In the point of food they are extremely well looked after, quality and
quantity, wet canteen and dry. Drafts come in all round the clock, and
they have to be fed; late guards and sentries want something hot at odd
times, and the big marquee-canteen is the world’s gathering-place, where
food, life’s first interest to man in hard work, is thoroughly
discussed. They can get outside of a vast o’ vittles. Thus, a contractor
who delivers ten thousand rations a day stands, by deputy at least, in
the presence of just that number of rather fit, long, deep men. They are
what is called ‘independent’—a civilian weakness which they will learn
to blush over in a few months, and to discourage among later recruits;
but they are also very quick to pick up dodges and tricks that make a
man more comfortable in camp life, and their domestic routine runs on
wheels. It must have been hard at first for civilians to see the
necessity for that continuous, apparently persnickety, house-maiding and
‘following-up’ which is vital to the comfort of large bodies of men in
confined quarters. In civil life men leave these things to their
womenfolk, but where women are not, officers, inspecting tents, feet,
and such-like, develop a she-side to their head, and evidently make
their non-commissioned officers and men develop it too. A good soldier
is always a bit of an old maid. But, as I heard a private say to a
sergeant in the matter of some kit chucked into a corner: ‘Yo’ canna
keep owt redd up ony proper gate on a sand-hill.’ To whom his superior
officer: ‘Ah know yo’ canna’, but yo’ mun try, Billy.’
And Heaven knows they are trying hard enough—men, n.c.o.’s, and
officers—with all the masked and undervoiced effort of our peoples when
we are really at work. They stand at the very beginning of things;
creating out of chaos, meeting emergencies as they arise; handicapped in
every direction, and overcoming every handicap by simple goodwill,
humour, self-sacrifice, common-sense, and such trumpery virtues. I
watched their faces in the camp, and at lunch looked down a line of some
twenty men in the mess-tent, wondering how many would survive to see the
full splendour and significance of the work here so nobly begun. But
they were not interested in the future beyond their next immediate job.
They ate quickly and went out to it, and by the time I drove away again
I was overtaking their battalions on the road. Not unrelated units
lugged together for foot-slogging, but real battalions, of a spirit in
themselves which defied even the blue slops—wave after wave of proper
men, with undistracted eyes, who never talked a word about any war. But
not a note of music—and they North-countrymen!