INFANTRY
The old-time term, light infantry, has little meaning at present as far
as difference in the stamp of man and the weight of equipment carried
is concerned; one infantry battalion is equal to another in respect
of “lightness,” except that some Highland battalions, recruiting from
districts which provide exceptionally brawny specimens of humanity,
obtain a taller and weightier average of men. Varieties of equipment
in the old days made infantry “heavy” and “light,” but the modern
infantryman is kept as light as possible in the matter of equipment in
all units.
Certain battalions possess and are very proud of distinctions awarded
them for feats on the field of battle. Thus it is permitted to one
infantry regiment, including all its battalions, to wear the regimental
badge both on the front and the back of the helmet in review order,
also on their field-service caps, to commemorate an action in which
the men were surrounded and fought back to back until they had
extricated themselves from their perilous position--or rather, until
the survivors had extricated themselves. In another regiment, the
sergeants are permitted to wear the sash over the same shoulder as the
officers, in view of the fact that on one occasion all the officers
were killed, and the non-commissioned officers took command, with
noteworthy results. Yet another distinction, but of a different kind,
is the concession made to Irish regiments in allowing them to wear
sprigs of shamrock on St. Patrick’s days.
In the “review order” or full dress of modern infantrymen--and in fact
of all British soldiers--there are certain buttons and fittings which
serve no useful purpose, and soldiers themselves, even, sometimes
wonder why these things are worn. The reason is that, in old time,
all these fittings had a use; the buttons on the back of the tunic
supported belts which are no longer worn, or covered pockets which no
longer exist. There is a reason also in the officer wearing his sash on
one shoulder and the sergeant his on another, and in the same way there
is a reason for every seemingly useless fitting in a soldier’s review
uniform--it perpetuates a tradition of the particular battalion or
regiment concerned, or it keeps alive a tradition of the service as a
whole. To the outsider, these may appear useless formalities, but they
are not so in reality; the soldier is intensely proud of these things,
which make for _esprit de corps_ and maintain the spirit of the Army
quite as much as material advantages.
The actual spirit in which the infantryman views his work is a
difficult thing to assess. One noteworthy example of that spirit is
the case of Piper Findlater, who, wounded beyond the power of movement
at Dargai, sat up and piped--an amazing piece of courage and coolness
under fire. Yet that same Piper Findlater, invalided home and out of
the service, could display himself on a music-hall stage, an action
which was incomprehensible to the civilian mind. But, to the average
infantryman, there was nothing incongruous in the two actions--one
was as much the right of the man as the other was to his credit, and
Findlater was typical of the British infantryman.
Under the present system, each infantry regiment is divided into two or
more battalions. Under the old system, each battalion was distinguished
by a number, but the numbers have been abolished in favour of names of
counties or districts, and two or more battalions form the regiment of
a county or division of a county. It is very seldom that these two or
more portions of the same regiment meet each other, for, in the case of
a two-battalion regiment, one battalion is usually on foreign service
while the other is domiciled in England, and the home battalion feeds
the one on foreign service with recruits as needed to keep the latter
up to strength. A notable exception to this rule occurred in the case
of the Norfolk Regiment a few years ago, when the first and second
battalions met at Bloemfontein, one outward bound at the beginning of
its term of foreign service, and the other about to start for home.
The infantryman is fitted for what constitutes the greater part of
his work, when the season’s “training” is over, by what is known as
“route marching.” In this, a battalion is started out at the beginning
of the route-marching season on a march of a few miles, in light
order--carrying rifles and bayonets only, perhaps. The distance covered
is gradually increased, and the weight of equipment carried by the men
is also increased, until the men concerned are carrying their full
packs and marching twelve or fourteen miles a day. Service conditions
are maintained as far as possible, so as to make the men fit for long
marches at any time; by this means the men’s feet are hardened and the
men themselves brought thoroughly into condition, while weaklings are
picked out and marked down for future reference. “Falling out” on a
route march without good and sufficient reason means days to barracks
for the offender, at the least, and “cells” is a possibility.
