THE MOB IN TRAINING
The Nth Service Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, on the march was a sight not
easily to be forgotten. To the inhabitants of Colchester, Folkestone,
Shorncliffe, Aldershot, and other towns and villages throughout the
south of England, we were well known. We displayed ourselves with what
must have seemed to them a shameless disregard for appearances. Our
approach was announced by a discordant tumult of fifes and drums, for
our band, of which later, we became justly proud, was a newly fledged
and still imperfect organization. Windows were flung up and doors thrown
open along our line of march; but alas, we were greeted with no welcome
glances of kindly approval, no waving of handkerchiefs, no clapping of
hands. Nursemaids, who are said to have a nice and discriminating eye
for soldiery, gazed in amused and contemptuous silence as we passed.
Children looked at us in wide-eyed wonder. Only the dumb beasts were
demonstrative, and they in a manner which was not at all to our liking.
Dogs barked, and sedate old family horses, which would stand placidly at
the curbing while fire engines thundered past with bells clanging and
sirens shrieking, pricked up their ears at our approach, and, after one
startled glance, galloped madly away and disappeared in clouds of dust
far in the distance.
We knew why the nursemaids were cool, and why family horses developed
hysteria with such startling suddenness. But in our pride we did not see
that which we did not wish to see. Therefore we marched, or, to be more
truthful, shambled on, shouting lusty choruses with an air of boisterous
gayety which was anything but genuine.
"You do as I do and you'll do right,
Fall in and follow me!"
was a favorite with number 12 platoon. Their enthusiasm might have carried
conviction had it not been for their personal appearance, which certainly
did not. Number 15 platoon would strive manfully for a hearing with
"Steadily, shoulder to shoulder,
Steadily, blade by blade;
Marching along,
Sturdy and strong,
Like the boys of the old brigade."
As a strictly accurate historian I must confess that none of these
assertions were quite true. We marched neither steadily, nor shoulder to
shoulder, nor blade by blade. We straggled all over the road, and kept
step only when the sergeant major doubled forward, warning us, with
threats of extra drills, to keep in our fours or to "pick it up!" In
fact, "the boys of the old brigade," whoever they may have been, would
have scornfully repudiated the suggestion that we resembled them in any
respect.
They would have been justified in doing so had any of them seen us at the
end of six weeks of training. For, however reluctantly, we were forced to
admit that Sergeant Harris was right when he called us "a raw batch o'
rookies." Unpromising we were not. There was good stuff in the ranks, the
material from which real soldiers are made, and were made; but it had not
yet been rounded into shape. We were still nothing more than a
homogeneous assembly of individuals.
We declined to accept the responsibility for the seeming slowness of our
progress. We threw it unhesitatingly upon the War Office, which had not
equipped us in a manner befitting our new station in life. Although we
were recruited immediately after the outbreak of war, less than half of
our number had been provided with uniforms. Many still wore their old
civilian clothing. Others were dressed in canvas fatigue suits, or the
worn-out uniforms of policemen and tramcar conductors. Every old-clothes
shop on Petticoat Lane must have contributed its allotment of cast-off
apparel.
Our arms and equipment were of an equally nondescript character. We might
easily have been mistaken for a mob of vagrants which had pillaged a
seventeenth-century arsenal. With a few slight changes in costuming for
the sake of historical fidelity, we would have served as a citizen army
for a realistic motion-picture drama depicting an episode in the French
Revolution.
We derived what comfort we could from the knowledge that we were but one
of many battalions of Kitchener's first hundred thousand equipped in this
same makeshift fashion. We did not need the repeated assurances of cabinet
ministers that England was not prepared for war. We were in a position to
know that she was not. Otherwise, there had been an unpardonable lack of
foresight in high places. Supplies came in driblets. Each night, when
parades for the day were over, there was a rush for the orderly room
bulletin board, which was scanned eagerly for news of an early issue of
clothing. As likely as not we were disappointed, but occasionally jaded
hopes revived.
