THE REGIMENTAL OFFICER
I hear you say that Baden-Powell has had glorious chances, that the
lot of most officers is humdrum, and that with so much talk about
Arbitration and Universal Millennium, you cannot go up for Sandhurst
with any certainty that your career will contain a single opportunity
for gaining honour and renown. My dear Smith major, believe me, a man
may distinguish himself in a barrack square as well as in African
mountains or a besieged township. General popularity, it is true, does
not come that way; but the opportunity for honour is there all the
same, and the distinction one earns on that field has its appreciation
in the right quarter. Long before the world of London paraded its
streets with portrait badges of Baden-Powell on its heart, or
thereabouts, he was a marked and famous man, and before he had drawn
sword on a field of battle, or fired a revolver into the yellow grass
of the veldt, he was known throughout the British Cavalry as a
first-rate, if not the ideal, soldier. It is not a bad ambition, I
promise you, to try and be a perfect regimental officer.
A party of sergeants in Baden-Powell's old regiment were once asked by
a civilian whether the men liked him. There was a silence for a minute
or two, and at last one of the sergeants replied, hesitatingly, "Well,
no, I shouldn't say they _like_ him"; then in a burst--"why, they
worship him!" Let me tell you how Baden-Powell has earned their love.
In the first place, he entered the Army with no mischievous ideas
about the manliness and dash of a fast, raking life. That is a great
start, for if the soldier despises one type of officer more than
another it is the young sprig who affects to consider soldiering a
bore, and comes on parade with the evidence of last night's folly and
dissipation in his drawn face and dull eyes. Baden-Powell was keen
about his work from the first, and never posed as a drawling Silenus
in gold lace. In the second place, Baden-Powell, who always possessed
a great deal of sound common sense, took an interest in his men,
treated them as intelligent beings, and never for once mistook the
drunken, devil-may-care Private of fiction for the soldier who goes
anywhere and does anything. It is a literary "dodge" to reach the
reader's sympathies by drawing the blackguard in order to find the
hero; one good deed in that world of unreality wipes out all the
unworthiness of a lifetime, and the reader puts down the tale with a
longing to fall on the neck and wring the hand of the very next
hiccupping Tommy he encounters. As Bishop Blougram says:--
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things,
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demireps
That love and save their souls in new French books--
We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway: one step aside,
They're classed and done with.
This is all very well in fiction, but I protest it is a little hard on
the soldier, and it is certainly a dangerous belief for the future
officer to grow up in.
The following letter, which appeared recently in the _Daily Graphic_,
is well and truly written: "Having served as chaplain of one of the
largest recruiting depôts in England, may I thank you for your article
on the Heroic Blackguard style of literature in vogue just now.
Soldiers have often remarked to me that they were represented as
'drunken roughs who couldn't speak the Queen's English.' As a matter
of fact, a steadier, better behaved, better mannered class it would be
difficult to find. There are exceptions, but not popular exceptions.
Blackguardism and heroism very seldom go together, Bret Harte and
other writers notwithstanding. The pluckiest and most reliable
soldiers are not animated beer barrels, but sober, keen-eyed, sensible
fellows, and of such the British Army chiefly consists."
When you are most inclined to think the Private an irresponsible
good-for-nothing, look hard at the next Commissionaire you meet on the
street. That smart, clean, well-brushed man, with his bronzed face,
his bright keen eyes, and general look of self-respect, was once a
soldier, and indeed it is soldiering that has made him what you see.
Look hard, honoured sir, at the next Commissionaire who comes across
your path, and you will never again be disposed to regard the soldier
as an insensate good-for-nothing.
"Tommy Atkins," says Baden-Powell, "is not the childish boy that the
British Public are too apt to think him, to be ignored in peace and
petted in war. He is, on the contrary, a man who reads and thinks for
himself, and he is keen on any instruction in really practical
soldiering, especially if it promises a spice of the dash and
adventure which is so dear to a Briton." It was just because
Baden-Powell acted on this assumption in the 13th Hussars that the men
learned to "worship" him. The few regular bad-lots that are to be
found, I suppose, in every regiment, are certainly no heroes among the
rest of the soldiers. The corner in the canteen where they foregather
is not crowded, and I have seen them from that unsplendid isolation
looking wistfully at the fresh, clean, merry-voiced troopers buying
"luxuries" at the bar,--men who are keen soldiers, anxious to excel,
and who do not "nurse the canteen."
