RATIONS AND SICK PARADE
It has been said that an army moves upon its stomach, and, as if in
confirmation of this, the soldier is exhorted in an official pamphlet
"Never to start on a march with an empty stomach." To a hungry
rifleman the question of his rations is a matter of vital importance.
For the first few weeks our food was cooked up and served out on the
parade ground, or in the various gutter-fringed sheds standing in
the vicinity of our headquarters. The men were discontented with the
rations, and rumour had it that the troops stationed in a neighbouring
village rioted and hundreds had been placed under arrest.
Sometimes a haunch of roast beef was doled out almost raw, and
potatoes were generally boiled into pulp; these when served up looked
like lumps of wet putty. Two potatoes, unwashed and embossed with
particles of gravel, were allowed to each man; all could help
themselves by sticking their fingers into the doughy substance and
lifting out a handful, which they placed along with the raw "roast" on
the lid of their mess-tin. This constituted dinner, but often rations
were doled out so badly that several men only got half the necessary
allowance for their meals.
Tea was seldom sufficiently sweetened, and the men had to pay for
milk. After a time we became accustomed to the Epsom Salts that a
kindly War Office, solicitous for our well-being, caused to be added,
and some of us may go to our graves insisting on Epsom Salts with tea.
The feeding ground being in many cases a great distance from the fire,
the tea was cold by the time it arrived at the men's quarters. Those
who could afford it, took their food elsewhere: the restaurants in
the vicinity did a roaring trade, and several new ones were opened. A
petition was written; the men signed it, and decided to send it to
the colonel; but the N.C.O.'s stepped in and destroyed the document.
"You'll not do much good at the front," they told us, "if you are
grumbling already."
A week followed the destruction of the petition, and then appeared the
following in Battalion Orders: "From to-morrow until further orders,
rations will be issued at the men's billets." This announcement caused
no little sensation, aroused a great deal of comment, and created a
profound feeling of satisfaction in the battalion. Thenceforth rations
were served out at the billets, and the householders were ordered
to do the cooking. My landlady was delighted. "Not half feeding you;
that's a game," she said. "And you going to fight for your country!
But wait till you see the dishes I'll make out of the rations when
they come."
The rations came. In the early morning a barrow piled with eatables
was dragged through our street, and the "ration fatigue" party, full
of the novelty of a new job, yelled in chorus, "Bring out your dead,
ladies; rations are 'ere!"
"What have you got?" asked my landlady, going to the door. "What are
you supposed to leave for the men? Nothing's too good for them that's
going to fight for their country."
"Dead rats," said the ration-corporal with a grin.
"Don't be funny. What are my men to get?"
"Each man a pound of fresh meat, one and a half pounds of bread, two
taters, two ounces of sugar, and an ounce of tea and three ounces of
cheese. And, besides this, every feller gets a tin of jam once in four
days."
This looks well on paper, but pot and plate make a difference in the
proposition. Army cheese runs to rind rapidly, and a pound of beef is
often easily bitten to the bone: sometimes, in fact, it is all
bone and gristle, and the ravages of cooking minimise its bulk in
a disheartening way. One and a half pound of bread is more than the
third of a big loaf, but minus butter it makes a featureless repast.
Breakfast and tea without butter and milk does not always make a
dainty meal.
Even the distribution of rations leaves much to be desired; the
fatigue party, well-intentioned and sympathetic though it be, often
finds itself short of provisions. This may in many cases be due to
unequal distribution; an ounce of beef too much to each of sixteen men
leaves the seventeenth short of meat. This may easily happen, as the
ration party has never any means of weighing the food: it is nearly
always served out by guesswork. But sometimes the landladies help in
the distribution by bringing out scales and weighing the provisions.
One lady in our street always weighed the men's rations, and saw that
those under her care got the exact allowance. Never would she take any
more than her due, and never less. But a few days ago, when weighing
sugar and tea, a blast of wind upset the scales, and a second
allowance met with a similar fate. Sugar and tea littered the
pavement, and finally the woman supplied her soldiers from the
household stores. She now leaves the work of distribution in the hands
of the ration party, and takes what is given to her without grumbling.
The soldiers' last meal is generally served out about five o'clock
in the afternoon, sometimes earlier; and a stretch of fourteen hours
intervenes between then and breakfast. About nine o'clock in
the evening those who cannot afford to pay for extras feel their
waist-belts slacken, and go supperless to bed. And tea is not a very
substantial meal; the rations served out for the day have decreased in
bulk, bread has wasted to microscopic proportions, and the cheese has
diminished sadly in size. A regimental song, pent with soldierly woes,
bitterly bemoans the drawbacks of Tommy's tea:
"Bread and cheese for breakfast,
For dinner Army stew,
But when it comes to tea-time
There's dough and rind for you,
So you and me
Won't wait for tea--
We're jolly big fools if we do."
But those who do not live in billets, and whose worldly wealth fails
to exceed a shilling a day, must be content with Army rations, with
the tea tasting of coom, and seldom sweetened, with the pebble-studded
putty potato coated in clay, with the cheese that runs to rind at
last parade, and, above all, with the knowledge that they are merely
inconvenienced at home so that they may endure the better abroad.
There is another school of theorists that states that an army moves,
not upon its stomach, but upon its feet, the care of which is of vital
importance. This, too, finds confirmation in the official pamphlet,
which tells the soldier to "Remember that a dirty foot is an unsound
foot. See that feet are washed if no other part of the body is," etc.
