold, sweeping majestically in the wake of the Medical Officer as he
makes his rounds, the swelling figure of Private Dunshie, carrying the
implements of his gruesome trade. He has found his vocation at last,
and his bearing in consequence is something between that of a Court
Physician and a Staff Officer.