But bad officers may ruin the best men, and the popularity of the Army
with the classes from which its ranks are drawn depends very largely
upon the behaviour of our subalterns and captains. No one likes to be
neglected, and the great mistake made by so many officers, but never
by Baden-Powell, is their apparent indifference to the soldier's
welfare "out of hours." In a cavalry regiment, for instance, for the
greater part of the year the men have practically nothing to do from
dinner-time till the bugle rings for evening stables. Will you believe
it, that the commonest way of spending the afternoon in cavalry
regiments is by going to bed? Immediately after dinner is over, down
go the beds with a clatter, the strap that holds the mattress
doubled-up is unbuckled, and under the thick sheets and the dark
blankets, minus his boots, the trooper smokes his pipe until he falls
asleep. Their officer is with them in the morning, to see that they
brush the scurf out of their horses' manes and put the burnisher over
the backs of the buckles; he puts his nose into their room at
dinner-time to ask if there are any complaints, and withdraws it
almost before it is recognised by the men, as if the odour of the
Irish stew disagreed with him. After that, unless he walks through
the stables in the evening, his men do not see him. Now, how can an
officer who soldiers in this dull, stupid fashion ever gain the
affection of his men? And, more important question, how can men with
such an officer ever grow enthusiastic about soldiering, or even
content with their lot?
Baden-Powell devoted himself to the men in his troop, and, when he was
adjutant, to the whole regiment. He would get them out of their rooms
in the afternoon for sports of some kind, he would encourage them to
take up flag-wagging or scouting, and he would work like a slave to
provide them with an alternative for public-house and canteen. There
is a story about him, which shows how popular he is with the men, and,
also, that it is possible for soldiers to take an intelligent interest
in practical soldiering. Baden-Powell was delivering a course of
lectures, I think on scouting, and every lecture had been attended by
a large audience which completely filled the room. Men used to wait
outside the door in order to get a seat, just as people stand
patiently for hours at the pit-door of a theatre. Among this audience
there was one young sergeant who had shown a singularly keen
interest in the lectures; he was one of the smartest and
cleanest-living men in the station, and had never been charged with
drunkenness in his life. At one of the lectures B.-P. was surprised to
find the young soldier absent, and he was still more surprised on the
following day to find that this irreproachable sergeant was up on a
charge of drunkenness. "What on earth made you go and get drunk?"
asked B.-P. "Well, sir," said the sergeant doggedly, "I was late
yesterday and couldn't get in to your lecture, so of course I had to
go and get drunk." He said this perfectly seriously, and there was a
very world of meaning in his argumentative "of course."
[Illustration: "_Viret in Æternum_"
Van der Weyde, Photographer, 182, Regent St., W.]
Baden-Powell was as assiduous in his attentions to his men as any
knight to his lady. He wooed them and won them. He did not win by
playing to the gallery, asking if they were quite comfortable in their
room, and giving them little coddling presents. He won as a man wins a
love that is worth winning, by treating the object of his devotion
with respect and perfect trust. His work at Malta, when he was acting
as Assistant Military Secretary to the Governor, secured for him the
affection of hundreds of soldiers and, I am glad to add, sailors too.
He was the life and soul of the place, indefatigable in getting up
sports and theatricals for the men, and building a permanent club for
their use, which effectually prevented the weaker men, or shall we say
the more generous hearted? from spending too much money in
public-houses. It was a sight to see the gymnasium, in which the
theatricals were held, during one of Baden-Powell's performances. The
vast floor of the building was crowded with soldiers packed as tightly
as sardines, and the rafters running from wall to wall were all
bestridden by sailors as happy and as comfortable there as the
Governor and his party sitting in the front row in their splendid
chairs from the palace. And when B.-P. appeared in the wings a shout
such as might have brought down the walls of Jericho shook the great
building, and soldier and sailor vied with each other to see who could
keep that roar of welcome going the longest. And over and over again
did Baden-Powell apply for leave to shirk some great social function
in the palace because the hour of such entertainment clashed with the
time he spent among Tommy and Jack in the gymnasium or the club.