My right foot had troubled me for days; a pain settled in the arch of
the instep, and caused me intense agony when resuming the march after
a short halt; at night I would suddenly awake from sleep to experience
the sensation of being stabbed by innumerable pins in ankle and toes.
Marching in future, I felt, would be a monstrous futility, and I
decided that my case was one for the medical officer.
Sick parade is not restricted by any dress order; the sore-footed
may wear slippers; the sore-headed, Balaclava helmets; puttees can be
discarded; mufflers and comforters may be used. "The sick rabble" is
the name given by the men to the crowd that waits outside the door of
the M.O.'s room at eight in the morning. And every morning brings its
quota of ailing soldiers; some seriously ill, some slightly, and a few
(as may be expected out of a thousand men of all sorts and conditions)
who have imaginary or feigned diseases that will so often save
"slackers" from a hard day's marching. The aim and ambition of these
latter seem to be to do as little hard work as possible; some of them
attend sick parade on an average once a week, and generally obtain
exemption from a day's work. To obtain this they resort to several
ruses; headaches and rheumatic pains are difficult to detect, and the
doctor must depend on the private's word; a quick pulse and heightened
temperature is engendered by a brisk run, and this is often a means
towards a favourable medical verdict--that is, when "favourable" means
a suspension of duties.
At a quarter to eight I stood with ten others in front of the M.O.'s
door, on which a white card with the blue-lettered "No Smoking"
stood out in bold relief. The morning was bitterly cold, and a sharp,
penetrating wind splashed with rain swept round our ears, and chilled
our hands and faces. One of the waiting queue had a sharp cough and
spat blood; all this was due, he told us, to a day's divisional
field exercise, when he had to lie for hours on the wet ground
firing "blanks" at a "dummy" enemy. Another sick soldier, a youth of
nineteen, straight as a lance and lithe as a poplar, suffered from
ulcer in the throat. "I had the same thing before," he remarked in a
thin, hoarse voice, "but I got over it somehow. This time it'll maybe
the hospital. I don't know."
An orderly corporal filled in admission forms and handed them to us;
each form containing the sick man's regimental number, name, religion,
age, and length of military service, in addition to several other
minor details having no reference at all to the matter in hand. These
forms were again handed over to another orderly corporal, who stood
smoking a cigarette under the blue-lettered notice pinned to the door.
The boy with the sore throat was sitting in a chair in the room when I
entered, the doctor bending over him. "Would you like a holiday?" the
M.O. asked in a kindly voice.
"Where to, sir?"
"A couple of days in hospital would leave you all right, my man," the
M.O. continued, "and it would be a splendid rest."
"I don't want a rest," answered the youth. "Maybe I'll be better in
the morning, sir."
The doctor thought for a moment, then:
"All right, report to-morrow again," he said. "You're a brave boy.
Some, who are not the least ill, whine till one is sick--what's the
matter with you?"
"Sore foot, sir," I said, seeing the M.O.'s eyes fixed on me.
"Off with your boot, then."
I took off my boot, placed my foot on a chair, and had it inspected.
"What's wrong with it?"
"I don't know, sir. It pains me when marching, and sometimes--"
"Have you ever heard that Napoleon said an army marches on its
stomach?"
"Yes, sir, when the feet of the army is all right," I answered.
"Quite true," he replied. "No doubt you've sprained one of yours;
just wash it well in warm water, rub it well, and have a day or two
resting. That will leave you all right. Your boots are good?"
"Yes, sir."
"They don't pinch or--what's wrong with you?" He was speaking to the
next man.
"I don't know, sir."
"Don't know? You don't know why you're here. What brought you here?"
"Rheumatic pains, I think, sir," was the answer. "Last night I 'ad an
orful night. Couldn't sleep. I think it was the wet as done it. Lyin'
out on the grass last field day--"
"How many times have you been here before?"
"Well, sir, the last time was when--"
"How many times?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Was it rheumatic pains last time?"
"No sir, it was jaw-ache--toothache, I mean."
"I'll put you on light duties for the day," said the M.O. And the
rheumatic one and I went out together.
"That's wot they do to a man that's sick," said the rheumatic one when
we got outside. "Me that couldn't sleep last night, and now it's light
duties. I know what light duties are. You are to go into the orderly
room and wash all the dishes: then you go and run messages, then you
'old the orficer's horse and then maybe when you're worryin' your own
bit of grub they come and bundle you out to sweep up the orficers'
mess, or run an errand for the 'ead cook and bottle-washer. Light
duties ain't arf a job. I'm blowed if marchin' in full kit ain't ten
times better, and I'm going to grease to the battalion parade."
Fifteen minutes later I met him leaving his billet, his haversack
on the wrong side, his cartridge pouches open, the bolt of his gun
unfastened; his whole general appearance was a discredit to his
battalion and a disgrace to the Army. I helped to make him presentable
as he bellowed his woes into my ear. "No bloomin' grub this mornin',"
he said. "Left my breakfast till I'd come back, and 'aven't no time
for it now. Anyway I'm going out on the march; no light duties for me.
I know what they are." He was still protesting against the hardships
of things as he swung out of sight round the corner of the street.
Afterwards I heard that he got three days C.B. for disobeying the
orders of the M.O.
Save for minor ailments and accident, my battalion is practically
immune from sickness; colds come and go as a matter of course, sprains
and cuts claim momentary attention, but otherwise the health of the
battalion is perfect. "We're too healthy to be out of the trenches,"
a company humorist has remarked, and the company and battalion agrees
with him.