"Number 15 platoon will parade at 4 P.M. on Thursday, the 24th,
for boots, puttees, braces, and service dress caps."
Number 15 is our platoon. Promptly at the hour set we halt and right-turn
in front of the Quartermaster Stores marquee. The quartermaster is there
with pencil and notebook, and immediately takes charge of the
proceedings.
"All men needing boots, one pace step forward, March!"
The platoon, sixty-five strong, steps forward as one man.
"All men needing braces, one pace step back, March!"
Again we move as a unit. The quartermaster hesitates for a moment; but he
is a resourceful man and has been through this many times before. We all
need boots, quite right! But the question is, Who need them most?
Undoubtedly those whose feet are most in evidence through worn soles and
tattered uppers. Adopting this sight test, he eliminates more than half
the platoon, whereupon, by a further process of elimination, due to the
fact that he has only sizes 7 and 8, he selects the fortunate twelve who
are to walk dry shod.
The same method of procedure is carried out in selecting the braces.
Private Reynolds, whose trousers are held in place by a wonderful
mechanism composed of shoe-laces and bits of string, receives a pair;
likewise, Private Stenebras, who, with the aid of safety pins, has
fashioned coat and trousers into an ingenious one-piece garment. Caps and
puttees are distributed with like impartiality, and we dismiss, the
unfortunate ones growling and grumbling in discreet undertones until the
platoon commander is out of hearing, whereupon the murmurs of discontent
become loudly articulate.
"Kitchener's Rag-Time Army I calls it!" growls the veteran of South
African fame. "Ain't we a 'andsome lot o' pozzie wallopers? Service? We
ain't never a-go'n' to see service! You blokes won't, but watch me! I'm
a-go'n' to grease off out o' this mob!"
No one remonstrated with this deservedly unpopular reservist when he
grumbled about the shortage of supplies. He voiced the general sentiment.
We all felt that we would like to "grease off" out of it. Our deficiencies
in clothing and equipment were met by the Government with what seemed to
us amazing slowness. However, Tommy is a sensible man. He realized that
England had a big contract to fulfill, and that the first duty was to
provide for the armies in the field. France, Russia, Belgium, all were
looking to England for supplies. Kitchener's Mob must wait, trusting to
the genius for organization, the faculty for getting things done, of its
great and worthy chief, K. of K.
* * * * * *
Our housing accommodations, throughout the autumn and winter of 1914-15,
when England was in such urgent need of shelter for her rapidly
increasing armies, were also of the makeshift order. We slept in leaky
tents or in hastily constructed wooden shelters, many of which were
afterward condemned by the medical inspectors. St. Martin's Plain,
Shorncliffe, was an ideal camping-site for pleasant summer weather. But
when the autumnal rains set in, the green pasture land became a quagmire.
Mud was the great reality of our lives, the malignant deity which we fell
down (in) and propitiated with profane rites. It was a thin, watery mud
or a thick, viscous mud, as the steady downpour increased or diminished.
Late in November we were moved to a city of wooden huts at Sandling
Junction, to make room for newly recruited units. The dwellings were but
half-finished, the drains were open ditches, and the rains descended and
the floods came as usual. We lived an amphibious and wretched existence
until January, when, to our great joy, we were transferred to billets in
the Metropole, one of Folkestone's most fashionable hotels. To be sure,
we slept on bare floors, but the roof was rainproof, which was the
essential thing. The æsthetically inclined could lie in their blankets at
night, gazing at richly gilded mirrors over the mantelpieces and
beautifully frescoed ceilings refurnishing our apartments in all their
former splendor. Private Henry Morgan was not of this type. Henry came in
one evening rather the worse for liquor and with clubbed musket assaulted
his unlovely reflection in an expensive mirror. I believe he is still
paying for his lack of restraint at the rate of a sixpence per day, and
will have canceled his obligation by January, 1921, if the war continues
until that time.