His opinion of the soldier is a high one, and that is the secret of
his success. He loves to recount instances which have come in his long
experience, showing the soldier in the best light, revealing his
pluck, his love of little children, his chivalrous championing of the
weak, his handiness, his humour, his cheerfulness in depressing
circumstances, his self-respect, and his honesty. What was it that
struck his attention most about the tempting work of searching
Prempeh's palace for treasure? That the work which was entrusted to a
company of British soldiers "was done most honestly and well, without
a single case of looting. Here was a man with an armful of gold-hilted
swords, there one with a box full of gold trinkets and rings, another
with a spirit-case full of bottles of brandy, yet in no instance was
there any attempt at looting." And, eating out his own heart, on that
bitter march back from Kumassi to Cape Coast Castle, he had eyes for
the splendid doggedness of the British soldier: "In truth, that march
down was in its way as fine an exhibition of British stamina and pluck
as any that has been seen of late years. For the casual reader in
England this is difficult to realise, but to one who has himself
wearily tramped that interminable path, heart-sick and foot-sore, the
sight of those dogged British 'Tommies,' heavily accoutred as they
were, still defying fever in the sweltering heat, and ever pressing
on, was one which opened one's eyes and one's heart as well. There was
no malingering _there_; each man went on until he dropped. It showed
more than any fight could have done, more than any investment in a
fort, or surprise in camp, what stern and sterling stuff our men are
made of, notwithstanding all that cavillers will say against our
modern army system and its soldiers." During that bitter march
Baden-Powell asked a young soldier, gripped by fever but manfully
plodding on with the rest, whether his kit was not too heavy for him,
whereat, says Baden-Powell, he replied, with tight-drawn smile and
quavering voice, "It ain't the kit, sir; it's only these extra rounds
that I feel the weight of." "These extra rounds" being those intended
for the fight which never came.
In the Matabele campaign he was quick to notice the manner in which
private soldiers tended some wounded nigger children. "It did one
good," he says, "to see one or two of the Hussars, fresh from
nigger-fighting, giving their help in binding up the youngsters, and
tenderly dabbing the wounded limbs with bits of their own shirts
wetted." During that haunting march with the Shangani Patrol, when the
rice was cut down to a spoonful, and a horse had been killed to supply
the men with food, Baden-Powell found time to note that "the men are
singing and chaffing away as cheerfully as possible while they scoop
the muddy water from the sand-hole for their tea." And he loves the
soldier for all his little oddities. How he laughed over the man who
carried skates in his kit through India, and the man in the African
desert with a lot of fish-hooks in his wallet! And how he likes to
chaff them out of their failings. At Aldershot one of his most popular
pieces as an entertainer is that in which he impersonates the
barrack-room lawyer. While the audience is waiting for the next
singer, there is a noise heard in the wings, and then a loud voice
cries, "I tell yer I will go on. It's no use of you a-stoppin' of me,
I'm agoin' to tell 'em all about it, I am," and then with a great
clatter a private soldier comes bungling on the stage, tunic open,
hair all over the place, and cap at the back of his head. "Beg
parding, sir," he says to the officer in the front row, "but these
here manoeuvres has all been conducted wrong, they have, and I
warn't to tell the company how they ought to have been managed. Now if
I had had the runnin' of this concern, and not the Field-Marshal, I
should have first of all"--etc. etc. The audience yells with delight,
and if Baden-Powell really should show up, in his own inimitable
fashion, the mistakes of a general (which, by the way, he is quite
capable of doing), the audience and the general too, if he is there,
laugh all the more.
Men go to him with their private cares and troubles. They know that
the man who can make them laugh till the tears stream down their
faces, can at the right moment show a serious face, and give ear to
the humblest tale of trouble. He makes it his business--and surely it
is part of an officer's business--to know all about his men's lives,
their families, their favourite sports, their objects in life, and the
way in which they spend their leave. When he was in the 13th Hussars
he was always a favourite with the children in the married quarters,
and if you could pick out an apple-cheeked urchin playing in the dust
of the barracks who did not grin from ear to ear when you asked if he
knew Baden-Powell, you had stumbled upon a young gentleman the guest
of the regiment.
