They have joined for good reason. For that reason they sleep
uncomplainingly double thick on barrack floors, or lie like herrings in
the tents and sing hymns and other things when they are flooded out.
They walk and dig half the day or all the night as required; they
wear—though they will not eat—anything that is issued to them; they make
themselves an organised and kindly life out of a few acres of dirt and a
little canvas; they keep their edge and anneal their discipline under
conditions that would depress a fox-terrier and disorganise a champion
football team. They ask nothing in return save work and equipment. And
being what they are, they thoroughly and unfeignedly enjoy what they are
doing; and they purpose to do much more.
But they also think. They think it vile that so many unmarried young men
who are not likely to be affected by Government allowances should be so
shy about sharing their life. They discuss these young men and their
womenfolk by name, and imagine rude punishments for them, suited to
their known characters. They discuss, too, their elders who in time past
warned them of the sin of soldiering. These men, who live honourably and
simply under the triple vow of Obedience, Temperance, and Poverty,
recall, not without envy, the sort of life which well-kept moralists
lead in the unpicketed, un-sentried towns; and it galls them that such
folk should continue in comfort and volubility at the expense of good
men’s lives, or should profit greasily at the end of it all. They stare
hard, even in their blue slops, at white-collared, bowler-hatted young
men, who, by the way, are just learning to drop their eyes under that
gaze. In the third-class railway carriages they hint that they would
like explanations from the casual ‘nut,’ and they explain to him wherein
his explanations are unconvincing. And when they are home on leave, the
slack-jawed son of the local shop-keeper, and the rising nephew of the
big banker, and the dumb but cunning carter’s lad receive instruction or
encouragement suited to their needs and the nation’s. The older men and
the officers will tell you that if the allowances are made more liberal
we shall get all the men we want. But the younger men of the New Army do
not worry about allowances—or, for that matter, make ‘em!
There is a gulf already opening between those who have joined and those
who have not; but we shall not know the width and the depth of that gulf
till the war is over. The wise youth is he who jumps it now and lands in
safety among the trained and armed men.