Only a few months ago our William and his trusty troop swooped upon
a couple of Bosch field batteries floundering in a soft patch on the
far side of Tournai. William afflicted their gun teams with his little
Hotchkiss gadget, then prepared to gallop them. He had unshipped his
knife and was offering his sergeant long odds on scoring first "pink,"
when our two squadron trumpeters trotted out from a near-by coppice
and solemnly puffed "Cease Fire"--for all the world as if it was the
end of a field-day on the Plain and time to trot home to tea. William
was furious.
"There y'are," he snorted. "Just because I happened to have a full
troop out for once, all my horses fit, no wire or trenches in the way,
the burst of the season ahead and the only chance I've had in four and
a-half years of doing a really artistic bit of carving they must go
and stop the ruddy War. Poo! ain't that the bally Army all over? Bah!
I've done with it."
So he filled in the bare patches in every Demobilisation Form Z 15 he
could lay pen to.
Taking the proud motto of the MOND dynasty--"Make yourself
necessary"--for guide, he became something different every day in his
quest after an "Essential Trade." He was in turn a one-man-business, a
railway-porter, a coal-miner, a farmer, a NORTHCLIFFE leader-writer, a
taxi-baron, a jazz-professor and a non-union barber. At one moment he
was single, an orphan alone and unloved; at another he had a drunken
wife, ten consumptive young children and several paralytic old parents
to support. All to no avail; nobody would believe him.
Then one day he heard from a friend who by the simple expedient of
posing as a schoolmaster for a few minutes was now in "civvies" and
getting three days' hunting and four days' golf a week.
William grabbed up yet another A.F. Z 15, and dedicated his life to
the intellectual uplift of the young.
This time he drew a reply and by return.
Corps H.Q. held the view that he, William, was the very fellow they
had been looking for, longing for, praying for. They had him appointed
Regimental Educational Officer (without increase of rank, pay or
allowances) on the spot, and would he get on with it, please, and
indent through them for any materials required in the furtherance of
the good work?
William was furious. Confound the Staff! What did the blighted
red-tape-worms take him for? A blithering pedagogue in cap, gown
and horn spectacles? He kicked the only sound chair in the Mess to
splinters, cursed for two hours and sulked for twenty-four. After
which childish display he pulled himself together and indented on
Corps Educational Branch for four hundred treatises on elementary
Arabic, Arabic being the sole respectable subject in which he was
even remotely competent to instruct.
Corps H.Q. tore up his indent. It was absurd, they said, to
suppose that the entire regiment intended emigrating to Arabia on
demobilisation. William must get in touch with the men and find out
what practical everyday trades they were anxious to take up.
William was furious. "Isn't that the rotten Staff all over?" he fumed.
"Make an earnest and conscientious effort to give the poor soldiers a
leg-up with a vital, throbbing, commercial and classical _patois_ and
the brass-bound perishers choke you off! Poo-bah! Na poo!"
Then he pulled himself together again and indented on Corps
Educational Branch once more, this time for "Lions; menagerie; one."
Corps came down on William like St. Paul's Cathedral falling down
Ludgate Hill. What the thunder did he mean by it? Trying to be funny
with them, was he? He must explain himself instantly--Grrrr!
William was very calm. Couldn't understand what all this unseemly,
uproar was about, he wrote. Everything was in order. Obeying their
esteemed instructions to the letter he had made inquiries among the
men as to what practical everyday trades they were wishful to learn,
and, finding one stout fellow who was very anxious to enter public
life as a lion-tamer, he had indented for a lion for the chap to
practise on. What could be more natural? Furthermore, while on the
subject, when they forwarded the lion, would they be so good as to
include a muzzle in the parcel, as he thought it would be as well to
have some check on the creature during the preliminary lessons.
Corps H.Q.'s reply to this was brief and witty. They instructed the
Adjutant to cast William under arrest.
William was furious. PATLANDER.
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