The work of the infantryman is less complex than that of any other
branch of the service: he has to be trained to march well and to know
how to use his rifle and bayonet. Principally, given the physical
endurance for the marching part of the business, he has to learn to
shoot, and the simplicity of his duties is compensated for by the
thoroughness with which he is taught. Then, again, discipline is of
necessity stricter in infantry units than in other branches of the
service; the cavalryman, with a horse to care for as well as himself
and his arms and equipment, and the driver or gunner of artillery, with
“two horses and two sets” (of saddlery) or his gun or limber to mind,
is kept busy most of the time without an excess of discipline, but
the infantryman in time of peace is concerned only with himself, his
arms and equipment, and his barrack-room--a small total when compared
with the cares of the man in the cavalry or artillery. By way of
compensation, the infantryman is made to give more attention to his
barrack-room; he is restricted, in a way that would not be possible in
the cavalry or artillery, in the way in which he employs his leisure
hours, and parades are made to keep his hands out of mischief, as well
as to train him to thorough efficiency.
A brigade of infantry, consisting of four battalions, looks a perfectly
uniform mass of men on, say, a service, dress parade, but intimate
knowledge of the characteristics of the men in each battalion reveals
a world of difference; each regiment has its own traditions, and each
battalion differs widely from the rest in its methods of working,
its way of issuing commands, and its internal arrangements. There is
a standard of bugle calls for the whole Army, but practically every
infantry battalion infuses a certain amount of individuality into
the method of sounding the call. The buglers of the Rifle Brigade,
for instance, would scorn to sound their calls in the way that the
East Surreys or the York and Lancaster battalions sound theirs, and
conversely a York and Lancaster or an East Surrey man would smile at
the bugle call of the Rifle Brigade battalion. The districts from
which men are recruited, too, account for many little peculiarities
in the ways of different battalions. There is obviously a world of
difference between the way in which a man of the King’s Own Yorkshire
Light Infantry will view a given situation, and the view adopted by a
man of the East Surreys, for one is “reet Yorkshire,” while the other
is Cockney all through. Dialects and regimental slang combined make
the language of the one almost unintelligible to the other, and, while
each arrives at precisely the same end by slightly varying means, each
claims superiority over the other.
The spirit of the British infantryman, with very few exceptions,
consists mainly in his belief that he is a member of the best company
in the very best battalion of infantry in the service. As for his
particular arm of the service, he points with pride to the fact that he
comes in from a march and gets to his food while the poor cavalryman is
still fretting about in the horse lines, and _he_ has no two sets of
harness to bother about after a field day. He slings his equipment on
the shelf and goes off to his meal when the field day is over, while
the poor gunner is busy with an oil rag, keeping the rust from eating
into his gun and its fittings until the time comes to clean it. Thus
the infantryman on his advantages, and with some justice, too.
But in the barrack-room the cavalryman and artilleryman have the
advantage. They can make down their beds and snooze when work is done,
secure from interruption until “stables” shall sound and turn them out
to care for their “long-faced chums.” The infantryman, on the other
hand, has to prepare for barrack-room and kit inspections at all times;
he has to wet-scrub and dry-scrub the floors, blacklead the table
trestles and legs of forms, whitewash himself tired on articles which,
to the civilian eye, appear already sufficiently coated with whitewash,
pick grass off the drill ground, and carry out a host of orders which
seem designed for his especial irritation, though in reality they are
designed to keep him at work and prevent him from being utterly idle.
In certain hours, the infantryman must be made to work to keep him in
condition, and if the work of a necessary nature is not sufficient to
keep him employed, then work is made for him. It must be said that,
owing to the existence of undiscerning commanding and other officers,
a lot of this work, although undoubtedly it fulfils its purpose, is
irritating to the last degree, and might with advantage be exchanged
for tasks which would exercise the intelligence of the men instead of
rousing their disgust. Grass-picking is an especially detested form
of labour which is common in some battalions of the infantry. In most
units, however, men are put to useful occupations; in some stations
where available ground admits, gardens are allotted to the men, who
cultivate creditable supplies of vegetables for the use of their messes
and flowers for decorative purposes.