* * * * * *
Although we were poorly equipped and sometimes wretchedly housed, the
commissariat was excellent and on the most generous scale from the very
beginning. Indeed, there was nearly as much food wasted as eaten.
Naturally, the men made no complaint, although they regretted seeing such
quantities of food thrown daily into the refuse barrels. I often felt
that something should be done about it. Many _exposés_ were, in fact,
written from all parts of England. It was irritating to read of German
efficiency in the presence of England's extravagant and unbusinesslike
methods. Tommy would say, "Lor, lummy! Ain't we got no pigs in England?
That there food won't be wasted. We'll be eatin' it in sausages w'en we
goes acrost the Channel"; whereupon he dismissed the whole question from
his mind. This seemed to me then the typical Anglo-Saxon attitude.
Everywhere there was waste, muddle-headedness, and apparently it was
nobody's business, nobody's concern. Camps were sited in the wrong places
and buildings erected only to be condemned. Tons of food were purchased
overseas, transported across thousands of miles of ocean, only to be
thrown into refuse barrels. The Government was robbed by avaricious
hotel-keepers who made and were granted absurd claims for damages done to
their property by billeted troops. But with vast new armies, recruited
overnight, it is not strange that there should be mismanagement and
friction at first. As the months passed, there was a marked change for
the better. British efficiency asserted itself. This was made evident to
us in scores of ways--the distribution of supplies, the housing and
equipping of troops, their movements from one training area to another.
At the last, we could only marvel that a great and complicated military
machine had been so admirably and quickly perfected.
* * * * * *
Meanwhile our rigorous training continued from week to week in all
weathers, even the most inclement. Reveille sounded at daybreak. For an
hour before breakfast we did Swedish drill, a system of gymnastics which
brought every lazy and disused muscle into play. Two hours daily were
given to musketry practice. We were instructed in the description and
recognition of targets, the use of cover, but chiefly in the use of our
rifles. Through constant handling they became a part of us, a third arm
which we grew to use quite instinctively. We fired the recruit's, and
later, the trained soldier's course in musketry on the rifle ranges at
Hythe and Aldershot, gradually improving our technique, until we were
able to fire with some accuracy, fifteen rounds per minute. When we had
achieved this difficult feat, we ceased to be recruits. We were skilled
soldiers of the proud and illustrious order known as "England's
Mad-Minute Men." After musketry practice, the remainder of the day was
given to extended order, company, and battalion drill. Twice weekly we
route-marched from ten to fifteen miles; and at night, after the parades
for the day were finished, boxing and wrestling contests, arranged and
encouraged by our officers, kept the red blood pounding through our
bodies until "lights out" sounded at nine o'clock.
The character of our training changed as we progressed. We were done with
squad, platoon, and company drill. Then came field maneuvers, attacks in
open formation upon intrenched positions, finishing always with terrific
bayonet charges. There were mimic battles, lasting all day, with from ten
to twenty thousand men on each side. Artillery, infantry, cavalry, air
craft--every branch of army service, in fact--had a share in these
exciting field days when we gained bloodless victories or died painless
and easy deaths at the command of red-capped field judges. We rushed
boldly to the charge, shouting lustily, each man striving to be first at
the enemy's position, only to be intercepted by a staff officer on
horseback, staying the tide of battle with uplifted hand.
"March your men back, officer! You're out of action! My word! You've made
a beastly mess of it! You're not on church parade, you know! You advanced
across the open for three quarters of a mile in close column of platoons!
Three batteries of field artillery and four machine guns have blown you
to blazes! You haven't a man left!"
Sometimes we reached our objective with less fearful slaughter, but at
the moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of steel
on steel, the cries and groans of men fighting for their lives, we heard
the bugles from far and near, sounding the "stand by," and friend and
enemy dropped wearily to the ground for a rest while our officers
assembled in conference around the motor of the divisional general.