Baden-Powell even got to learn the names men gave their horses. There
was in the 13th Hussars some years ago a handsome little black horse
whose regimental number was, I think, A18. To the men he was Smut, and
no one ever thought of calling him anything else. One day at stables
the squad was called to attention, and the young soldier standing at
the head of A18 was mightily surprised to hear a civilian walking side
by side with the captain of his troop remark, as he passed up the
stable, "Why, there's old Smut!" When the officer and civilian had
passed out he turned to the next man, and asked who the deuce the
bloke was in the brown hat. "Why, that's Captain Baden-Powell," said
the man; and then he added with great pride, "I was his bâtman once."
The young soldier had heard of Baden-Powell before, and was furious
that he had not looked longer at him as he passed. An odd
circumstance, by the way, concerning the ex-bâtman. He was a terrible
fellow in many ways, always on the look-out for a fight, and in his
cups had disabled more than one policeman in the cities where the 13th
sojourned. But he kept in his box a little faded red book of
quotations, filled with serious and religious thoughts, and he was
particularly fond of two of these apothegms: the one, "A prayer is
merely a wish turned Godward"; and the other, "A grave wherever found
preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul." He would quote them
over and over again in his confidential moments, and, though he might
pick out others as he turned the well-thumbed pages of that tiny book,
it was always to these two that he returned as perfect specimens of
great sayings. And that book, unless I am mistaken, was given to him
by Baden-Powell. "If I had been with him right along," he would say,
regretting some escapade, "I should have been a sergeant by this
time."
Baden-Powell's familiarity with the names of his men's horses reminds
one of his difficulty in swallowing horse-flesh during the hungry days
with the Shangani Patrol: "It is one thing to say, 'I'll trouble you
to pass the horse, please,' but quite another to say, 'Give me another
chunk of D15.'" He is a man who can grow very nearly as fond of his
troop's horses as of his own.
A good description of Baden-Powell is that versatile officer's own
sketch of a man with whom he soldiered on one of his campaigns: "He
has all the qualifications that go to make an officer above the ruck
of them. Endowed with all the dash, pluck, and attractive force that
make a born leader of men, he is also steeped in common sense, is
careful in arrangement of details, and possesses a temperament that
can sing 'Wait till the clouds roll by' in crises where other men are
tearing their hair." The public in the light of recent events will be
quick to recognise B.-P. in the latter part of this portrait; I can
assure them that the rest is equally accurate. As a regimental officer
he exhibits all these good qualities. He can show the men dash and
pluck in every sport they care for, his common sense makes him the
friend of Tommy Atkins as well as his officer, and the affairs of his
regiment are so admirably managed that there is no enervating air of
slackness about the barracks from the first monitory note of
"Reveillé" to the last wailing sound of "Lights Out."
And while Baden-Powell is loved in the barrack-room he is ever the
most popular figure in the Officers' Mess. There is nothing of the
namby-pamby, I mean, in his solicitude for the soldier's welfare,
nothing to make him unpopular with his brother officers, nothing that
makes even the youngest subaltern a little contemptuous. _Tout au
contraire._ The place he holds in the affections of his brother
officers may, perhaps, be seen in a quotation from the letter of an
officer in the 13th Hussars, which I received during the most anxious
days of the siege of Mafeking. After saying that relief ought to have
been sent before, my Hussar says, "Poor dear chap, he must be severely
tried. As I eat my dinner at night I always wish I could hand it over
to him." Could a Briton do more?
Such then is Baden-Powell's character as a regimental officer. Beloved
by the little fashionable world of the Officers' Mess, adored by the
men who eat and sleep and clean sword, carbine, and boots in the one
room, he presents to the gaze of the schoolboy whose whole thoughts
are set upon Sandhurst the beau-ideal of a regimental officer.
To reach that ideal there are five great essentials--keenness,
courage, high-mindedness, self-abnegation, humour. Ability to mix
freely with private soldiers without loss of dignity is, I take it,
the natural gift of a gentleman; and if the officer who devotes
himself to his men is high-minded and courageous, always ready to
ignore self, with the saving virtue of humour, he will earn not only
their respect and admiration, but their loyal and unswerving love.