Another favourite form of exercise, in which the infantryman is
indulged with what appears to him unnecessary frequency, is kit
inspection. At first sight, it would seem that the circumstance of an
officer inspecting the kit and equipment of his men is not one which
would cause an undue amount of trouble, but the reverse of this is the
case in practice. Each man has to lay down his kit to a regulation
pattern; at the head of the bed, on which the clothing and equipment
is laid out, the reds and blues and khaki-coloured squares represent
much time spent by the man in folding each article of clothing to the
last half-inch of size and form, prescribed by the regulation affecting
the way in which kit must be laid down for inspection. Then come the
underclothing, knife and fork, razor, Prayer Book and Bible, brushes,
and other odds and ends with which every man must be provided. If any
article is deficient from the official list, the man is promptly “put
down” for a new article to replace the deficiency--and for this he has
to pay. The upkeep of a full kit is most strictly enforced, and, in
addition to the completeness of the kit, the amount of polish on the
various articles calls for much attention on the part of the inspecting
officer. A knife or fork not sufficiently bright, boots not quite as
well cleaned and polished as they might be, or brass buttons displaying
a suspicion of dullness, lead at the least to an order to show again
at a stated hour--not the single article, but the whole kit--while
repeated deficiencies, either in the quantity of the articles or in the
evident amount of care bestowed on them, will lead to defaulters’ drill
or even cells.
Kit inspection counts as a “parade,” and not as a “fatigue.” The latter
term is used to imply all kinds of actual work in connection with the
maintenance of order in the battalion, and varies from washing up in
the sergeants’ mess to carrying coals for the barrack-room or married
quarters. To each unit, as a rule, there is a coal-yard attached, and
from this a certain amount of coal is issued free each week for cooking
purposes, while in the winter months a further amount is allotted
to the men to burn in the barrack-room stoves. If the allowance is
exceeded--and since it is a small one it is usually exceeded--the men
club round among themselves to purchase more, at the rate of a penny or
twopence a man. The fetching of this extra coal does not count as a
“fatigue” in the official sense.
A roll is kept of all men liable for fatigue duty, and each man takes
his turn in alphabetical order in the performance of the various tasks
that have to be done. As these tasks differ considerably in nature and
extent, it follows that the alphabetical way of ordering the roll is
as fair as any, though artful dodgers, getting wind of a stiff fatigue
ahead, will get out of doing it by exchanging their turns with those
men who would otherwise get an easier task. As a rule, sergeants’ mess
fatigue is one of the least liked, except on Sunday mornings, when it
releases the man who does it from church parade--of which more later.
For the actual housemaid work of the barrack-room, a roll is usually
kept in each room, and the men of the room take turns at “orderly man,”
as it is called. This involves the final sweeping out of the room after
each man has swept under his own bed and round the little bit of floor
which is his own particular territory. It involves the care of and
responsibility for all the kits in the room while the remainder of the
men are out at drill, and also the fetching of all meals and washing
up of the plates and basins after each meal. The orderly man of the
day is not supposed to leave the room during parade hours, except to
fetch meals for the rest; it is his duty, after all have gone out, to
put the boxes at the foot of the beds in an exact line, that there may
be nothing to disturb the symmetry of things when the orderly officer
or the colour-sergeant comes round on a morning visit of inspection.
In a home station, as far as infantry is concerned, practically all
barrack-room inspections take place before one o’clock in the day,
and in the afternoons such men as are in the barrack-room have it to
themselves. It is the rule in some battalions, however, that no beds
may be “made down” before six o’clock--a harsh rule, and one which
serves no useful purpose, unless it be considered useful to keep a man
from lying down to rest.