All this was playing at war, and Tommy was "fed up" with play. As we
marched back to barracks after a long day of monotonous field maneuvers,
he eased his mind by making sarcastic comments upon this inconclusive
kind of warfare. He began to doubt the good faith of the War Office in
calling ours a "service" battalion. As likely as not we were for home
defense and would never be sent abroad.
"Left! Right! Left! Right!
Why did I join the army?
Oh! Why did I ever join Kitchener's Mob?
Lor lummy! I must 'ave been balmy!"--
became the favorite, homeward-bound marching song. And so he "groused"
and grumbled after the manner of Tommies the world over. And in the mean
time he was daily approaching more nearly the standard of efficiency set
by England's inexorable War Lord.
* * * * * *
It was interesting to note the physical improvement in the men wrought by
a life of healthy, well-ordered routine. My battalion was recruited
largely from what is known in England as "the lower middle classes."
There were shop assistants, clerks, railway and city employees, tradesmen,
and a generous sprinkling of common laborers. Many of them had been used
to indoor life, practically all of them to city life, and needed months
of the hardest kind of training before they could be made physically fit,
before they could be seasoned and toughened to withstand the hardships of
active service.
Plenty of hard work in the open air brought great and welcome changes.
The men talked of their food, anticipated it with a zest which came from
realizing, for the first time, the joy of being genuinely hungry. They
watched their muscles harden with the satisfaction known to every normal
man when he is becoming physically efficient. Food, exercise, and rest,
taken in wholesome quantities and at regular intervals, were having the
usual excellent results. For my own part, I had never before been in such
splendid health. I wished that it might at all times be possible for
democracies to exercise a beneficent paternalism over the lives of their
citizenry, at least in matters of health. It seems a great pity that the
principle of personal freedom should be responsible for so many
ill-shaped and ill-sorted physical incompetents. My fellow Tommies were
living, really living, for the first time. They had never before known
what it means to be radiantly, buoyantly healthy.
There were, as well, more profound and subtle changes in thoughts and
habits. The restraints of discipline and the very exacting character of
military life and training gave them self-control, mental alertness. At
the beginning, they were individuals, no more cohesive than so many
grains of wet sand. After nine months of training they acted as a unit,
obeying orders with that instinctive promptness of action which is so
essential on the field of battle when men think scarcely at all. But it
is true that what was their gain as soldiers was, to a certain extent,
their loss as individuals. When we went on active service I noted that
men who were excellent followers were not infrequently lost when called
upon for independent action. They had not been trained to take the
initiative, and had become so accustomed to having their thinking done
for them that they often became confused and excited when they had to do
it for themselves.
Discipline was an all-important factor in the daily grind. At the
beginning of their training, the men of the new armies were gently dealt
with. Allowances were made for civilian frailties and shortcomings. But
as they adapted themselves to changed conditions, restrictions became
increasingly severe. Old privileges disappeared one by one. Individual
liberty became a thing of the past. The men resented this bitterly for a
time. Fierce hatreds of officers and N.C.O.s were engendered and there
was much talk of revenge when we should get to the front. I used to look
forward with misgiving to that day. It seemed probable that one night in
the trenches would suffice for a wholesale slaughtering of officers. Old
scores were to be paid off, old grudges wiped out with our first issue of
ball ammunition. Many a fist-banged board at the wet canteen gave proof
of Tommy's earnestness.
"Shoot 'im?" he would say, rattling the beer glasses the whole length of
the table with a mighty blow of his fist. "Blimy! Wite! That's all you
got to do! Just wite till we get on the other side!"
But all these threats were forgotten months before the time came for
carrying them out. Once Tommy understood the reasonableness of severe
discipline, he took his punishment for his offenses without complaint. He
realized, too, the futility of kicking against the pricks. In the army he
belonged to the Government body and soul. He might resent its treatment
of him. He might behave like a sulky school-boy, disobey order after
order, and break rule after rule. In that case he found himself
check-mated at every turn. Punishment became more and more severe. No one
was at all concerned about his grievances. He might become an habitual
offender from sheer stupidity, but in doing so, he injured no one but
himself.