While guard duty is kept as light as possible in mounted branches
of the service, it is allowed to assume large proportions in the
infantry. In a cavalry regiment, the “main guard,” which mounts duty
for twenty-four hours and has charge of the regimental guard-room and
prisoners confined therein, is composed at the most of a corporal and
three men, but in the infantry the main guard of a battalion consists
of a sergeant, a corporal or lance-corporal, and six men, providing
three reliefs of two sentries apiece. Guard duty is done in “review
order.” That is to say, the men dress up in their best clothes, with
the last possible polish on metal-work and the best possible pipeclay
on all belts and equipment that permit of it; and the inspection to
which the guard is submitted before taking over its duties is the most
searching form of inspection which the soldier has to undergo after he
has been dismissed from recruits’ training. The men of the guard do
turns of two hours sentry-go apiece, and then get four hours’ rest,
except in very inclement weather, when the periods are reduced to one
hour of duty and two hours of rest. Experience has placed it beyond
doubt that the “two hours on and four hours off” is the best way of
doing duty in reliefs; it imposes less strain on the men, who have to
keep up their duty for a day and a night, than any other form in which
it could be arranged.
Certain men in infantry units--and in fact in all units--are excused
from the regular routine of duty in order to fill special posts.
Noteworthy among these are the “flag-waggers” or regimental signallers,
a body of men maintained at a certain strength for the purpose of
signalling messages with flags, heliograph, or lamps, by means of
the Morse telegraphic code, and also with flags at short distances
by semaphore. Bearing in mind the average education among the rank
and file, it is remarkable with what facility men learn the use of
the Morse code. Against this must be set the fact that only selected
men are employed as signallers; these are taught the alphabet, and
the various signs employed for special purposes, by being grouped in
squads, and, after their preliminary instruction is completed, they are
sent out to various points from which they send messages to each other,
under conditions approximating as nearly as possible to those which
obtain on active service.
In order to maintain the signallers of a unit in full practice and
efficiency, the men are excused from all ordinary parades for a
certain part of the year; during manœuvres they are attached to the
headquarters staff of their unit and carry on their work as signallers,
not as ordinary duty-men. The wagging of flags is only a part of their
duty, for they have to learn the mechanism and use of the heliograph,
since, when sunlight permits of its use, this instrument can be
employed for the transmission of messages to a far greater distance
than is possible even with large flags. Lamps for signalling by night
are operated by a button which alternately obscures and exhibits the
light of a lamp placed behind a concentrating lens. The practised
signaller is as efficient in the use of flags, lamps, and heliograph
as is the post-office operator in the use of the ordinary telegraph
instrument, though the exigencies of field service render military
signalling a considerably slower business than ordinary wire telegraphy.
Another course of instruction which carries with it a certain amount
of exemption from duty in the infantry is that of scout. The practised
scout is capable of plotting a way across country at night, marching
by the compass or by the stars, making a watch serve as a compass,
military map-reading--which is not as simple a matter as might be
supposed--and of making sketches in conventional military signs of
areas of ground, natural defensive positions, and all points likely to
be of interest and advantage from a military point of view. The work
of the signaller has been going on for many years, but the training of
scouts is a movement which has come about and developed almost entirely
during the last twelve years, which, as the Army reckons time, is but a
very short period. It may be anticipated that the practice of scouting
and the training of scouts will develop considerably as time goes on.
Needless to say, the orderly-man is excused all parades during his day
of duty as such. Only in exceptional circumstances are cooks taken for
parades, and such men as the regimental shoemaker, the armourer and his
assistants, and other men employed in various capacities, attend the
regular duty parades very seldom. On field days occasionally, and also
on certain commanding-officers’ drill parades, the orders of the day
announce that the battalion will parade “as strong as possible.” This
means a general sweep up and turning out of men employed in various
ways and excused from parades as a rule, and their unhandiness owing to
lack of practice sometimes results in their being relieved from their
posts and returned to duty, while frequently it involves their doing
extra drills in addition to their regular work.
The duty-man affects to despise the man on the staff, but this
affectation is more often a cloak for envy. “Staff jobs,” as the
various forms of employment in a unit are called, generally mean extra
pay; in nineteen cases out of twenty they mean exemption from most
ordinary parades and from a good deal of the ordinary routine work of
the unit concerned; in almost all cases they mean total exemption from
fatigues. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that
the secret ambition of the average infantryman at duty, when he has
relinquished all hope of promotion, is to get on the staff.