A few of these incorrigibles were discharged in disgrace. A few followed
the lead of the Boer warrior. After many threats which we despaired of
his ever carrying out, he finally "greased off." He was immediately
posted as a deserter, but to our great joy was never captured. With the
disappearance of the malcontents and incorrigibles the battalion soon
reached a high grade of efficiency. The physical incompetents were
likewise ruthlessly weeded out. All of us had passed a fairly thorough
examination at the recruiting offices; but many had physical defects
which were discovered only by the test of actual training. In the early
days of the war, requirements were much more severe than later, when
England learned how great would be the need for men. Many, who later
reënlisted in other regiments, were discharged as "physically unfit for
further military service."
If the standard of conduct in my battalion is any criterion, then I can
say truthfully that there is very little crime in Lord Kitchener's armies
either in England or abroad. The "jankers" or defaulters' squad was
always rather large; but the "jankers men" were offenders against minor
points in discipline. Their crimes were untidy appearance on parade,
inattention in the ranks, tardiness at roll-call, and others of the
sort, all within the jurisdiction of a company officer. The punishment
meted out varied according to the seriousness of the offense, and the
past-conduct record of the offender. It usually consisted of from one to
ten days, "C.B."--confined to barracks. During the period of his sentence
the offender was forbidden to leave camp after the parades for the day
were ended. And in order that he might have no opportunity to do so, he
was compelled to answer his name at the guard-room whenever it should be
sounded.
Only twice in England did we have a general court-martial, the offense in
each case being assault by a private upon an N.C.O., and the penalty
awarded, three months in the military prison at Aldershot. Tommy was
quiet and law-abiding in England, his chief lapses being due to an
exaggerated estimate of his capacity for beer. In France, his conduct, in
so far as my observation goes, has been splendid throughout. During six
months in the trenches I saw but two instances of drunkenness. Although I
witnessed nearly everything which took place in my own battalion, and
heard the general gossip of many others, never did I see or hear of a
woman treated otherwise than courteously. Neither did I see or hear of
any instances of looting or petty pilfering from the civilian
inhabitants. It is true that the men had fewer opportunities for
misconduct, and they were fighting in a friendly country. Even so, active
service as we found it was by no means free from temptations. The
admirable restraint of most of the men in the face of them was a fine
thing to see.
Frequent changes were made in methods of training in England, to
correspond with changing conditions of modern warfare as exemplified in
the trenches. Textbooks on military tactics and strategy, which were the
inspired gospel of the last generation of soldiers, became obsolete
overnight. Experience gained in Indian Mutiny wars or on the veldt in
South Africa was of little value in the trenches in Flanders. The
emphasis shifted from open fighting to trench warfare, and the textbook
which our officers studied was a typewritten serial issued semiweekly by
the War Office, and which was based on the dearly bought experience of
officers at the front.
We spent many a starry night on the hills above Folkestone digging
trenches and building dug-outs according to General Staff instructions,
and many a rainy one we came home, covered with mud, but happy in the
thought that we were approximating, as nearly as could be, the experience
of the boys at the front. Bomb-throwing squads were formed, and the best
shots in the battalion, the men who had made marksmen's scores on the
rifle ranges, were given daily instruction in the important business of
sniping. More generous provision for the training of machine-gun teams
was made, but so great was the lack in England of these important
weapons, that for many weeks we drilled with wooden substitutes, gaining
such knowledge of machine gunnery as we could from the study of our M.G.
manuals.
These new duties, coming as an addition to our other work, meant an
increased period of training. We were impatient to be at the front, but
we realized by this time that Lord Kitchener was serious in his demand
that the men of the new armies be efficiently trained. Therefore we
worked with a will, and at last, after nine months of monotonous toil,
the order came. We were to proceed on active service.